Speaker 1: Blood on the Tracks is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Double Elvis. Brian Wilson was a musical genius
Speaker 1: and one of the greatest songwriters of all time. He
Speaker 1: caught melodies like they were waves. He bottled good vibrations
Speaker 1: like no one else, and he picked up bad vibrations too.
Speaker 1: He broke down, he tripped hard. He didn't just hear music,
Speaker 1: he heard voices. He tried to lose those voices by
Speaker 1: making a teenage symphony to God called Smile. But somewhere
Speaker 1: along the way, Brian Wilson lost his mind instead. This
Speaker 1: is his story. Hello to whoever is listening to this,
Speaker 1: it's Rhonda again. We're slowly coming to the end of
Speaker 1: all of these Brian Wilson tapes. There's only a few
Speaker 1: left now. This batch I'm going through at the moment
Speaker 1: seems to be from Brian's home recordings, and if I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken, they make up most of the entire collection. These,
Speaker 1: just like some we've already seen, appear to be recorded
Speaker 1: on a dictaphone. He talks of pretty undane tasks and
Speaker 1: sounds confused even introspective at times. Here have a listen.
Speaker 1: I'm going to buy a new car today, but I
Speaker 1: can't do it on my own. They come everywhere with me,
Speaker 1: these people, these minders or captors is maybe more appropriate,
Speaker 1: their Dr Landy's people. Landy is like a god, his
Speaker 1: omnipresent everywhere in my life. I can't escape, and freedom
Speaker 1: seems like an abstract concept to me now, like a dream,
Speaker 1: although maybe I wouldn't even want to if I could.
Speaker 1: Maybe I can exist without someone like that. I've been
Speaker 1: trying to write songs, but it's hit and miss. Sometimes
Speaker 1: the days just slide by, like a bad dream. Some
Speaker 1: days I feel like I'm getting better, but other days
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm falling apart. I feel like I
Speaker 1: don't have a single friend in the world except for
Speaker 1: the addictive phone these words. My only friends are these thoughts.
Speaker 1: Now all I have is myself, my thoughts, and a
Speaker 1: whole load of blood on the tracks. Chapter eight. Brian
Speaker 1: Wilson is back. This is one oh five point four
Speaker 1: b R I A n f M. I'm sorry to
Speaker 1: tell you this, but we're shutting down our broadcast. We've
Speaker 1: been forced to buy the people in charge. This is
Speaker 1: b R I A n f M signing off for
Speaker 1: forever Goodbye. I still remember waking up in my bed.
Speaker 1: The world seemed fuzzy, colder, and more real than it
Speaker 1: had been for years. It was scary. The last thing
Speaker 1: I remember is a handful of pills. Then the radio
Speaker 1: that was playing sounded strange. Then it all went black,
Speaker 1: like I was totally submerged into the darkness. Then I
Speaker 1: woke up here. I felt like I'd woken from the
Speaker 1: deepest sleep, imaginable, like a dream. I didn't know if
Speaker 1: I was alive or dead, if this was some form
Speaker 1: of an afterlife, but I understood where I was the
Speaker 1: second I turned my head and laid eyes on him.
Speaker 1: The moment I saw him, I knew this wasn't some afterlife.
Speaker 1: This was very much the world. I knew I can't.
Speaker 1: He looked at me and smiled. He spoke softly, but
Speaker 1: there was a hard edge to his tone. I'm back, Brian,
Speaker 1: he said, I'm going to take care of you. I
Speaker 1: can't escape. I closed my eyes and prayed for some release.
Speaker 1: I guess I should explain. This all started a while ago.
Speaker 1: I got a phone call at home. It was al
Speaker 1: the band wanted to meet. Nothing unusual there, but the
Speaker 1: meeting was being held at our lawyer's office. That was unusual.
Speaker 1: It didn't sit well with me. I knew something was up.
Speaker 1: I grabbed a bag of coke I had lying around
Speaker 1: and fixed myself the biggest milkshake you've ever seen, and
Speaker 1: then I glugged it on the car on the way.
Speaker 1: I was pretty big back then. Drugs and food. They
Speaker 1: were my only companions. I feel like I don't have
Speaker 1: a single friend in the world. I arrived at the
Speaker 1: lawyer's building, sort of place that lacks any kind of personality,
Speaker 1: any kind of architecture, a place void of creativity. I
Speaker 1: headed into the office and saw the whole band, our lawyers,
Speaker 1: and our manager. These I knew what it was before
Speaker 1: they even spoke. Dennis started it off. Brian, thanks for coming,
Speaker 1: he said. He looked sheepish, but sad too, kind of
Speaker 1: tired sadness. He handed me this letter. I pulled it
Speaker 1: open and saw words like regretfully, substance, abuse, and assets.
Speaker 1: One giant word stood out so big it seemed to
Speaker 1: fill the paper. Dismissed. They were firing me from the band,
Speaker 1: the guy who gave them all those hits, all those albums.
Speaker 1: It was like ice water in my veins. Freedom seems
Speaker 1: like an abstract concept al spoke before I could say anything.
Speaker 1: We want you to see a doctor, he said. I
Speaker 1: looked down at his hands and saw he was holding
Speaker 1: a tape recorder. You're recording this, I shouted, recording, my my.
Speaker 1: I lost my words, and then I spat out the
Speaker 1: only word on my mind, murder. It did feel like that,
Speaker 1: like they were killing off a part of me, No,
Speaker 1: not a part, the whole of me, myself, my thoughts,
Speaker 1: and a whole load of blood. I felt trapped. I
Speaker 1: suspected for years my dad was bugging me, recording and
Speaker 1: listening to me. Here I was again with people who
Speaker 1: should have loved me, being recorded and monitored, and and
Speaker 1: why so some quack can tell me what he thinks
Speaker 1: is going on in my head. I grabbed the recorder
Speaker 1: and smashed it against the wall. It ran out of
Speaker 1: the office into my car. I snorted some coke and
Speaker 1: drove home straight away. What I didn't know is the
Speaker 1: band had done this as a ruse to get me
Speaker 1: some care. They thought if they made it seem like
Speaker 1: I was out of the band, i'd get help. And
Speaker 1: I guess it worked. But before it did, something awful happened.
Speaker 1: I ran into the house, coke ping ponging around in
Speaker 1: my bloodstream. I was indestructible, like a god. I ran
Speaker 1: up to my bedroom, where I had this large pot
Speaker 1: on the nightstand. I pulled the lid off. There were
Speaker 1: loads of pills inside. Man, it must have been over
Speaker 1: a hundred in there. I grabbed a handful and stuffed
Speaker 1: them into my mouth. Some felone floor, but most went
Speaker 1: into my mouth. I thrust my hand back into the
Speaker 1: pot and grabbed more than I did it again and again.
Speaker 1: I was swallowing hard, no water, just dry pills. They
Speaker 1: felt terrible in my throat, but I didn't care. My
Speaker 1: eyes were watering so much, partly from the pills getting stuck,
Speaker 1: but mainly because I couldn't stop thinking about the letter.
Speaker 1: Then I gagged. The pills filled the back of my
Speaker 1: mouth and I couldn't get my breath. I stumbled and
Speaker 1: fell on the bed. Then everything went black, like a dream,
Speaker 1: so black, bad dream. I remember spending a lot of
Speaker 1: time in here in my mind. Some days I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm getting better in that blackness. Other days I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm falling apart. Things were so quiet, no voices,
Speaker 1: no worries, no memories. It was just black and silent,
Speaker 1: like I was walking through my mind. But no matter
Speaker 1: how much I walked, I never ended up anywhere. It
Speaker 1: was like walking on a treadmill. I did that for
Speaker 1: a while. Soon it seemed to get slower and slower,
Speaker 1: until finally it stopped, and all that remained was blackness
Speaker 1: and silence, like a vacuum of thought, an infinite nothingness,
Speaker 1: like a dream. After a while, there was a slither
Speaker 1: of horizontal light, small at first, but then it grew
Speaker 1: and grew. It burned so brightly. As this chasm opened
Speaker 1: up and light flowed in like a burst pipe, I
Speaker 1: realized it was my eyes opening and adjusting to that
Speaker 1: California sunlight I'd known my whole life, and the warmth
Speaker 1: of the sun. You know. I was awake, alive, back
Speaker 1: on earth. They told me later I overdosed, but I
Speaker 1: wasn't aware of that. As I woke up, it turned
Speaker 1: my head and I saw a man next to my bed.
Speaker 1: He smiled at me and said, I'm back, Brian. I'm
Speaker 1: going to take care of you. That man was Dr
Speaker 1: Eugene Landy. Land is like a god. I felt like
Speaker 1: I'd been saved. Is omnipresent joy filled my body. I
Speaker 1: had a sense of safety that I hadn't had for
Speaker 1: such a long time everywhere in my life. It turns
Speaker 1: out that was a false sense of security. I can't
Speaker 1: escape because Dr Landy would soon push me closer to
Speaker 1: that infinite blackness than those pills ever did. In the beginning,
Speaker 1: Dr Landy was good for me. You got my weight down,
Speaker 1: He made the days better and the night's bearable. He
Speaker 1: got me off drugs. He made my eyes clear again. Look,
Speaker 1: there's no two ways about it. He saved my life,
Speaker 1: and I love him is like a god. I still
Speaker 1: love him for that. The first time I was in
Speaker 1: his care, it was good for all of us. But
Speaker 1: when he came back into my life after that overdose,
Speaker 1: it wasn't as good. Falling apart, he stopped my contact
Speaker 1: with almost everyone, all the other guys, girlfriends, anyone, everyone.
Speaker 1: Like a god. He called it twenty four hour therapy.
Speaker 1: I read once in his book that he needed complete
Speaker 1: control over every aspect of a patient's physical, personal, social,
Speaker 1: and sexual environments. He wasn't wrong. I couldn't even pick
Speaker 1: up the phone. Maybe I wouldn't even want to if
Speaker 1: I could. Everywhere I went, I was taken there by
Speaker 1: Dr Landy's assistance. I wore a beeper so I could
Speaker 1: be summoned back by him whenever he needed. There was
Speaker 1: a strict daily routine, wake up, early, run, God, I
Speaker 1: was always running. Dr Landy would drive me to a
Speaker 1: track and I'd run around it while he was in
Speaker 1: his car. Then home for a hearty breakfast, and then
Speaker 1: I was at the piano writing, always writing. I've been
Speaker 1: trying to write songs. In the evenings. I was made
Speaker 1: to show my face around town, charity events, concerts, anything.
Speaker 1: He wanted to show the world how well I was doing,
Speaker 1: how good I was looking. And I was looking good.
Speaker 1: But everything, everything was under his control. His people were
Speaker 1: always close. They come everywhere with me. I came home
Speaker 1: one night I had been at some show downtown and
Speaker 1: Dr Landy was there in the kitchen, the lights down low.
Speaker 1: He asked me if I had a good time. It
Speaker 1: was the best dad, I said. I didn't even realize
Speaker 1: what I had said until I saw his face screw up.
Speaker 1: I apologized. He smiled and said, don't mention it, Brian.
Speaker 1: Then he told me to go to bed. The next morning,
Speaker 1: I came down to the kitchen and he informed me
Speaker 1: that the schedule that day was going to be a
Speaker 1: bit different. Remind me of that story you told me
Speaker 1: the other day, he said. I recounted this moment from
Speaker 1: my childhood. We had discussed about a dog I had
Speaker 1: when we were kids' Chihuahua named Chico. Man I love
Speaker 1: that dog. Chico ended up running away from home. We
Speaker 1: didn't where he went. I was distraught. Then one day
Speaker 1: I was walking home from school with Dennis and we
Speaker 1: saw a Chico lying in the gutter dead. We both
Speaker 1: broke down, crying all I have with myself. I told
Speaker 1: Dr Landy Howard's stuck with me. He smiled as I
Speaker 1: told him the story, and then said, well, and as
Speaker 1: if by magic pulled out this little puppy from under
Speaker 1: the counter is like a god. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: It was a cha just like Chico. I held him
Speaker 1: so tightly. What do you want to call him? He
Speaker 1: asked Buddy. I said right away, I feel like I
Speaker 1: don't have a single friend. Dr Landy motioned me to
Speaker 1: the piano. He asked if maybe I could play a
Speaker 1: new song for our new friend. I placed Buddy on
Speaker 1: the top of the piano and played some chords. I
Speaker 1: watched him walk around slowly and then rest, laying down
Speaker 1: facing me. My heart was phil with ecstasy. Come on, Brian,
Speaker 1: let's hear something good, something new, the doctor said. I
Speaker 1: tried to conjure up a new melody or even a
Speaker 1: chord sequence, but I couldn't capture anything. I've been trying
Speaker 1: to write songs. Concentrate. Dr Landy said, putting his hand
Speaker 1: on my shoulder. That's what we did for the next
Speaker 1: six hours. I just sat there as he told me
Speaker 1: to concentrate. Sometime around that six hour mark, he changed
Speaker 1: fucking focus. He screamed, it's not that difficult. I was scared.
Speaker 1: He had been scaring me quite a lot recently, and
Speaker 1: this wasn't uncommon, but that day I just felt so vulnerable.
Speaker 1: He yelled at me again, told me I was letting
Speaker 1: Buddy down. I just kept saying that I was sorry,
Speaker 1: kept hitting the keys, hoping something would come, but nothing did.
Speaker 1: This is a waste of time, waste of energy, he said,
Speaker 1: you don't deserve a present. I can't do it on
Speaker 1: my own. He grabbed Buddy by the scruff of his neck.
Speaker 1: Little dog yelped. His little brown eyes had such fear
Speaker 1: in them. Dr Landy carried him like that across the room.
Speaker 1: As I begged him to stop, please, I shouted, I
Speaker 1: can do it, I promise. I began to frantically hit
Speaker 1: the keys. Dr Landy turned to me and told me
Speaker 1: if it didn't come after six hours, it wouldn't ever come.
Speaker 1: I can't. He opened the front door of the house
Speaker 1: and threw Buddy to the ground. I felt to my
Speaker 1: knees and begged him not to throw my new friend
Speaker 1: out these people, but it was too late. Dr Landy
Speaker 1: kicked the dog hard. It ran for its life, and
Speaker 1: I watched it go down the drive, under the gate
Speaker 1: to the road beyond. I screamed and cried, lying there
Speaker 1: on the floor like a child. He slammed the door
Speaker 1: and told me I only had myself to blame. I
Speaker 1: feel like I don't have a single friend in the world.
Speaker 1: As he walked off, my housekeeper Glorious, stood there, her
Speaker 1: mouth hanging open. She came to me and held me close,
Speaker 1: told me it was okay, but it didn't feel okay.
Speaker 1: I felt like my only friend in the world. It
Speaker 1: just deserted me. I don't have a single friend. Later
Speaker 1: that night, I was lying in bed with TV on
Speaker 1: static and all the lights off. There was a knock
Speaker 1: at my door. It was Gloria. There was panic in
Speaker 1: her eyes. Mr Wilson, she said, whispering so quietly I
Speaker 1: could barely hear her. I'm sorry to tell you this,
Speaker 1: but I was cleaning the other day and I saw
Speaker 1: some papers. Her voice drifted off. She nervously looked around
Speaker 1: the corridor. I told her to come inside my room.
Speaker 1: She stood in my bedroom that night and spoke so
Speaker 1: fast I had to ask her to repeat what she
Speaker 1: said a couple of times. She told me Dr Landy
Speaker 1: had raised his fees, that he was charging a crazy
Speaker 1: amount of money for his care like a god. She
Speaker 1: further told me she saw that our manager to Tom,
Speaker 1: had sanctioned him to receive of the copyright to all
Speaker 1: my songs too, regardless of whether he contributed to them
Speaker 1: or not. I couldn't believe it. I was so mad,
Speaker 1: mad about this, mad about buddy, mad about it all
Speaker 1: everywhere in my life. I stormed out of my room
Speaker 1: and headed for Dr Landy's bedroom. Gloria tried to hold
Speaker 1: me back, but she couldn't stop me. I crashed through
Speaker 1: the door to his bedroom. He was standing there looking
Speaker 1: at some papers. Brian, whatever is the matter, he asked me.
Speaker 1: I screamed to him, I threw those ridiculous figures his way,
Speaker 1: told him how hard I had worked on the songs,
Speaker 1: told him how he had no right. Freedom seems like
Speaker 1: an abstract concept. He told me that I'd signed my
Speaker 1: rights over to him, and then he asked, is this
Speaker 1: all over a damned dog? With that, I lost it.
Speaker 1: I flew through the air and punched him, first in
Speaker 1: the ribs to miss, then repeatedly in the stomachs, shouting
Speaker 1: with every hit, what have you done to me? Gloria
Speaker 1: was behind me in the doorway, screaming for me to stop.
Speaker 1: Dr Landy raised his hands up and looked her dead
Speaker 1: in the eyes and said, don't, no, no, let him
Speaker 1: do it. He needs to do it, he needs to release.
Speaker 1: Sweat was pouring off my head. My knuckles ached. Hit me, Brian,
Speaker 1: he screamed, hit me. I drew my arm back, clamped
Speaker 1: my teeth together and smashed him right in the face.
Speaker 1: His lips split open, blood spilled out, fell back onto
Speaker 1: the bed. When I looked down it him, he was smiling.
Speaker 1: Then he looked up at me, very calmly, he said,
Speaker 1: very good. We'll be right back after this. We were.
Speaker 1: I said that the first time under Dr Landy's care
Speaker 1: was good, and it was, but there were red flags.
Speaker 1: I should have seen. An offer came in from Saturday
Speaker 1: Night Live, directly from its creator and Lauren Michael's no Less,
Speaker 1: and Landy said it was the perfect opportunity to promote
Speaker 1: fifteen Big Ones, a new Beach Boys album that was
Speaker 1: doing well on the charts. I've been to SNL before
Speaker 1: with the Boys and it was fine. This time, Lauren
Speaker 1: wanted me and me alone. I didn't want to go.
Speaker 1: I can't do it on my own, but Landy forced
Speaker 1: me to do it. We arrived late. I asked not
Speaker 1: to rehear. They granted my request. I was so nervous.
Speaker 1: Everyone seemed to think it was going to be so
Speaker 1: funny and cool, but I could barely talk. Slide by
Speaker 1: like a bad dream. I remember John Belushi came up
Speaker 1: to talk to me, but I didn't say a word,
Speaker 1: not one. I just couldn't. I was too nervous. At
Speaker 1: one point, the director came up to me and introduced himself.
Speaker 1: I'm Dennis Wilson, he said, Another Wilson. Another dentist and
Speaker 1: he left his head off, but I just stared into space.
Speaker 1: Freedom seems like an abstract concept. He walked off after that.
Speaker 1: The whole day I felt like I had snakes in
Speaker 1: my stomach. I hated the idea of doing the show.
Speaker 1: I was scared of performing, scared of the people in
Speaker 1: the audience, scared of the people watching back home. I
Speaker 1: feared that a panic attack was about to set in.
Speaker 1: As I sat in my dressing room, but Landy grabbed
Speaker 1: me and looked me in the eye. Mom Brian, He said,
Speaker 1: where are your guts? Hey, you wouldn't even want you
Speaker 1: if I could in my mind, my dad's face flashed
Speaker 1: onto his and I had to shake my head to
Speaker 1: get rid of the image. He produced these huge cards
Speaker 1: from the back of the room and showed them to me.
Speaker 1: They look like those cards Dylan holds up in the
Speaker 1: video for Subterranean Homesick Blues. The cards all had different
Speaker 1: things on them like laugh, wink or hold for applause.
Speaker 1: He said he was going to direct me through the
Speaker 1: whole thing present. Then I remembered the conversation we had
Speaker 1: on the car right over you told them right. I
Speaker 1: asked about not having the He looked at me annoyed. Yes,
Speaker 1: he said, I've spoken to them about it. They're getting
Speaker 1: rid of it. It won't be on stage. I felt
Speaker 1: a shiver run down my back all the way to
Speaker 1: my ankles. It was interrupted by a knock at the door.
Speaker 1: Landy opened it to reveal Jodie Foster standing on the
Speaker 1: other side. She was hosting that night and came in
Speaker 1: to say hello. Landy practically leapt on her. I'm Eugene Landy,
Speaker 1: he said, smiling. She asked him who he was. I
Speaker 1: influenced all of Brian's thinking, he laughed proudly. But you're
Speaker 1: not a beach boy, she said. She was confused. I
Speaker 1: thought it was all a huge joke. I'm practically a
Speaker 1: member of the band, he exclaimed, like it was a
Speaker 1: known fact before I knew it. We were on the
Speaker 1: side of the stage, my least favorite place. I can't
Speaker 1: do it on my own. Landy told me I was
Speaker 1: up next. He tapped his cards and pointed to where
Speaker 1: he was going to be, right in front of the stage.
Speaker 1: I heard the director yell okay, commercial break is ending
Speaker 1: in thirty My heart rattled in my ribs. Then he
Speaker 1: turned to me and shouted, don't forget, this is live, Brian.
Speaker 1: I felt like I couldn't breathe, and he said his
Speaker 1: goodbyes and made his way to his position. That's when
Speaker 1: I saw it. They wheeled out this grand piano. But
Speaker 1: that's not what was taking my focus. The thing that
Speaker 1: was dragging all the oxygen from my lungs and the
Speaker 1: steadiness from my feet. It was what the piano was
Speaker 1: sitting in a huge sandbox, bad dreaming. I asked him
Speaker 1: not to do it, I pleaded, Landy promised me. Twenty
Speaker 1: three seconds, the director called out. My mind flashed back
Speaker 1: to writing Smile, to being in that sandbox on that piano.
Speaker 1: I blinked and saw the tapes from Mrs O'Leary's cow
Speaker 1: burning fires in l A. Then I heard my dad
Speaker 1: screaming at me for being useless. Then I heard Phil Specter.
Speaker 1: Eighteen seconds now came the director's voice again. My throat tightened.
Speaker 1: Can't escape, Landy, I shouted, you promised they wouldn't use
Speaker 1: the sandbox. He shrugged, We're live and twelve the director shouted.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm falling apart. Someone pushed me on
Speaker 1: stage and I gingerly walked into the sand pit and
Speaker 1: sat at the piano while the director made the final
Speaker 1: countdown live and five four three. Then he went silent
Speaker 1: and counted the last two seconds with just his fingers.
Speaker 1: I thought those two seconds would never end. All I
Speaker 1: heard was my heart. All I felt was that damn
Speaker 1: sand under my feet. I've always hated the beach. Have
Speaker 1: I told you that already? I fucking hated. Someone must
Speaker 1: have introduced me, because the crowd was cheering and the
Speaker 1: director was pointing at me. I started good vibrations by
Speaker 1: missing around half of the opening notes, but I quickly recovered.
Speaker 1: The fear had started to subside, and I thought I
Speaker 1: might be able to put out a performance to make
Speaker 1: Landy proud, to make myself proud. Like a dream. He
Speaker 1: was holding up his cards constantly. Good one read, another
Speaker 1: one read don't forget to look at the audience. I
Speaker 1: hated that one, but I did it anyway. He fumbled
Speaker 1: a card, and there was a second or two where
Speaker 1: he was holding up nothing. I suddenly thought, I don't
Speaker 1: need Landy in his cards. I can do this by myself.
Speaker 1: I drew in another breath and moved on to the
Speaker 1: second section of the song. Almost enjoying myself. By this point,
Speaker 1: Landy held into the card, but I didn't look at it.
Speaker 1: I scanned the audience and then went back to the piano.
Speaker 1: As I looked up, the card came into view. It
Speaker 1: was just a word, a small word, only five letters,
Speaker 1: but it filled both my eyes. It seemed to fill
Speaker 1: the entire auditorium. No, the entire world, my entire world.
Speaker 1: All I have is myself, my thoughts. I read it
Speaker 1: and heard screeching. I saw it all again. I looked
Speaker 1: down at the sandbox, and it only made it worse,
Speaker 1: bad dreaming. I was panicking, even more scared than before.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do this anymore. There were too
Speaker 1: many memories, too many bad memories. Landy still held the
Speaker 1: card up high. He moved it closer to me, motioning
Speaker 1: hard do it. He mouthed, like a god. The word
Speaker 1: on the cards simply said smile. But I couldn't. I
Speaker 1: felt like maybe I never would again. Maybe I wouldn't
Speaker 1: even want to if I could. That word, that was
Speaker 1: the thing that had ruined it all. It brought me here,
Speaker 1: It brought me Landy. It had brought me to drugs
Speaker 1: and alcohol and those never ending voices. I never wanted
Speaker 1: to see the words smile ever again. As I limped
Speaker 1: to the end of that performance, I swore to myself
Speaker 1: that I had erased that word from my life. But
Speaker 1: it's funny. Sometimes the thing that haunts you can save you.
Speaker 1: It turns out smile wasn't the end. Maybe we'll get
Speaker 1: to that soon. Los Angeles, well Inda Leadbetter is standing
Speaker 1: on the showroom floor of the Martin Cadillac dealership, gazing
Speaker 1: out to the huge floor to ceiling windows. She watches
Speaker 1: his rain drops fall onto the window. Can I I've
Speaker 1: been seeing weather this bad and forever? Her colleague gales
Speaker 1: at her, l a in the rain like this. He
Speaker 1: continues to talk, but Melinda is only half listening. She's
Speaker 1: watching a man outside and moves slowly down the street.
Speaker 1: He walks with little confidence, like he's only learned how
Speaker 1: just recently. He appears scared to take every step. And
Speaker 1: behind them are two other men, both dressed in blazers,
Speaker 1: with their sleeves pushed up to their elbows and sunglasses
Speaker 1: dangling from their breast pockets. Suddenly, all three men make
Speaker 1: a bee line for the dealership door. Melinda puts on
Speaker 1: her game face, Hello, gentlemen, she beams as they walk inside,
Speaker 1: water dripping onto the polished floor. This is the dance
Speaker 1: she's done a thousand times before, and it's a dance
Speaker 1: she's the best to have. She engages the men in
Speaker 1: some small talk about the weather and then the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles Lakers, and then she drops the line, so what
Speaker 1: can I do for you today? This is her golden line.
Speaker 1: It continues the fiction that she's not just there to
Speaker 1: sell them a car, but it also moves the conversation
Speaker 1: not to just that the sale. The man in the middle,
Speaker 1: who has said almost nothing so far, finally looks around
Speaker 1: the eye. I need a car, he says, Cadillac. He
Speaker 1: walks over to a mud brown Seville and points to it.
Speaker 1: This one, he shrugs. Melinda looks at the man properly
Speaker 1: for the first time and sees how unhappy he looks,
Speaker 1: how jaded he appears. And the other two men walk
Speaker 1: slowly around the showroom as Melinda opens the door of
Speaker 1: the Seville. Jump in and take a look before you
Speaker 1: drive off. I don't want to get rid of you
Speaker 1: that quickly, she jokes, tapping him on the shoulder. Melinda
Speaker 1: and the man slide into the car's front seats, puts
Speaker 1: his head into the headrest and closes his eyes. Comfy, right,
Speaker 1: she says, but he doesn't reply. She fills the silence
Speaker 1: with another question. You know, before we go any further,
Speaker 1: I should probably ask your name. The man's eyes are
Speaker 1: still closed. He breathes out slowly and almost painfully, says
Speaker 1: Brian Wilson. Melinda smiles and begins to ask if he
Speaker 1: wants to take it for a test drive, but she's
Speaker 1: cut off as Brian loudly slams the door and then
Speaker 1: he locks the car. There's an automatic lock feature, as
Speaker 1: you can see, she says, half joking, but entirely anxious,
Speaker 1: and she calmly moves her hand to her pocket and
Speaker 1: feels around for the bottle of mace she keeps there.
Speaker 1: She begins to ask him to unlock the car, but
Speaker 1: he turns to her with tears in his eyes. He
Speaker 1: positions the rear view mirror to look at the men
Speaker 1: with him, and those men he loses his train of thought.
Speaker 1: Melinda asks if there is friends. No, not friends, he says,
Speaker 1: co workers, bodyguards. Brian shakes his head to answer both questions. No,
Speaker 1: he replies, my captors Molinda looks around, expecting to see
Speaker 1: that she's on a hidden camera show, but the showroom
Speaker 1: is still. Then she sees one of the men in
Speaker 1: the side mirror, his eyes burning as he stares at
Speaker 1: the car. She tells Brian that she can call the
Speaker 1: police if needed, no cops he as he does. Molinda
Speaker 1: sees the two men talk to each other as they
Speaker 1: continue to look at the car. Get me out of here,
Speaker 1: Brian pleads. Melinda doesn't know why she believes Brian, but
Speaker 1: she does. The many is with give her a bad feeling,
Speaker 1: while the man sitting next to her seems nervous and vulnerable.
Speaker 1: She doesn't think. She just acts okay, Brian, She says,
Speaker 1: I want you to start the car. She looks at
Speaker 1: the floor to ceiling windows of the dealership and at
Speaker 1: the l a rain outside. Brian turns the key and
Speaker 1: the motor kicks in. She pulls the handbrake off and
Speaker 1: tells him to put it in drive, and for the
Speaker 1: first time, she hears the tension in her own voice.
Speaker 1: She glances in the side mirror and watches the two
Speaker 1: men start to walk over. She moves her hand at
Speaker 1: the back of the rear view mirror when she presses
Speaker 1: the bulky red button, and the large motorized window in
Speaker 1: front of her begins to slowly move to its left,
Speaker 1: revealing the l a downpour. She knows they have twenty
Speaker 1: three seconds before the thing is fully open. The two
Speaker 1: men begin to move more quickly, now dodging other Cadillacs
Speaker 1: as they come in their direction. As soon as I shout, now,
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to drive as fast as you can,
Speaker 1: she says to Brian, right through that open window. Brian nods.
Speaker 1: The rain sounds loud in the showroom. Now not yet,
Speaker 1: Melanda whispers. Brian stares ahead. Not yet. Her voice raises
Speaker 1: as she watches the window move achingly slow. Not yet,
Speaker 1: she shouts, this time, as Brian's hand grips the wheels
Speaker 1: so tightly as knuckles go white, and the two men
Speaker 1: are close, now so close that one of them reaches
Speaker 1: out just about touch the car. Melinda can't hold it
Speaker 1: any longer. Now, she shouts. The car screeches into life,
Speaker 1: throwing itself forward. One of Brian's captors slams his fist
Speaker 1: into the window and moving the side as the car
Speaker 1: moves forward and the other falls. He tries to grab
Speaker 1: the door handle on Brian's side. Melinda's co workers stand
Speaker 1: and watch. Brian rounds the corner and they're off out
Speaker 1: of a lot. Their celebrations are short lived. Brian Wilson
Speaker 1: screw each is the car to a halt because standing
Speaker 1: in the road in front of them as a man,
Speaker 1: a man soaked from the rain, smiling ear to ear.
Speaker 1: Do you know that guy? Only? The cries. Brian nodds
Speaker 1: his head, he looks devastated. Yeah, he says, that's Dr
Speaker 1: Eugene Landy. The man in the road moves to the car,
Speaker 1: and as he does, Melinda listens to the rain on
Speaker 1: the window. Only moments ago, and it sounded like a
Speaker 1: victory song. Now it sounds like it's just blood on
Speaker 1: the Tracks. Blood on the Tracks produced by Double Elvis
Speaker 1: in partnership with I Heart Radio. It's hosted an executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Jake Brennan, also executive produced by Brady Sadly.
Speaker 1: Zeth Lundy is lead editor and producer. This episode was
Speaker 1: written by Ben Burrow, mixing and sound designed by Colin Fleming.
Speaker 1: Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spraaker. This season
Speaker 1: features Chris Anzaloni is the voice of Brian Wilson. Sources
Speaker 1: for this episode are available at double elvis dot com
Speaker 1: on the Blood on the Tracks series page, follow double
Speaker 1: Elvis on Instagram at double Elvis and on Twitch at
Speaker 1: Graceland Talks, and you can talk to me per usual
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Twitter at disgrace Land, Pod, Rock and Roll,
Speaker 1: or dead