"Shady Bizzness: " Life as Eminem's Bodyguard in an Industry of Paper Gangsters" (14 page)

A few days passed, and thank God we were on our way out of
Germany into the UK to do some shows. The shows went well. Nothing
spectacular happened except that on the 9th, Slim had a gold party
for the UK sales. I got a chance to take some pictures of him with a
couple of the Spice Girls. I now understand why they call that girl Scary
Spice. Her acne was so fucking bad, it looked like someone was playing
connect-the-dots on her face, plus she had a real shitty attitude. She
was not nice at all. Regardless, the gold party went well, and we were
all supposed to be presented plaques for the success of the Slim Shady
Tour, but unfortunately the person who was responsible for the plaques
lost all of them—how I do not know. On November 10th, we had made
it to Glasgow, Scotland. That place was pretty cool. Slim slept in there,
so I had a chance to go out and do some shopping for my family, as well
as do some sightseeing. I bought my wife a real nice crystal glass slipper
for the curio cabinet. For me, that was a symbol that I would do anything
for her, because when I was in Europe I realized that I needed to grow
and to reinvent myself. I had been fasting for the past six days because I
knew we were going to Amsterdam and that was the place where I made
a mistake on the last tour, drinking the mushroom tea, eating the hash
brownies—I was totally out of character. I was trying to blend in and have
some fun during my downtime, but all I did was demonstrate stupidity
to the highest level.

This time, I was going to be prepared because Amsterdam was no
joke. It is a place where you can basically do whatever you want to do. If
you want to smoke weed, then you can smoke weed; if you want to piss
outside, they have these little holes where you can piss outside; if you
want to go get a prostitute, they have an area where you can do that, and
the prostitutes are actually pretty nice looking. For me, being married and
everything, I was fasting to cleanse my soul and strengthen my discipline.
I mean, you see a lot of guys doing their thing over there, but for me that
would get to my conscience. I was preparing myself to go home because
the end of the tour was approaching, as well, and a lot of us were tired at
this point. Glasgow was going to be Nicole’s last spot. Slim was going to
be doing a lot of photo shoots for his album there, and he wasn’t going
to have much time for her so he went ahead and sent her back. One
thing we found out about the women in Scotland was that they don’t
drink beer, they drink bourbon, scotch—hard liquor—and they drink it
straight. And they can out drink any man in the US!

We were off on the 11th to Amsterdam, and I was taking some time
out to do some reflection and preparing myself to go home on the 13th.
I was also preparing myself for my resignation as Slim’s bodyguard. I felt
as though I had seen enough; I mean, what else could there be? I felt
like, from my experiences and from my reading, especially my reading of
the Bible, that I had seen everything that I needed to see. I had been all
around the world damn near twice, and I felt like I had gathered all the
necessary resources for me to get my own label together and get my own
group, the Wadsquad, off the ground. By this time, Slim and Paul had
made it clear that they weren’t going to be increasing my pay. I weighed
this all against the fact that I was missing the constant growth of my baby
boy. My eldest son was getting smarter and smarter.The responsibility on
my wife’s shoulders was getting to be overwhelming. This had to come
to an end.

The idea came to me at this time to write this book. I still had my job
with General Motors to go back to.The primary reason for my fasting was
so that the Lord would give me clarity about my decisions. All I wanted
was a clean break from Slim and Paul. I wasn’t going to do anything to
jeopardize my pay, I was going to work as they needed me to until the
tour ended in December and just resign in January. I felt as though I
could gain no more. I took this whole experience working with him as
an internship, a lesson that brought me even closer to God. I learned to
lean on the Lord more than to depend on man. Depending on Paul and
Slim was a letdown every time.They were extremely undependable.They
had no idea that a man’s word is his bond. They were so quick to make
a promise and then renege. I was raised that your word is your bond—it
is all you have, and without that, you have nothing. Plus, I knew that I
was worth more than what they were paying. I was worth more than they
thought I was.

This period made me look back over history at slavery and servitude.
I knew I was no servant, but I was definitely making slave wages. I never
wanted to bring up racial issues, but I have to say that Slim and Paul were
very smooth in masquerading their attitudes toward the blacks in the
Shady camp. The way they showed their racial attitudes was in the way
they paid people. How are you going to pay a sound man $1, 500 for two
and a half hours of work, five days a week, but yet you pay the security
guy who works 24-7—meaning if you go to the bathroom or want to go
see a girl in the middle of the night he has to be there—only $1, 200 a
week?? I was on call twenty-four hours, and my workdays consisted of
seventeen hours. I got a minimal amount of sleep. At that point, I realized
that I couldn’t be their house nigger any longer; I couldn’t be their token
anymore—it wasn’t going to happen. I got everything together as far as
my music, my resources, and my connections.

I had met a lot of important people during this tour. When Slim
would do his interviews, my job was to coordinate who would see him
next, and I would slide these people my business card. I would politic
with them briefly, exchange information, and stay in touch with them
when I got home. I realized, through reading my Bible and being away
from home, that I belonged back at home raising my own family and
not away raising this man while he was raising hell. It took that trip to
Europe, which I didn’t want to go on, to realize this. When you are that
far away from your family on the other side of the world, it doesn’t matter
how much money you are making. I realized the truth in the adage that
money cannot buy happiness. Slim is a prime example of this because
the man has a lot of money, but he is miserable—the man is miserable!
His wife doesn’t make him happy; the music doesn’t make him happy;
only his daughter makes him happy. He hates to be alone, and he can’t
sleep alone without taking something like a Vicodin to help him sleep.
He is not happy. He chases his breakfast of cheese eggs with Ecstasy. He
would take one half, then the other half a couple of hours later. It was
routine, and I got tired of that.

What was the point of me watching this man destroy his life? If I
have to sit back and watch some man destroy himself, at least let me get
paid right for it. At least let me get paid right if I have to watch this man
throw his life down the tubes. He and I had a conversation once where he
told me that he felt like he didn’t need the drugs to do a show anymore,
whereas once upon a time he felt dependent on them. I told him to stop,
but apparently he didn’t have the discipline necessary to do so at that
time. He asked me how I remained so disciplined all the time, and I told
him it was God. I can recall the one time I saw him read a Bible, and that
was because I presented it to him.That was after a big blowout argument
he had with Kim on the phone toward the end of the tour, at a point after
he sent Nicole home. He wanted to fly Kim out for the rest of the tour,
as he was feeling guilty about flying the other two girls out. He had the
feeling that Kim was cheating on him because he had set her up in an
apartment, and she was never there, no matter what time he called. So,
all of a sudden he wanted to play the family man. I can’t blame him for
that either, nor do I blame him for any of the things he did on the road
because I am sure Kim was doing her share of dirt, as well.

I can remember one day Slim and Kim got into a big argument, and
I had never seen him so upset. He was red and teary eyed but he didn’t
cry. He was frustrated. On the day when he advised Nicole she would be
going home, it was no big deal to her because she always had nice things,
and she always traveled, so she was cool with it. However, Slim was in this
lounge looking absolutely miserable. He looked devastated that he had
all this money but was still miserable because of the way he was brought
up. He’s not a cultured man. A lot of times I tried to cultivate and support
him, even when I knew he was wrong, because I felt like anybody could
be changed at any given moment to do better. I was his biggest supporter.
I’m not one to judge. So what I did at that moment was the only thing
I could do. I gave him my Bible and told him to read Psalm 121. I said,
“Slim, meet God; God, meet Slim. You should read this every day, man.
I’m not trying to force religion on you, but this is how I make it through
all this nonsense in the world and in this industry. ” I always told Slim
not to let this industry pull him away from his family, where his family
was second. I had started to follow my own advice because I saw how
the game had taken me away and changed me. Luckily, I was able to get
back to work and myself as a better, new and improved Byron Williams;
a better, new and improved husband; a better, new and improved father;
a better, new and improved businessman. I had gained so much on this
tour but at the same time lost so much in the making. I gave Slim that
Bible, and he read it, and he came out and said, “Thanks, Naz, ” and
hugged me. I felt good knowing that I had done something positive for
this man and, for that moment, changed him in some way. I knew it was
going to take more than one time, but I felt good presenting him that
material to read at that time, and that is the way I tried to support him
from time to time.

The one thing I didn’t have to worry about was making the same
mistake twice. This go-round to Amsterdam was pretty mild. I am glad I
did what I did the last time I was there, though, to get it out of my system,
but what’s done is done. Well, everyone was feeling sick again, and we
were also tired and recuperating from the little tour bus and happy to be
going home soon. The tour was scheduled to end on the 17th, and Slim
was ready to go home and deal with his family problems, and everyone
was ready to go home. The tour was short in actual time, but a lot of
long events happened. The show was real hype that night. From what I
understand, the Amsterdam crowd doesn’t get hype for a lot of people
because they are all too high to do so, but they got up for Slim. It was
probably one of the most hype shows given there. Proof basically took
the show because he jumped up from the stage to the balcony. I don’t
know how he did it. He was sliding down poles and everything. The only
incident we had was when this guy was trying to grab Slim’s leg and pull
him off the stage, but I snatched the guy out of the crowd and threw him
down some stairs backstage. MTV had it all on tape. We were supposed
to leave the day after the show, but everything was thrown off schedule
because instead we flew to the MTV Music Awards. That went smoothly,
and we decided to end the tour early on the 14th and lie to the people,
telling them that Slim took ill and was unable to finish the tour.

The rest of the tour was scheduled to take place in Germany, and
none of us were looking forward to going back to Germany. Germany had
some good people there, but it was overall a depressing place. So we were
in Amsterdam to do the photo shoot, and Slim decided that he didn’t
want to do it, just like in New York. A $10, 000 photo shoot, and we’re
going through this again. Mark was trying to get Slim up, and Slim didn’t
want to get out of bed. Mark called Paul, who was not in any big rush to
come out of his room to help get Slim out of bed. So, Mark asked me to
see if I could talk to Slim to get him out of bed. I was like, “Man, why do
y’all always come to me? This is not what I get paid to do. ” It seemed like
I was the only one who could get through to him. I went into Slim’s room
about a half hour after Mark left and said, “All right, Slim, we got to go do
this photo shoot. ” I turned on the shower, opened the curtains, and put
the “Chronic 2001” tape in the box. I said, “C’mon man, tomorrow we get
to go home and see our ladies and our children, and you know Hailey’s
going to be so happy to see you. C’mon, and let’s get this day started. ”

It was 2:00 p. m. already, and we were supposed to do the shoot
earlier that morning, but he wasn’t going to do it at all. I told him, “If
you don’t do it now, they’re just going to make you come back and do
it on your off time, which costs more money. And if you want to quit
your job, that’s cool—you can always go back and work at Gilbert’s. ”
Finally, he got up and got into the shower, and I walked out. I guess the
mention of Gilbert’s hit a sore spot. Gilbert’s is where he used to wash
dishes before he got his deal, but they fired him a few years back on
Christmas. The mention of that place always worked on Slim. Anyway,
Amsterdam was full of a lot of important record executives, who were
Paul’s buddies. Paul’s friends were cool—they acted nothing like Paul.
Paul was an asshole. Anyway, there was Shecky Green, the president of
Game Records; Stretch Armstrong from Hot 97; Reef, one of the top
producers—all of the bigwigs were there, and we didn’t know why, but
we knew it was something important. Anytime you see those guys, it’s
definitely about business. There’s some money involved in the music
industry. Me and Proof kicked it around to see if we could find out what
they were doing there, but they kept it on the down low. They could have
been just vacationing or something, because they definitely had money
like that to kick it. Regardless, Amsterdam went smoothly, Slim did his
photo shoot, and the next day we were supposed to go home.