In 1998, we got married and drove across America for three weeks in a convertible Mitsubishi Eclipse.
From Vegas to San Francisco, a minor detour would take us through Joshua Tree and 29 Palms. I called the Joshua Tree Inn to book a room. They asked how I’d heard of them. I told them I was a Gram Parsons fan. They asked if I’d like the room he died in.
Gram Parsons overdosed on heroin in room number 8, in the company of two young ladies who briefly revived him by putting ice cubes up his rectum.
Of course we wanted to stay in his room. Of course Sophie would. No problem. Of course.
Why wouldn’t she?
I’d tell her later.
In Gram Parsons’ next 24 hours, his roadie Phil Kaufman stole his body from LAX and burned it on a funeral pyre just inside the Joshua Tree National Park.
In ours, we had cheesecake and sparkling cider for breakfast after a sleepless night trying not to think about death and ice cubes and whether they’d washed the blankets.