It's So Easy: And Other Lies (42 page)

After Mom’s death, Uncle John became the patriarch of the McKagan clan in addition to his own side of the family; his sons and daughters and grandchildren shared him with us. He helped me focus on the goal I had set for myself most recently—getting an education. The undergraduate admissions guidelines at Seattle University included categories for transfer students, international students, and “other students.” That was me. Or so I thought. As it turned out, even the “other” category didn’t have a slot where I would fit—it was for kids who had been homeschooled or had previously been booted from Seattle U, or adults who already had a BA and were seeking additional enrichment without working toward a degree.

Finally I talked to a staffer at the admissions office and was told I could apply. He instructed me to write an “admissions essay.” Admissions essay? What about my perfect GPA? I thought the doors would open instantly for me, a hero returning from the battlefields of life, scarred but alive. No. None of that. It instantly became clear that the school saw my junior college “achievements” as just sort of cute. And all I had to show from high school was a GED. You can’t get into Seattle U with a GED. Reality was setting in.

I hadn’t written an essay since I was in junior high, twenty years before. Thank God for Dave Dederer. I’d been friends with Dave since the last time I’d written an essay. By the mid-1990s, he was best known as the guitar player in Presidents of the United States of America, who had huge hits with “Lump” and “Peaches.” But I also knew him to be a well-educated man: he had majored in English at Brown—an Ivy League college—and had worked as an English teacher before his music career took off. He and I had a little side band, an acoustic duo called the Gentlemen, and we had been playing tiny gigs around Seattle ever since Susan, Grace, and I had started coming back regularly the year before.

“I don’t remember how to write an essay,” I told Dave.

Dave showed up at my house with a gift that I use to this day: Strunk and White’s
Elements of Style.
It became my go-to book on the ins and outs of the English language, and in its pages were the blueprints for the structure of an essay.

Next I asked Dave the obvious question.

“What do they want me to tell them? Do I just pick a random topic and write an essay on it?”

“No, Duff, tell them
your
story,” said Dave. “Tell them everything. Tell them about growing up in Seattle and playing in punk-rock bands and moving to L.A. Tell them you were in Guns N’ Roses, tell them you were a drunk, tell them you did cocaine and a lot of it. Tell them about your success, about getting strung out, and about your fall. Tell them about your redemption and getting sober and your martial arts and mountain biking. Tell them about Susan and your new baby. Let them know you are of the here and now and exactly how you got here.”

Whoa.
I was skeptical.

But the admissions office liked the story. They invited me in for an interview.

“The next thing to address,” the admissions adviser said, “is your academic record. All we have to go on are a few classes at a community college in California. I’m sure you can understand how difficult it is for us to assess that. You don’t have any track record whatsoever in math, for instance.”

Shit. The essay was all well and good, but it was merely a starting point for a rigorous university like this.

“Here’s what we propose,” he continued. “See if you can gain admittance to Seattle Central Community College. If you can, here’s a list of classes we’d like you to take. Get all A’s and come back to us and we’ll consider your application at that time.”

The course list was like nothing I had ever done—college-level math, history of western civilization, a survey of English literature. But a challenge had been issued and I was at the exact point in my life to face it. I was fueled for this. With Susan and Dave and Sensei Benny and my uncle John firmly planted in my corner, I could rise to this occasion.

This time I took my GED and commendation from the governor with me when I went to the community college—I got into Seattle Central right away. Then I had to take placement tests. I scored low in math. I just couldn’t remember anything. The classes themselves interested me—even the math, in part because it was such a challenge.

At the end of the fall semester, I returned to Seattle U with my community college transcript in hand. I had straight A’s—Mom would have been proud, and I wished I could have shown her the transcript before I took it to the admissions office.

“That’s great,” I was told at Seattle University. “Now we want you to take this list of classes and get all A’s.”

Come on!

I ended up spending an entire academic year at community college. Throughout that year, there were indicators that let me know my mom was still around. One time, two-and-a-half-year-old Grace turned to look at me and Susan and we both froze—we were looking at mom’s crinkled-up seventy-six-year-old face, just looking at us and smiling. It stayed there for a few seconds. I guess such a strong connection based on love and all-encompassing trust doesn’t disappear overnight.

Early the next summer, in 2000, after submitting another slate of A’s from Central, I received a letter from Seattle University.

Dear Mr. McKagan,

Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected for admission to the class of 2004 at Albers School of Business and Economics.

That same summer, on July 14, 2000, Susan gave birth to our second daughter, Mae. She was a big, round Buddha baby, but Susan’s labor was much shorter and easier than it had been with Grace. And for her part, Grace took an instant liking to Mae and doted on her little sister.

For a middle name, we gave her Marie, after my mom.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

When my first semester of classes at Seattle University kicked off in the fall of 2000, I quickly realized the year at community college hadn’t helped me much as far as studying was concerned. The classroom situation was different, too. At Seattle U, the students knew they were there for the next four years. This was it. They weren’t just trying things out; they would be there, seeing one another, every day, for years. I had the same basic plan in mind, but I went home to a family every night and was closer in age to the professors than to my fellow undergrads.

Still, the kids were pretty respectful—they could see I was serious about it. They could see I wanted to learn. Early on, a few classmates brought in their copies of
Appetite
for me to sign, but that stopped as soon as they saw I really was just another student—one taking notes so voluminous they could fill a dumpster. I was up on campus all the time and got to know some of the kids in my classes. They were so smart. About half were from elite schools in and around Seattle, and the rest were academic studs from farther afield, including a good number of international students. It seemed everyone had taken AP classes or college-level courses while still in high school.

Learning to study was the key. At first, I probably spent eight hours studying what these whiz kids could cover in an hour. After a while I began to be able to filter better—I wasn’t trying to skate by, I just got better at picking out the important stuff. Susan and Dave Dederer taught me how to write, editing me—“hey, what about moving this part up to here?”—and fine-tuning my use of hyphens, semicolons, and other grammatical minutiae. Of course, by then I was reading a ton, too, so writing was somewhat intuitive once I got rolling.

Now that Susan and I had kids and lived in Seattle, she pushed me to start calling my dad. Susan had a good relationship with both of her parents even though they, too, were divorced. With children of my own to think of, I couldn’t afford the luxury of being a pissed-off son anymore. Relationships changed; earlier history was less relevant now. My dad’s shortcomings in my early years didn’t matter to Grace and Mae, and wouldn’t affect them. I could see the value—even the importance—of his presence in my girls’ lives.

The other thing I did was add running to my routine. There were plenty of dojos in Seattle that I could use—because of Benny’s reputation, the doors were always open—but I had never found one to replace the House of Champions. Instead, I continued what Benny had taught me on my own. But I still wanted—no, needed—more pain, another challenge. So I joined a regular old gym in a tall building downtown and found myself running not on its treadmills but on the building’s staircases. Then I decided to sign up for a marathon. I ran my first one the next year in three hours and forty-five minutes.

At the beginning of 2001, a letter from Seattle U arrived at the house. I opened it.

Dear Michael:

Congratulations on your outstanding academic achievement during the preceding quarter. Your grade point average of 4.0 should be a source of satisfaction and pride for you. It is evidence of your ability to focus your intellect and energy effectively to achieve academic excellence. It is also evidence of your continuing intellectual development. Your name is included on the President’s List, a recognition for which only those who have completed twelve or more credits at Seattle University and who have earned a term grade point average of 3.90 or above qualify …

I had made the President’s List! I went out and had the commendation framed and hung it proudly on the wall of our kitchen.

Near the end of that spring semester, Chloe, who had been slowing down for a few years, suddenly took a turn for the worse. I had to lift her from her latest guard post—by Mae’s crib—and take her to the vet to see what was wrong. Chloe had developed liver cancer, it turned out, and the vet would have to operate.

That summer I devoted my attention to nursing Chloe, finally paying her back for all her love—especially for the time she’d stood by me as I’d been alone and recovering from my own organ failure. But several months after her surgery, she still hadn’t rebounded. The old girl tried to hang in there for me despite the steady worsening of her pain. Finally I had to put Chloe down.

I took her to the vet on a Monday morning in the fall of 2001. It was one of the worst days of my life.

“I’ll be okay,” I told her as I gently petted her. “You don’t have to worry about any of us now.”

I miss her.

PART SEVEN

FALL TO PIECES

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE