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Robin said the experience was like being on a tour with Dante, if Dante were James Brown.
I was like Beaver Cleaver in the underworld.
But Robin had never been depicted in one of these promotions, and it ate at him.
Theyre fifty feet tall and Im only five foot eight, he thought.
She seemed gaunt and worn down, and the room itself was disheveled and strewn with empty wine bottles.
As Belushi grew groggier he said hed taken some quaaludes earlier Robin realized it was time to go.
God, man, he told Valerie.
He was with this lady she was tough, scary.
His physical trainer discovered his lifeless body just after twelve noon.
He was thirty-three years old.
He said, Wow, I was with Belushi last night, and boy, Dawber recalled.
There was some girl there and John was just so stoned.
Thats what Robin told me about that, and I went, Wow.
They said, Will you tell Robin?
I said, Oh, God, Robin was with him last night.
And they said they knew.
I dont know how they knew.
He went, What?
And I said that John Belushi was found dead last night.
Robin found it incomprehensible to hear this about someone he had seen only a few hours earlier.
He went, What?
I was with him last night!
I was with him last night!
He was looking down at the ground, still processing the ultimatum that she had just given him.
In a soft, solemn voice, he answered, Thats never going to happen to me, Dawbs.
Robin later described Belushi as a powerful personality and a powerful physical being, too.
When someone like him takes the cab, it wises your ass up really quick… .
John was on the frontier; he was out there pushing it.
Youre small change, Jack.
Excerpted fromROBIN, by Dave Itzkoff.
Published by arrangement with Henry Holt and Company, May 15, 2018.
Copyright 2018 by Dave Itzkoff.
