by Bob Forrest
River and John stumbled in. There was a crowd coming in and out. River’s brother Joaquin—who went by the name Leaf back then—and his sister Rain were both there. They seemed like kids. Joaquin was nineteen, not even old enough to drink, and his sister was twenty-one. Somebody broke out the coke and passed it around. River was obviously wasted and was as unsteady as a boxer who had taken one too many head shots during a fifteen-round bout. His complete lack of motor skills made me suspect he was drunk. Heroin will make users lean when they stand still, but you almost never see them stumble and fall. Coke fiends may have hands that tremble, but the kind of stuporous shuffle River had made me think he was drunk. Sloppy drunk. He wobbled whenever he was on his feet. Frusciante was completely out of his mind. I had seen him like this before, and even though he was a friend, when he was in that kind of state, he could be very unpleasant. It was as if he didn’t operate in this dimension at that point. I sat at the desk and wondered if maybe we all shouldn’t go into the secret “party” room that Johnny and Sal had built when the club was under construction.
John and River stood up, unsteady, and went out to watch P do their set. I went out with them. They sat on the stage near the front door and watched from there. I hung back and enjoyed the show. They were always a fun band to watch, and tonight, they played well. It was great fun until I felt a hand tap my shoulder and turned to see River. He was a whiter shade of pale. “Bob, I don’t feel so good. I think I’m OD’ing.”
“What? Are you sure?” That’s something no one had ever said to me. Usually you just OD and that’s it. “River, you can’t just come up to me and say you’re OD’ing.” He stood there and rocked tentatively off the balls of his feet in a vain attempt to counter gravity. This club was no place for him at the moment.
“C’mon, man. Let’s get you home, then,” I said, and tried to guide him toward the door.
“I don’t know, Bob. I think I’m all right now.” Color returned to his face.
I tried to reassure him. “I don’t think it’s an OD. You can stand and you can talk.” He nodded and turned. I still have guilt that I dismissed his worries so casually.
I watched him zigzag back to the stage, where Frusciante still sat. I was dumbstruck. What the fuck just happened? I thought. It was a horrible moment. What was I supposed to do? From where I was, I could see him, so I kept an eye on him for any signs of imminent collapse, but he seemed okay. I wasn’t a stranger to overdoses. It was something that happened given the dope-fiend lifestyle. A few weeks earlier, at my place, one of the bodyguards for Ministry’s Al Jourgensen had collapsed after a night of heavy partying. I called 911 and an ambulance took him to the hospital. Later, after he had been revived and a Filipino orderly wheeled him through the emergency room lobby, where a few of us had waited for him, he said from his wheelchair, “If you guys stole my dope, I’m gonna kill you—and I’m looking at you, Bob Forrest.” He knew me too well.
Not long after I spoke to River, there was a sudden commotion in the club. Someone was shouting to call an ambulance. A current of panic shot through the Viper Room. I could feel it. There was a jam-up at the door, so I pushed my way through to the sidewalk. Samantha Mathis, River’s actress girlfriend, was screaming. River was seizing on the sidewalk. Flea was on the ground next to him and tried to do what he could to help. When I saw the scene, I stopped in my tracks. “What the fuck is going on?” I thought. It was only about thirty minutes after River had played onstage. Now here he was crumpled on the sidewalk. He was alive, because his arms and legs shook like he was having an epileptic fit. An ambulance wailed to a stop and the EMTs bundled him onto a gurney and quickly got him inside. Flea jumped in and rode with him to the nearby Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, not too far west in the Fairfax District.
I didn’t know the full extent of River’s condition, but I knew that whichever way things went, it would be trouble. And it would be the kind of trouble that made front-page news in a celebrity-obsessed town like Los Angeles. I could picture one of the tabloid TV shows like A Current Affair blasting out a teaser: “River Phoenix overdoses at Johnny Depp’s Viper Room.… Is Young Hollywood out of control?” This would be bad, it would be terrible, and we were all right in the middle of it. It never even crossed my mind that he could die. My emotions were tangled by all this. I felt awful that River had collapsed. I may have been a junkie, but I was human, and I had empathy and concern for my friend. But I was also fearful that the rest of us could be hauled in for questioning.
It took a while for everyone to get it together, and we each handled it differently. Al Jourgensen and his girlfriend Sean Yseult, the bass player for White Zombie and the daughter of an Ernest Hemingway scholar, went back to their hotel room and laid low. Gibby and I decided to go to Cedars and check on River’s condition. It was three o’clock on Halloween morning. Hospitals are spooky places to begin with, but the day and the stillness of the hour only compounded the unease. We parked the car close to the entrance so we could make a quick escape if one was needed, and we walked into the sickly, greenish light of the ER. The admitting nurse must have guessed by our clothes and hair that we were somehow connected to River because she asked, “Are you family or friends?”
I said, “Of River’s? We’re family.”
She looked stern and solemn and waved us past. I saw Samantha standing alone. She was crying. I knew just by looking at her that River was dead.
I went numb. It was so unbelievable. Gibby and I were in shock. River partied, for sure, but nothing at the level of the rest of us. How could he be dead? I wondered. I wanted to give my condolences to Samantha but realized there was nothing Gibby and I could do here. Our presence might only make things worse. To her we probably represented evil. The press didn’t know yet that one of Hollywood’s most promising young actors had just overdosed on drugs and died. Gibby and I went back to the car and sat there for a while as we tried to wrap our minds around the situation. The reality of this tragedy hit me like a sudden punch to the gut and I sobbed, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
“This is going to be bad, man,” Gibby said.
“What do we do?”
“Where’s Frusciante?!?” we both asked.
It hit us like a bomb that John might be running loose. He was the weak link of our group. He was likely to say anything to anyone, even reporters—“We all love drugs! They’re great!” Gibby and I found a pay phone—those were still easy to locate in ’93—and called Depp.
“Have you seen John?” I asked.
“He’s at home. How’s your friend?” he said. Johnny didn’t know it was River who had been taken away in the ambulance.
“Dude, River’s dead!” I told him. There was a long silence, followed by a quiet “Oh, my God …” And then the phone went dead.
Well, it was a bit of a relief to know John was back at his house, but of all us, he was the one who could do some real damage. He was the kind of person who would argue—and be serious—that heroin was good for you … with a cop. There was no telling what he could say or do. Gibby and I realized just how vulnerable we were. We went back to my apartment and talked all night. The conversation went something like this: “Holy fuck!” We suspected the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department couldn’t wait to start arresting musicians and actors in connection with River’s death.
As a jaundiced dawn started to break, Gibby wearily said, “I’m going back home to Texas. I’m booking a flight.” He picked up the phone, made a couple calls, and was gone.
Al Jourgensen was on tour and had to leave anyway, and I found out he and his girlfriend had bolted too. I was on my own. By midmorning, the paranoia of sitting alone in my place had started to wear on me, so I went to the Viper Room. It was madness. There was media everywhere. Cameras, reporters, support teams. River’s fans had set up makeshift memorials. Red roses, white lilies, and multihued candles colored the dirty sidewalk where not many hours before River had collapsed. I stifled another sob. I loved River, and now he was gone a
nd there wasn’t anything I could do.
Junkie self-preservation kicked in. I walked on and found a phone. I called Sal to find out if he had any news. He wasn’t happy to hear from me. “Fuck you and fuck your fucking friends, man!” was what he told me. Sal was sober and had a clear picture of what was going on. He knew that the Viper Room was over.
“Where’s Johnny?” I asked.
“Johnny’s gone, man, and, if I were you, I’d be gone too.” Click.
I started to panic. If anyone went down for this, it might be me. I was there. I’d scored drugs the night before. Sal was sober. I wasn’t. And now that everyone else had split, I was the only one left here in town. Depressed about River and freaked out for myself, I drove back to my place on La Brea and right in front of my building was a double-parked police prowler. That was not a good sign. I just kept driving.
I hooked a right on Third Street and headed east to the tree-studded hills of Echo Park on the edge of downtown. I didn’t know what to do. I went to my old friend Chris Hansen’s house and knocked.
He answered the door and I blurted out, “River’s dead.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s been all over the news. It’s so sad.”
“No, dude, you don’t understand. I have to get out of town. I need to get to my mom’s house in Oklahoma.”
I made a few phone calls, booked a flight, and borrowed some money from Chris, and he drove me across town to LAX, where I caught a plane and went to visit my mom, who had, a few years earlier, decided to leave California for the slower pace of the Sooner State. Very few people outside my immediate family knew that, and I thought Oklahoma could provide a safe haven until things calmed down. I was an emotional mess after River’s death. I laughed when I should have cried and I wept when I should have laughed. I’d find myself staring at a television set that hadn’t been turned on and then realize hours had passed while I sat there as blank as the screen. The Viper Room was done. It wasn’t a clubhouse anymore. It was just a place that would forever haunt me with guilt, sadness, and regret—things with which I had become increasingly burdened.
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.
1965: My mom loved getting dressed up to go anywhere, and church was as good of a place as any.
How many junkies have a Catholic school picture just like this one? Thousands? Millions?
High school prom, June 1977. I had not discovered punk rock yet. Rod Stewart rules.
High school graduation.
1991: Me and Elijah. I was clean for a minute after one of my twenty-four rehab stints. My only regret is what pain I may have caused Elijah.
1982 or 1983: In college, but drugs and rock and roll are calling.
I finally made it. Only twenty more rehabs to go.
Two of the most important people in my life, Elijah Forrest and the mighty Pete Weiss. © GREG ALLEN
This is as close to my bottom as there’s a photograph of. © REDFERNS
Dix Denney, me, and Pete. There were moments when we were magical. © REDFERNS
1995: My last rehab! Cri-Help in North Hollywood, California. It was visiting day, like in prison.
1996: Me, six months clean, and Max in our first apartment ever. We had been wandering for four years from drug house to motel to cars to her parents’ house.
1996: Elijah finally gets a dad. He came for the summer and ended up staying for four years. Looking back, I realize I tried too hard to redeem myself with him. I pushed him too hard too fast.
1996: Let the resurrection begin. Working at Millie’s Cafe—six days a week, ten hours a day. “How ya feeling today rock star?” was a favorite joke around there. Taught me humility or humiliation. Close enough.
Viva le Joe Strummer! My childhood hero. One of the biggest influences in my life. This was taken just before he died. I cried the day I got that news more than I had ever cried about anything. I cried for a lifetime over his death. © JOSH GUNDLING WILLIAMSON
2010: Las Vegas, Nevada. My little family on our wedding day. Sam, Elvis, and me.
2010: Anthony Kiedis—the leader of our gang! My spiritual adviser. © GETTY IMAGES
Drew Pinsky became the older brother I never had. © WIREIMAGE
Gibby Haynes and me, two sober dads, 2012. © JASON KEMPIN/GETTY IMAGES
Elijah, Flea, me, Chad Smith, and Josh Klinghoffer. We’ve come full circle. Let the healing begin. © GETTY IMAGES
MY BOY
As 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 th
e 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.
