Running With Monsters: A Memoir (11 page)

Guilt is a terrible emotion and I’d done a lot of things over the previous decade of which I was ashamed. One thing drugs and alcohol supply is a sort of emotional blankness that allows a person to do the most irresponsible, awful things and hardly give them a thought, but true forgetfulness is an impossibility. Sooner or later, a junkie has to confront himself and the things he’s done. On that flight to Oklahoma, I began to catalog all my many fuckups—the failed attempts at sobriety, ego-driven callousness to the people around me, the dope-fiend’s innate selfishness. As the miles dragged on, the weight of that list threatened to crush me. I was heartbroken over a lot of things, but one in particular haunted me above all the others.

A
s I escaped Los Angeles on my flight to Oklahoma, my mind drifted back to Orange County, California, in 1985. I stared out the window of the jet and saw scenes play out like a movie.

“Would you like another cuppa, love?” the girl said in a High Counties accent, and poured some tea from a china set before she got an answer.

I shot Anthony a look and rolled my eyes. I was drunk.

She passed a plate of cookies across to us. “Biscuits, lads?”

Anthony just smiled and took a macaroon from the plate.

His girl, the one with the posh English accent, perplexed me. Why did she insist on that voice? She was, after all, an Orange County girl. Born and raised right here in the heart of Reagan Country, she and her little group of friends liked musicians. Anthony, Kendall Jones and Norwood Fisher from Fishbone, and I liked to hang out with pretty young girls. Among this group was a vivacious charmer named Colleen. From my observation, she was the smart one of the pack. Kendall dated her friend. They were giggly girls and often acted silly in a bright and superficial manner that reflected their Orange County environment, especially when Anthony was around. These girls may have liked musicians, but they
loved
Anthony, and they acted goofy and childish whenever he was near. Colleen was different. She had a more mature sensibility. I asked her out, and we spent some time together. I didn’t see a future with her. She was healthy, happy, and wholesome. I found that type of woman boring. I wanted drama and excitement. I wanted the kind of woman who would cheat on me with my best friend, and that definitely wasn’t Colleen—but she was available, and, like most guys would have, I went for her. In my mind, it was nothing serious. Just a dalliance. I assumed that she was some college chick who had her eyes fixed on a degree. She lived in a nice house in a nice neighborhood with her nice brother. Nice, nice, nice. I slept with her a few times but started to ease myself out of this relationship that, to me, had never existed in any sort of formal state.

One night, I was with Chris Hansen at his place in Echo Park, far, far away from Orange County, fake English accents, brittle macaroons, and nice college girls. The phone screamed out a few times before Chris picked up. I didn’t like the look that crossed his face.

“It’s for you, Bob.”

“Who is it?”

“That girl, Colleen.”

“No, no, no, man. Tell her I just left or something.”

“Dude. She knows you’re here.”

He held out the receiver to me like it was a pistol and I needed to do the honorable thing. If he had been a better host, he also would have offered me a blindfold and a last cigarette. I took the receiver from Chris and tentatively said, “Hi, Colleen.”

Her voice was calm, like always. “I’m pregnant, Bob. It’s your baby.”

I was drunk. “Well, what do you expect me to do about it?” A real asshole move, but I was scared. Panicked.

I could hear her start to cry. I hung up the phone. I poured another drink. “I’m going to be a father,” I told Chris. As those words sank into my addled brain, I thought that none of this would be too bad. Colleen would have the baby and I’d be a rock star. And I wouldn’t have a thing to do with raising a child. Everything would be cool once Colleen got used to the idea.

Her dad had other ideas. While I had convinced myself that Colleen was a college student who lived with her brother and I had constructed this whole backstory about her that I never bothered to verify because I thought I knew it all, that wasn’t the case. Not at all.

She was sixteen and a junior in high school.

That house she shared with her brother? It was their parents’ place, and Mom and Dad had been on vacation when I visited. I probably should have recognized that two kids wouldn’t—couldn’t—live in a house like that. And there’s no way two kids would have had that kind of taste in furnishings. I had lied to myself because that’s what addicts and drunks do. It was a pattern that I tended to repeat.

Just a few months before the Viper Room tragedy I had been on tour and did a series of dates in Europe. They were club shows, and there was no pressure. The band played tight and I loved the good reviews we got from the music press. I sat on the train between France and Belgium with the black briefcase that held my money, passport, and drugs and caught the eye of a beautiful, young European girl. “Hi, I’m Bob,” I said.

“Françoise,” she answered back. We made small talk as the train rattled its way to Antwerp.

“You’ve never been to Antwerp?” she asked, incredulous.

“No, never.”

“You must allow me to give you a tour or the city,” she said. “It’s so beautiful and has much history.”

We crossed the flat expanse of the lowlands and pulled into the city and said our good-byes. I promised to call her and then made my way to the hall, where we did our sound check and, later, the show. She was backstage.

“Allo, Bob,” she said in her accented English. “Shall we go for a walk?”

I went into the bathroom and did a dose of heroin. I met her outside. We walked and talked almost all night, with frequent pub stops for me. She was a fascinating girl and knew everything about her city. She guided me through cobblestone lanes and wide avenues. We watched the city lights waver in the reflection of the Scheldt River. At a statue in front of the ornate city hall, she told me the story of Antigoon and Brabo, the two characters depicted in the sculpture.

“Antigoon, Bob, was a giant. A terrible giant. And he demanded payment from those who wished to cross the river. Those who could not pay would lose their right hand to Antigoon. Until one day, a hero, Brabo, challenged the giant and killed him. And then he cut off Antigoon’s right hand and tossed it as far as he could into the river. Look.” She pointed at the statue and there, one in victory and the other in death, both characters were frozen at the dramatic end of her tale. I stumbled a little. “You have maybe had too much to drink, yes? Walk me home and you can stay with me.”

This wasn’t about sleeping with her, even though she was certainly beautiful. I walked along with her to a quaint street in the heart of the city’s diamond district. She led me up the stairs of a beautiful three-story house. I collapsed on the bed, where I dreamed about this flat, lowland country and the tales she had told me weaved in and out of the images. “Bob? Bob?” I heard someone call my name. It took me a moment to realize that I wasn’t in a hotel or back in Los Angeles. Françoise scurried around the room as she got dressed. From the light that filtered in through the brocade curtain, I could tell it was early morning. My head hurt and there was the unpleasant taste of last night’s booze and cigarettes in my mouth. I groaned and rolled back over and hoped to reenter the dream state. Françoise disapproved of that plan. She shook me. “Bob! You must get up! You cannot stay here! You have to take me to school.”

“School?” That jolted me. And as I sat up and fought the rush of nausea that came with the effort, I had a bigger shock. It was hard not to notice that Françoise, this worldly young woman who had given me such an in-depth tour of her city a few hours earlier, was now dressed in a plaid schoolgirl uniform. “What kind of school do you go to?” I asked while the voice in my head screamed,
Please say
college
. Please say
college
!

“Why, I go to the finishing school, silly.”

What the fuck is a finishing school?
I wondered. I said, “Well, where I come from, we have school that goes from kindergarten through the twelfth grade. Where does finishing school fall in that range?”

She bit her lower lip and did some mental calculations. Then her face brightened. “Ah,
oui
! I would be in your American eleventh grade!”

This was bad. I had fallen for this girl and here I was a thirty-one-year-old man, alone, in a bedroom with a teenage girl. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I asked her, “So, how old are you?”

“I’m sixteen.”

Not good. Not good at all. My initial guess that Françoise lived in this fancy, three-story home with a couple of girlfriends was seriously off base, and, looking at it now, maybe it was just something I told myself to make the situation seem right. “Whose house is this?” I asked.

“It is my father’s house. He’s out of town selling diamonds. Get dressed. You have to walk me to school.” I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and fumbled with my pants and shirt and pulled on my boots. “Come on, Bob, I’ll be late.” I stood up and swayed and walked with her down the stairs to the street. As we walked toward her school, we passed the scores of well-dressed Sinjorens—Françoise had taught me that’s what the people of Antwerp called themselves—on their way to work or breakfast and silently cursed that I was up at this hour. I had to break it to her. “Look, Françoise, you’re a nice girl and everything, but I’m a grown man. This could be really bad for me.”

We hauled up next to her school, where dozens of young girls giggled and chatted about young-girl things. I felt a little sick. “Don’t worry, Bob. I’ll be seventeen in a few weeks. Then I will be … a grown woman.”

“Well, that’s good to know. I have to be going now.”

“Good-bye, Bob.” She scribbled something on a piece of paper, shoved it into my hand, and gave me a quick kiss. “Call me,” she said, and skipped off past the iron gates that marked the perimeter of this school. I shoved the paper into my coat pocket and walked back to the train station. “This is bad. This is so bad,” I muttered to myself, but I knew how it would play out. I had fallen for her.

We continued with the tour and I called her every chance I could. I fucked up everybody’s schedule by disappearing to Antwerp whenever I could. The great thing about Europe is that it’s small. Nothing is ever too far away. The tour was set to go through Amsterdam, and Françoise wanted in on the deal. “I want to come with you, Bob. Please, take me along.” How could I say no? Besides, she was, as they’d say back home, “legal” now.

She came with a girlfriend and they got set up in the hotel. By this time, I didn’t hide anything from her and she saw me using heroin. “What is that, Bob?”

“Heroin.”

“I want to try it.”

“No. Are you crazy?”

“Bob, I want to know what you know. Feel what you feel. I am your girlfriend.”

“No.”

“You are so mean sometimes.” She pouted and crossed her arms. “A good boyfriend would not act like this.”

I had some East Asian heroin and I parceled out a little mound on a glass-topped table. I eyeballed it and tried to gauge the right amount of the dull white powder that would give her a taste but not be too heavy or dangerous. I crushed it with the lid of a Zippo lighter and then chopped it with the edge of a credit card and drew out a thin line. I figured this would be just the right amount for her, but drugs are not always an exact science. I blew it badly. I handed her a rolled-up bill that looked like it came from a Monopoly game and watched as she dipped her head to the table and sniffed it up with a quick, hard snort. She sat up straight with a triumphant smile on her face and looked at me. I returned her gaze and was horrified as I watched her serenity turn to panic just before her lids fluttered and eyes rolled back. She went down. I’d misjudged badly. Overdose.

I dragged her limp form into the bathroom and put her under a cold shower. There was a wall-mounted phone in there and I dialed 911. I didn’t learn until later that, in Europe, the emergency code is 112. I was not equipped to deal with this situation and Françoise needed help. I called the front desk. “I have a medical emergency! Send help!”

“Yes, do not worry, sir,” came the disembodied response from the other end of the line.

I felt for a pulse on Françoise’s neck and found it. It was faint, but her heart still pumped. I kept the cold water from the shower on and made sure it ran over her unconscious frame. It seemed like hours, but within minutes there was powerful knock at the door. I let in the Dutch emergency crew.

“She’s in the shower,” I said.

They went in and got to work. It was obvious that they had done this before. I freaked out. Here I was in a foreign country, with a young girl who had overdosed on the drugs I had supplied. There was no way, I thought, that this scene would end well. But I was wrong. Just like I didn’t know the emergency phone number in Europe, I also didn’t know that, at least in Amsterdam, once the paramedics resuscitate those unfortunate enough to suffer an overdose, they pack up their equipment and leave. No police, no doctors, no hospitals. It’s just “Good luck, kiddo. We’ve got to go.” And, like them, I had to go too. Sound check, show, next town. I parted company with Françoise, but I didn’t forget her. The tour became increasingly fucked up as I did everything I could to get back to Antwerp whenever the opportunity arose.

It’s how I found myself back, unannounced, on her doorstep one night. I rang the bell. No answer. I knocked. No answer. I looked up and saw no lights. It was early evening, so I planned to wait. I had to see her. I went to wait in the pub across the street and started to drink. We had just played the big Pinkpop Festival in Landgraaf, the Netherlands, on a bill with Living Colour, Lenny Kravitz, Rage Against the Machine, and the Black Crowes in front of more than sixty thousand people. I made a spectacle of myself at that show. I felt hopeless about the way things were. My plan was to kill myself onstage and become a famous rock-and-roll suicide. In front of all those people, I’d climb to the top of one of the rigging scaffolds and take a swan dive. But when I got up there and looked down, I chickened out.
Fuck, that’s a long drop,
I thought. I came back down as the band played and then went through my usual front-man histrionics once I got back onstage. I finished up the show by cursing Jesus. It felt right because the festival was held on Pentecost weekend. The crowd loved it. Our show was written about extensively in the European press. I was a celebrity and everyone in that bar wanted to buy a drink for the crazy, tortured artist. I accepted their kindness, but I didn’t really feel like talking to any of them. I kept walking outside to see if Françoise had come home. She hadn’t.