The Sunset Strip Diaries

by Amy Asbury

  I stayed at my grandmother’s house with my mother and sister for another three years, but we all avoided each other and were not a family. My mother and I especially hated each other. No one should treat a parent the way I treated her. I was really horrible toward her, but it was because I was hurt inside. She told me that the only reason I was still living with her was because I was a minor and it was the law. As soon as I turned eighteen, I would be toast. Instead of telling her it hurt me that she seemed to have given up on me, I decided to be a raging bitch to her instead. My sister and I did not really get along too well either, but I don’t remember hating her; I remember there were good times and bad. I don’t recall ever consoling her through her own troubles though; I was too selfish. We all handled it in our own way. My mom shut down. I acted out and was wild, vocal, and angry. My sister escaped to the homes of her friends, who had more normal lives.

  My sister says:

  “I remember hearing Mom locked in the bedroom, screaming at the top of her lungs. Just screaming and screaming. I thought she was going to kill herself. You don’t scream like that unless you want to die. I tried to knock on the door and help her but it was locked. She told me later she was going to kill herself. She had a lot on her plate at that time, and I wasn’t on that plate. She stopped raising me.”

  My dad became a transient, living off other people’s generosity. He wasn’t cut out to be a father, the head of a family. He wasn’t cut out to follow the rules. Maybe he was cut out to, but refused to- I never really found out. Just like his hippie days before we were born, he ‘lived off the land,’ his favorite thing to do. He was always running from the law, the IRS- the government in general (oh- and the Hell’s Angels were also after him for some reason). He felt a horrible guilt for not being a father to us, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t make it up to us.

  ***

  One thing that I did not like about living in Canoga Park was that I had to wake up at 4 a.m. to go to school back in our old neighborhood. I was given the option to transfer somewhere closer to my grandmother's house, but I chose to finish out my high school years at the school I was already attending. I didn't want to start over somewhere else. I had just gotten used to my school's layout and felt I was dealing with the kids' reaction of me better than I had when I first got there. I didn’t want to have that nightmare all over again with a new set of kids.

  My mother made an arrangement with our former neighbors, the Lauderdales, who agreed to take me in three hours before school started each day. I slept in a leather chair in their dark, heavily draped, tobacco-scented living room for two hours. Then, at 7 a.m., they woke me as they left the house to go to their jobs and I walked to school and spent another hour hanging out with the smokers at The Wall before school started. I didn’t mind the mornings though. The bad part was after school, when I had to take public transportation home. It took me an hour. I got on the RTD bus and took it down one of the big main streets. Then I had to wait twenty minutes or so for the next bus, which took me to a street that was a block from my grandmother’s house.

  Waiting for the public bus to arrive was sheer misery, especially when it was either ninety degrees outside and I was dripping sweat in the direct sun, or it was freezing and I didn’t have warm enough clothes. There was always some crazy, fat man in a stained shirt yelling at an imaginary person, or guys who looked like serial killers rubbing their dicks against me when the bus was crowded and we had to stand. That was the worst. I had to shove several men for doing that. I was about to write that it was scary, but I was pretty tough- it didn’t scare me. If I would have had a knife on me I would have sunk it into one of them with no problem at all. I remember always being starving and having to sit on a bus bench in front of a Subway sandwich shop, where I could smell fresh bread baking (no matter that their bread always smells better than it actually tastes, just like movie theater popcorn). It was torturous. I wanted to hold up the store and steal a tray of the bread and then eat it right there at the bus stop like a ravenous maniac.

  The second I got home, I dropped my books and went straight to the kitchen to make myself my favorite dish: Rice-A-Roni, either chicken or beef flavor. The sodium content was in the quadruple digits, but who cared? That shit was delicious. Sometimes I watched Married…with Children on TV later in the evening, but the hit shows of the time didn’t really interest me: 21 Jump Street, The Tracy Ullman Show, It’s Gary Shandling’s Show, COPS. I recall going to see the movie Heathers with Karen, but other than that, I didn’t do much. I spent most of my time listening to music, and not the popular music of the day, which would have been Al B. Sure, Paula Abdul’s Forever Your Girl album, Milli Vanilli, Bobby Brown or New Kids on the Block. I did like Nenah Cherry’s “Buffalo Stance,” but that was about it. I could barely stomach the rock bands of the time, like the Bulletboys, Warrant, and Winger. I mostly listened to my Faster Pussycat and L.A. Guns tapes.

  Faster Pussycat, who I had been introduced to through The Metal Years, wore lots of scarves, and a little makeup and hair spray. Despite the fact that they were uglier than a monkey’s asshole, their songs were catchy and upbeat and I thought they were putting me in a better mood. L.A. Guns were pretty hard looking; they wore black leather pants and had black hair, black eyeliner and lots of tattoos. They were not cutesy. I felt they most represented me. I found their look attractive and their music was my favorite. I could listen to it for hours and hours without getting tired of it.

  I saw a band in my rock magazines named D’Molls and I thought the singer was cute, so I got their tape. That is how I picked bands at that time. Shoot, at all times. D’Molls were definitely designed for girls out of the Poison template: bubblegum music, lots of color, hairspray, and lipstick; looked like trannies. I ended up liking their music, despite the fact that they seemed to know only one chord on the guitar. They sang about Hollywood and girls gone bad and all of the usual stuff. I didn’t need deep, depressing Metallica sort of music about guys losing their limbs during wars. I wanted something light and carefree- and I got it.

  ***

  For a few months, I was relieved to be away from my old house because Casey and his friends couldn’t find me. No one knew where I lived. No one had my phone number. I had a chance to have a clean slate and escape the bad crowd I had entered. But then I grew bored. (I know, I was an idiot).

  There were two guys in Casey’s crowd who were a little more clean cut than the heroin addicts and such. They were identical twins named Fritz and Andy. They weren’t dirty, they weren’t druggies, they still lived at home with their mother and they still went to high school. They were only two years older than me, unlike the other guys who were four or five years older. They were tall, rich, and spoiled. They had inheritances coming to them when they turned twenty-one because their grandfather had invented some important shit of some sort. They lived relatively close to me, but in a nicer area. I called them and gave them my new number. I convinced my mother they were harmless, so she let me see them.

  Andy had shoulder-length dark hair, flipped over to one side. He was very soft spoken, calm, polite and somewhat feminine; I wouldn’t bat an eyelash if I heard that he was gay today. Fritz was more masculine, not to mention friendly and outgoing. His hair was bleached blond, and he kind of resembled Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He wasn’t afraid to get into a fight. Andy was a big old queen but I was in love with him because he was sweet to me. Fritz was just plain hot. I couldn’t decide who I liked better.

  They dragged me around with them to get-togethers and parties, and while they were not as big of assholes as the older guys with whom I had been partying, they were still teenage guys, and they tried getting down my pants every chance they got. There was a point when they started to get into a competition over me. One of them would call and pick me up, and I would go and hang out with him. When that brother went to pick up more beer, answer the phone, or leave the scene at all, the other brother always snuck over to me and persuaded me to leav
e with him. And I always did! I didn’t have any sense of loyalty to either of them. I was easily persuaded and loved the attention, even though I highly doubt their competition had anything to do with me- it was clearly between them and their own egos.

  One day Andy grilled me on what music I liked. I tried to pick something that I thought would go over well, something universal, so I told him I liked Guns N’ Roses. He rolled his eyes and said that they were too “hesher” and that he liked bands like Hanoi Rocks. Hanoi Who? I thought. Then I remembered briefly reading about Hanoi Rocks in Circus when it covered Vince Neil of Mötley Crüe accidentally killing Hanoi’s drummer in a drunk driving accident. Andy showed me a poster he had bought- it said “Self Destruction Blues” and had a picture of Hanoi’s platinum blond frontman, Michael Monroe, exaggerating a wink. He was deeply tanned and had bright blue eyes and teased hair. Hmmm. So this was what was cool? Not being too mainstream? Liking things that were a little more obscure? That made sense. It surely was more ‘Hollywood’ to have eclectic musical taste…I would have to check them out.

  Within the next few weeks, I went to the music shop down the street and looked through some Hanoi Rocks tapes and records. I noted that they dressed in vests, hats, glittery sashes, scarves, and tight pants. They wore lots of makeup and had hair-sprayed hair. That part was all fine and dandy. It was their music that was totally bizarre. I randomly picked Back to Mystery City out of the albums that were available. When I got it home, I listened to it and was disturbed. The song “Mental Beat” put me in a bad place in my head and “Malibu Beach Nightmare” reminded me of that awful night on the beach with Jamie. But if Hanoi Rocks were obscure, underground, and cool, then I was convinced I had to start memorizing some songs. I wanted to nonchalantly start singing a tune around someone cool and have him or her say, “Hey- you know that song?” (This actually did happen at some point.) In all fairness, I eventually got the rest of their music as the years went by and fell in love with quite a bit of it, but at that time, I was being nothing more than a poser.

  As my tenth grade year came to an end, I started to feel a little better. I hung around my school friend Abby a lot more. She was very tough and mean to many people, but was nice to me. She could be sarcastic and she could be cynical, but I really treasured her. She had been through some abuse in her life, most recently a brutal rape in Hollywood, where she had been a runaway. We both had been through hard times, so finding each other was a blessing. I got a little more confidence just having a friend to confide in and we even started to have fun. We both started to lighten up. We even started laughing and giggling and being regular girls.

  I got a second wind that summer and created a new look for myself. It wasn’t too drastically different, it was just more creative. I dyed my hair bright purple and colored my eyebrows with a dark purple eye shadow that perfectly matched my hair. While the other girls wore their hair permed and teased, I wore mine ironed perfectly straight and long. (I did this with a clothes iron on an ironing board.) My new signature look was purple, turquoise blue and black/white polka dots. I had blue nails most of the time and loads of silver bracelets. I had a turquoise blue shirt that stopped just under my boobs and turquoise short-shorts that I wore with lace-up Grecian sandals. I had a skin tight, purple spandex skirt that stopped just under my butt, which I wore with a white top with black polka dots. All of my outfits were from Contempo Casuals, which I thought was comparable to Christian Dior or something- I thought that shit was haute couture. I was proud of my outfits! I had a long, sheer black scarf with white polka dots on it that I tried to wear as a headband but it always fell out. I loved that sash. I also wore this drug store perfume that came in a round white bottle with a black exclamation mark sticking out of it. I didn't care that I smelled like a 1970's douche- I liked that bottle! Any birthday or holiday money I received from faraway relatives usually went toward that perfume.

  The summer of 1989 was all about the new movie Batman with Michael Keaton, Kim Basinger, and Jack Nicholson as The Joker. It was Batman everything: shirts, cups, stickers and Happy Meals. Disney’s The Little Mermaid also came out that year, along with Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Say Anything and Steel Magnolias.

  I had to attend summer school to make up my failing grades, so I took Biology with a bunch of kids who were younger than I was. I brought a 1 ½ inch plastic brown cow to class every day and set it on my desk. I called it HowNowBrownCow. I was just trying to get attention and I got a lot of it. All of the younger boys in the class called me a witch and drew cartoons about me, but I didn’t care. I just told them to watch out or I’d put a hex on their asses. I became popular in the class, although I was more likely just infamous.

  One day, the biology teacher decided to show a boring movie, so I thought it would be perfectly logical to crawl out of the class on my hands and knees (in short shorts, at that). As I was doing so, I looked up toward the class across the hall and saw a delicate boy with fluffy blond hair and gamine features watching me. He approached me later on, in passing, and introduced himself as Justin Sandstrom.

  I knew immediately that I could not date him, because I felt his innocence and his big heart. I knew I was too internally warped and was not capable of having a regular relationship with some nice boy my age. He was polite and sweet, lived with his parents- probably the kindest person I had ever randomly met. He acted as if I was some goddess and I felt very flattered. He said, “I didn’t know girls like you actually existed.” I gave him my number to pump my ego initially, but we ended up becoming very close friends after I explained why I couldn’t date him.

  I told him all of my secrets and he told me about his life, which wasn’t completely innocent. He told me about how he was turned off by girls who came on really strong. He told me stories about sleeping with his ex-girlfriend when her parents weren’t home, going to dances, and all the stuff he did with the girls he dated. He always tried to tell me I was very special and deserved better that the guys I dated, but I couldn’t comprehend that. I felt destroyed inside and I didn’t see an end to that, so I was trying to accept it and move forward.

  I turned sixteen that September and was feeling much better about my life. I was going into the eleventh grade and I was excited to take drivers education that year to learn to drive. I signed up for the stage crew for the school plays. I had Abby as my friend at school and I had Justin to talk to on the phone every night. I didn’t feel so alone. My hair was brilliant purple and I loved it. I thought things were finally looking up. But that wasn’t to last.

  My dad, who we hadn’t seen for nearly a year, suddenly started showing up around my grandmother’s house. He snuck into the shed in the backyard and slept there a few nights, watching us through the kitchen windows when it was dark. He hid in the bushes and watched us go to school in the morning. One night he knocked on a window and it scared me because I couldn’t see outside in the dark. I opened the window and promptly told him to get the fuck out of my yard or I would call the cops on him for trespassing.

  My sister and I were both confused. Some nights she thought she might want to see him; other nights she didn’t. We tried to respect that one of us might feel one way and the other another way at any given time. We didn’t know what we thought. It put us into an absolute tailspin, mentally. We acted out in different ways. She started shoplifting and having crying spells in school. I became very angry and full of rage again and wanted to run away.

  I let my dad in the house on one of those nights. He crawled in on his hands and knees, crying. He told me he saw God in the street when he was on acid. He started pouring out all of these disturbing things. It was very hard on me and really did a number on my mind. He was clearly in a lot of pain. He kept telling me he didn’t want to live. He was full of regret and apologized a thousand times, begging forgiveness. He knew he made a mistake and ruined the family. He said he would do whatever it took to make it up to us, and that he loved us. We felt bad for our dad. It was hard to see him in tha
t state, the former head of our family so vulnerable. It left me raw, thinking that there was no one really in charge of us. My mom was a walking corpse and could barely talk. I was scared.

  Seeing him in that state was a lot worse than not having a father. I regretted letting him in the house that night; I realized I wanted him to leave me alone so I could heal. But he was relentless in wanting to talk to me and make things right. I got up and walked out of the house while he was in mid-speech, without my contact lenses on. I couldn’t see anything and to make it worse, it was dark out. I didn’t care, I just kept walking. Tears filled my eyes and my heart overflowed with pain. He followed me and tried to talk to me. He said we could live together; he would get us a place. I said no, I was running away to Hollywood.

  I started walking faster in the dark. I saw blurry streetlights through my tears. I just wanted him to leave me alone and he wouldn’t. I suddenly got this rush of adrenaline and thought, This is it. I am going for it. I ran straight into traffic on a busy street. I somehow didn’t get hit. My dad ran out, grabbed me, and pulled me back to the sidewalk, while horns blared and cars screeched. I got out of his grip, turned around, and tried going down a different street. I finally just collapsed onto someone’s front lawn and started bawling there in the dark. He sat down next to me. I started yelling at him. I told him the horrible things that I had let happen to me because I had no respect for myself, because I thought I was only good for one thing. I told him that is what he taught me. I yelled it in his face. The things that were coming out of my mouth were shocking me, but I couldn’t stop. I yelled, “It’s because of YOU!” He screamed really loud when I said that and then started crying really hard. It was horrible to hear a man cry. The next thing I knew, a bunch of tiny kittens came out of the bushes and started crawling all over us and meowing. It was surreal. I thought I was having a dream.