by Bob Forrest
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 of 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 the 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 wen
t 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.
I went back inside for more pats on the back and more drinks from the locals. I started to chat with an older man. He was cultured and smart and I got along with him. He wasn’t like the rest of the crowd, who seemed unduly impressed that I had been in the press. We both kept drinking and, as will often happen in a drinking bout, we became best buddies four rounds in. But Françoise was still on my mind, and I walked outside again. My new friend followed me out and saw me peering at the houses across the street.
“Bob, my friend, at what do you look?”
I took a pull from my cigarette and launched into my story. “There’s a girl I’m in love with.”
“Ah, yes, love.”
“Well, she lives across the street. I’m waiting for her to get home.”
“This girl. What house is she in?”
“That one right there,” I said, and pointed.
A look crossed his face. Maybe he knew her. Maybe not. “This girl of yours. What is her name?”
“Françoise,” I said.
“Françoise?” He burst out in a laugh and embraced me. “That girl is my daughter!”
That I wasn’t murdered on the spot impressed me. “I love Europe!” I said. But Françoise didn’t come home and I had to get on the road and finish the tour. Back home, I tried to keep in touch, but being separated by a continent and an ocean makes the logistics difficult. It wasn’t like I could hop a train. What can I say? The truth is I like younger women. I always have.
But Colleen’s dad didn’t have a European outlook on my relationship with his daughter. Neither did the district attorney. This was serious business and I was threatened with statutory rape charges. I was dragged into the state of California’s legal system and I became—officially—a father. I was also ordered to pay child support once the baby arrived. It was a heartbreaking situation. Colleen faced her pregnancy alone. If she harbored hatred toward me, she never showed it. I was all set to do what friends of mine had done when faced with similar circumstances: run. The district attorney and the state of California made sure I didn’t. I wrote a song about it that appeared on Next Saturday Afternoon. I called it “Hang Tough.”
Got up this morning to go to court
The DA started telling me, “It’s time to grow up.”
To hang tough and be responsible to Colleen and the imminent arrival of our baby became my goal. There was a problem, though. Despite my noble, court-ordered intentions, I was in no kind of shape to take on that sort of role. The drugs and drink had too great a hold on me, and even the birth of a child wouldn’t be enough to loosen their grip.
Colleen gave birth in 1986 to a boy child and he was named Elijah. I tried my best to make the trip to Orange County to visit every month. I tried my best to pay what I could for his support. I tried to be a dad … and I came up short. I was a 10 percent father to him. I justified it in my head by telling myself that Colleen had several good men who were her friends and they could fill in the blanks that I left. It wasn’t as if Elijah wouldn’t have good role models, I told myself, and, despite my absenteeism, I loved that kid. When I’d see him, I was fascinated by the little critter. I would watch him play and think, Oh, my God! He’s just like me! It blew my mind, and yet, I still didn’t get it. I couldn’t get it. Even now, today, I don’t remember a lot of that time. I must have changed a diaper at some point, but I can’t recall doing it. I must have given him a bottle, but I draw a blank on that. I wasn’t healthy enough to be a parent, and Colleen knew it.
If I was in a good period and not completely incoherent on drugs and the party life, Colleen and Elijah would come up to visit. If I was on really good behavior, they might even spend the night. But it wasn’t until 1989, after my first attempt at sobriety, that I was allowed to keep him by myself for a weekend. I might have gaps in my memory about Elijah’s early life, but I remember that weekend.
“Now, I wrote down his schedule, Bob. Just check that if you need to. All the important phone numbers are there too. His stuff’s in this bag.” Colleen handed me the satchel and left while a little wide-eyed toddler looked up at me, as if to say, “Well, what now, Pops?”
I didn’t have a clue. We played, we ate, we watched cartoons, and the whole time he was with me, I was fascinated and terrified. When it was time to put him to sleep, I had the awful fear of him falling out of bed. I went through the house like a crazy person and grabbed every pillow and blanket I could to build a little fortress around him. He survived the night and the rest of the weekend. It felt like a milestone, and I started taking him maybe twice a month.
But I still didn’t get it. In my family, money was important. It was what conferred comfort and status, and while it wasn’t love, it was the closest thing to it. If I bought Elijah things, and if I paid what the court had deemed appropriate, I was a good father. Then I witnessed what a real father does when Flea had his daughter. He was an on-site parent from his little pad in the Fairfax District. It wasn’t the lap of luxury, but he set the bar high as a father. I wanted to be like him, but I couldn’t.
I was fucked up all the time, and one night, in one of those pensive doper moods, I had the brilliant flash that I wasn’t doing myself any good and I certainly wasn’t doing Elijah any good. He had come to visit me in rehab when he was four. It was awful. Every attempt to clean up involved a group session where the dads would talk about their children.
We’d sit in that circle, and I’d hear the laments and the boasts.
“My kids are the most important things in my life,” said one guy.
“I’d do anything for my children,” swore another.
I’d sit with my arms folded and think, What a bunch of bullshit. I wanted to shout, “If your kids meant that much to you, you wouldn’t be getting high. You’ll do anything for your kids as long as it doesn’t involve giving up drugs and booze.” My way seemed like the best path. Just disappear. Stay out of the kid’s life. Now I can’t help but think I was just a selfish asshole.
> In 1996, after two dozen rides on the rehab-go-round, I felt like I was ready to reconnect. My girlfriend Max called Colleen.
“Bob’s sober. He really wants to see Elijah.”
“Oh, really? Just like the last twenty-four times?”
“He feels awful.”
“Well, Elijah’s got a baseball game. Tell Bob he can come to that.”
I was excited. I couldn’t wait. I was six weeks sober and Elijah was nine years old. It was April and the start of the Little League season. The kids all had little mock-ups of baseball cards with their pictures on the front and stats on the back. Elijah solemnly handed one to me. I kept that thing in my wallet for years. I’d look at it and it would make me cry for the years I’d lost. I started to attend all his games. By July, Colleen must have seen a change in me. Elijah started to come stay with me in my little apartment some weekends.
One day Colleen called me. “How would you like to have Elijah for the month?”
My first impulse was to panic and say, “I can’t handle something like that!” but then I remembered some advice I had just been given by a counselor as part of my recovery. “Bob, you say no to everything. It’s time you start to say yes.”
I caught myself and stammered into the phone, “B-bring him over.” Every instinct I had told me this was the wrong thing to do—I was still unsure about my sobriety—but I went with it. The visit went well and I felt as if I’d contributed to the greater good. Colleen had just started a relationship that would eventually lead to a long-term marriage. Up until then, from the time she was a girl, she had been a mother to a small child with a mostly absent, drug-addicted father. The poor girl needed to start her own life. I suggested, not long after that initial monthlong stay, that Elijah come and stay with me for a semester while he attended school. I worked and was a real dad for the first time in my life. It felt good. Elijah had two sets of actively involved parents … which couldn’t have been easy for him. When he got in trouble at school for some little infraction, we would all go down to the school for a conference.
