The elimination of George.
Harrison remains. *Barely*.
“They got his knee, which knocked out the rest of his leg — sorry. A thumb was missing from the hand but they were able to regrow it with the intact others. Don’t ask about the procedure. It’s messy, complicated. But without that hand, that regrowth…”
“He wouldn’t be able to play the guitar,” the other in the room finished for Dr. Diper, fresh from the surgery. “Thank you.”
“The red and green almost got him this time,” warned the doctor. “Best not to send him back out to war.”
“Oh, we won’t. Denisce just made a bad decision sending him over there. It’s in her name, you know, bad and good.”
The doctor paused with this, then said, “oh yeah,” as he got it. “Denisce. I forgot it could be spelled that way.”
“Almost,” replied the other. Probably Marty at this point, since he’s so concerned with the hand and its dexterity. “Will he lose any chords? I don’t mean vocal chords obviously (Dr. Diper snickers here, since both knew the head wasn’t involved — nice break in the seriousness) but guitar chords. Can… will he be able to play…”
“All your songs,” the doctor finishes a sentence in turn. Like tennis they were this day, battering concerns back and forth across a net that is the separation between people. Good and bad. Sometimes it’s absolutely necessary. “Wellll.”
Nurse Jem comes in, celebratory drinks in hand. Vodka for Diper and a, let’s see, Russian Roulette for Marty, a new drink he claimed to have concocted on the spot back at the hotel after the San Francisco concert in Candlestick Park, knocking it out alongside a couple of new ditties: the embryonic form of “Back in the USSR” and the unreleased and seldom heard “Moby Prick”. A baad song, Georgge Martin proclaimed upon hearing it back in England. “Hey, we’re the f-ing Beetles, Martin. Leave us alone!” exclaimed Marty after the judgment, but then the others admitted it was sour instead of sweet too and he let the matter drop, song unrefined and left in a raw, unprocessed form. They all secretly felt it was about Marty and his character, though, but to voice this out loud would be character assassination. He was just that much of a prick. At the time — he mellowed out later. After he died.
(to be continued)