B005S8O7YE EBOK (32 page)

Back in L.A., school had just let out for summer in 1977. I arranged for someone to stay in the house on Appian Way, packed our belongings, and prepared to move my family to Idaho. With Charlie’s cautious consent, Levi, Molly, Sherry, Rick, and I began the thousand-mile drive to Robie Creek without Louise.

At seventeen, Louise had just finished her junior year in high school. When I told her we were going to move, she unambiguously let me know that she did not wish to relocate to “an isolated place in the middle of nowhere.” I was so set on going that I convinced myself it was okay to allow her to stay in L.A. She was determined to finish high school, she was competent and responsible, she had just been signed to a record deal with an advance, seventeen was almost eighteen, and she would be living near her father.

It was a seriously misguided decision on my part. As much as Gerry loved his children, his illness made him incapable of being a responsible parent. If anything, Louise was Gerry’s responsible parent. That she graduated from high school and made a good life for herself is a tribute to her. She never lost sight of who she was, and she persevered in the face of adversity. She turned my leaving
her to fend for herself into an opportunity to develop her own strengths. She learned how to play multiple instruments and wrote and recorded her own songs. In 1984, she moved to London and became part of the UK community of songwriters and musicians. After she returned to L.A. in 1994, she went out on tour in 1996 with Tears for Fears, playing lead and rhythm guitar and singing backup. Louise has been a productive member of the music community ever since, pausing only to have two sons and be the attentive parent to them that she would have liked her parents to be to her.

As the parent of a minor child, I could have insisted that she move with the rest of us. Or I could have given up my dream in support of her well-being, as many parents do for their children. Or I could have waited a year to move. But even if waiting had been in my nature, it wasn’t in Rick’s. Louise was already on a path to becoming the woman she wanted to be. She would have been miserable in Idaho. It’s likely that I didn’t force her to go because of my core characteristic: I just wanted everyone to be happy.

Do I regret leaving her? First, I have to reject the word “regret.” I find regret, shame, and guilt unhelpful. Instead of carrying those feelings around with me, I figure out how to apply them to my future behavior. At that point they stop being regret, shame, or guilt and become a lesson learned. I don’t feel great about my decision. But then I ask myself what I might have done differently. My dream was to leave California and live in a place very different from L.A. If I hadn’t met Rick, I would have found some other way, some other place, and, most likely, some other man.

Speaking years later about this, Louise said, “Eventually I came to understand that you found peace and sanity in Idaho. But I wouldn’t have made the choices you did. I must have had angels watching over me.”

Sherry was fifteen that June. With even less interest than Louise in a rural lifestyle, she protested loudly and frequently. Notwithstanding her piteous pleas that she didn’t want to leave her friends, I gave her no choice. She would come with me to Idaho and attend Boise High in the fall. The sole attraction for Sherry was that she loved horses and had been riding and caring for a palomino mare named Sweetheart. When I offered to trailer Sweetheart to Idaho, Sherry continued to protest, but at a lower volume.

As it turned out, there was another attraction. In California she would have had to wait until she was sixteen to get a driver’s license. In Idaho teenagers could then legally drive at fourteen. In theory fourteen was a tender age, but in practice many kids in Idaho had learned to drive tractors while sitting on the lap of a parent. It wasn’t much of a leap for them to drive cars and trucks as soon as they could see through the steering wheel. Idaho law would allow Sherry to legally drive herself to and from Boise every day. Her route would include the unpaved stretch of road along Robie Creek during a particularly icy winter. Her vehicle was a CJ5 Jeep, about the size of an army Jeep, with sturdy snow tires, four-wheel drive, and a roll bar. I was immeasurably thankful for such precautions when Sherry had several minor vehicular mishaps and suffered no injuries. Evidently she, too, had angels watching over her.

Although it was I who precipitated the move, I had my own moments of doubt. Having spent most of my life around people and buildings, the first time I went for a walk alone in the woods I felt uneasy as soon as I lost sight of people and buildings. After a couple of months of such walks I felt more comfortable among rocks and trees. I cherished walking in the rain and watching little streams merge into bigger ones. I loved the cool quiet of the glade along Ashton Creek. My new surroundings taught me to appreciate
solitude and nature. Though I continued to be surrounded by nature, solitude would become a rare commodity.

Rick had named the place “Welcome Home.” The name was prophetic. We had a profusion of visitors, virtually all friends of Rick. Soon a pattern developed. First they came to visit. Then they came to stay. Before long Welcome Home became a sort of commune, with Rick as its social center and me as its financial center. It might have been a typical seventies commune except that only one of its residents had a steady income. It was a good thing my songs were generating enough money to ensure that my family would have enough to live on if I were reasonably prudent. As long as I defined “reasonably prudent” as making more than I spent, I was meeting that definition. The definition of “my family” was another matter entirely. At Welcome Home the concept of family was elastic. Still, I was living my dream. Our garden was producing abundantly, and our little community was enjoying the fruits (and vegetables) of everyone’s labor. With Rick’s dark side seemingly left behind, I was optimistic enough to commit to a third partner. On August 24, 1977, the day Rick and I were married, I was thirty-five and Rick was thirty. Louise, in L.A., was seventeen. Sherry was fifteen, Molly five and a half, and Levi three. I didn’t know Rusty’s age, but he, too, was in attendance.

I spent many enjoyable evenings listening to music sung and played by my new friends and neighbors not just from Welcome Home but from up and down Mores Creek. From Idaho City to Boise, whatever the genre—usually country, bluegrass, folk, or pop—and whatever a person’s economic status or educational background, everyone participated, even if only by clapping along. Maybe a gal couldn’t pay her phone bill that month, or maybe a fella couldn’t afford a TV, but somehow these long-haired denizens of southern Idaho managed to come up with enough money
to buy a guitar, a banjo, a fiddle, a string bass, a tambourine, or a preowned set of drums.

Another essential item was a device for listening to music. Most often it was an eight-track, though for some it was a cassette player or a car radio. There was no question about my new friends’ priorities: music was at the top of everyone’s list. At first I was skeptical, but after I heard the enthusiasm and, in some cases, skill with which these untutored players executed complicated maneuvers on their instruments, I could see that they had their priorities in order. For most of my life my connection with music had happened in solitude. It was highly educational for me to play with and listen to this group of mostly unschooled musicians who, rather than aiming for commercial success, seemed to be playing music purely for the love of it.

As it turned out, that wasn’t exactly the case. They might not have been
aiming
for commercial success, but more than a few of my new friends harbored a fantasy of becoming the very thing that I was assiduously trying not to be—a star. This was true for no one more than Rick. The extremes of our relationship had manifested themselves the previous year in songs to which Rick had contributed, and songs I wrote on my own. My internal conflict could be heard in “To Know That I Love You,” cowritten with Rick, and “God Only Knows,” which I wrote alone. These and eight other songs became the ten tracks on
Simple Things
, my first album for Capitol Records.

Not all the songs on
Simple Things
reflected conflict. “One” was a pure expression, unfiltered through Rick, of my long-held belief that each of us has the power to change the world. I wrote “In the Name of Love” to assuage my grief and comfort others after Willa Mae passed away. And I was inspired to write “Hard Rock Café” after I drove past a bar with that name in downtown L.A. and then, on another occasion, dined in a Main Street eatery with
that name in a small Idaho town. I was not yet aware of the Hard Rock Café with 1950s décor in London that would become the flagship of a world-renowned chain of restaurants.
^*

In previous discussions with friends in coastal cities about whether anxiety or serenity inspired better art, I had always held that good art could be made just as easily from a place of contentment. However, in practice, without the tumult, stress, and competition typically found in cities I found that I had no interest in writing three-minute pop tunes. My children, my garden, and the additional horses we acquired (one being Whiskey) occupied most of my time. While I was living what I thought of as a normal life, I was neglecting my music. The impetus to write that year came mostly from Rick’s need for recognition, which he believed was imminent, and my contractual commitment to deliver another album to Capitol.

I
n January 1978 my commitment to Capitol brought my three youngest children, Rick, and me back to the house on Appian Way. The title of the album I had come to record was
Welcome Home
—an irony not lost on me as I looked out the window and watched the rain pouring down on the eucalyptus trees and ravines of the Hollywood Hills.

That January, Los Angeles was inundated with rainstorms—not just average, ordinary, run-of-the-mill precipitation, but massive, torrential, dripping, splashing, umbrella-crushing, gully-washing vertical streams of water. Cars parked below Mulholland Drive on the city side of Laurel Canyon were swept down to the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard, where their owners found them the next morning, bunched up side-to-bumper in ponds of murky water that had formed overnight at the bottom of the Canyon. It was mudslide season. Rocks and trees responded to the call of gravity and blocked streets and roads faster than CalTrans could remove them. Unaccustomed to that kind of weather, a lot of native Southern Californians called in sick rather than drive to work in a downpour. Among those who ventured out, many
plowed into each other’s cars, which forced tow-truck drivers and insurance adjusters out of the comfort of their homes. Now they, too, could plow into other people’s cars. On the other hand, not even the deluge après Louis XV could have kept transplanted New Yorkers home. Reports that the floor of Art’s Deli was under six inches of water did not deter regular customers from showing up in East Coast foul-weather gear to get a corned beef on rye with a half sour pickle and a Dr Pepper.

My emotional life matched the weather. Outwardly I did my best to function normally, but inwardly I was in turmoil. As happy as Rick had been in Idaho, for him the idea of the children and me going to L.A. without him had been unthinkable. When we arrived at the house on Appian Way it was as if he had parked his evil twin in a closet and traded places with it. His dark disposition reemerged, and once again he accompanied me everywhere, which of course included the studio. It was only during rare moments when he left the room that I experienced the enjoyment I usually felt in that setting.

One morning Rick said, “Go ahead. I’ll come later.”

I was puzzled, but I said, “Okay,” and drove to the studio. Though I was concerned about where he was and when he’d arrive, I found his absence liberating, almost exhilarating. That feeling continued uninterrupted. Rick never showed up. When I came home he offered no explanation of where he’d been, and I didn’t ask. A few days later he again told me to go on without him, but he did come to the studio a few hours later. His periodic absences continued through the rest of January. It was unnerving. I couldn’t fully relax because I never knew when he might turn up.

Nearly a week after my thirty-sixth birthday in February, Rick picked me up at the end of a session. My question “How was your day?” made him angry. I was afraid he’d lash out at me, but he didn’t. When we got home he stayed in the car and smoked a
cigarette while I made sure my kids were where they were supposed to be. They were. I kissed the children, paid the babysitter, and sent her home. Exhausted, I went to my room, took off my shoes, climbed into bed, and fell into a restless sleep.

At 2:02 a.m. I awoke and saw Rick sleeping next to me. I turned my head and registered the time on the clock. Then I turned my face up toward the ceiling and lay on my back, motionless. I knew who Rick was, but I couldn’t remember who I was. At that moment, if someone had asked me my name I would have drawn a blank. Suddenly I heard someone ask a question. It might have been I, but I hadn’t spoken. It was as if I were outside myself hearing the question being asked in my mind.

“Who am I?”

I sat up slowly, attentively, the way people do at night when they think they’ve just heard something but aren’t sure. Rick hadn’t moved. I waited, but heard nothing more. I stepped quietly down from the bed, and started to go… where? Where was I going? I couldn’t remember why I had gotten up. Suddenly my perception shifted and I was regarding myself as if through someone else’s eyes. I watched myself walk over to the window and look out. Then I saw myself turn from the window and, with a movement like that of a silk scarf slipping off a mannequin, the woman I was watching slid down and collapsed on the rug at the foot of the bed. At that moment she—I—curled into a fetal position and disappeared. I had no thoughts. I had nothing, and I was no one.

Then I heard another question in my mind as clearly as if I had spoken it aloud.