by Amy Asbury
That, my friends, is what I had worked so hard to accomplish. To be a part of that ritual of totally reckless behavior. I don’t know why it felt so much like home to me, but it did. That is all I knew and it’s all I wanted to know. I didn’t want to be different. I only knew how to deal with my friends when drunk, and that was fine by me. I rarely saw them in the day, and I never saw them when I was sober. Their life became my life. They were my family, people who accepted me. They didn’t care how I lived my life. They didn’t ask each other what they did for a living. They didn’t want to know your background. You could have killed someone (one of the guys actually did) and you wouldn’t be judged for it (but having brown hair would get you tossed out of the crowd. Priorities!). They never called girls ‘sluts’ or ‘whores’, because many of them really were. While there were several things one needed to do to cement status there, the people were non-judgmental when it came to morals and ethics. Nobody had any and they held you to no standard.
Okay, so there I was, trying to figure out how to get my status back. Jimmy had made a bold social move and started hanging out with my friends, the ones who had made fun of him the year prior. They started to turn away from me, and I was not going to take it lying down. Just when I was running out of ideas, some good luck came my way.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Embarrassingly Drunken Spectacle
I had been cruising with the ‘in’ crowd for a year or so, when I ran into a snaggle. Snaggle? I mean snafu. I had let my guard down, thinking that I would always have that spot with the cool kids. But as anyone who has attended junior high knows, the kids at the top of the ladder are on a very shaky ladder, and in this particular instance, a stroke of luck saved me from losing all of my friends to my ex-boyfriend of another scene.
Out of nowhere, I heard that Sunny from Swingin’ Thing was interested in me. I started jumping around my house in my old shredded up Maui and Sons T-shirt and men’s boxers. I’m pretty sure I did the Maniac dance from Flashdance, and possibly The Robot. I was happy for two reasons. One, his band was the most popular of our crowd and his social standing would improve my social status. I thought, Try going against me now, bitches! Two, Sunny was another one of the guys I had drooled over in magazines before I got to Hollywood. By that time, I was partying alongside him nearly every weekend, but I never let on to anyone that I had a huge crush on him. I had to keep it cool, not be a groupie and shit. Those girls weren’t invited into the inner circle and that is where I was determined to stay.
Sunny had blue eyes; long, dyed black hair, and sometimes wore a red hat. He was of average height and build, but on the skinny side, of course. We started talking on the phone and he was actually a genuinely nice guy; upbeat and happy, no attitude or ego whatsoever. He was always laughing and joking around, no game playing, no sneakiness, just a solid guy. We dated a little bit and started getting to know each other. I was like, Shoot…this guy is actually really cool. Things were going great and I was stunned at my good luck. I would have dated him even if he was a jerk, but he was awesome.
There was a big-ass party going on one night, and I brought my sister and her friend Lainie. The whole Hollywood crowd was there around a big, lit-up, blue pool. Toward the end of the party, Razz showed up with Jimmy. I rolled my eyes and wanted to get the hell out of there. When I was leaving, I went to hug Sunny goodbye and the following events occurred:
Journal Entry 7/12/92
I hugged Sunny goodbye at the party this past weekend and all hell broke loose. Jimmy tried to swing at him! Sunny dropped his beer, put out his hands, and said, “Let’s go!” (which was hot, because half the guys in that crowd are wimps). Swingin’ Thing has a roadie named Ronnie who kind of doubles as their bodyguard. He is a total badass. He could easily take on two or three guys, no problem. He removed Sunny from the situation, stepped in himself, and beat the living shit out of Jimmy. It was terrible. I didn’t know what to do- I couldn’t watch. I didn’t try to stop him; maybe I should have. I grabbed my sister and her friend and told them we had to leave right away. On the way out, I heard someone say, “Someone tried to fuck with Sunny!” and a bunch of guys started to run toward him. Jimmy got jumped by at least ten guys. It was horrible! It was just a big mess of bodies in the dark.
Cops arrived shortly thereafter with lights flashing, trying to find out what was going on, talking to the wrong people. There were probably two hundred people at that party- it was crazy. It was pitch black and a warm breeze was blowing. I saw Johnny Valentine from the Brats holding Jimmy’s neck. He had him pinned against a car. He wasn’t hitting him, he was just talking to him and trying to calm him down and he kept pushing Jimmy’s head back down to the car each time he got loud. There were people yelling and running back to their cars in front of the blue and red flashes of lights.
I turned to my sister and said, “Did all of that happen because of me?”
“Yep.”
I heard Razz’s voice in the dark. He told me to come over to his car. When I did, he started scolding me.
“If you wouldn’t have talked to Sunny, none of that would’ve happened. You were egging Jimmy on.”
“Are you kidding me? That was not my fault! And by the way, I have known you WAY longer than Jimmy and I can’t believe you’re defending him! I was just hugging the guy-”
“So what. You know how he is. You didn’t have to throw it in his face.”
Then Jimmy yelled my name. I turned around and saw that his face was dripping with blood. He said, “Are you happy now?” and started screaming at me and telling me he would kill those guys. He said he had a gun and he would use it, blah blah blah.
After he got beat up in front of everybody who was anybody, things started happening just as I thought they would. I sat back like J.R. Ewing and put my feet up on a proverbial desk, filed my nails and drank a scotch. All the guys started making fun of Michael for hanging out with Jimmy. They were like, “This Jimmy guy, he’s your friend, isn’t he?” and Michael started to make excuses. He knew better than to risk his social standing. He said, “Jimmy’s my friend and everything, but bros are bros and I am down with them.” I was not surprised. Michael only cared about popularity and dropped Jimmy quickly.
I laid down on my bed under my Marilyn Monroe poster at my mother’s and knew that Razz would be calling. Three, two, one...and the phone rang just as I thought it would. Razz was on the other end, telling me that I took it wrong when he was defending Jimmy and that he was just drunk. I let him talk for a minute and painted my nails with gold glitter. When he was done, I started yelling at him and told him I was never going to speak to him again and that he was lucky he had called. He said it was a misunderstanding. I thought he was full of shit, but I let it go. I slammed down the phone, put on a 1940’s kimono and some marabou slippers, and made my way into the kitchen to eat some Fruity Pebbles.
It was about that time that I started hanging around another dancer named Natalie, who was a co-worker of Collette’s. They both worked at a strip club called Fritz. Natalie hung out with our crowd from time to time, and after seeing each other around for a few years, we became friends. Natalie was impressed I was dating Sunny. I wasn’t sure if that was why she was hanging around me more than before, but I didn’t care. I needed her place to crash when I was in Hollywood- she lived on Poinsettia, near Rock n’ Roll Ralphs. She could use me if she wanted. I considered the trade a fair one. She very often pumped my ego when I was with her, by saying things like “Sunny calls you? You are on his personal guest list?” I could tell she liked him herself; she didn’t hide it very well.
She was originally from Indiana and had shoulder length blond hair. I could tell she was a brunette underneath, because she always had roots. She was one of the most unlikely candidates for a dancer that I had ever seen. Her clothes were pretty conservative; she was not at all flashy. She was also really self-conscious, and sometimes a little shy. She was always worried about something, or complaining. Dancers never worried
about shit, in my experience, so this was a first. Regardless, I liked her and she amused me. One night, Swingin’ Thing played a show with Big Bang Babies. I wrote the following:
Journal Entry 7/18/92
They stamped my hand to go inside the club and Natalie said, “There must be some mistake, I must be on the list too,” but she wasn’t. Then some backer for Big Bang Babies named Jennifer paid for every single person outside to get in. Birdie Montgomery was in the bathroom sobbing because a bunch of the Seattle girls jumped her. I knew that would happen eventually. I saw Lesli and I let him drive my car to a party. He was running red lights so I punched him in the mouth. Everyone was smashing the windows out of the house at the party.
Journal Entry 7/19/92
Natalie is a closet speed addict, and suspects everyone walking the streets of doing it too.
I went to a party with her last night and all the new Grunge bands were there- Primus, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden. I am ignorant to all of them, even though they are the new thing and are doing well. We were chuckling about how out of touch we were, not even knowing who these people were and how we only hung out with outdated scumbags wearing tons of makeup. These people were talking about flying private jets to places to do their next videos and our friends were playing the Coconut Teaszer. We thanked our stars that we didn’t bring Michael and Strange with us because they would’ve embarrassed us. Actually- the guys there were pretty juvenile, believe it or not. They were not very mature- my wacky friends have better manners than those dudes did.
Journal Entry 7/26/92
Okay. Are you ready for this? Sunny managed to make us a couple in a total of 24 hours. Word must’ve gotten out because Jimmy just called here and asked me to marry him. He said he’ll get a job and quit partying. Lesli called ten minutes before that. He said he couldn’t talk to me anymore because he really likes me and I don’t even care about it and I never invite him anywhere and he wants to be with me all the time. He says he is going to stop talking to me completely so he won’t feel hurt anymore. What do you say to something like that?
Anyway, I went to Newport Beach with Sunny in the day, and at night, we went to a party in Hollywood. When I got there, he introduced me to his entire band and the singer said, “So you’re the one he has been talking about.” Sunny said he didn’t want me hitting on any guys and he wanted to let me know where he stood. I couldn’t believe it. None of these guys have made any serious move like that with me. Especially not someone as popular as him. One of his friends said, “He never goes out with anybody. You are really special.” He called me his woman and all this stuff. He totally made me his property by the end of the night. I was on top. I got where I wanted to be. In high school, I dreamed of this guy, looked at his face in my classes, dreamt of going to Hollywood just to see him from afar. And there I was, his girlfriend.
For all of one hour.
It was going so fast that I got nervous. Really nervous. I started drinking very heavily. I went into the bathroom with one of the beach bunny Barbies they hang out with. I don’t know what I said to her, I just remember her backing up against the wall with her eyeballs popping out and then she got out of the bathroom and ran. Did I say I was going to hack her to pieces? I still don’t know what I said! If that wasn’t enough, I proceeded to do cartwheels in the street in front of everybody. There were tons of cool people standing around watching another girl who was all graceful, doing cool walkovers and slinky moves. I stumbled over, all clunky and belligerent. I tried to do a straddle roll on the front lawn, and I got stuck with my legs over my head in front of all of Swingin’ Thing. I was a total spectacle. I can’t believe I did that only hours after Sunny said I was his woman! And it didn’t stop there. I had to cement the deal. In front of everyone, I proceeded to fall backwards over a counter, crash into a sliding glass door, land on the ground and pass out. I woke up with a swollen eye, a fat lip, two skinned knees, a cigarette burn, and one of my legs popped out of my hipbone. I had to jerk my leg really hard to get it to pop back into place. I looked down at a huge crooked tooth mark on my boob and remembered that Strange bit me. I remembered slapping him across the face. He tackled me and tried to beat the crap out of me and Michael pleaded with him, “What are you doing!? She is our little sister, bro!” I pointed to the bathroom and made him go in. I lectured him in there and he apologized.
Anyway, I can’t believe I screwed up my chance at being Hollywood royalty. I am so embarrassed for acting like such a fool. I cried about it to Michael the next night while we sat on the curb swigging beer. He said in a nasal, Valley Girl voice, “I know you’re on Heartbreak Boulevard and everything, but at least they’re talking, you know what I mean? If they don’t talk about you, then you’re nobody. At least you got people talking.”
Michael may have been a drunken glam rocker wearing leggings and eyeliner, but he had the sense to quote friggin’ Oscar Wilde. It made me feel a teensy bit better. I tried to tell myself it was true. Yeah. I was a big name. If people were talking about me, it was because I was interesting and cool and gossip-worthy! Then I had a little flashback of seeing the room upside down when I flipped over that counter backwards in front of the whole party and I winced. I really liked Sunny. I thought he was funny, cool, and respectful, and it didn’t hurt that he had status in my crowd. He was a nice, genuine guy. Except for when he told me my perfume smelled like carpet freshener- that was sort of messed up. And that time at the beach he told me I had sand in my nostrils in front of everyone... Other than that, he was honestly a nice guy! I was so upset with myself for behaving so poorly, that I cried and cried. I listened to a tape that he and I listened to together (Mother’s Milk by the Red Hot Chili Peppers) repeatedly in my car. It pained my heart to hear “Subway to Venus.” I took it out of my stereo while I was driving and threw it out the window on Ventura Boulevard. It was all quite dramatic (laughs).
Sunny backed off from me after that night. He stopped calling. I was a wreck. A very long week passed, where I cried in my blankies and blew my nose on my Hanoi Rocks T-shirt sleeve. Then he called again. He wanted to know what I was doing that night. I launched out of my bed and jumped straight into the shower. We agreed to hang out over at Natalie’s, which was down the street from him. Do you think I rectified everything? Of course not! This is me we are talking about. I got really nervous and (long drum roll) started drinking.
Journal Entry 8/1/92
Natalie said I told Sunny off at the top of my lungs for a half hour last night. I was over there drinking a bottle of Night Train and I completely blacked out. Again! I remember none of it! She said I kept going into the bathroom and she was sure I did a line of speed! I said, “No! I couldn’t have! I have never done any drugs!” I still don’t know if I did it, if she gave it to me to sober me up from the Night Train or if nothing happened at all.
Sunny told me later that I was talking about my father! And my family! I wonder what I said? Why did my mind go there? Worse than that, I do feel like I am on something! I have never done drugs so I don’t know what to compare it to, but when I wet my face to wash it this morning, it felt like someone punched me in the nose. I haven’t eaten or slept and I couldn’t drink last night, but felt buzzed on something anyway. And I was as paranoid as Natalie, who IS on it. We went to Denny’s at 9:00 in the morning and she doesn’t even remember it. We went to the store later on and the only things in our basket were milk, gum, and Jim Beam. Neither of us wanted to hold the basket! We were trying to make each other hold it.
Natalie had to drink half the bottle of whiskey and do a line just to go on a date the next night. She kept saying things like, “Am I talking too much? I need a drink to get a little mellower” or “Am I acting drunk? Am I babbling? I need to do a line to be more normal” or “Do you think I am acting paranoid? Should I have a drink?” Sometimes she gets paranoid that something else is in the drugs: “I hope there wasn’t any heroin in that stuff, because I am allergic to it.”
Natalie says she is stu
dying medicine. She says she wants to go back to college for it, but all she really does is sit around and look up pills in her pill book, which I have seen at Sav-On right next to the romance novels. She is always sick, bruised up, depressed, and whining. I have stayed there for days at a time, drunk, just laying on her floor. Never anything in that fridge but butter and wine. She is so paranoid about her health that she is on antibiotics for her ears being plugged, painkillers for her hurting back and Valium to sleep, amongst all the other shit. She is always making doctors’ appointments and claims everyone from her landlord to the clerk at the music store is on drugs.
“Look at that guy banging the soda machine! He is on drugs! Look at him!” Today she called and said she had been up for twelve hours throwing up from bad tuna salad. She exaggerates like crazy (twelve hours?) and really cares what everyone else thinks of her, which is not common for most dancers I know. I can’t picture her in her sequined neon green bikini (or not in it) on a stage, stripping. I can’t picture her giving table dances and asking for tips, but she does. She is the only stripper I know without a bubbly, confident nature. She is pale and wears red lipstick- looks very different from the other girls. Guess it’s proof that guys like all different types.
