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buckyownsmyheart · 5 years

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Duty [5/12]

CHAPTER 5: The Punchline

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 5.1k

Warnings: Language, unbearable sexual tension (with some more smooching) and terribly choppy writing

Series Summary: Ex-army doctor, and now on-mission-for-the-Avengers doctor, Major (Y/n) (Y/l/n), had prepared herself for anything. That was, of course, until she met a devastatingly charming Sergeant from Brooklyn with a quick wit and a kind smile. I wonder what will happen.

A/N: Have been back on placement so chaos has ensued, this isn't as good as I’d like it but hey! We’ll survive! Some terrible jokes are within it, and so I apologise

Series Masterlist

Chapter 4

“Hey Major,” Tony sang, rounding the corner into the kitchen, looking guilty,

You narrowed your eyes at him, peering over the top of your mug of fresh coffee, “What?”

“How do you feel about going undercover?”

“Very, very badly,” you cocked your head, “Why?”

“Oh, you and Barnes are going undercover.”

“You what? Tony!” you placed your cup onto the table and stared at him, “Why me! There are so many other people that would be so much better! You have literally hundreds of agents at your disposal if you don’t want anyone being recognised!”

“If I say amusement factor, will you hit me?” You looked at him warningly and pointed your finger at his chest. “Okay! Okay! I’m sorry! I need someone with boxing expertise who won’t turn a match into an MMA fight, get carried away and accidentally kill someone.” He sighed, “I’m sorry to have to ask you to do this. I know you hate it, but we have word that HYDRA is using this ring to scout fighters for Project Moonshine and it’s important we can gather as much information as we can. There won't be any violence.”

“Except for the whole underground boxing ring thing.”

“Yeah, aside from that,” he put his hand on your shoulder, “I’m not going to force you to do this, you know that.”

“I know,” you stood, “How can I say no to such a kind offer? Let me change and I’ll meet you in the briefing room in 15 minutes.”

“I owe you one!” Tony called out, as you made your way to the door.

“You bet your ass you do,” you looked back over your shoulder.

The briefing revealed that you and Bucky, Tony had become quite fond of putting you together on missions, would be joining the CUB ring, short for something a little more obscene than you had imagined. You were the fighter with Bucky as your ‘handler’, making sure no harm came to you and each fight was fair, he would step in whenever he needed and suspected that they wouldn’t pit you against anyone soon because the matches would already be planned for the length you were expected to stay there for.

A few days later, you found yourself standing in front of a man who was so tall that he rivalled Bucky, and so wide that when he walked through doors, his shoulders looked like they might get wedged in the frame. You felt like a show dog, wearing sports clothes that left a lot more skin on show than you would prefer, to be ‘assessed’. He eyes bore into you, unblinking. You found yourself pressing your arms against Bucky’s beside you for some comfort, but you clenched your jaw and looked ‘The Jack-saw’ in the eye. You were 80% sure that a jack-saw wasn’t a thing, but that wasn’t an opinion you were about to voice.

“Bellatrix, fight name Trixie,” you spoke, trying to fill some of the awkward silence that had arisen as the Jack-Saw loomed over you, eyeing you up and down. “Like Bellatrix Lestrange, but with more finesse,” you laughed a little at your own joke, but your face fell quickly and coughed the rest of your laughter as Jack-whatsit didn’t seem to appreciate your attempt at lightening the mood. Honestly though, you couldn’t tell. His face was like a brick wall. It looked like someone had sculpted it out of clay, with a wide-set, well-defined jaw, a high brow and a nose with a high arch, but then the sculptor had dropped the face on the floor, to give a now squashed and slightly uncomfortable looking result. He continued speaking as if you hadn’t said anything and boomed down to you.

“Our fighting is mixed, so you and your trainer here,” he eyed Bucky with suspicion, “Need to get prepared. We only have 1 other female fighter and she’s missed the past few matches so we’ll slot you in instead of her. Your first fight is tomorrow evening, 1:30, here.” And he strode out the door, leaving you and Bucky staring at each other.

“Well, that was easier than I was expecting,” you shrugged.

Bucky gently pulled your arm and turned to you to face him, he looked serious, “This is bigger and sooner than we expected, you don’t have to go up against these guys and risk getting hurt, we can send in other agents, it’s no big deal.”

“Careful Sarge, people will think you’re getting soft,”

“I’m serious.”

“I know, Buck, but I’m a big girl, if I can get a few punches on a super-soldier, I can hold my own out there.” You met his eyes and tried to abate his concern and assure him that this mission was going to be okay. He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his blue eyes as he offered you his hoodie to try and ward off the chill that had settled in the room.

You gratefully accepted and pulled the hoodie over your head. You had to try very hard not to completely cocoon yourself inside it and never breathe any other air that didn’t contain Bucky’s scent. Because that would be weird. Instead you bumped his shoulder and walked towards your new living quarters.

“Just so you’re aware, you’re never getting this back.” You casually mentioned and grinned at him when he let out a laugh.

You and Bucky both stood, staring, looking between each other and the situation in front of you. This was definitely new, and typical of the universe to throw it at you both.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,”

“Bucky, you’re not going to sleep on the floor,”

“It’s fine, I don’t mind, I’ve slept on the floor before,”

“We are grown adults, and we can sleep in the same bed together without falling dramatically in love from each other.” Oh yeah, nice one. Like that won’t happen. You were still wearing his hoodie and would have 100% slept in it if you weren’t in this current position. “Alright, I’m gonna have a shower and change, you do your thing.”

After taking a cold shower and using your nice soap because of a certain reason that was currently in the room next door, you wandered back into the room and saw Bucky, shirtless, in tartan pyjama bottoms, reading a book.

“Didn’t know you could read?” you smirked at him, ignoring the flutters in your stomach, “Bathroom’s free if you want it,”

He chuckled, “Yes, ma’am,”

You got into bed, pulled the covers up to your chin and willed your heart to stop beating so wildly. The bed dipped down, and the smell of peppermint filled your senses.

“Night, Major,”

“Night, Sergeant. Remember no funny business. You’re in bed with the new underground boxing champion Trixie, and she takes no prisoners.”

He chuckled lightly and moved around under the covers, trying to get comfy. Sleep came surprisingly quickly considering there was a human sculpted by the gods lying there next to you.

You woke up and the first thing you noticed was that your cheek had stuck to your pillow. As you tried to unpeel it, you had to wiggle around to try and get comfortable again. Why was your pillow so high? And hard? And warm? Your eyes snapped open and you didn’t dare move another muscle. This was not your pillow.

“Morning Doc, didn’t quite picture you as a snuggler,”

“Barnes, if you dare move before I’m fully awake, I will strangle you and your imaginary dog for good measure.” But now you were very much aware of his flesh hand encircling your waist, his fingers resting on your hip and the heat radiating off him from where half your body was in contact with his.

“You know, you’re almost endearing when you’re half-asleep.” He gave a small chuckle.

“Shut up. Alright, where’s the coffee? I’m up, you can release me from your titanium clasp.” You rolled over, “Seriously though, do you work out your finger muscles? They’re weirdly strong.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He asked, suppressing a snort that caused you to jolt up,

“I didn’t mean it like that! You pervert!” You threw a pillow at him, with a look of disgust on your face. “I’m going to get ready, so I can train for this evening, whilst simultaneously removing those disgusting images from my head.” You rolled your eyes and headed to the bathroom. Please god let this be over soon, because charming and flirtatious Bucky was way more than you could handle.

The morning had been spent planning and scheming. Paper, highlighters and files spread around every inch of the bedroom. You had laid out the mainframe of what was going to happen, with Bucky on the lookout for where they were taking people and asking other handlers about the girl who had gone missing, and you would be focussing on not getting your ass handed to you on a daily basis by the other fighters. Bucky had tried to convince you that a banana and mayo sandwich was normal, and it felt oddly domestic and comforting.

By late afternoon, you had gone to the gym, warming up and stretching a little, but before long, you were back in the ring, circling Bucky as he held out training focus pads. “I know you’re good at this, but these guys will be a lot bigger and heavier than you, so your main aim is not to get hit,” He coached.

You stood up, dropping your fists and deadpanning him, “Really Buck? You think my main play was going to be 'let them hit me as many times as they wanted'?

“Come on, you know what I meant, play to your strengths.” He motioned to the pads, and you jabbed and swung at them. Bucky continued, “They’re going to think you’ll be running them around in circles, so they'll be trying to pin you in a corner. Let them do this and hit them with the body shots. You’ve got a strong left hook, and hopefully your southpaw stance will throw them a little. Go left hook, right hook just above the belt and uppercut.”

“Like Tyson did to Boyd in 2015?”

“Yeah right, exactly. Okay, I need you to try it out on me.”

Without letting him rethink his decision, you immediately threw your entire weight behind your left punch, aiming it at his abdomen. You realised too late that this was a mistake. Bucky stepped you and swept his leg under yours. On the way down, your legs tangled in his as you tried to find a foothold. This managed to leave you both on the floor, panting heavily as Bucky tried to support his weight above you. Your faces were only inches apart and you could feel his breath fanning your face. His tongue darted out to wet his lips and his eyes flicked down to yours. Oh man. You were so screwed.

“That was an illegal move,” you whispered, trying to ignore his numbing gaze.

“Don’t tell me that’s what you’re seriously thinking about right now,” He practically growled at you,

“It’s one of the things, in there, somewhere...” You trailed off. You were really struggling to think straight given how quickly your mind was racing. It was wrong for this to happen and it would most likely lead to falling down the rabbit hole, but my god he was so tempting. His hand pushed a stray hair away from your forehead.

“Bucky…”

“Nope,” he interrupted you, “For once, don’t use your logic brain,” and his lips crashed into yours. This kiss seemed different from the one at the art gallery, it was needier, more desperate, and conveyed more emotion than words ever could. You pulled your gloves off and weaved your hands into his hair, pulling gently at the roots to try and ground yourself. As he gave a soft moan, the slight parting of his mouth allowed your tongue to slide over his lips and find his, deepening the kiss. Your bodies were now pressed so close together, you could feel every ridge on his body, every bump and curve. You had never felt so safe, so at home as you did now. You couldn’t deny your emotions and had to accept that he was everything to you.

A loud cough brought you back to reality, and a loud voice shouted, “Not here, use a room!” After hearing a door slam, you pulled away, looking a little sheepish. Bucky was scanning your face, the tips of his ears were tinted pink, and he gave a small laugh. Rolling off of you, he stood up, holding his hands out for you to take. He hauled you up, and you gripped him hard as your knees weren't quite ready to support you yet. You stood, chest-to-chest, your hands on his shoulders, and his on your waist, unable to move for a few seconds. Him? You could definitely get used to. This? Absolutely-bloody-terrified you.

After the small heated make-out session incident in the boxing ring, you had abandoned training and gone to have a shower in the changing rooms, not-so-subtly avoiding Bucky. You were now stood outside your door, trying to find some courage that had all but deserted you. You counted yourself down, took a deep breath and entered. Before you could say anything, Bucky turned to you, as if he had been expecting you, and started talking.

“I like you, Major. I like how you know already but won’t admit it to yourself. I like that you’re fierce and you stand up for what you believe in. I like how always wear odd socks, and especially how you keep them on when you know it annoys Tony. I like how you can read me like a book. I like your sarcastic comments and stupid jokes. I like how you squeeze my hand twice to reassure me. I like how you care about people above and beyond a normal human. I like how you make me hot chocolate after I’ve had a nightmare, and never push me to talk about it until I’m ready. I like everything about you, darling, I hope you know that.”

“You know I think the world of you, Buck, and I want to be with you, but the thought of someone knowing me intimately, and letting my walls down, showing people that I’m not always okay scares me. I wish more than anything that I could leap into your arms, but I don’t think I can. I need some more time to try and get my head sorted, I’m sorry.” Your voice cracked, and you glanced up, forcing yourself to look at him. As you did you were engulfed in a hug, his arms wrapping around you and his aroma entirely filled your senses. All you could do was fold yourself inside his embrace and will the tears to stay away.

“Don’t be silly, don’t apologise, I understand,” he murmured into your ear.

In an attempt to lighten the mood, and prevent any tears escaping, you choked out, “How long you been working on that speech, Sarge?”

He chuckled, his body reverberating around you, “Well I’ve had a few months to think about it.”

You squeezed him harder, trying to tell him how you felt, how much you appreciated him through this hug, and the returning squeeze he gave you made you hope he understood.

He lifted his arms from around you, and you immediately missed the comforting weight they had given you. “(Y/n), I’m going to give you some space and I'll work on...” he paused, his eyes flicked to the side, “This excuse. I’ll be back in an hour or so for your fight.”

He grabbed his coat and walked out of the door, leaving you to flop dramatically onto the bed. You were so close to swearing off any emotion and becoming a hermit in the south of France with a goat named Gilbert. Or Godfrey. That was undecided.

You knew that, for you, at this moment in time, you had made the right decision. It would be unfair on Bucky to initiate something that you both might regret. You had spent so long relying on yourself and being your own support that you had forgotten what it was like to lean on someone else, and you hated that you struggled to do it, but you needed an adjustment period.

A few hours later, you found yourself heading towards the changing rooms again, headphones plugged in and turned up loud, tuning in your senses to prepare yourself for the match. As you sat down on the bench, Bucky entered, looking tall, broody and devastatingly handsome. Come on, get it together you thought, now was not the time.

“You okay?” He mouthed, knowing your music was far too loud for voices to be heard, his ever-piercing blue eyes searched your face as he rested his hand on your shoulder, concern lacing through his features. You nodded in response and held out your hands to him for him to wrap. You were thankful he didn’t mention them shaking. Although you had boxed throughout university, and sparred at the compound, you hadn’t properly fought a boxing match in a few years. You were also used to sparring with you opponents before the match to see what their level was and gauge their moves, but apparently that wasn’t a thing in the illegal underground boxing scene. You didn’t even know who you were fighting. Bucky gently pulled out your earbuds and you realised he had been trying to say something to you.

“Come on Trixie,” he said, using your fight name, “We’ve got a fight to win and underground schemes to mess with.”

You nodded, sliding your hands into the gloves he was holding out and touching them together a couple of times. He pulled the hood up of the kimono you were wearing and lead you to the door.

The cheering of the crowd was deafening as they called out the name of your opponent, Dave “The Cleaner” O’Neill. He was shorter than you had expected, and a lot slimmer. It seemed they did take weight classes into some consideration. As your name was called out Bucky led you to the red corner, and a surprising number of cheers went up. I guess they were all pretty excited about the prospect of violence.

In your corner, Bucky pulled off your kimono and put in your gumshield. He cupped your cheek and moved to speak in your ear, “Just like we practiced, you’ve got this, I believe in you.” You leaned into his hand, closed your eyes for a brief second before turning and taking a few strides into the centre where your opponent waited.

The ref said a short, “Let’s keep it entertaining,” before blowing his whistle. You and Dave (you had decided to call him this because it was a little less intimidating than ‘The Cleaner’, not that that was much better), tapped gloves and darted back, on the defensive. He immediately started circling and jabbing out, trying to ascertain how experienced you were, and whether his reach was an advantage, but you kept back, dodging and watching for any tells. He was throwing a lot of his weight into his punches already, I guess he was used to fighting bigger guys, but it meant his footwork was sloppy.

Trying to draw him into his mistakes some more you took a few left swings at his face, seeing whether it would unbalance him, but he seemed pretty steady. Thinking back to your session with Bucky earlier you tried to remember what he had done to take advantage of you making the same mistake that Dave was doing, but that only brought back the memory of him pressed up against you. This distraction earnt you a punch in the face. Yep, should have seen that coming. Man, he could punch hard. Luckily, he had only hit the side of your mouth, your lip probably wasn’t bleeding, but you might have some funky colouration in the next few days. You were now, however, extremely pissed off. Leering forward, leading with your left, you snuck some body punches in with your right, but the bell went off, signalling the end of the first round.

You moved back to the red corner, opening your mouth for some water and panting hard. Bucky looked at you seriously, but you just shook your head, don’t, and he got the message.

In the next round, Dave had a stupid cocky look on his face. This did nothing for your mood. You tried to keep a level head, because that was what you had always been taught, in any situation, keep a level head and you can worm your way out of it. Stretching your neck as the whistle blew, you prepared yourself. You leaped forward, ducking under his obvious first right hook and delivered a blow with your left to his now exposed side. As he instinctively tried to cover it, but you dropped under his arms and executed a right hook to his other side. As he moved back, you seized your opportunity. Bringing your right fist upward in a decisive uppercut, Dave’s head snapped back, and he crumpled to the ground. Knock-out. You were in a daze as your hand was held up and you were ushered out of the ring, down a corridor. Before you had fully processed what was happening, you were in an unknown room, handcuffed to a chair, with an aching jaw and ‘The Jack-saw’ standing in front of you.

“Usually when I’m handcuffed somewhere, I know the person a little better.” You joked, but he, again, didn’t seem to appreciate it. “Come on, smile a little, it won’t hurt. Why don’t we play 20 questions? I’ll start first, if there was a song that embodied your life, what would it be? Mine would be ‘I Don’t Care’, you know the new Ed Sheeran one? I feel like he understands me on a whole new level.” You were trying to delay him, either talk him to death or distract him long enough to work the pin that had previously been holding your shorts up into the handcuffs.

“You talk too much.”

If it was possible, you would have said he looked even stonier than before.

“Yeah, I’ve been told.” You made a thinking face before continuing, “I feel like you’re a Taylor Swift man. You seem like the type. It’s always the unexpected ones you know, I had the scariest boss ever, but he was never so scary after I walked in on him singing ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’. Kind of takes the terror out of a person.”

“We’re taking you on a little road trip, somewhere that will permanently freeze your mouth closed.” But before he could continue there was a commotion outside the door. He looked back at you, “Don’t move.”

“Bit difficult in handcuffs!” You shouted after him as he walked out the door. Wiggling the pin around the lock wildly, a delightful ‘click’ sounded and you had to bite your lip to prevent yourself from yelling out in joy. You made quick work of the other handcuff before flattening yourself against the wall, the chair outstretched in front of you to use as a weapon. As the door barged open, you swung the chair at them. They dodged it easily and looked at you in surprise.

“Really? A chair? Thought you were trained better than that, Major.” Amusement laced in his voice, and his signature cocky smirk plastered on his face.

“Oh my god, Tony,” you ran up and hurled yourself at him, “How the hell did you get here so quickly?”

“Tin-man called us to standby a few hours ago, I guess he sensed something was up.” He patted your back, “Quite a few bad guys out there, kind of need you to unhand me.”

“Right. Sorry. Got a spare gun?”

“And your med backpack,” he said, holding out both to you.

“You’re the best, I take back any bad thing I said to you,”

“You’ve actually never said anything that bad to me,”

“In that case, I take back any bad thing I said behind your back.” You replied, and luckily, he laughed in response. You took your backpack and gun and ran through the door.

Most of the thugs had been rounded up by the Avengers and other agents. It seemed they had gone a little overkill with the personnel on this mission. You wondered vaguely what exactly Bucky had said to get this many people here so quickly, and an unwanted but pleasant warm feeling spread through your chest. The journey back was filled with closing some scrapes and replacing a dislocated limb. It wasn’t until you got back into the compound that you were able to go and find Bucky. F.R.I.D.A.Y. alerted you that he was in his room, and so chucking on his hoodie, you went straight for his room and knocked twice on the door. A quick “I’m through here!” call from Bucky and you wandered through to his bathroom. The sight at the other side was something to behold. Bucky was lying in the bath, his metal arm glinted as he made a movement to cover himself. You immediately averted your eyes, until you realised that the bath was full of bubbles.

“Didn’t peg you for a bubble bath type of guy, Sergeant,” you raised an eyebrow and laughed. Your laughter immediately stopped when you saw a huge cut across his cheek facing you and one from the end of his collarbone to the middle of his chest. “Bucky!” You exclaimed, reaching in your pocket for some surgical glue, “Why didn’t you come to me about these!”

“Figured you were busy,” he mumbled unconvincingly. You shook your head, whilst muttering something along the lines of ‘stupid fucking idiot’. You dipped a flannel in the water and dragged it across his cheek, trying to be as gentle as you could and removing the dirt and muck that had accumulated inside the wound. His jaw tensed each time you put the damp cloth on his injured skin, and you guessed it hurt a lot more than he was playing on. You put your other hand on his other cheek, trying to steady yourself, and you moved your thumb in a soothing motion. As you sealed it with the glue, Bucky’s wet flesh hand found its way to the hand that was on his cheeky, drawing your eyes to his. The look on his face broke your heart, sadness dulled his bright eyes, and drew the corners of his mouth down.

“I’m so sorry, I wasn’t there," He began, "I promised to protect you, and you shouldn’t have had to be alone. I should have been there. I don’t know what I would have done if something worse had happened to you.” You cut him off with a kiss but broke it off before your self-control gave up all together and made you jump into the bath with him. Instead, you rested your forehead against his.

“Before you say anything else, I need to say something. And I wrote it down beforehand, so don’t interrupt me because it'll throw me off.” You said quietly, closing your eyes and taking a deep breath in. “I like you Bucky. I like how you never push me to do anything I’m not comfortable with. I like how you wring your hands when you’re nervous. I like your electricity and how you light up every room you walk into. I like the scar under your chin from when you fell over getting into the pool. I like how you always choose pancake house when it’s your turn to decide a restaurant. I like your sweet tooth, even if it means you steal all of my hidden cookies. I like your compassion, and how you’ll do anything to make someone happy. I like your unwavering faith in me and the rest of the world that things will be okay. I like how you feel like home, and I’m sorry it took me so long to say it. If you want me, I’m yours. All in.”

You opened your eyes and leaned back, looking into Bucky’s in search of an answer. He grinned at you, and you found your lips curving in an involuntary response. Warmth was emanating out of him and filling your chest. His hands held your face, and he gently kissed you again.

“I’ve been all in since the very beginning.”

“Careful, Sarge,” You grinned, “People will think you’re getting soft.”

“Shut your mouth,” he smiled coyly at you, and gave you another peck before continuing. “Now, you pervert, I’m getting out the bath so unless you want the full Monty you should probably leave,”

“And what if I am a pervert?” Bucky splashed you, and you laughed, “Okay, okay, I’m leaving!” As you closed his bathroom door tried to contain your smile. Yes, you were scared, but you had realised that there was always going to be a time when you had to take a leap of faith, and there was no one else you’d rather take that with.

Strong arms wrapped around your waist and Bucky rested his head on your shoulder, gently kissing the crook of your neck. You hummed in contentment and turned around in his arms, wrapping your arms around his neck and playing with the hairs at the nape of his neck. “I could definitely get used to this,” you said as you pressed yourself against him. You walked your fingers up his bare chest and putting on your most flirtatious voice. “We still might need a little time to figure things out though, potentially an entire night, that okay with you, Sergeant?” You looked up at him through your lashes. However, before either of you could do anything about the growing sexual tension, Tony burst through the door. His eyes widened at the scene in front of him, and he gave a yell behind him.

“Hey Nat! The double bed worked! You owe me $10!” He looked back to the both of you, who had frozen in shock. “You ladies enjoy yourselves.” He slowly backed out of the room, closing the door behind him. As you turned back to Bucky, you heard a muffled shout, “I’m putting a sock on the door!”

You burst out in giggles, hiding your face against his chest, as Bucky grumbled, “Those meddling motherfuckers.”

Chapter 6

tags (message me if you want to be added!):

@broco8 @nerd-without-a-cause @sebbbystaaan @mcubuckyandsteve @cutiepiemimi13 @velvetwonderbucky @livylou3333 @cap-just-said-language

#bucky x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky x you #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #b.b fanfic #bucky barnes imagine

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fanfic-from-a-67-impala · 6 years

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Bad Terms (Part One)

Characters: middle sister!Reader, Dean, Sam, a medical examiner, a waitress

Word Count: 3602

Summary: Requested by anonymous: Can you please do a oneshot where You and brother dean are constantly at each other’s throats till he/or you get caught by a djin and get saved by the others and like you and Dean hug for the first time in over a year?

Warnings: estranged sibling angst, Lawrence house fire angst, reader likes girls (which isn't really a warning), cliffhanger

A/N: I don’t think I’m supposed to say this, but this is my favorite request so far. Part one of two for this request.

You were always scared of the dark.

It’s why the why the soft flickering glow from the crack under your door, for the last few peaceful moments of your life, comforted you. There, in your bedroom – the one up the stairs, the first door on the left, right next to Sam’s, right across the hall from Dean’s – your small, two-year-old hands inched your blanket down so you could peek out from behind it.

When you caught a whiff of smoke, though, a tingle of fear settled into the pit of your stomach.

“Mommy!” you yell.

Laying still, sweat forming on your forehead, you waited for her to burst through the door, as she had so many times before when you’d had a nightmare or heard a strange noise. But she doesn’t come.

Instead, you heard a scream. You heard crashing, bounding footfalls. Then, the roaring and crackling of a fire. Your dad shouting.

You didn’t move, didn’t even breathe, until your door creaked open. Your eyes, trained on where your mom should be, instead darted down to where your big brother, Dean, waited with the baby Sam in his arms.

“Dad says we have to go, (Y/N),” he shouted over the fire. “Come on. We have to go.”

You slid out from under your covers and toddled over to where he stood. You left your room, standing back to memorize its place up the stairs, first door on the left, before following him down the steps and out the front door, but not before catching a terrifying glimpse of the fire swallowing Sam’s room.

Your thirty-three-year-old self stands in a blazer and a button-down, surrounded by chatter and indistinct police radio, when you spot the tall man in a suit across the wall of metal slabs, flashing a badge to the medical examiner. And, for some reason, that night – the night of the fire – consumes your mind.

His eyes flicker over your head, then snap back to you, questioning.

It can’t be him, you think. He’s too tall, too grown-up, his eyes have seen too much.

His lips form your name, though, as he crosses the buzzing room separating you. It’s not until you’ve pulled him down into your arms (you have to pull him down this time), not until the chatter, the corpses, everything has disappeared, that you allow yourself to believe it’s him.

“Sammy,” you whisper.

He embraces you tightly, so tightly you can feel his heartbeat against yours. It feels familiar but all kinds of different at the same time.

After not nearly long enough, you pull away. “Ah, let me look at you!”

His eyes are still wide with shock, but he lets you hold his hands out to the side and step back to examine him.

You push aside the sharp twinge in your chest and instead let relief flood your heart with the knowledge that he’s alive.

He glances down, a light blush rising to his cheeks.

“You grew out your hair,” you tease, twirling the strands in your fingers. “You look good, Sam.”

His face softens. “Thanks, (Y/N). You’re looking good, too. What’s it been – like, thirteen years?”

“Closer to fourteen, yeah,” you agree. “Not since–”

“Stanford.”

“You’re right. It’s been–” you clear your throat after your voice breaks– “it’s been a while.”

“I don’t really know where to start,” he admits. “We didn’t… we didn’t even know if you were alive.”

You nod, ducking your head in apology. “I guess a low profile’s one of the perks of, you know, not saving the world everyday.”

“You heard about that, huh?” he mutters.

“A lot of people have,” you say. “Makes it easier to keep tabs on you.”

“That right?”

The figure behind Sam creeps into focus. He makes the same confident strides he’s always made toward you before coming to an abrupt stop next to his brother.

“No, please, go on,” he remarks. “Don’t let me interrupt you.”

“Dean,” Sam warns.

“Sammy, stay out of this one.”

You scoff, crossing your arms over your chest. “Actually, Sam, don’t bother. You two obviously have things covered here. I’m moving on.”

“Deserting your family again,” Dean says. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Consider it an act of mercy. I'll even leave that pretty face of yours intact this time,” you add.

He clenches his jaw as you imagine he recalls your last encounter. In fact, you can't remember the last time the two of you were in the same room that didn't end in at least one of you with a broken bone.

As you turn to leave, Sam catches your arm. “(Y/N), wait. Dean…” he pleads.

The air between you and Dean chills, your glaring lines of sight freezing over. Before the two of you can disintegrate each other, Sam steps in front of you, blocking your sight.

He throws his arms out to the side and drops them. “Will you just… tell me what happened to you two?”

“This isn’t exactly a new thing,” you reply. “We’ve been at each other’s throats since before I can remember.”

“But you could always work together. I don’t understand what happened there.”

“I left, as I’m sure you’ve heard,” you say.

“She made her choice, Sam,” Dean sneers. “We came to work the case. Let’s work the case.”

He tugs on Sam’s shoulder, but Sam shrugs him off, tilting his head at him. Dean responds with a firm stare, but it withers and reduces to a conceding eye roll.

Sam turns to you again. “One case. Please.”

You glance at Dean, who avoids your eyes, before dragging your gaze to Sam again.

“You know, that thing–” you wag a finger around his face– “that wide-eyed puppy dog thing you’ve got going on?”

He chuckles and shrugs.

“It’s still not freaking fair,” you groan.

“Something we agree on,” Dean says. “Now do we have more feelings to feel, or can we get to the body?”

“All right,” you sigh, extending an arm in the direction of the lab-coated woman across the room. “Your lead.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

You glance between the two brothers, examining the way they move with each other, even during an argument. You don’t underestimate their bond, or the disadvantage it leaves you at as an outsider.

“Unless you want to spend more time discussing it,” you snap at him.

He raises a hand in surrender before continuing on to the doctor.

“Agents,” she greets. “What can I do for you?”

“Hey, doc. I’m Special Agent Clapton. These–” he gestures to you and Sam– “are Special Agents Baker and Bruce. We’re investigating the John Doe with the jelly insides.”

“Cream puff guy?” she says.

You stifle a laugh, but she notices and smirks in your direction.

“Sure thing, agents.” She leads you to the wall with the metal doors and pulls one open, sliding out the slab with a massive, swollen body laid atop it. “Appetizing, isn’t it?”

You mumble in agreement.

“We haven’t done the autopsy yet,” she explains. “The chief wants to run the corpse through some forensic radiological imaging before we perform any extractions.”

“People speak, doc,” you request.

She laughs. “Basically, we cut into him now – Vesuvius. We’re going to run some tests, take an x-ray, and then we’ll take a giant syringe and draw out the… jelly.”

“Now, what do you know so far?” Sam asks.

“They found the guy in the park, no ID and no one else around. I don’t have cause of death yet, but we did find something interesting.”

You tilt your head to watch as she lifts the shoulder of the body, revealing a large blue handprint. “We swabbed it, but nothing came up. It’s almost like it’s tattooed on there.”

“When do you think those lab results will be ready?” you ask.

“We’ll put a rush on it. Have it ready for you in a couple hours,” she answers.

You nod. “Thank you.”

She holds your gaze a little longer while she gathers some papers before crossing the room again to leave. “He’s all yours, agents.”

You turn away from the boys’ direction until you feel the blush in your cheeks cool.

Dean taps Sam’s arm. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That someone’s got the hots for (Y/N),” Sam teases.

“One of the perks of not actually being a fed,” you say. “There’s no one to tell you you can’t hook up with the cute M.E.’s.”

“You would know, wouldn’t you, Sammy?” Dean says.

Sam rolls his eyes, shifting uncomfortably.

You shoot him a proud beam. “Wow, remind me to ask about that one later. In the meantime, what is it you were thinking?”

“Djinn,” they respond at the same time.

“Djinn? Since when do djinn liquefy their victims?”

“There’s an offshoot,” Dean explains. “We caught one of these last year.”

“Now all that’s left is to find out where it’s staying and kill it,” Sam states.

You nod. “Easy enough, right? How many tattooed, blue-eyed, pasty-skinned freaks can be running around this town?”

They exchange a glance.

“They’re not tattooed, blue-eyed, and pasty-skinned, are they?” you frown.

“That’s the thing – they can pass as humans,” Sam notes.

“We’re going down to the station to check out the missing persons in town. Why don’t you stay here with your… girlfriend… and wait for those results?” Dean suggests.

“Or you could come up with a better excuse for getting me out of the way.”

He draws back from your comment, but then shrugs. “All right. How about the last one of these we worked, it turned out to be the coroner?”

You turn to Sam, who nods. Out the small window of the swinging doors, the doctor reaches across the counter to hand a file to the receptionist who greeted you earlier.

“You think it’s her?”

“I’m not thinking anything yet,” Dean says. “So, you good here?”

You nod.

As Dean leaves through the same swinging doors, Sam sucks in a breath, which he sighs out again. “Wow.”

“What?” you prod.

“Nothing, just…” He rubs the back of his neck. “If he thought I was so much as looking at someone we might have to kill, he’d never leave me alone with her.”

“Well, I always was the detached one. Maybe that’s part of why he hates me.”

“Or maybe it’s why he wants to hate you.”

“What do you mean?”

Sam shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“Sam!” Dean calls, propping the door open. “You coming or what?”

Sam follows him out the door, sending a small wave in your direction.

The doctor – Doctor Elizabeth Finch, you learn – performs the autopsy and has the results to you before lunch. Pouring rain splatters the parking lot as you walk across, clutching the folder against your chest. You reach the diner and spot the boys in a corner booth.

“Hey,” you greet, sliding into the bench next to Sam.

“That it?” Dean nods to the folder you dump on the table.

“The autopsy report of one John Doe,” you confirm.

“Not anymore,” Sam states. “The guy’s name was Karl Sanders.”

“You ID’d him?”

“He’s an attorney from a town in the next state over,” Dean says.

You shake your head. “This is making less and less sense.”

“What do you mean?”

You flip open the folder and point tap a point on the first page. “The doctor found trace particles of wood and lividity marks from a paneled surface. She thinks it’s from finished wood from some kind of structure.”

Dean frowns. “So, what the hell is going on here?”

“Beats me.”

“What else did she get from the body?” Sam asks.

“It looks like he died of a fever. The creamy filling was essentially his melted internal organs.”

“Oh, perfect timing,” Sam says. He eyes the waitress who carries three plates of food over to your table.

“All right, we’ve got the double bacon cheeseburger…” she announces, “Cobb salad… and a BLT, extra bacon for the lady. Enjoy.”

Her words, the sight of the sandwich she places in front of you, hurl you back in time. Suddenly, being here with your brothers, sitting in the same greasy diner every town has, doesn’t feel foreign at all.

“Wow,” you breathe. “I haven’t had one of these in ages.”

Sam shifts in his seat. He must have remembered from all those years ago that it was the only thing you ever ordered. The thought warms your heart.

“I, uh, just kind of assumed,” he says. “We can get you something else if–”

“It’s perfect, Sam. Thank you.”

He offers you a shy smile, barely meeting your eyes before turning to his salad.

You clear your throat. “If we’re still liking the doctor for this, I’m on board.”

“Why’s that?”

“Apparently, she does a lot of travelling, works all over as a forensic pathology consultant,” you repeat what she told you. “And besides, no one that interesting becomes an M.E. for the hell of it.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “If you think she’s so sketchy, why trust her autopsy?”

“I got a couple other doctors’ opinions without her knowing. They all agree.”

“We checked her out, too. Red flags everywhere. No family, no permanent address.”

“The gig makes it easy to cover up her kills,” Sam adds, “and the liquefied organs lines up with what we know about this kind of djinn.”

“We should track her down, find out what her deal is,” Dean suggests.

You bite your lip. “Well–” you pull out a business card, a room number of the hotel where she’s staying scrawled on the back– “I’ve got that one covered.”

The crackle of static over the speaker alerts Dean to your presence down the hall.

“Radio check,” you test.

He turns the receiver over in his hand and holds the button. “10-2. Loud and clear, (Y/N).”

“What am I looking for?”

“We don’t know yet,” Sam responds from over Dean’s shoulder. “Just keep an eye out for any red flags.”

“10-4. I’m going in.”

“Be careful, (Y/N),” Sam says.

Dean watches the video feed from the camera attached to the button of your shirt as it moves with you on Sam’s computer screen.

“Why do you have to do that?” he grumbles, setting the receiver on the glass tabletop of the hotel room with a clatter.

Sam’s eyes dart around in confusion. “Do what?”

“With (Y/N).” Dean flings a hand toward the radio. “Treating her like…”

Sam raises his eyebrows. “Like she’s our sister?”

“She’s not,” Dean snaps, “all right? She walked out on us.”

“She walked out on you,” Sam retorts. “And so did I, but you came and got me at Stanford anyway, so don’t pretend that’s what this is about.”

Dean draws back in shock at his brother’s words. The two of you had issues since the night of the fire, and when Sam left for Stanford, you lost what little buffer he provided. That, Dean always thought, was when the tension gave out and you finally snapped. It was what made you leave, too.

He doesn’t respond to Sam as your three raps on the door sound through the speaker.

It opens with a click, revealing the doctor’s casual form.

“Agent Baker,” she greets, her voice sultrier than Dean remembers.

Your voice deepens to a low hum. “Doctor Finch.”

She chuckles. “You can call me Liz.”

“Well, in that case, you can call me–”

“Okay.” Sam reaches over and turns a knob on the radio, muting the voices. “That’s enough of that.”

The picture shakes as you make your way inside, the video scanning the room. Dean glances over the suite, complete with a king-size bed, kitchenette, and a sofa, its design similar to the room they rented for tonight.

You sit on the couch and the camera stills, following the doctor – Liz – as she stands with her back to you at the minibar. She makes her way toward you, a glass of something clear in each hand, one of which she holds out to you.

She joins you on the couch, close enough to reach out and touch you. She crosses one leg over the other, pushing the fabric of her skirt up her thigh, and when you turn, Dean can see her arm slink across the back of the sofa.

Sam mutters something about him staring, but Dean only waves him off.

You set your drink on the coffee table and make your way across the room toward a bathroom.

Sam turns the radio up again. “(Y/N), tell me you didn’t touch that drink.”

“Of course not,” you whisper.

When your reflection in the mirror comes into view, Dean can see the fading blush in your cheeks.

“What do you see?” Dean asks.

You open a cabinet in the corner of the bathroom, which holds only a few white towels on the shelves. At the vanity, you run the faucet before shuffling through the drawers. You pull back the shower curtain to find an empty, pristine white tub and a shower caddy with hotel soaps.

“Nothing but normal human people stuff,” you conclude. “But if I were a djinn, I wouldn’t be draining people’s blood in my company-sponsored four-star hotel room either.”

“See if you can get anything out of her,” Sam says.

“All right, stand by.” You turn off the water and make your way outside again.

The screen travels from the empty couch to the bed, where Liz perches. The picture shakes as your breath hitches in your chest before you shuffle across the room to meet her.

“You know, the people I work for always set me up in these big hotel rooms with these huge beds,” Liz drawls. “They really are cozier with two people.”

You chuckle, and even Dean can barely pick up on the shocked quiver in your laugh. “I’ll bet they are.”

She extends her arms to you and you accept with your own. When she pulls your chest against hers, she covers the camera and the screen goes dark. Dean hears static again as your mic brushes against fabric.

“You don’t want to get to know me better?” you murmur.

“Not particularly,” she teases. “Do you?”

“I think I know enough,” you say. “You’re not what I thought you were.”

Dean looks to Sam for confirmation of what he already knows: your last comment was meant for them. She’s not the djinn.

Before he can curse, the sound of your lips smacking against hers cuts through the disappointment and fills the room. This time, Dean’s hand shoots out to turn down the volume knob.

“Well, now what?” he huffs.

“I don’t know,” Sam admits. “I guess we– Wait.”

On the screen, Liz looks directly at them – or, rather, at the camera. Dean can’t hear her, but the rage and disgust in her eyes leave little to the imagination as her lips move at you.

The video follows you all the way down the hall until you burst through the door of their own room, eyes wide. You lean your back against the door, your chest rising and falling.

After a few silent moments, Dean opens his mouth to speak.

“Nope,” you interject, “we’re not talking about it.”

Later in the night, you pore over a map splayed out on the table while Sam traces his eyes across his computer screen and Dean rifles through the pages of an ancient book. Your head bobs back and forth as you struggle against your leaden eyelids.

“That’s it. I’m getting coffee,” you declare. “And some food. Any requests?”

The boys glance at each other before turning to you again.

“That’s not a good idea, (Y/N),” Sam says, “not with a djinn running around.”

You raise a tired eyebrow at him, daring him to try a better reason.

“Besides, that lady probably called the cops on you. They could catch you,” he argues.

“I’d like to see them try,” you remark.

He looks to Dean with pleading eyes, but Dean doesn’t meet them.

“The diner’s, like, three blocks away. I’ll be twenty, thirty minutes tops, all right?” you say.

Your voice is firm, but you still wait for his sigh of reluctant agreement before you head out the door.

Gloom and mugginess hangs in the air from the earlier rain, and you track mud into the lobby of the hotel when you make your way back, a carrier of coffee in one hand and a plastic bag of Styrofoam plates in the other.

Sam clears a space so you can drop them on the table, looking more content than earlier. As you survey the room, you guess why.

“Where’s Dean?”

“Look, don’t be mad,” he says. “He went to follow you.”

You narrow your eyes at him, still too tired to process his words. When you finally do, the thought of Dean going after you tugs the corners of your lips up.

Your hope sinks as quickly as it rose.

“We’ve got to go,” you say, collecting a silver knife and the small pot of lamb’s blood from the table.

“(Y/N), wait. It’s okay,” Sam insists. “He’ll be back in a few minutes.”

You pocket the knife and check the magazine of your gun. “I know he’s good, but so am I. Sam, I would’ve known if someone’d been tailing me the past half hour.”

The realization seems to strike more quickly with him before he springs into action, echoing your movements before following you out the door.

Read part two here!

#Supernatural #Supernatural x reader #Spn x reader #Supernatural oneshot #Spn oneshot #Spn #Dean Winchester #Sam Winchester #sister!reader #Winchester sister!reader #oneshot #writing is hard #Bad Terms #angst

186 notes · View notes

aizawa-yamada-shinsou · 6 years

Note

📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂>:)

You asked me for 166 headcanons. How about 17 instead? One for every 10 asks and a extra one just cause.

Contrary to popular belief, Wilford is actually the most organized of the Studio crew. Military habits are hard to kick. The only thing Bim has to clean up around the Studio is the dead bodies because Wilford leaves them assuming they’ll get up again

While everyone knows Dark is classicly trained in piano and Violin, and Wilford in Clarinet, The Jims are also all classicly trained. AJ plays french horn, WJ plays saxophone, RJ plays trumpet and CJ plays the flute.

Unlike the Jims, Bim is a classicly trained singer, even if he’s shy to sing in front of others. No one knew how good he was at singing until the Jims broke out their instruments in the studio and convinced Bim to join them. He didn’t realize that the PA was on sending his voice all through the Office.

Doctor Iplier is the worst cook out of the entire household. He can burn water and managed to find out that yes Androids can have food poisoning if you cook the food bad enough. He’s no longer allowed to use anything in the kitchen beside the microwave and the coffee machine and even those the others prefer if he has supervision while using the former.

Bing is surprisingly the best cook in the Office. He can easily copy any recipe on the internet, or perfectly mimic a dish he sees on a cooking show. The reason he’s better than any of the googles, who can do the same mimicking, is because he cooks with life and energy. A dash is how much you think it is, not an exact measurement, You play around with ingredients until it tastes the best it can. He understands that humanity is what gives food the best taste, not just copying a recipe.

Yandere found the empty void in his heart that used to only be filled when Senpai is growing smaller and smaller the more time he spends hanging with the others. He honestly is terrified by this but doesn’t know how to stop it. His main worry is that if he stops being a Yandere, will he fade? Will he be replaced? If the whole reason for his existence vanishes then what will he be?

Contrary to popular belief after the WKM series came out, Dark is not afraid of heights or Wilford waving his gun around. No there’s only one thing that terrifies Dark, being trapped, unable to communicate with those around him but able to see and hear everything around him. He’s terrified to be trapped like the entity in the house was for so many years.

Oliver is an animal hoarder. He physically can’t walk past an animal on the streets without bringing it home. The other googles have gotten good at finding good homes to take the animals after Oliver nurses them back to health and then counseling him after they take the animal to drop off the animal at it’s forever home.

Google and his brothers enjoy randomly spouting off facts to confuse the others. Everything from mind-boggling insight like “You’re not stuck in traffic, you are the traffic.” Scary facts like, “If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.” or just odd facts like, “For over 600 years, the official language of England was French.”

Host is not allowed to be drunk for more than just the Iplier’s shared allergy. When host gets drunk he narrates the most insane and random situations that put even Wilford’s ideas to shame. Last time he was drunk no one is quite sure what happened that night but the next morning they all woke up with killer hangovers to find all their left shoes stuck to the ceiling of the kitchen, giant glitter filled balloons followed Dark around like ducklings, Bim’s hair changed with his mood, all the floors in the office were replaced with trampolines, Bing had swapped his left eye for Red’s, the Jims transformed into dogs, and Wilford’s mustache traded places with Doctor Iplier’s eyebrows

Every time someone works up the courage to ask the Host how he lost his eyes he makes up a new improbable story. There’s a list in the office of all the stories, the majority’s favorite is, “Have you ever seen what a three-legged bear with throwing knives can do when you steal his salmon? I’m lucky I ONLY lost my eyes,” tho “The Instructions were unclear.” “What instructions?” “THE Instructions” is a close second, especially since that story happened three months before the meme happened.

Dark takes pleasure in speaking in Abyssal to scare the others when he’s bored. He usually compliments them on doing something right as he can’t do that openly without ruining his image. He was completely embarrassed when Bim and the Jims revealed themselves to be demons because that means they KNEW all the nice things he had said to everyone in the office.

Every time a new ego gets introduced in a video a betting pool is formed on if they’ll form or not, and if they do form how soon will they appear in the Office. Google runs the pool and everyone is still salty about Doc cleaning them out because he guessed the exact day the Jims would show up and even guessed that the two that appeared in Markiplier TV wouldn’t be the same as the two in WKM.

Wilford has a bad habit of teleporting to people at any good time and not realizing he should leave. The others have had to get used to Wilford popping in and talking to them when they’re on the toilet, in the shower, while getting dressed, or even on a few memorable occasions, masturbating/having sex.

King’s get up is the only thing he will wear unless there is a very good reason why he needs to wear something else. Washing his get up because it’s dirty is not a good enough reason, so when it’s being washed he goes around in nothing but his peanut butter beard. Some of the others had a problem with this until Host pointed out that it shouldn’t matter because they all shared identical bodies and have seen everything King was showing. This lead to several uncomfortable days where the others couldn’t get their minds away from the fact they have technically seen everyone in the office naked.

Wilford knows the most languages, barring the androids, in the Office, speaking six fluidly. These include English, French, Russian, Italian, German and Korean. Only Dark knows Wilford learned French, Russian, and Italian when he was in World War 1 so he could speak to his allies, and German so he could understand their enemies.

The egos will never tell him but if Mark gives them a direct order, they have to follow it, they get no choice in the matter but they’re getting good at finding loopholes for some of the rules Mark has given them.

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creampuff-earper · 8 years

Text

Kate McKinnon Fanfiction. Foldingchairs and the city of dreams. Chapter 8

Hey guys, I’ve decided to post my fanfic about Kate McKinnon on here.You can find it on AO3 as well: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8275334/chapters/18957797

Summary: This fanfiction tells the story of a fan, just like any of us, meeting Kate and everything that happens after that.

It takes off at SNL, later on Nino will be there and Kate is the most amazing person in the world. What could one want more?

Rated M

Chapter 8

When there’s no text when I land in Amsterdam I feel slightly disappointed. Although I know it’s around 5 am right now I’m still disappointed. I quickly text Alice letting her know I’m about to get my bags and head for the exit.

How on earth was I’m going to explain what happened last weekend… After the date, I only texted Alice some vague details about dinner and the bar but I hadn’t updated her ever since.

This was going to be hard a conversation filled with screams and to many questions and I didn’t look forward to it.

I collect my bags and brace myself for the encounter with my best friend.

I smile when I spot her holding a cardboard sign reading “My favorite Homo” and walk over to be engulfed in a warm hug.

“Hi weirdo, thanks for the sign” I mumble into her shoulder.

“Hmm yeah whatever…” she mumbles back and takes a step back to take a look at me.

“What haven’t you been telling me bitch?” She spits out and I laugh.

“Hello to you too Alice…”

“No you don’t get to do that. You go on a date with a celebrity and suddenly the text stop, for all I knew you were kidnapped by some creep or worse…”

“I’m back, right?”

“Shut up!”

“I love you” I coo and blow her kiss in the air. “Now let’s go, I need a shower”

“I hate you so much, and I’m soo not done with you, but I agree, you need a shower.”

“There is my best friend!” I smirk and we make our way out of the airport, glad to have made it out of the conversation for at least another 10 minutes.

In the car back home I can’t prolong it any longer and tell Alice about everything that happened last weekend.

At some point I had to grab the wheel to prevent us from crashing into the car next to us because Alice freaked out so much.

“ALICE! Do you need me to drive or what?!”

“Oh shut up, you don’t get to judge after what you just told me.”

“Still, I want to come home, alive preferably…”

After a silence in which Alice visibly is working through all the information I just gave her she looks at me again.

“Eyes on the road…”

“Bitch you didn’t…”

“I did”

“You had sex with KATE MCKINNON?”

“hmmmm”

“I hate you so much…”

“Dude you’re as straight as a stripper pole”

“Still !”

“And what happens now? You’re just going to live with the fact you slept with her and continue living like it’s nothing…?”

“Dude of course it’s something! You know me...! She was the first one since Julie... It’s not like I’m just going to treat that like it’s nothing… I feel bad enough as it is.”

“Mykah, you know she wanted you to keep living your life. You don’t have to feel bad for her…”

“I know, but I still felt bad afterwards… Like I had cheated on her or something… I even told her about Julie. I never talk about her to strangers… But she’s got this thing about her… It’s like, it felt like I had known her all my life…”

Alice grabs my hand over the stick shift and squeezes it. “you got it bad, don’t you?”

I just sigh and nod.

“Why can’t I just be a regular person who has sex with other people and doesn’t’t develop feelings… just casual, plain, one night stand sex.”

“Because you are you!”

“Yeah but dude I’m just another notch in her belt and she has probably already forgotten about me and I’m on the other side of the world pining over her.”

“I know…, I know.”

We share the remainder of the car ride in a somewhat uncomfortable silence that I have never experienced with Alice. She probably just didn’t know what to say. She has been pushing to go out and meet new people for half a year now, telling me to start dating again, but that was the whole point. Never in my life had I dated, I met Julie when we were 18 and 4 weeks later we were in a relationship. So much for the lesbian stereotype. But my point being, I had never really been with anyone else than Julie and I had no idea how to go about this dating thing.

But when I had been at the restaurant with Kate making small talk and joking around with her it had felt like that’s what it’s supposed to be like.

And then when we had shared a couple of beers and talking and being around her had become even easier I had allowed myself to enjoy the feeling she released inside of me.

As much as that feeling had scared me, as it still did, it also cracked open a bold part of myself that I hadn’t seen in quite a while. As I stared into her eyes at her kitchen island that night, she had unlocked a raging desire that scared me to death.

Not for a second when I was with her had I felt guilty towards Julie, but back in my hotel room, scrubbing the remainders of the night and morning away, my stomach turned and my heart ached for the beautiful girl who left this earth and me way too early.

She was the one I was supposed to get old with, she was my best friend who knew me like no one else, the person I wanted to have children with and wanted to marry.

But fate, or some sort of screwed up force, faith or being that I didn’t believe in had other plans.

My buzzing phone snaps me out of my train of thoughts.

I push the home button and as the screen lights up, again, so do I. I unlock my phone and read the message carefully, afraid if I read it too fast it will disappear. The familiar flutter in my stomach is back within seconds and a big smile spreads across my face.

Alice notices it right away and grins.

“Is she texting you?”

“hmmmm” I hum, reading the text once more.

13:20 K: Morning stranger, hope you had a safe flight! :) Let me know when you’re home! Hope to hear from you. XoXo

“You’re lighting up like a Christmas tree, you doofus” Alice laughs and I blush.

“Shut up”

“Oh my god, you’ve got it bad, you sucker.”

I just glare at her and contemplate if I should text her right now or wait until I got home.

“Just text her, or you’re head is going to explode all over my recently cleaned car, and I hear brains are a sucker to get out of the fabric…”

“You watch too much TV, creep” I laugh and shove her lightly in the shoulder

“Your own fault entirely! Now go on, text your lady!”

“Don’t say that…”

“Your booty call then, whichever you prefer…”

I sigh and Alice laughs. I hate her so much sometimes.

13:26 M: Good afternoon! Not home yet but Alice (my best friend) is driving me back. If I survive I’ll be sure to text you haha. Have a good day! X

I press send and a nervous jitter settles in the pit of my stomach. This was insane. I feel like a nervous teenager who’s about to get her first kiss.

13:27 K: You did tell her I’m a very big celebrity with a lot of influencual friends, right? So if she doesn’t get you home safe I’m sure to have a number or two to call…

13:27 M: Haha talking big are we… never picked you as one of those people who used their famousness to get things done… But I guess that’s not the only thing I was wrong about…

13:28 K: I guess you don’t know me at all… I use my fame for literally anything. They don’t call me a diva for no reason, I own that title…

13:29 M: Am I texting with Kate McKinnon or is this Pamela Anderson? Sorry for the mess up, you’re both blonde I guess…

13:30 K: Asshole…

13:30 M: No, but seriously, do I have the wrong number?

13:31 K: Image* I don’t think Pamela Anderson owns an exact copy of the bed you vacated in yesterday… But hey if you’re still not sure be free to stop texting…

The image shows Kates messed up bed and my cheeks get hot.

13:32 M: Nice bed you have there but if you were Pamela Anderson why on earth would I stop texting… She has a fortune I might get my hands on with my smooth talk… That’s what I tricked you with anyways…

13:33 K: Pfft, whatever. But anyways we were talking about getting you home safely… You there yet?

13:33 M: You texted me 5 minutes ago… The Netherlands is a small country, but not that small…

13:33 K: How on earth could I know, but I gotta go, work’s calling. Talk to you soon okay?

13:34 M: Yeh no problem, have a good day at work! I’ll let you know when I’m home ;). Byeee

13:34 K: Good luck with your jetlag! XoXo

I let my phone drop back into my lap and my smile nearly breaks my face in half. In my texting spree I didn’t notice Alice glancing over at me every other moment and when I look up she’s grinning at me.

“Dude you got it soo soo bad, it’s embarrassing!”

“Shut up…” I spit out but I know she’s right. I love talking to her, it’s like she awakens some sort of goofiness inside of me that I can’t control. I run my face over my hand and sigh, how on earth was this going to end…

------------------ 3 weeks later --------------------

Kate and I had been texting nonstop. In between figuring out time zones and work schedules we were actually getting to know each other. It became a ritual to text her goodnight and good morning although I knew they didn’t make sense in her time zone.

We talked about nearly anything, my work and hers, things we experienced through the day, our friends and there was an unspoken contest who could sent the most pictures of their pet. I think I have over 150 pictures of Nino now and she’s got a similar amount of Doc, my dog.

I learned a lot about her grueling schedule on SNL and every day my admiration for her hard work grew. Nonetheless her hours, every time we talked for hours and she was always interested in my never-ending stories about work.

Talking to Kate had soon become the highlight of my day, and that didn’t go unnoticed by my friends and co-workers. As much as I tried not to be too obvious about the whole thing they were starting to complain about me being glued to my phone.

Except for Alice. She was also the only one who knew the whole story. She didn’t complain but quite often she rose the question of where this was going, and to be honest I still had no idea. For now, it felt amazing to have someone to talk to and joke around with and sometimes even flirt with. It made me happier than I had been in a long time.

------5 weeks later------

I was having lunch at my job and this was usually when Kate woke up to get ready for work. I impatiently waited for her belated good morning text like everyday but as my lunch time passed and I had eaten all my sandwiches and there still was no text I felt my stomach drop. Maybe she was just sleeping in or no, she probably overslept again and now was flagging down a cab to get to work on time. I slid my phone back into my pocket and got back to my work. Every second I got I quickly checked my phone to see if I got any new messages, but no luck.

After work I decide to text her, maybe something had happened…

18:32 M: Hey stranger, haven’t heard from you today, everything alright?

I spend my night with Alice and her boyfriend Josh binge watching anything we could find on Netflix. Although I’m usually really serious about my TV shows but I couldn’t focus on what was happening on the screen. I held my phone tightly in my hand, in case it buzzed, being fed up with why I hadn’t heard anything from Kate today.

After the millionth glance at my phone Alice finally decided to ask what the hell I was doing.

“She didn’t me text today…”

“Oh… Well maybe her phone broke or something, nothing to be worried about, right?”

“Yeah, I guess…”

“Mykah, stop worrying please and just watch your show, it’s weird watching Orange without your constant scoffing when Ruby Rose comes on the screen. Right Josh?”

“Hmmm yeah…” He humms as his eyes stay trained on the screen, showing Natasha Lyonne having sex with a random chick.

I snort and throw my phone on the table. It was probably nothing. She would text tomorrow for sure…

The next morning I wake up to two messages from Kate. My heart rate speeds up as I fumble to get my phone unlocked as fast as possible.

03:07 K: Hey you, sorry been busy all day, hope you had a good one.

03:07 K: Oh, and goodnight ;)

I try to store the disappointment of her short text away as I text her my usual good morning.

07:14 M: Hey, no problem, just a bit worried! Hopefully you get a good night’s sleep! Hope to talk to you when you wake up! Xxx

The relief of her text doesn’t last long when at lunch I don’t receive a text, again.

This continues for a couple of days, with her texting in the middle of the night, telling me she was busy or didn’t have or phone or another excuse of why she didn’t text that day.

After day 6 I wake up to no new messages.

I know she doesn’t owe me anything but it hurts none the less. I had gotten so used to talking to her every day, sharing my day with her.

It’s weird watching a new SNL that weekend without having any idea what Kate’s going to do, or what sketch I have to keep my eye out for some Easter egg or inside joke the cast came up with.

It’s weird not knowing how she spend her days or what Nino had broken in the 5 minutes she went out for groceries.

I found myself more often than not staring at my phone, hoping it would magically lit up and see Kates texts or reading back into the endless string of texts we had shared before.

But every day without a new text my faith in this magic reappearance faltered.

-------- 8 weeks later ---------

More and more as everyday passed it felt like New York never happened. The texts had stopped completely, as did the courage to text her first. Ever since I had came back I had tried to avoid social media, twitter in particular, but couldn't help it last night. I had opened twitter with the excuse to get rid of the annoying notification number at the top of the app, but when I saw my updated timeline my heart stopped.

Of course there was a post lingering on top of the screen with a new picture of a broadly smiling Kate who had her arm linked with some girl I didn't recognize. The tweet read "look at our happy bean! She deserves nothing but love and luck! I hope it works out"

With my finger on the home button and a turning stomach I should have gotten to rid of the picture before I was going to throw up, but I couldn't.

At least now I knew why the texts had stopped...

Fueled by a growing anger, that I knew I wasn't entitled to, I put my finger on the screen and started to scroll down the feed.

I immediately regretted following so many Kate/Holtzmann fan accounts before, as various pictures and quotes passed before my eyes.

I finally ended upon a retweet from someone that read:

@justjared: Kate McKinnon and supposed girlfriend attend premiere of Melissa McCarthy’s new comedy.

It showed the same picture as the tweet before and I dropped the phone on the couch next to me. I had seen enough.

-----------12 weeks later------

Somehow I managed to try and forget about the lady that stole my heart almost 3 months ago in New York. And although at first it had been hard, as the weeks passed it became easier to just go on with my life. Alice advised me to stop watching SNL and apart from cheating on some clips I had avoided Kates sketches pretty well.

As my daily routine, without texting Kate, slowly reappeared again, so did the urge to go out there and meet new people. Alice had set me up for a night of drinking and dancing in a gay bar this weekend and I was actually looking forward to it.

That Wednesday I have a late lunch and decide to check my phone for the first time today. When it lights up, so do my cheeks.

After 6 weeks of radio silence, there, right there on my screen was a string of texts from Kate.

Most of them too long to read in the notifications so I unlock my screen and take a deep breath.

I have to scroll up quite a bit to read the beginning of her spree.

12:45 K: Hey stranger, good morning! I know it's been a while... Just wanted to check how you're doing!

13:02 K: Either you're ignoring me or your work schedule has changed... Which is fine, either way.

13:16 K: ... I'm okay btw.

13:17 K: I know you hate me right now, but please don’t leave me hanging here…

13:45 K: Danny asked me about you last night... He remembered you after he saw your name on my phone, he told me to say hi, so here you go.

13:46 K: okay, this is getting awkward now. Really hope you're just not checking your phone

13:47 K: if you're not ignoring me, please text me asap, we need to talk.

13:47 K: if you are ignoring me text me anyways.

13:47 K: I am not kidding.

13:52 K: please

That last text was half an hour ago.

Why in the hell would she text me now, out of nowhere... Maybe she and her girlfriend broke up and she needed some attention... Pfft finally I was dealing with the fact that whatever we had was over and now she starts texting again. For fucks sake. I chew on my bottom lip contemplating if I was going to text her back or not.

I hate myself for not being able to fight the urge to find what she has to say, so I budge and text her back, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

14:25 M: Hey, working rn, we can talk later, I'll be home at 8 (2 pm)

I couldn't even lock my phone before she already replied.

14:26 K: Jezus christ woman, I thought the youth was practically attached to their phones... no just kidding, thanks for replying. 2 will be fine! Talk to you then!

I couldn't help the small smile creeping on my face after reading her text. I quickly stuff away my phone and join Julie outside. Already feeling a 100 times better than the past 6 weeks.

The end of the day came closer and closer as we quickly dismantled all the activities and stored them back in the big sea containers at the back of the park.

After the debrief I couldn't wait to get home, I quickly said my goodbyes and jumped in my car. On the way back I got some groceries and texted Alice the (good?) news.

Of course she insisted on coming over, so I prepared a meal for two and quickly took my dog out for another round as the food boiled on the stove.

As the minutes grew closer to 8, the more nervous I became. What on earth did she have to say after more than a month of silence that was so important that she insisted on talking tonight.

This was a SNL week so if I remembered correctly her schedule today consisted of writing and a table read with the host. That meant that 2 would be not convenient for her at all. This must be important.

When I got back to my apartment, Alice already let herself in and was just serving 2 big plates of mac and veggies.

My dog launched at her and I couldn't help but smile at the sight. How much I wished for this to happen every day. Coming home to a person I loved, cooking dinner for us both. If only it wasn't my very straight friend Alice that had been that person ever since my last girlfriend passed away.

"Hey you! I just saved this pathetic excuse of a meal before it burned down your house..."

"Hello to you too..." I growl back at her and throw myself on the couch. The anxiety of talking to Kate in a few left me exhausted.

Alice places our plates on the coffee table in front of us and puts out her hand waiting for me to put my phone in it.

"Hug first" I mumble into the pillow and I hear Alice sigh.

Not in an annoyed way but she knows how this situation is making me feel and she can’t really help me with it.

She bends down on top of me and despite the awkward position she hugs me the best she can. We stay like that for a while and the physical contact calms me down right away.

"Come on homo, let's eat."

She finally says and pecks me on the cheek "your combination of ingredients I don't know the name of is getting cold"

"Hmmf shut it asshole" I growl back and hoist myself into a sitting position.

I grab my fork but before I can shovel anything into my mouth Alice holds up her hand once again.

"I hate you, you know that right?" I say again and toss my phone into her hands.

"I know, love you too." She replies before unlocking my phone and reading the texts.

I silently eat my food as I wait for her to finish reading. Alice was right, it was a crappy combination of ingredients, but it was food nonetheless. How I hadn't starved by now was beyond me. I was very thankful for Alice and my mom sometimes stocking my freezer with pre-cooked meals that only needed to be microwaved.

Cooking was something my girlfriend always did. I royally sucked at it and when she passed away I spent my days crying in bed and eating ordered food, if I ate at all.

It wasn't until Alice temporarily moved in and forced me to maintain a healthy schedule, cooking for me and dragging my ass to the gym to gain some of my strength back so I could go back to work, it felt like I was alive again. It took me a long ass time to feel like I had something to live for again. So, when Kate happened and I felt happier than in forever it only hurt worse when she decided to ditch whatever we had.

"Hmmm kay" was all she said when she put the phone down.

"Right?"

"Do you have any clue what she wants to talk about?"

I shake my head and shovel another forkful of my superb creation in my mouth.

"What do you want her to talk about?"

"Uhh maybe about how she managed to ignore my existence for the past 6 weeks..."

"Fair enough"

I glance over at the clock and see it's 7:50.

I slouch back into the couch and sigh. "I hate that she has this power over me..."

"I know..."

Silence falls over us as we watch the minutes pass by.

"Hey you can go if you want, there's no fun in watching someone text"

"Don't be silly, it's not like I've anything to do at home, Josh isn't home, so I'm just gonna watch some Netflix on your ridiculous big TV.

I snort and shake my head.

"Fine... but you’re not gonna grab my phone from my hand every second okay?"

"I can't promise anything" Alice replies with a big grin on her face and reaches for the remote, turning on my "ridiculous big" TV.

Before I can smack her in the head my phone buzzes on the table and both our heads snap up and watch the illuminated screen.

Reluctantly I reach over for the phone and unlock it.

K: Hey! You there yet?

M: Yep, just had dinner with Alice.

K: I presume Alice cooked since your still alive and all? ;)

M: ha-ha really funny, I have you know I cooked it myself and it was delicious.

K: hmmmmmmmm

M: okay it was not, and Alice saved if from burning when I was walking Doc.

Okay, how did she manage to plaster a smile on my face within a minute...

K: Knew it haha.

M: yeah yeah whatever.

K: I still have to cook for you one day...

M: is that so?

I tried to play this as nonchalant as possible, still not sure where we were going with this.

K: you made me promise! And as you know by experience I am big on keeping those....

My face got very hot at the reminder of that particular moment and Alice glanced over with a confused look on her face. I just shrugged and diverted my eyes back to the screen.

M: how could I forget...

K: me either... I wouldn't mind cashing in that promise again in the future...

My cheeks were burning my now, why was she playing games with me. This wasn't fair to me and I knew it. Despite how much I wanted to take a plane over there right now and pin her down to the closest horizontal surface, I knew it wouldn't be fair.

This had to stop.

M: Kate...

K: Right. Sorry. Got a bit carried away there.

M: You wanted to talk?

K: Yeah...

M: So...?

K: Uhm so...

K: Are you maybe up for calling? It would go a lot faster than texting.

My stomach turned and my heart rate sped up... we had never called before.

I turn my head to the side and see Alice studying me closely.

"You okay?" She carefully asks.

"She wants to call..."

"Oh"

"Yeah"

"Maybe you should do it... maybe it'll be easier to let her know how you feel about all of this..."

"Maybe"

"Yeah"

My phone buzzes in my lap again.

K: if not that's fine...

M: no, hold up. I'm gonna move to my bedroom, Alice is getting on my nerves

I lie and glance apologetically at my best friend.

"I'm gonna call her from my bedroom, kay?"

I say as I walk to the room, not waiting for an answer.

"No phone sex in there or I'll never cook you any food again!"

"Just don't eavesdrop and you won't find out!" I shout at her before closing the door

"You know I will" I hear her shout back and I snort. She's too predictable.

I sit back against the headboard and plug my headphones in.

R: You can call now if you want.

K: Okay, hold on.

I nervously wait for a couple of seconds before seeing her caller ID pop up on my screen. I slide it to answer the call.

"Hey" I croak out, my throat tight from the anticipation.

"Hey you!" Kate enthusiastically beams and I nearly faint there and then. I hadn't heard her voice live since that morning in New York, sure I had heard it on SNL every weekend, but still it was different.

Not realizing I had been silent for too long Kate asks: "hey, you still there?"

"Yeah yeah, it's just good to hear your voice."

"Good to hear yours as well." She says and I almost hear her smile.

“So what did you want to talk about, after 6 weeks?” I suddenly spit out, not able to handle the way she messes with my emotions by simply talking.

There’s another silence on her side and my heart starts beating fast, maybe that was a bit too forward…

I hear her clear her throat and slightly sigh.

“I’m sorry Mykah, I’m sorry that I stopped texting… But that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about…”

I swallow down the lump in my throat. Hearing Kate down like this makes me want to tell her it’s alright. That it didn’t hurt, and that she shouldn’t apologize. But it did hurt, like hell, when she just stopped replying and left me wondering if I had said something wrong or if she maybe something had happened or if she finally decided I wasn’t entertaining anymore.

“Okay” is all I croak out and my chest feels like exploding, my anxiousness flying through the roof.

I hear Kate shuffling on the other side and just when I am about to ask if she’s alright she takes a deep breath and starts explaining.

“I met someone. I met someone and uhmm… we uhmm… we dated… we dated for a while and then it became something more than dating and she got jealous. She got so jealous. And she made me promise, and I know I shouldn’t have but I did, and it felt so bad because you did nothing wrong. And I love talking to you but she made me promise, and you know, you know I’m big on promises and I thought she was everything but she thought my career and the red carpets were everything and I was blind…

Kates ramble makes my brain overflow with new information that I’m still trying to place together when she finishes.

“She was the girl at the movie premier, wasn’t she?” I say as I feel sick to my stomach. I didn’t have any ground to stand on, we had one night together, but I couldn’t help but feel like throwing up finally realizing I had been right when I saw that picture on Twitter. The thought of someone touching her like I had was driving me mad with an angry jealousy that was burning trough my veins right now.

“Yeah…”

I bite the inside of my lip trying to calm down before saying anything that I was going to regret.

“Good for you” I manage to say without sounding too bitter.

“It’s over”

“Oh”

“Yeah”

“I’m sorry to hear that”

“Don’t be, it wasn’t healthy”

“Still”

“Mykah…”

The way my names sounds from her lips makes me blush so hard I’m afraid my cheeks are on fire.

“She made me promise, but every day I thought of texting you… It wasn’t easy not talking to you.”

Lost for words at her revelation I fiddle with my fingers as I hear her breathe on the other side of the line.

I am crap at expressing feelings, let alone admit them to someone that made my heart beat out of my chest by simply existing.

Braving the silence, I finally speak out.

“So what does this mean?”

“I don’t know honestly”

“Yeh, me either…”

“We could just go back to the way it was before? Or we don’t…”

“Yeh we could, but what if….”

“What if?”

“What if you meet someone again, and you leave me hanging, again…”

“I won’t”

“You can’t promise that…”

“I will, right here and now, that I won’t let that happen again.”

I chew on my bottom lip as I contemplate letting her back in. Although I know my heart has already made the decision for me, the thought of falling to her mercy once again only to be left heartbroken once she decides some other decision is more important. Why was she so reluctant to get whatever we had back in the first place? It’s not like we were in some kind of relationship. We just happened to fall in bed together exactly 46 days ago, but who was counting right? I had to know.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are we having this conversation, why do you want to continue texting to some complete stranger, why are you apologizing for living a life, for making promises you have to keep? Why?

Kate snorts and I feel like throwing up. Why did I put that question out there… As much as I wanted to know, I really didn’t. Because what if it was just because she needed someone to pass the time with in between shoots, writing sessions and shows. Someone that she didn’t have any obligation too but could shamelessly flirt with. Okay, I really didn’t want to know.

But I hear her take in a deep breath and I brace myself for what’s to come.

“Because, when I wasn’t talking to you, every time something happened or I found about a new TV show or even when Leslie talked about a new dude again I wanted to tell you about it. I love figuring out time zones and work schedules and waking up to a new good morning text from 2 am. I think that’s why”

My cheeks get bright red at her confession, but somehow her words fueled an emotion inside me that didn’t surface very often.

“Then why the hell stop talking with me… You’re a grownup woman who can make her own decisions…”

“I’m sorry Mykah…”

“I know……. but right now I’m not sure if that’s enough.”

Kate is silent. My heart screams to tell her it’s okay, that I forgive her that I want to talk to her every day again like nothing happened but it’s not fair.

“Just give me some time okay?” I say and I feel sick to my stomach for giving in so fast.

“Okay…”

Not knowing how to end this kind of finished conversation I just get it over with and reluctantly say the words that mean the end of hearing her voice.

“We’ll talk later this week okay? I’m going to go now. Have a good day at work.”

“Okay, yeah you have a good night Mykay. Thanks for taking the time to hear me out.”

“Of course…”

“Bye”

I cut the line and release a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

FUCKKKK

#Kate McKinnon #Fanfiction #Archive Of Our Own #AO3 #Holtzmann #Kate #McKinnon #SNL #Saturday Night Live #folding chairs and the city of dreams #Ghostbusters #Chapter 8

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ulyssessklein · 5 years

Text

Dr. Neil Ratner’s New Book Roc Doc Takes Us On A Rock N Pop Romp

By: Rick Landers

Images courtesy: Dr. Neil Ratner

In many ways, Dr. Neil Ratner‘s life reflects that long and winding road, leading to one heart. Like many, as a young man he dreamed the dream of a life immersed in rock ‘n’ roll, a music that grabs us, pulling us in…sometimes to its very soul.la

For some it’s a need or desire of fame and fortune; or sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, but for many it’s simply, a love of “the beat”.

At heart, Ratner’s a drummer, or maybe more pointedly, a percussionist, with an interest in instruments one taps, beats or bangs, many from from different cultures.

After a life working with such greats as Edgar Winter and White Trash, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Pink Floyd, T-Rex, Three Dog Night and Michael Jackson, Neil’s heart still surges to the beat of his collection of international gear. Whether it’s a djembe, a snare, a tambourine or a big bass drum, Neil still thumps away in the quiet haunts of Woodstock, New York.

A drummer, a roadie, a tour manager, sometimes intertwined, Neil found himself working the backline of the world of rock and roll, but with some of the best, if not the top musicians in the world. But, in an emotional twist of fate he was found himself driven to leave the music business behind. He would find himself in Mexico, studying to become Dr. Neil Ratner, eventually specializing in anesthesiology.

It was a significant pivot, yet he was able to create a life that returned him to work alongside those who could get lighters and later, cellphones lit, fists pumping and thousands of fans swaying to the music or simply singing along with legendary hit songs.

Ratner learned the ropes of rock ‘n’ roll logistics and sound systems early on and showed an aptitude that reflected a precision and attention to detail that would serve him well. Yet, his life would also carry him to a point where he floundered in darker scenarios, where he lost his way and found himself staring at four prison walls, with time to reconsider his life and the need to draw his own perimeter lines, where his core values could thrive and where he could, and would, do better and help others.

Dr. Ratner’s new book, Rock Doc is a romp, taking us to the inner world of rock and pop, the thrills and the spills, as well as the vagaries of fate, where the highs live alongside the lows, where juggling and balancing life oftentimes leads to destruction. Rock Doc navigates through all of that and more, yet in the end, it’s about redemption and love where two hearts beat, as one.

Today, Neil lives a life in the town of Woodstock where he serves on its Ethics Board, and reaches half-way around the world to support and promote charitable causes in Africa and elsewhere. And he remains a devoted husband to his wife, Leann, the love of his life. And, of course, you can’t take the beat out of the drummer, so he drums.

I rarely use the word enchanted, and interviews are rarely that….they can certainly be fun, interesting, and intriguing. I expect you’ll find Neil candid and informative, entertaining and cleverly self-effacing, genuine and a hoot. He laughs about his foibles, and properly tones it down when serious matters warrant it, and in the end he’s philosophical and reverent about his good fortune, given his ability and capabilty to help many of the poorest, disenfranchised people of the world. Enchanted, I am.

******

Rick Landers: I found your book not only interesting and informative, but also entertaining. You’re really a good writer and I found that, rather than it being like a typical pedestrian autobiography, it was more of a romp of a story, if that makes sense. Although, there were some heavy downsides or low points, obviously.

Neil Ratner: I never really attempted to write anything before, and as such, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be any good at it or not. I’m pleasantly surprised when I hear comments like yours. [Laughs]

Rick: It’s a fun read. From your early days, your dream was to be a career professional drummer, but at a certain point you were inspired to shift to a career in medicine. I know you talked about this in your book.

But this is an unusual circumstance. A lot of really good musicians find themselves at some pivot point, where they need to make that kind of decision. How about telling us about your first dream of being a drummer, the change that took place, and looking back, how you feel about becoming a doctor, rather than making the decision to become a professional rock drummer?

Dr. Ratner at medical school in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Neil Ratner: Basically, you’re right. As a kid, especially growing up – I’m going to be 70 – in the ’50s and ’60s, you know, rock and roll was just happening and it was such an exciting time. And I was drawn to the drums at a very early age for reasons unbeknownst to me.

I guess I always had rhythms going on in my head. So, it always appealed to me to be a drummer and, as I say in the book, I started out in the high school band and orchestra. Then I had my little bands on the side and as time went on, it seemed more and more possible that that might happen.

But, as fate would have it and you know the music business, Rick. It’s not an easy business. It was not an easy business then. It’s not an easy business to get into now, although now with the Internet, the ability of people to do things on their own, I guess it is somewhat easier, although I don’t think it’s easier to reach those plateaus.

Those plateaus of stardom are still way off in the distance for everybody, quite honestly. At any rate, I got to a point at the end of high school where I had a really good band and it looked like we were going to get some offers. We made some demos – you know how it goes.

Rick: Yep.

Neil Ratner: Shit happens. I had this other dream as a kid, again for reasons unbeknownst to me of becoming a doctor, and coming from kind of an upper middle-class background, certainly my parents were much more geared towards me going to college and becoming a physician than becoming a rock and roll drummer!

Rick: Sure, of course [Laughs].

Neil Ratner: I had to make the switch and say, “Okay, for the moment, I’ll give up being a drummer, although I’m not going to give up the drums. Let me go to college and be pre-med and start to study and see what develops. And what developed was, of course, I immediately got into a band. I started playing at various functions and clubs and whatever. After a time, my interest in school was kind of waning [Both laugh] with my interest in music being rekindled in a really big way.

And then an interesting thing happened to me. In the summer between my sophomore and junior year, I took a sublet apartment in New York City and I got into a training program where, within the two months, I could get a license as an operating room technician.

Back in the day and even today getting into medical schools was and is not an easy thing. I felt that maybe that would give me an advantage. Although I still wanted to be a rock and roll drummer.

I was seriously looking at, how am I going to go to medical school? And how am I going to pursue that dream of becoming a doctor? So, I took an apartment. It was the summer of 1969. The apartment was on 13th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues in New York City.

Anybody who knows New York City knows that that’s the East Village. The East Village back in those days was quite the place with the Fillmore down the street, Oh Calcutta at the Anderson theater, the electric Circus you know, hippies all over, the smell of pot everywhere [Both chuckle]. It was a very conducive atmosphere for music.

Rick: Well, I’ve got to tell you I used to go to the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, which is similar to the Fillmore.

Neil Ratner: Oh, absolutely! The Grande was one of the early venues of rock and roll.

So anyway, I take this apartment and very shortly after I started living there, I hear music coming from an upstairs apartment. Being a musician, it interests me. I hear guys practicing on guitars. I can’t tell. So I walk upstairs and knock on the door and I introduced myself. Lo and behold, it’s the apartment of Liz and Rick Derringer.

Rick and I became instant friends and, of course, living next door was his brother Randy, and next door to that was Randy Hobbs.

Rick: Oh really?

Neil Ratner: These guys had all been in the McCoys.

Rick: Yeah, “Hang on, Sloopy.”

Rock legend, Rick Derringer, and Dr. Neil Ratner

Neil Ratner: Yes, but at the time when I met them, the McCoys were finished, and Rick had started to work with Johnny Winter. So there was Rick, and Randy Hobbs, and Rick’s brother, Randy, who didn’t make it very long.

They became Johnny Winters’ band and they were called Johnny Winter And. So Rick and I became friendly. I was in a little band that summer of friends from home in Long Island, and I had Rick come to a gig and he saw me play and he realized that I could play the drums.

We became fast friends, hung out a lot during that summer, and when it was time for me to go back to school, I said, “Rick, man, you saw I could play drums. Get me a gig as a drummer [Both laugh].

Lo and behold, he called me six months to a year later, not with a gig as a drummer, but by that point, he was well established with Johnny Winter. Of course, Johnny had a brother named Edgar.

Rick: Of course, yeah.

Neil Ratner: He had just formed his first real band to go out there and try and make it. It was made up of a bunch of friends and it was called, Edgar Winter’s White Trash, featuring Jerry LaCroix.

Rick: Yeah, White Trash, I saw them.

Neil Ratner: With another friend of his, Jerry Lacroix.

Rick: Yeah, I know White Trash. “Dying to Live” is a great song.

Neil Ratner: “Dying to Live” is a fabulous song. I love that song: so filled with paradox, you know what I mean?

Rick: Yeah! [Both laugh]

Neil Ratner: And that’s what the world is. You can’t appreciate sadness without joy, etcetera. At any rate, Edgar had just formed a band and I was sure Rick was going to ask me to be the drummer. But of course, he asked me to be the road manager, which was not something I really wanted to be.

But you know, he said, “Come on, Neil. You’ll get in the business. You’ll meet people. You never know, So, that was the beginning of my foray into the rock and roll business.

Dr. Neil Ratner and Edgar Winter.

Rick: And then you decided to become a doctor. What was the driving force besides wanting to be one? Was there a point where something happened and you went, “I really need to change and focus on the doctor thing.”

Neil Ratner: Yeah, absolutely. I spent five to six years working in the business side of the business, starting out as road manager, then a tour manager, then a special assistant to a major manager.

Eventually, I had an all-in-one production company. We did, sound, lighting, everything a band needed on the road.. I did Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon tour. I did the LP Brain Salad Surgery tour and various other things. I was starting to get tired mentally and beat up physically.

Rick: I bet. The logistics side of it must have been horrific – pulling everything together.

Neil Ratner: Try and imagine the Dark Side of the Moon tour – all of that equipment and special effects and everything in a time when there are no cell phones. There are no computers. Going on the road with lots of people and lots of equipment was quite a trip back in those days.

Rick: Yeah. Did you ever get in the studio with Pink Floyd?

Neil Ratner: You know, the only time that I was actually invited to go into the studio with Pink Floyd – it’s kind of a funny story.

The way that I got involved with Pink Floyd is I became real good friends with Peter Watts. He was their chief sound technician and really an incredible genius when it came to sound technology. Peter and I were good friends and he had helped me create my company. He knew some technical people in London that had a company that was splitting apart.

The one guy who was going to keep all the equipment was looking for a new partner. His name was Jim Morris, and he and I eventually formed Circus Talents, which Peter helped put together. Then, of course, when the Dark Side of the Moon tour came about, they tried to do it themselves and found they didn’t have enough equipment.

Their production wasn’t quite what they wanted it to be. So, as Peter developed a bigger production, he said, “Come on. You guys are coming along with me and you’ll co-produce the tour and we’ll use your equipment and we’ll see how it goes.”

Rick: What a great band.

Neil Ratner: Yeah, it was a great band. At any rate, the only time I got into the studio with them was prior to that when they were recording the Dark Side of the Moon album. I was good friends with Peter, and his wife Puddie who, had been a college girlfriend of mine, which is how I met Peter in the first place.

They said, “Why don’t you come down to the studio? The Floyd is finishing up this new album called Dark Side of the Moon. Roger Waters has these flashcards and he’s going to get people to read answers to the questions that he has on the cards, and maybe it’ll make the album. We don’t know, but it should be a fun time.”

So, I was really psyched to go and I ended up in a London hospital with kidney stones.

Rick: Oh! As fate would have it.

Neil Ratner: As fate would have it, of course, if people listen to the Dark Side of the Moon album, they’ll hear Peter’s hysterical laughing, Puddie’s comments, “Cruisin’ for a bruisin'” and all kinds of other things. That was the one time I was invited to the studio, and I never quite got there.

Rick: In ’74, they were working on a different album. I was at Abbey Road with Roy Harper, if you know Roy Harper.

Neil Ratner: Oh, yeah. Sure.

Rick: Pink Floyd were next door in studio 2. I think we were in 3. Then we all went downstairs and ate in the galley. Pink Floyd were behind us having Chinese takeout and champagne.

Neil Ratner: No kidding [Both laugh]. Great combination!

Rick: It was hilarious. And Harper was a pretty amazing folk singer.

Neil Ratner: Yeah, he was a great singer that a lot of people don’t know about, actually.

Rick: Yeah, I know, and I lived in England and worked for Virgin Records at the time. But I knew of John Martyn and saw him a couple times and a number of others. What I didn’t realize is that Nick Drake lived in the same county I did, if you knew Nick Drake.

Neil Ratner: Sure, yeah. Did you get friendly with Nick Drake?

Rick: Not with Nick Drake. I didn’t even know he was there. I didn’t actually hear about him until about three years ago.

Neil Ratner: So, getting back to your question. I had done all this stuff including all these big productions.

I was getting intellectually bored and physically beat up from all the drugs and the lifestyle and whatever, and I ended up again with another bout of kidney stones. I don’t know. I was watching TV. It was late at night and a movie came on. It was this old American movie called “Not as a Stranger.” It’s a movie about interns and residents and how they, become doctors and strive and I don’t know. I don’t know if it was the drugs or my mental state or whatever [Both laugh].

Neil Ratner’s and associates Circle Talents Ltd. production set for Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

It just hit me, and I started crying and I started to re-evaluate my life and every aspect of it and I said, “You know what? I’m done. I’m not going to be the drummer. I’ve done everything that I really set out to do and accomplish in the business end of the business. Now it’s time to go back and fulfill my other dream.”

I was a big believer in the fact that you could do many things in life if you truly believed in yourself and you were willing to work hard enough for it. So, I knew it would be an incredibly long road. I had to go back to college. I didn’t have very many college credits. And colleges didn’t want to take me in their pre-med programs.

They didn’t think I was serious. My education was too strange for them. There were all kinds of things going on in my mind, but I was determined when I came back. I was fortunate: got into a university but I did not get into an American medical school.

Rick: Yeah, Mexico, right?

Neil Ratner: There were foreign medical schools. I took the long road and 10 years later, hung up a shingle.

Rick: Any regrets?

Neil Ratner: No. Rick, I’ve had this incredible life, man! I wrote a book. I wanted to share all these great stories and experiences. Over the years, I’ve become the “Rock Doc”.

Rick: I saw the picture on your book. You’re there with a snare drum and I think a cymbal in your seat. Do you have this drum kit now?

Neil Ratner: No, I don’t have a drum kit, but I do have a house full of drums [Rick laughs]. When I moved up here to Woodstock about 15 years ago, my wife had been a professional dancer. She’s got a story too playboy bunny, Vegas showgirl. But, she was into African dancing, so I’m very into African drumming. And I’m a player of sorts. I’ve got a whole collection here of djembes and dunduns and other African drums.

Rick: Cool, you know, I love Mali music.

Neil Ratner: Mali music: I learned in the Guinea tradition.

I’m not sure if it’s the same. But, I’ve got to tell you, man, I was a drummer. I was sure it couldn’t be that difficult. And it was unbelievably difficult. The rhythms were just so off and so unlike anything I had ever done. It was a real trip and it was great. It expanded my drumming knowledge, but that’s about all the drumming I do.

Rick: Yeah, I’m supposed to interview Jack Ashford from the Funk Brothers. Are you familiar?

Neil Ratner: Nice! Yeah.

Rick: Yeah. He’s like the tambourine guy and I didn’t know tambourine was so complex.

Neil Ratner: You watch a good tambourine player like Elton John’s ‘percussionist. Ray Cooper and watch how he plays the tambourine and you realize it’s a serious art. It’s a special instrument.

Rick: After reading about it, I went and I got a bunch of antique tambourines from like the 1920s.

Neil Ratner: No kidding [Both laugh]!

Rick: Yeah, kinda funny, but I collect vintage guitars. I guess I don’t just collect them. I play guitar, so I’ve got about 14 old guitars from the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s – Gibsons and Martins and stuff. So, let’s see where we were…you moved into a world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll (or pop, I suppose, with Michael Jackson) and it’s often on the fulcrum or the edge of risk.

And sometimes you teetered over to the wrong side, obviously, as you state in your book in a couple places. Do you find a life in music and a life in medicine both fueled by the same kind of cauldron of emotional needs?

Neil Ratner: That’s an interesting question.

In many ways, the pressure was similar in terms of getting a band on the stage every night and putting a patient to sleep and waking a patient up. Don’t forget, I was an anesthesiologist. I think in terms of your question, it would probably be answered differently depending on the type of physician.

An anesthesiologist lives in a world full of pressure, we’re kind of like airplane pilots where it was very intense during takeoff and landing. In other words, I think I say in the book, ” “Hours of boredom with moments of Terror,” [Both laugh]

Rick: Were you in stressful situations? I would assume your medical work is and certain situations that I saw in the book. Did you eventually become sort of the eye of the storm where you’re the calm person and just handling stuff?

Neil Ratner: Yes, no question about it. I mean, to a certain extent, if you’re on the road and your company is in charge of everything, you better keep your cool because if you start to freak out at every little thing that happens, then you’re not going to be very good at your gig.

So yes, that was something that I had to learn to do. Same thing in the operating room – during times of crisis you better be calm, because bad things happen quickly in anesthesia. And if you’re not quick to correct them, they can go downhill extremely fast.

At a rock and roll show, it’s the same thing. I remember one Emerson, Lake & Palmer gig. I think we were running all kinds of phase linear amplifiers. That was our power. And we had some sort of a crazy power surge that blew like 10 of them, which is all we had. Then to do the gig, we had to get a generator.

You know – high-pressure situations happen, I suppose in every kind of field, but yes, there were similarities there between trying to run a tour on the road and trying to create a successful anesthetic experience during an operation.

Rick: Yeah. It’s interesting. A friend of mine teaches and talks about fear and anger. He said what happens when people get really excited and angry, what happens is the blood from their brain goes to their limbs, so you don’t think as well. So, it sounds to me like you kind of recognized that and you were able to stay calm.

Neil Ratner: Interesting. It’s something that I did have to learn, and I did have to teach myself. There was one other time in my life where I certainly had to use that same experience of staying calm.

As you said, I’ve had good and bad things happen to me, and I did spend a little bit of time as a guest of the federal government.

Long story, had to do with my fertility practice. People will have to read about it. I’m not going to go into it, but believe me; when you’re dropped in a federal prison [Laughs], you better stay calm.

You better use those same talents, [Both laugh] because you’re in a very interesting, unusual situation that you need to be very aware of your surroundings.

Rick: When you were with ELP and Edgar Winter’s White Trash, what were some of the toughest challenges besides what you say in your book: getting the money and making sure the sound system was right? [

Neil Ratner: Well, one of the toughest challenges of being a road manager or a tour manager, you know, with these groups, is dealing with the emotional problems [Both laugh] and situations that each of the band members may or may not have.

Rick: So, you’re a facilitator/mediator? [Both laugh]

Neil Ratner: Certainly, a facilitator, a psychologist. Now this is not meant to be sexist in any way, shape, form or manner, but many times the other thing that you had to deal with, which got to be very difficult, were the wives and the girlfriends.

Particularly in the situation with a band like Emerson, Lake & Palmer where you had three stars.

If the wife or the girlfriend and their husband or boyfriend isn’t getting the attention he deserves, you’re gonna hear about it. It’s going to be your job to make sure they don’t rile up their husband or boyfriend and create a terrible problem within the band.

That was important, and then just the interpersonal relationships among band members. That can be difficult to deal with oh, you know. You’ve dealt with musicians your whole life [Laughs].

Rick: We’re an interesting breed.

Neil Ratner: Yeah, interesting breed and you get strange combinations!

Peter Watts, sound engineer for Pink Floyd, and Neil Ratner.

Rick: But there’s an old joke that guitar players say that the reason they have a drummer is because that’s the guy who goes and gets the beer.

So, as a drummer/doctor, the joke takes on kind of an interesting twist when you get to the medical needs of Michael. I would think that – and I don’t want delve into this too much – I just want to ask.

I think there was not only a balancing act between prescribing medicine to tend to your patient because that’s what he ultimately was, as well as a friend over time, while at the same time working not to enable him.

So, did you find that there’s always a balancing act with that and did you find yourself reflecting on where you needed to draw the line between those two? Where did you need to draw the line between those two?

Neil Ratner: One hundred percent it was a balancing act. It was a difficult line to draw.

Rick: I bet. Yeah.

Neil Ratner: But, as far as I was concerned, I was the doctor. I was the expert. Therefore, I had to control whatever situation I put myself in medically, with any patient, be it Michael or anyone else.

You take the Hippocratic Oath. That’s a serious thing – a serious part of medical school. And one of the most important parts of it is, “I will do no harm.”

So, you’re always thinking about that balancing act of, “Well, how am I going to help him and am I going to harm him in any way by doing this. It was a difficult situation to me, because he was a friend. He was obviously in trouble and it was very obvious to me that other doctors were not thinking out-of-the-box.

Rick: I think I found that the key to why you stayed as long as you did was to protect him from others.

Neil Ratner: Well, to protect him from others and to protect him from himself.

He was his own worst enemy. He created his own problems, yeah. He had lots of facilitators who jumped in on the magic, so to speak. That’s another thing. A lot of times when you get around stars, especially a really big star, you get so caught up in their magic that you lose your ethical, moral, every other consideration that you would make if you weren’t in a situation like that.

Rick: Yeah, you lose your grounding, I would think.

Neil Ratner: Totally. Totally. It’s very important that you stay grounded and you treat that person like anybody else.

Rick: I’d think you’d also want to always keep in mind, “If I need to walk away, I need to walk away.”

Neil Ratner: I would have walked away at any point where I felt anything untoward was happening or if I felt I was harming him in any way, or if I saw anything that I was uncomfortable with.

I didn’t need to be there other than to try and help a friend and do a good job at what I was trying to do. I had been in the rock and roll business. I was not taken out by that magic, you know, and that’s why I controlled the treatments. I controlled when, where, how, fully monitored, totally under my control and not Michael’s, and if he didn’t like it, too bad. Then I’ll leave. You can go get somebody else. I don’t care. I’m trying to help you here.

Rick: Yeah, and I would think the most frustrating is a patient – and I don’t mean him – but a patient in general, where there are some things you don’t control, when they don’t comply with what you want them to do, and they’re not in your sight 24 hours a day.

Neil Ratner: No, they’re not and you could only do what you can do when you’re with them. That’s for sure. In the end though, I’ll say this. I felt I did the best I could under the circumstances.

I created a one-of-a-kind treatment for a one-of-a-kind individual and for the eight years and maybe 25 times that I did it with him, I think it was successful for what we were trying to accomplish.

Leann Ratner, Michael Jackson and Dr. Neil Ratner.

Rick: I want to get into is your charity work in Africa, and I want to talk about the sustainability concept that you talked about in your book. There are a number of other things and it all has to do with, good solid grounded values that we’ve talked about and looking back on your life and what’s your biggest blessing and I’m sure you’re going to say your wife, but I want to get that in there, and then how you feel now.

Neil Ratner: She’ll appreciate that one.

Rick: We were talking about the idea of tending to your patient, at least in the sense with Michael Jackson, while at the same time trying not to enable your patient. And I think I was asking, did you find yourself reflecting on where that line needed to be drawn by you? I recall that you said almost on a daily basis, right?

Neil Ratner: Well, not necessarily on a daily basis, but basically, Michael was my friend. I was his doctor – one of his doctors – obviously, he had many doctors.

I just tried to give him the best possible advice that I could, but again, the kind of treatments that I was giving him were very serious business,. I was an expert as you know from the book. I started focusing on anesthesiology when Propofol didn’t exist. When it first was approved for use in the US, I was one of the first to grab it. I used it extensively for years and years and years through thousands of cases before I ever met Michael. So I knew what I was doing.

As I said to you before, it was somewhat out-of-the-box, and because of that, I had to be in total control. I don’t give a shit if he was Michael Jackson or fucking Donald Trump or the Pope. It doesn’t really matter, and I made that clear to him: “Listen, this is serious business. This is not a joke. I’ll do it because I think it can help you temporarily.” I was always looking for a way to transition him.

If you remember in the book, at one point I got him a Chinese herbalist. We tried that. These treatments were never meant to be a permanent or daily thing.

For me, it was just when it was absolutely necessary to get him on stage, That’s why over the eight years, it was infrequent, not frequent. When I had to care for him in that way, it was under my terms, period. If he didn’t like it, tough shit. Walk away. I don’t care.

That’s how I drew the line. I used my expertise to decide what I felt I was comfortable with and that’s where I drew the line. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. You need me more than I need you, man. I don’t give a shit that you’re Michael Jackson. This is something different.

Rick: Yeah, exactly. I don’t know when you were doing this, but there was a study in 1987 – and I don’t know how good or how extensive the study was – by the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians. It found that 27% of those interviewed admitted that they used beta blockers, and that’s what that is, right?

Neil Ratner: No.

Rick: It’s not? Wow. Let me see what this says here.

Neil Ratner: No, no, I believe the story about beta blockers. I’ll explain it to you.

Rick: But, it says beta blockers such as propanolol for musical…

Neil Ratner: Propanolol not Propofol

Rick: Okay.

Neil Ratner: You know why they use beta blockers? Do you know the theory behind that or medicine behind that? I’ll tell you very quickly.

We have a sympathetic and a parasympathetic nervous system. They are complementary to each other, fight or flight. The sympathetic nervous system is adrenaline. So, when you get excited, your heart goes faster, your blood pressure goes up, and the parasympathetic system is the opposite. When people have to perform or go for public speaking, a lot of times they get very nervous.

So, you can take a small dose of a beta blocker. There are alpha and beta receptors in the nervous system. The beta receptors are what make you nervous feeling and your heart go fast and all that shit. So, you can take a mild beta blocker before you have to go out and perform. It will keep you where you need to be without affecting anything else.

Rick: Ah, okay.

Neil Ratner: That’s what beta blockers do. What I’m talking about it’s something totally different. I’m talking about sleep therapy that I did for Michael.

And that was Propofol.

Rick: Okay, because the other medicine actually causes insomnia.

Neil Ratner: It can. It could also cause a little bit of impotence and various other things, but not in very small doses just for performance anxiety. Great drug for performance anxiety.

Rick: That was my mistake, but thank you.

Neil Ratner: No problem [Both laugh]. I like to educate, you know?

Rick: Good, good.

Neil Ratner: And I think it’s important for people to know that I’m a real doctor,.

Rick: Exactly, that’s good. I suppose there’s also the dynamic of how much do you do as a doctor, or how much you should do to manage your patients since patients have a certain responsibility that you can’t control, right? Do you use the carrot or the stick approach or both approaches? How do you know what to use to try to motivate a patient to be compliant?

Neil Ratner: You know, as an anesthesiologist, you’re not really in that world.

Rick: That’s true.

Neil Ratner: Because you’re taking control of that patient. What you need to do is make that patient comfortable with the fact that you’re now going to be in control for whatever length of time the operation, the treatment.

It’s a whole different kind of medicine, a whole different kind of doctor. It’s interesting when you think about it. As an anesthesiologist, I didn’t treat disease in the course of my job. My job was to facilitate what the surgeon did. I had a very unique perspective on it, because my perspective was – Okay, I had been in the rock and roll business, right?

Rick: Right.

Neil Ratner: I had done my share of drugs. I was in the rehab, the whole deal. And I was very knowledgeable on all of those kinds of street drugs. I knew by personal experience: sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Rick: Sure.

Neil Ratner: I say this as a joke to people, but it’s not really a joke Anesthesiologist’s were afraid to go alone into a doctor’s office because the drugs that were available back in those days were not really conducive to office anesthesia, but I had had much more personal experience with most of those drugs then than many of these other guys had.

I knew the drugs available to me as an anesthesiologist would be similar or could produce similar effects. My theory was that if I used the right drugs and I mixed them correctly, why can’t I give a patient a unique experience in the operating room apart from whatever the surgeon is doing?

Rick: Sure, sure.

Neil Ratner: The other thing I introduced that was new at the time – I brought a Sony Walkman in and would play spiritually uplifting, non-worded music. The entire time of the operation, the patient would have the headphones on. I would bring them in with a creative visualization, where I’d speak to them the night before and explain to them: pick a special place, blah blah blah.

I would work that whole thing to create a set and setting: the right environment, the right feeling, so that, again, the anesthetic experience was more than just drugs that made you nauseous and allowed the surgeon to work. I was very successful in doing it that way. My approach was very unique, very different.

Rick: So the music – was that chosen by you or your patients? Was it something like Enya?

Neil Ratner: You know, it was interesting, I would usually choose the music unless the patient had a special request. But I had certain requirements for the music. Again, non-worded, spiritually uplifting. New Age kind of stuff before New Age existed: certain classical pieces, certain rock pieces, but they had to be of a certain type. Words get in the way.

I wanted things that helped to produce positive emotions. I didn’t want patients to listen to the words. I wanted them to feel the music. And, of course, they’re only feeling it until they go to sleep.

But, a lot of these procedures were under what’s called conscious sedation, which meant that they weren’t really unconscious. They were in this sort of in-between space. Again, although they might not consciously remember the music, there’s some part of the unconscious brain that’s recording the experience. if it’s a pleasant experience, it’s better for you [Both laugh].

Rick: I used to call that ‘dreality’ – partial dream, partial reality.

Neil Ratner: ‘Dreality’: I like that! [Both laugh] I may use that.

Rick: That was back in the ’70s I came up with that.

Neil Ratner: I like it!

Rick: Use it! Use it [Both laugh]! That brings up an interesting point about the music, because I know you talked about Michael Jackson and his song “Smile.” You knew that was originally Charlie Chaplin?

Neil Ratner: I knew that was the Charlie Chaplin song, and Michael and I had talked about it because he used it. I think when we first talked about it, when I first went on tour – on the History tour. It was shortly after Princess Diana had died. And you know I’ve got that chapter in the book about Michael and Princess Di, although they only met once…

Rick: They talked a lot, yeah.

Neil Ratner: They had late-night phone conversations and all that stuff. Before the first show, Michael said to me, “Make sure you’re out in front,” like in the audience, “because I want you to see how it starts.” He didn’t tell me what it was. It started with a tribute to Princess Di, and I think that was the first song. So afterward, Michael and I talked about it. He loved Charlie Chaplin. That happened to be one of his favorite songs and he related it to Di, and so he used it that way.

Rick: When I was digging into that song, I didn’t realize. I thought Charlie Chaplin wrote the lyrics, as well, but he made the melody. In 1954, two guys added words to it, apparently.

Neil Ratner: That’s interesting. I didn’t know that. That’s very interesting. But, I’ll tell you something that I’ll never forget. You know Charlie Chaplin was shunned by the Academy for his Communist leanings and what not?

Rick: Yes.

Neil Ratner: But then, I don’t remember when it was – maybe it was in the ’60s or something – they invited him back. He was very, very old. They invited him back. I’ll never forget watching that because he came out to that song. It’s like burned in my mind: that, and the Michael time, being every night there on tour for awhile.

Rick: He was brilliant.

Neil Ratner: Oh, yeah. Was he ever.

Rick: Let’s move a little bit, or a lot, to what I find to be very commendable work that you’ve done in Africa. You mentioned the word ‘sustainable’ with the work. I think somebody brought up the question, “Was your work sustainable?” and from there it gave you the idea that it should be sustainable, right?

Neil Ratner: Correct, that’s exactly right. Basically, what happened was in the ’90s, my wife and I decided to go to Africa. She had had this dream of going on safari from the Tarzan movies when she was a kid or whatever. We booked a small safari with one of these companies.

I had some experiences previously. I had been in rehab. I’m sure I talked about this somewhere along the way. When I got out of rehab, I met a man who I started working with who’s sort of like a modern-day shaman. Charles Lawrence is his name. I’ve mentioned him in various parts of the book. He turned me on to Native American culture, indigenous culture. I became a pipe carrier.

Rick: Hmm, wow!

Neil Ratner: I studied ritual and ceremony, just learned to fill that space – you know how they say you’ve got to fill the space that the drugs took, the emptiness and whatever. At any rate, I got really into all of that. So, when we went to Africa, I had the desire to go to a real village, an indigenous village, not one of these tourist villages – a real village.

There were about 10 or 15 of us on the safari. I spoke to the guide. She said, “I know one, but you’ve got to convince the other people,” blah blah blah. I convinced everybody we should go. We had to drive. It was hours from the camp. It was in Samburu land, in the northeastern portion of Kenya, near the Somali border.

Rick: Yeah, I’ve been to Kenya.

Neil Ratner: She took us to this incredible native village. It was like being in National Geographic: primitive with huts made of mud and dung. Among other things, they showed us how they shot the arrow in the calf and used blood as their main food source. They had 25 different ways of preparing it,

So we’re getting ready to leave. We got in the vans and I saw the chief carrying this kid and having a conversation with the guide. It looked like they were arguing. I had made the arrangements. I felt like I needed to get involved.

Long story short: the kid was sick. They knew I was a doctor, because that’s the only way they allowed us to come, because the guide had said, “Famous New York doctor. Don’t bother him. Maybe he’ll come back and help the village. Don’t bother him.”

But, of course, there was a sick kid and I was a doctor. Basically, he wanted me to look at the kid. Without thinking, I agreed, not realizing that I had no tools. I’m just standing there in the middle of the desert in Northern Africa. But having gone to medical school in Mexico, I learned about the tools of my body: my eyes, my ears, my hands. I realized maybe, maybe I could make some kind of a diagnosis. Fortunately, I could.

We go back and I had all these antibiotics. I took out all the antibiotics that I brought, made a huge pile of powder, figured out milligrams per kilogram, what the kid weighed. My wife sat there and we portioned out doses in little packs of paper. Went back the next day. I gave him the medicine and I that told them what I thought the diagnosis was and hoped for the best. Six months later, the chief sent me his spear, which was a huge, big deal.

That’s really what started me on the charity route although I’ve sort of taken a break right now while I’m working on the book.

But, it’s not over. It’s something that is my intention to actively go back to and use whatever celebrity I can get as a jumping-off point to create something even bigger and more sustainable and more important.

At any rate, I had a friend in the city: a very famous infectious disease doctor named Kevin Cahill, I had to go to him and tell him the story. I was really proud of the story. He’s a tough Irish guy – he’s treated Popes and Presidents and everything else. And he just looks at me and says, “Ahh, what do you think you did? If you went back there tomorrow, did you change anything? The kid’s probably sick again! Did you do anything sustainable? Without sustainability, these things never last!”

I split from his office with my tail between my legs thinking, “Oh, shit. Was that just a vanity project? Did I make myself feel good?”

Rick: Yes and no: you did what you thought was right.

Neil Ratner: I did the only thing I knew how to do at the time. But, he made me aware that there was more that I could do, and maybe that I should do.

Rick: He planted the seed.

Neil Ratner: Totally. Then I said, “You know what? We’re going back. We’re going to see if we can create something sustainable out of what I did there.”

And we did. We went back and on my own dime, we were successful: Got a government nurse involved. There’s a picture there of me treating kids in the little schoolhouse.

Rick: Right, I saw that.

Neil Ratner: So, we were successful, and that started me. I got to know a lot of people in Kenya and we love Kenya. I tell this story in the book. I come home one day and can I see my wife watching TV. What is she watching? The rubble of the American Embassy in Nairobi. I’m shocked and horrified. It wasn’t long before the phone rang and some very famous friends of ours, Iain and Oria Douglas-Hamilton – check them out. They’re incredible people.

Rick: Okay, will do.

Neil Ratner: Iain Douglas-Hamilton, was a doctoral student at Oxford studying elephants in the ’60s. He realized if we don’t know their migration routes, we’ll never save them. So, he was the first guy to start collaring elephants. He’s like the grandfather of the elephant conservation movement. He’s still alive, probably in his late 70s or early 80s.

At any rate, they became good friends. They called, “You must help.” They hooked me up with an African charity. I helped put together a mission of mercy: I got the anesthesiologists. They got international reconstructive surgeons. We went back a couple of months later. The acute injuries had been taken care of, but over 300 people had injuries that were not properly taken care of – injuries that can really hurt people emotionally.

Rick: Like the boy with the jaw n your book, right?

Neil Ratner: The boy with the jaw, right. Or how about the guy with the ear?

Rick: Oh, yeah! That’s pretty amazing! He just wanted to put his glasses on, right?

Neil Ratner: Right, right. Just the incredible stuff like that that never got fixed: that was our mission, to go and fix it. It was really the first al-Qaeda situation.

We operated on 300 people in the course of two weeks. It was an amazing experience. We donated a quarter million dollars worth of equipment because we brought everything. I solicited everybody. I jumped up people’s asses like you wouldn’t believe [Both laugh], try to make them feel as guilty and bad as possible.

Rick: Hey, it worked.

Neil Ratner: Yes, it did.

Rick: This reminds me of my next door neighbor. He’s with a foundation called the Numi Foundation. They build water infrastructure systems so people have clean water.

He says they don’t parachute in and leave. They make sure the water supply is clean and sustainable and they train people who are indigenous to the country. Now I think they’re working in a village in India. The whole idea of having clean water, which we don’t think about here in the states, but apparently is horrendous.

Neil Ratner: It’s the world’s biggest problem. Much disease is caused by dirty water. You wouldn’t believe the statistics. It’s funny you should mention that, because in recent years I’ve been looking at various things and I do a fair amount of travel. My wife and I went to Peru. We did Machu Picchu for a week. We did a week on the Amazon on a boat.

Rick: Nice.

Neil:Ratner Which was even cooler, quite honestly.

Rick: A friend of mine did that. She said she was almost attacked by a monkey. She was afraid she was going to have her face torn off.

Neil Ratner: Monkeys can be vicious. Trust me [Both laugh]. I was looking to see if there was something I could get involved in. One of the things that I looked into was water. I looked into all of that and know a lot about it. It never happened, but it’s a huge problem and there are some really nice solutions and organizations like your friend’s. It’s a huge problem that the world is going to have to address whether they want to or not.

But getting back to my charity story. I moved to Woodstock, New York, after I was in jail and stopped being a doctor and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I read an article in the local paper about a local baker who had been to South Africa and was very moved by the HIV crisis and wanted to do something, but he didn’t know what to do. By that point, I had spent an enormous amount of time in South Africa.

After Kenya, my wife and I became safari junkies and we just wanted to go on safari wherever we could. We started to go to Botswana and Zimbabwe. Then we found South Africa, and South Africa has a lot to offer. When I started going on the road with Michael, I met more people in South Africa, including Nelson Mandela.

Neil meets Nelson “Madiba” Mandela.

I first went to South Africa on tour with Michael during the History tour, and I said to him, “Mandela’s one of my heroes. Can you just make sure I at least get a picture or shake his hand?” [In Michael’s voice] “Oh, don’t worry about it. You’ll get it.”

Sure enough,he was president when we were down there. Mandela and his entourage came in to the dressing room after the show and when the president stopped to shake my hand he said “Oh, I didn’t know Michael had a doctor!” [Both laugh ] Later on Michael called me down to take the photos with him. So that was like unbelievable to begin with, then a couple of years later after we had done the charity tour, partly for the Mandela Children’s Fund, as a birthday present.

Michael called me and said, “Man, I got a present for you!” “What do you mean?” “No, I’ve got a present for you.” “Don’t give me no birthday present, Michael.” “No, no, man. I’ve got to give you a birthday present. I got a birthday present.” For Michael to say that – don’t forget, when I met him, he was a Jehovah’s Witness.

He didn’t celebrate birthdays. I talked about it in the book. I got on his ass about that, particularly when he had kids.

Rick: That’s right. You talked about Christmas.

Neil Ratner: ” You’ve got kids now Christmas and Birthdays are important.” And I talked to Michael like I’m talking to you.

Rick: Uh huh, that’s funny.

Neil Ratner: He was my friend. I didn’t really care. He hated when I cursed, coming from a family with a father who started in the trucking business. I have a truck driver’s mouth.

Two years later I got to go back and really spend time with Mandela. That’s the pictures you see. That was when we went back on the charity tour. He heard about what I did in Kenya and he said to me, “Come back and do something here.”

Fast forward to two years later, and I meet this guy and he wants to do something in South Africa. I’m itching to get back into the charity world, so we decide to do something, not knowing really what to do. We never had started a charity.

I had done all my stuff very independently. We started to research. At first we thought we would make some better bread. And we thought that was ridiculous: we should create bakeries, little micro-bakeries. We came up with a plan. We heard about a contest that the Dutch government was running called Business and Development: Make Poverty Your Business. What a great slogan, right?

Rick: Yeah.

Neil Ratner: Make Poverty Your Business. Because the whole point here is in the charity world, there ain’t enough to go around. Everybody’s got their hand out. There is not enough to go around, so the best thing you can do is to teach people to be self-sufficient in some kind of a significant way.

Rick: Yeah, teach them how to fish. The old adage.

Neil with freshly baked bread from the bakery in Nkosis village.

Neil Ratner: We co-opted that. “Give them a loaf of bread, you feed them for a week. Teach them how to bake the bread and you feed the village forever.”

Rick: Exactly.

Neil Ratner: That was our plan. I worked my ass off coming up with five-year projections and all the forms for the Dutch government. Lo and behold, we were the only American company that entered the contest. We took second place.

Rick: Wow!

Neil Ratner: We went to Holland and we got a little notoriety, and more importantly we got a little money. We got a little money we raised a little money. We still didn’t have enough money. I thought we could raise some money in South Africa.

I called my friend there who is like Mandela’s adopted son. I wanted him to get involved and help us. He called me back a couple of days later and said, “I spoke to the old man for you.” “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

I knew who he was talking about. “I want to help you. I’m going to send you five of his books for a fundraiser. He’ll endorse them any way you want. He likes what you’re doing and wants to help you.” And we did. We ran a fundraiser. We had the Mandela books and we raised enough money to create the first bakery.

Rick: Wow, terrific!

Neil Ratner: We did, and we decided to put the first bakery in the craziest place ever. When my partner had gone to South Africa, getting back to HIV, he had gone to a program for single moms with HIV and their kids. That’s where he baked bread. It was a famous program called Nkosi’s Haven. There’s a whole story about it in a book called We Are All the Same, written by an ABC TV correspondent and it was actually nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

It’s the story of this white woman who adopts a black, township, HIV kid. It’s about her struggles and their struggles and the fact that she, almost single-handedly, fought the South African school system to get him into school.

Up until that point, HIV kids couldn’t go to school. She was successful. When he died, she created a program in his honor; that’s where my partner had baked bread. We ended up giving them the first bakery as the first sustainable business.

Rick: Good for you.

Neil Ratner: Then we went on to do two more bakeries. We did one in the townships around Cape Town, which was crazy. But the most difficult one I did alone. I split from him and then I did one in, arguably, the most dangerous neighborhood in the Western Hemisphere, which was right outside of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Rick: Really?

Neil Ratner: Yes, with no sanitation, no running water, essentially no electricity, and we came up with solutions. Then I got involved in the book and that’s where charity stands with me at the moment.

INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY BAKERIES

Rick: Okay, good stuff. Let’s circle back a bit. Having been a performer or manager for some legendary rock and blues groups, managing International tours, overcoming addiction, and working with and being a friend to one of the greatest performers of all time, you find yourself in federal prison. How did that experience change you, and were there any revelations? Or did you find that you just needed to get back to the basics – good, solid, grounded values? Did you find that you had lost the idea that you needed to draw the line maybe firmer than you had in the past?

Neil Ratner: Certainly the first thing I would say about it is the experience humbled me and the experience took me off my high horse. The experience made me realize that I was no different or more special than anyone else.

So, it took me back to basic human values, ethics, morals. Absolutely should have drawn the line. Absolutely. Knew what I was doing was wrong. Did it anyway, figured everybody did it so that it wouldn’t be my problem, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. It gave me a chance to reflect. It gave me a chance to read.

When do you have the time to just sit and read books? I was working too, because I was in a work camp, but I still had a lot of time to read, and a lot of time to be reflective.

Rather than isolate myself, I interacted with the people around me. Let me say this: I was in the minority. This was not a prison filled with white-collar criminals. The majority of the people were black and Hispanic. It was a sad situation because many, many of them should never have been there.

If they were white, if they had had a couple of bucks, they never would have been there. They just got caught in this ridiculous situation of what their lives were. The only way out was the way that they felt that they had to choose. Some of them, you’re talking about a couple of joints or something: five years, 10 years. How shall I put it? – it gave me pause to think about a lot of things, to think about what our society is like, that we put all these people in jail.

Rick: That reminds me. Do you remember John Sinclair?

Neil Ratner: Yes, I do.

Rick: He got 10 years for giving two joints to two undercover cops.

Neil Ratner: Oh, I know. Terrible.

Rick: I went to the John Sinclair concert where John Lennon played back in ’71.

Neil Ratner: Was that in Toronto?

Rick: No, that was at the University of Michigan.

Neil Ratner: Right, right. “Free John Sinclair.”

So prison was kind of a trip. I had a couple of experiences in prison that blew my mind: getting to play the drums.

Rick: Really?

Neil Ratner: So, I finally get to the work camp. I’m freaked out because I think I’m going to this low-security place and when I pull up, it’s a real prison with big towers. It looks like something out of a James Cagney movie.

Rick: Not the country club.

Neil Ratner: No, not the country club. I didn’t realize you had to go through a medium-security prison to get down to the low-security camp. Everybody goes through that. But eventually I got to the camp. One night, I’m sitting around and I hear music. It’s going to be one of those ‘I hear music’ stories.

Rick: [Laughs] It wasn’t Rick Derringer, was it?

Neil Ratner: It wasn’t Rick Derringer, but I’m following the sound, and I get to this door that says ‘Authorized Inmates Only’.

I hear there’s a band inside, so I say, “Screw this. I’m authorized. I’m going in.” I get in and it’s a little room and there’s a big Latin band in there. There are a couple of guitar players, a bass player, a drummer, a couple of percussion players:

I couldn’t believe it! The place was packed and the guys can play! I’m sitting there and there’s a cowbell or some shit on the floor, so I pick it up and start playing [Both laugh]. I decide, I’ve got to be a part of this. I waited until the room cleared out and I see this one guy who seems to be the leader. I start talking to him, and one thing leads to another. He says to come back next week, and then he realizes – I let him know – I can speak Spanish from my time in Mexico.

One thing led to another and I was in the band. We did a gig for the prison population on Labor Day, so I got my ultimate dream of being in a band playing in front of the public [Both laugh]. That was one prison experience.

The other one: I was in the camp for a while and a friend comes up to me. He says, “You know there’s a sweat lodge here.”

Rick: A sweat lodge?

Neil Ratner: I said, “What are you talking about? It’s fucking jail, man!” He says, “No, no. I’m telling you there’s a native religious group here. There’s a sweat lodge. I want to go talk to the chief. Do you want to do it with me?”

Rick: Wow.

Neil Ratner: I said, “Are you kidding?” I told you I had been involved with my friend Charles in all kinds of Native American stuff and spirituality, but I never did sweat lodge. Sure enough, he talks to the chief and there is a Native American group there. And the reason there is that … I don’t know when it is. I talk about it in the book. Some year, in prison, religious freedom was treated as a privilege. It was challenged and they won the challenge. I think the Supreme Court ruled that religious freedom is a right in a prison.

Rick: Yes.

Neil Ratner: No matter what your religion is, you’re allowed to practice it if you’re sincere and you’re really a part of that religion.

Rick: What if you’re a Rastafarian?

Neil Ratner: [Both laugh] That’s a good question! I’m sure they let you practice without the weed. At any rate, they have this little area, and on Saturdays – Very authentic. The Inipi and the fires and whole deal. I did it for 10 weeks and it was unbelievable. To go to prison and to get that experience was just beyond the beyond, between that and playing in the band.

I’m not saying anybody should go to prison, but I was able to make it into something that was important and significant for me that had lasting effects.

Rick: That’s good. Something that’s sustainable.

Neil Ratner: Something that’s sustainable, that’s right [Both laugh].

Rick: This next question, you better get right. Are you ready? When you look back on your life oh, what has been the biggest blessing and why? You better talk about your wife [Laughs].

Neil Ratner: I was going to say, truthfully, the 42 years with Leann.

Rick: You’re a smart man.

Neil Ratner: Finding a soulmate, having somebody that you can share your life with. Life is only fun if you can share these experiences with somebody else. If you can sit at night and talk about them and laugh about them and remember them with somebody. To be able to find that person early on and be able to spend so much time and so much of your life and have so many of the experiences together is truly a blessing.

Dr. Neil Ratner

Rick: Yeah. I told a friend of mine a few weeks ago, “You don’t remember days a lot, but you do remember moments and you remember special moments.” So, I hope you got a lot of special moments that you and your wife remember together.

Neil Ratner: There are a lot of special moments in the book. One of the most special moments that I’ll tell you about relative to my wife and I: my wife grew up very poor. She left home when she was 16 years old from Cleveland, Ohio. She had a shitty childhood, a crazy mother, real father left, stepfather was nice but she grew up in Little Italy in Cleveland. At 16, she took the Greyhound bus to New York City and started working for Arthur Murray. (Dance Studio)

Rick: Wow.

Neil Ratner: She lifted herself up. She became a Playboy Bunny in New Orleans. Was Bunny Mother of the New York Bunny Club, a Vegas showgirl, and all this stuff. She gets to meet Nelson Mandela when we go back to South Africa, when Michael’s giving me the birthday present. We went back and got to spend the afternoon with Mandela, his wife, Michael, the kids: that’s where those pictures in the book all came from. And, she’s just blown away.

We go back to the room and she’s crying. I say, “What’s the matter? Why are you crying?” She said, “I felt like Cinderella. I never thought my life could turn out this way. I never thought that I could have an experience like this, know people like this, be like this.”

Rick: That’s sweet.

Neil Ratner: And, you know, that was one of those moments.

Rick: That’s touching.

Neil Ratner: Yeah, that was one of those moments. We’ve been very fortunate and blessed to have quite a few of them.

Rick: Good for you, good for you. (Pauses) Michael passed away almost 10 years ago.

Neil Ratner: June 25.

Rick: That’s right. July 25th is your anniversary.

Neil Ratner: That’s correct

Rick: I paid attention! So he passed away nearly 10 years ago: what special moments light up those memories making them so special for you? Or are there just too many of them?

Neil Ratner: Yes, there are too many of them to mention, but I’ll mention a few.

Being with Michael in Africa. Michael loved Africa. Michael wanted to live in Africa. He was a different person when we were in Africa. I got to spend time with him both on tour and when he went back privately to give Mandela the money and stuff like that. It was special to be with Michael in Africa. People may not consider him a black man, but if you saw him in Africa, you’d know he was a black man.

Rick: He wanted to build a house on the hill right in South Africa.

Neil Ratner: Right behind Sun City, yep. Absolutely. And I think he would have. I honestly think he would have. So, that was a special time.

Another special time – you might remember this one from the book – this was a trip, man. We go out to California, the Beverly Hills Hotel. He’s supposed to do some shoots and stuff. I said I’d hang with him and work with him a little bit. All the shoots get canceled. It’s right after 9/11 and he says, “Let’s go to Neverland for the weekend.”

I was with Leann and she hadn’t been to Neverland. I had already been there a couple of times. She hadn’t been so it was like the greatest thing ever. Again, that was another special moment for Leann, going to Neverland. Just Michael, Leann, me and the kids: the whole weekend.

So he had to go in the studio. We were there Thursday night and he had to go in the studio on Friday. We’ll go to Neverland on Saturday, but he says we’re going to dinner on Friday night. He said to be ready and get dressed nice.

Michael never told me to get dressed nice, so what do you mean, get dressed nice? Typical Michael, we’re in the Beverly Hills Hotel and he’s late. He might have said 6:00 and it’s now 7:00, 7:30. I’m calling security. They say they’re hung up, but will be there.

I get disgusted and we take off the nice clothes and are getting ready to leave, and security calls to meet us downstairs. We meet him actually in the hall. We go on a special elevator and the Beverly Hills Hotel has a special garage a couple of floors under the normal garage. And there are two of the most unbelievable Daimler limousines – Mercedes Daimlers like the Queen uses.

He says, “Rat, you and Leann, that one’s for you.” “That’s great. Where are we going?” “Uh-uh.” He runs to the other one with the kids. We get in the car. I ask the driver, who’s an ex-cop, one of his security, where we’re going.

“I don’t know where we’re going. Just following,” he says.

We’re driving behind the Beverly Hills Hotel in the Hollywood Hills and we pull up to a nondescript house – a nice house, but no big deal. I don’t know where we are. Nobody knows where we are. He pulls up like two minutes before. I see him and the kids run in the house and we’re just walking to the door.

The doors open and we can see a blonde lady standing at the door waiting to greet us. Still, don’t know where the hell we are. We walk up to this lady and she looks very familiar; now that I’m close to her. She puts out her hand and says, “Hi, I’m Angie Dickinson.”

Rick: Oh, really?

Rick: Was she married to Burt Bacharach?

Neil Ratner: No, not at that time. This was in 2000 and something, 2001 maybe.

Yeah, because it was right after 9/11, so it was 2001. We go in the house and it’s a nice house. I see pictures on the wall and I see Michael talking to this tall guy who I do recognize and then I realize where we are We’re in Gregory Peck’s house. Michael’s talking to Gregory Peck.

Rick: Amazing [Both laugh].

Neil Ratner: Needless to say, it was an unbelievable dinner, very down-home. Unbelievable conversation. What I didn’t know until after the fact was that Gregory was like a father to Michael.

Rick: Oh, really?

Neil Ratner: Yeah, they had this very special relationship. Michael would go to him for advice. Before we left that night, he and Gregory went into a bedroom together alone. But, I’m telling you, sitting across from Atticus Finch…

Rick: Yeah, To Kill a Mockingbird! Cool.

Neil Ratner: Or Captain Ahab or whatever!

Rick: Oh, yeah!

Neil Ratner: So, that was another very special Michael moment. Just some of the time that I spent with him like the first time I went to Neverland. He said, “No, I want to give you the tour.” He took me on a private tour of Neverland.

Rick: That’s amazing. It’s special.

Neil Ratner: That kind of stuff. And just, I miss his friendship. And his “hee hee hee hee” voice. He was a cool guy. I liked him. We had fun together.

Rick: So he called you ‘Rat’ and you mentioned that you weren’t particularly fond of that at first. Over the years and looking back at it, do you find it endearing now?

Neil Ratner: I’m cool [Both laugh]. I’m cool. Of course, it’s an endearing name. Let me say this: part of my discomfort with that name came a little bit later after the whole prison thing.

Rick: Okay. [Both laugh]. Of course!

Neil Ratner: Because I turned state’s witness, I was a rat. It had different connotations for me later on. When I think of Michael calling me that, it’s fine.

Rick: Yeah, it’s just an abbreviation.

Neil Ratner: I’m cool with it, but like I said, he never used first names. You were either your last name or he came up with a nickname for you.

Rick: Now that the book is done, what is there to do in Woodstock? I understand that Dylan lives there. I think Marshall Crenshaw. Do you know Elliott Landy, by chance, the guy who’s image of Dylan is on the Nashville Skyline album cover?

Neil Ratner: Actually, I have met Elliott Landy a few times.

What is there to do? Woodstock is the most famous little town in America. You can go anywhere in the world and tell people we’re from Woodstock, they’ll know what you’re talking about.

Rick: You don’t want too many people to know it’s a nice place, right? Otherwise you’ll get a horde of people moving there.

Neil Ratner: And, of course, the festival wasn’t here anyway.

Rick: Yeah, that’s right. Yasgur’s farm, right?

Neil Ratner: Yasgur’s farm which is Bethel Woods now, which is a good 45-50 miles from here, the Catskills. We benefited from it, so that’s okay. I’m sure the town will benefit this summer. A lot of people will come here because it’s the 50th anniversary. But you know what there is to do here?

Rick: What?

Neil Ratner: There are music venues like you’re in New York City.

On almost any night, you can see some reasonably good talent. on the weekends, you can see big-name, major talent. There’s Levon Helm’s old place. I’ve seen Graham Nash there. I’ve seen various people, all kinds of people. There are a couple of other iconic clubs that also run great entertainment.

We’ve got a great radio station. I ski and my work is on a computer behind the desk in a beautiful office overlooking the country, so what could be bad?

Rick: That’s nice. Do you have many buskers in town or is that even legal in town?

Neil Ratner: Yeah, sort of. Not that many. But there are a couple [Both laugh].

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I’ll tell you one last funny story about Woodstock.

A number of years ago, once I finished my probation in New York state, although I’m a convicted felon, I can still vote. I registered as an Independent. My wife is a registered Democrat and periodically, one of the Democratic town board members would come to get signatures or whatever. That’s what happens in small towns.

One day the guy shows up and I’m in my office, and I hear him say to my wife, “Where’s Neil Ratner?” And I figured, what the hell does this guy want? [Laughs]

So, I go talk to him. He says, “You’re registered Independent, aren’t you?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “You know we have a position on the Woodstock Ethics Board. Would you be interested?”

So, I thought to myself, “This guy doesn’t know shit about me.” [Both laugh] How could he possibly ask me that question? So I said, “Yeah, sure. I’ll be on the Ethics Board.” He said, “Oh, great! I’ll send you an application.”

Then I felt bad about it after he left and thought maybe I should have said something.

Rick: Yeah, but you might be the perfect guy to be on the Ethics Board, too.

Neil Ratner: You’re exactly right, Rick. When I thought about it, I told myself, “You know what? I’m either the perfect guy or the worst guy. I’m going to go through with this.”

So, I decided to go through with it. I filled out the application. They called me for an interview. It was between me and some other guy. I go down and I have to interview in front of the mayor and the whole town Council. And the mayor starts off, blah blah blah, bullshit. “You’re an anesthesiologist?” Right. He said, “What do you know about Propofol?”

And I said, “Aw, fuck. They did their research.” Now they know who I am. He must have seen me turn white or something because he looked at me and said, “No, no. I’ve had Propofol a couple of times and now my hair’s falling out!” [Both laugh] So, I gave him an answer. They asked me a couple of questions. I stopped them and said, “Wait a second. Does anybody know who I am? Did anybody Google my name? Did anybody look me up?”

And they all looked dumbfounded with their fingers up their ass. So, I told them my story. They appreciated it, including the charity stuff that I had done. And, of course, they knew my partner who had the local bakery here that was well known. Lo and behold, two days later, they call me up, “You’ve been unanimously selected,” and I’ve been on the Ethics Board ever since.

Rick: That ties things together very nicely. I was a Program Manager for the Ethics Program for the Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General.

Neil Ratner: You know, I saw that actually because I looked you up [Both laugh]!

I really appreciate giving back to the town. It’s a real town where people care about each other. And I feel very good about that

So, rock and roll, that’s what I do in Woodstock [Both laugh].

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