Heavier Than Heaven

by Charles R. Cross

  As shocking as Kurt’s appearance was, his announcement of future plans was the real surprise: “I’m getting married, and that’s a total revelation—emotionally, that is. I’ve never felt so secure in my life, and so happy. It’s like I have no inhibitions anymore. It’s like I’m drained of feeling really insecure. I guess getting married has a lot to do with security and keeping your mind straight. My future wife’s and my personalities are so volatile that I think if we were to get into a fight, we’d split just like that. Getting married is an extra bit of security.” He ended the interview with another forecast: “There are plenty of things I would like to do when I’m older. At least, just have a family, that would satisfy me.”

  Kurt and Courtney had become engaged in December while lying in bed in a London hotel. Before speaking with McCully, Kurt hadn’t made a formal announcement, but everyone else in the band already knew. No date had been set, since betrothal or not, the business of Nirvana couldn’t be put on hold for anything.

  Nirvana ended 1991 with a New Year’s Eve show at San Francisco’s Cow Palace. Pearl Jam opened the night with a bit of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and Eddie Vedder joked, “Remember we played it first.” This crack was an acknowledgment of something everyone in the building knew: As 1992 began, Nirvana was the biggest band in the world, and “Teen Spirit” was the biggest song. Keanu Reeves was at the concert and attempted to befriend Kurt, who rebuffed the efforts. Later that night at their hotel, Kurt and Courtney were so harassed by other guests they put a sign on their door: “No Famous People Please. We’re Fucking.”

  By the time the group made it to Salem, Oregon, for the last date of the tour, Nevermind had been certified for sales of two million copies and was selling at an ever-accelerating pace. Every direction Kurt turned, someone was asking him for something—an endorsement deal, an interview, an autograph. Backstage, Kurt briefly caught the eye of Jeremy Wilson, the lead singer of the Dharma Bums, a Portland band Kurt admired. Wilson waved to Kurt, not wanting to interrupt him from a woman trying to convince him to appear in an ad for guitar strings. As Wilson walked away, Kurt screamed “Jeremy!” and fell into Wilson’s arms. Kurt didn’t say a word, he just rested in Wilson’s bear hug as Jeremy repeated, “It’s going to be okay.” Kurt wasn’t sobbing, but he didn’t seem far from it. “It wasn’t just a short hug,” recalled Wilson. “He was there for a full 30 seconds.” Finally a handler grabbed Kurt and dragged him to another meeting.

  After a couple of days off in Seattle, Kurt’s spirits seemed to improve. On Monday, January 6, 1992, super-fan Rob Kader was riding his bike down Pine Street when he suddenly heard someone shout his name. It was Kurt, walking with Courtney. Kader congratulated Kurt on the success of the album and the news Nirvana was to be on “Saturday Night Live.” But as soon as Kader said the words, he knew he’d made a mistake—Kurt’s warm mood turned sour. Two years earlier, when Kader had congratulated Kurt on the fact that twenty people had come to a Community World Theater show—two more than their previous gig—Kurt greeted the news with a beaming smile. By the beginning of 1992, the last thing he wanted to hear was how popular he was.

  That next week, Kurt’s fame was amped up considerably as the band flew to New York City to be the musical guests on “Saturday Night Live.” Kurt’s mood seemed upbeat in their Thursday rehearsal as they ran through some of their early songs. Still, everyone knew that on the show, they had to play “Teen Spirit,” no matter how much Kurt had grown tired of the hit.

  He had paid for his mother and Carrie Montgomery to fly to New York with him. When the rest of the Nirvana crew met Wendy for the first time, he was again razzed. “Everybody was always saying, ‘Wow, Kurt, your mom is hot,’ ” recalled Carrie. It was the last thing Kurt wanted to hear; it was even more grating than being told how famous he was.

  While Kurt rehearsed, Courtney, Carrie, and Wendy went clothes shopping. Later, Kurt went shopping for drugs, which were as easy to find in New York as a sale on dresses. In Alphabet City, Kurt was shocked to find lines of customers waiting for the man, just like in the Velvet Underground song. He was in love with the ritual of using now, and seductively drawn to the seamy netherworld it brought him into. The China white heroin in New York City (West Coast heroin was always black tar) made him feel sophisticated, and it was cheaper and more powerful. Kurt became gluttonous.

  That Friday, when Wendy knocked on the door of her son’s room at noon, he answered in his underwear, looking like hell. Courtney was still under the covers. There were deli trays everywhere, and after just two days in the suite, the floor was covered with refuse. “Kurt, why don’t you get a maid in here?” Wendy asked. “He can’t,” Courtney replied. “They steal his underwear.”

  The week marked a turning point in Kurt’s relationship with the band and crew. Up until then, everyone was aware that Kurt was messed up—and Courtney had usually been the scapegoat for Kurt’s increasingly sour attitude. But by New York, it was clear it was Kurt who was on a self-destructive course, and that he had all the hallmarks of an active addict. Though everyone knew Kurt was abusing drugs—they assumed heroin—no one knew what to do about it. It was hard enough to convince Kurt to do a soundcheck or comb his hair, much less get him to listen to advice regarding his private affairs. Kurt and Courtney moved to a different hotel from the rest of the entourage; they were only a few blocks away, but the action would serve as a metaphor for a growing divisiveness inside the band. “By that time,” Carrie recalled, “there had already been a separation within the Nirvana camp between the ‘good’ people, and the ‘bad’ people. Kurt, Courtney, and myself were the bad people. We had this feeling of not being welcomed, and it got more negative.”

  Nirvana’s managers were also at a loss for what to do. “It was a very dark time,” said Danny Goldberg. “It was the first time I was aware of him having a drug problem.” At the same time Gold Mountain was working to get attention for the band’s appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” his managers were privately praying Kurt’s drug problem wouldn’t embarrass them or derail their growing financial success. “I was just hoping that things wouldn’t spin out of control publicly,” recalled Goldberg.

  And then, as if things weren’t turbulent enough, the news came that in the next issue of Billboard magazine, Nevermind would hit the No. 1 spot, pushing out Michael Jackson’s Dangerous. Though Nevermind had been hovering near No. 6 all December, it had bounced to the top based on sales of 373,520 the week after Christmas. Many of those purchases came in an unusual manner, according to Tower Records’ Bob Zimmerman: “We saw an incredible number of kids returning the CDs their parents had given them for Christmas, and buying Nevermind in exchange, or using money they’d gotten as a present to buy the CD.” Nevermind may be the first record to ever hit No. 1 buoyed by exchanges.

  That Friday Kurt and Courtney did an interview for the cover story of Sassy, a teen magazine. Kurt had turned down requests from the New York Times and Rolling Stone, yet he’d agreed to this piece because he felt the magazine was so silly. After the interview, they rushed off for a filming at MTV. But Kurt didn’t feel well and what was scheduled to be an hour show ended after 35 minutes. Kurt asked Amy Finnerty, “Can you get me out of here?” He wanted to visit the Museum of Modern Art.

  His mood picked up considerably once he was inside the MOMA— it was the first time he’d ever visited a major museum. Finnerty had a hard time keeping up as Kurt dashed from wing to wing. He stopped when an African-American fan approached and asked for an autograph. “Hey man, I love your record,” the guy said. Kurt had been asked for his autograph a hundred times that day, but this was the only time he responded with a smile. Kurt told Finnerty, “No one black has ever said they liked my record before.”

  After the museum, Kurt returned to NBC for yet another “Saturday Night Live” rehearsal. This time the show’s producers wanted the band to perform only the songs they were going to do on the broadcast, so Nirvana played “Teen Spirit” and “Territorial Pis
sings.” This second choice was not to the network’s liking and a debate ensued. Kurt had enough of working for the day and departed.

  On Saturday afternoon, the day of the television show, the band had a photo session scheduled at Michael Lavine’s studio. Kurt arrived but was so high he kept falling asleep while standing up. He complained that he felt ill. “He was so messed up at that one,” Lavine recalled, “he couldn’t keep his eyes open.”

  By early January Kurt was so seriously addicted to heroin that a normal dose no longer made him feel euphoric: Like all addicts, he needed an increasing daily supply simply to stop withdrawal symptoms. But New York heroin was powerful, and Kurt was using more than was prudent in an attempt to reach euphoria. He had decided to shoot up early that Saturday so he’d be functional by the time “Saturday Night Live” began. In his attempt to properly regulate his dose—an impossible task from one bag of heroin to the next—he had taken too much and was in a stupor by the afternoon. By the time the band drove to NBC, Kurt was outside the studio throwing up. He spent the hours before the show lying on a sofa, ignoring host Rob Morrow, and refusing to sign an autograph for the daughter of NBC’s president. His only joy came when he talked on the phone to “Weird Al” Yankovic and agreed to a parody of “Teen Spirit.” By showtime, he was sober again, and miserable.

  Before their first number, there was a noticeable hush in the studio as Morrow introduced the band. Kurt looked awful—his complexion was pasty, a bad dye-job left his hair the color of raspberry jam, and he appeared moments away from barfing, which he was. But as happened many times during his life, with his back against the wall, he responded with an admirable performance. As Kurt launched into the first “Teen Spirit” guitar solo, “Saturday Night Live” bandleader G. E. Smith turned to Nirvana’s soundman Craig Montgomery and said, “Jesus, that guy can sure play.”

  While it was not the best version of “Teen Spirit” Nirvana ever played, there was enough raw energy in the song to survive even a lackluster performance and still sound revolutionary. It worked on live television because the appearance of the band told half the story of the song: Krist bopped around with his beard and long hair, resembling a mad, elongated Jim Morrison; Grohl, shirtless, pounded the drums with the spirit of John Bonham; and Kurt looked possessed. Kurt may not have been at 100 percent, but anyone watching the broadcast knew he was pissed off about something. The kid who spent his youth playing with Super-8 movies knew how to sell himself to the camera, and in both his aloofness and intensity he was mesmerizing to watch.

  When the band came back for the next number, it was all about catharsis. They played “Territorial Pissings,” against the producer’s wishes, and ended with the destruction of their instruments. Kurt began the assault by puncturing a speaker with his guitar; Grohl knocked his drum set off the riser; and Krist threw the drums in the air. It was certainly calculated, but the anger and frustration weren’t faked. In one final “fuck you” to America, as the program’s credits rolled, Kurt and Krist French-kissed (NBC would edit this ending out in all repeat broadcasts, fearing it was offensive). Kurt later claimed the kiss was his idea, done to piss off “the rednecks and homophobes” back in Aberdeen, but in truth he had refused to come out for the final good-bye until Krist pulled him onstage. “I walked right up to him,” Krist remembered, “and grabbed him and stuck my tongue in his mouth, kissing him. I just wanted to make him feel better. At the end of it all, I told him, ‘It’s going to be okay. It’s not so bad. Okay?’ ” Though Kurt Cobain had just won over the few youths in America who weren’t already in love with him, he didn’t feel like a conqueror. He felt, as he did most days, like crap.

  Kurt skipped the SNL cast party and quickly left the studio. He was scheduled to do an interview, but as usual he was hours late. Amy Finnerty was sitting in Janet Billig’s apartment in the early hours of the morning when Kurt called, asking if he could borrow money. He had a No. 1 record, had just played “Saturday Night Live,” but said he had no money. They went to the cash machine, and Billig gave Kurt $40.

  An hour later, when Kurt showed up at DJ Kurt St. Thomas’s room, he was in the mood to talk, and gave one of the longest interviews of his life. The purpose of the conversation was to create a promotional CD for radio stations. Kurt told the “guns in the river” story, tales of eating corn dogs while living with Dave, and accounts of Aberdeen as a city of hicks and rednecks. When Kurt left two hours later, DGC’s Mark Kates turned to St. Thomas and said, “Wow, I can’t believe how much you got from him. He never talks like that. But I don’t know if everything is true.”

  Several hours later, as the sun was rising on Sunday morning, Courtney discovered Kurt had overdosed on heroin he’d done after the interview. Whether it was intentional can’t be known, but Kurt was an addict with a reputation for recklessness. She saved his life by reviving him, after which he seemed as good as ever. That afternoon, the couple did another photo shoot with Lavine for the cover of Sassy—one shot captured Kurt kissing Courtney on the cheek and the magazine used it for the cover. Less than eight hours earlier Kurt had been comatose.

  In the interview with Sassy’s Christina Kelly, Kurt discussed their engagement: “My attitude has changed drastically, and I can’t believe how much happier I am and how even less career-oriented I am. At times, I even forget I’m in a band, I’m so blinded by love. I know that sounds embarrassing, but it’s true. I could give the band up right now. It doesn’t matter. But I’m under contract.” When Kelly asked if his relationship had changed his writing style, Kurt gushed even more: “I’m just so overwhelmed by the fact that I’m in love on this scale, I don’t know how my music’s going to change.”

  But the most ironic comment came when Kelly asked if the couple would consider having a baby. Kurt answered: “I just want to be situated and secure. I want to make sure we have a house, and make sure we have money saved up in the bank.” He didn’t know Courtney was already carrying their child.

  Chapter 17

  LITTLE MONSTER INSIDE

  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

  JANUARY 1992–AUGUST 1992

  There is a little monster inside your head that says, “you know you’ll feel better.”

  —Kurt describing addiction to his sister, April 1992.

  It was all those drawings of “flipper babies” he’d done over the years that made Kurt panic upon hearing the news of the pregnancy; that and knowing that they’d been using heroin during the period the child was conceived in early December. Kurt’s harshest critic was always his own inner voice, and this tainted pregnancy, his friends observed, caused him some of the most potent shame of his life. Through all the rottenness in his life—both internal and external—he’d held two things sacred: a pledge he would never turn into his parents and a vow that if he ever had children he’d offer them a better world than the one he grew up in. Yet, in early January 1992, Kurt couldn’t stop thinking of all the “flipper baby” drawings he’d done and wondering if he was being given one of his own as divine retribution.

  Concurrently, even within Kurt’s despair, there was a hopefulness around the pregnancy. Kurt truly loved Courtney and thought they would have a child with many gifts, including above-average intelligence. He believed the affection he had for her was deeper than the love he witnessed between his own parents. And despite Kurt’s freak-out, Courtney seemed surprisingly calm, at least calm by Courtney standards. She told Kurt the baby was a God-given sign, and she was convinced it would not be born with flippers, no matter how many drawings of deformed fetuses Kurt had sketched in his youth. She said his nightmares were just fears, and that her dreams showed them having a healthy, beautiful child. She held these beliefs even as those around her suggested otherwise. One drug treatment doctor she consulted offered to “give her morphine” if she’d agree to an abortion. Courtney would have none of it, and sought another opinion.

  She visited a Beverly Hills specialist in birth defects who said that heroin, when used in the first trimester o
f pregnancy, posed few risks for birth defects. “He told her if she followed a course of treatment and tapered off, there was no reason in the world she couldn’t have a healthy baby,” recalled her lawyer, Rosemary Carroll. With the “flipper baby” images fading from his head, Kurt joined Courtney in the conviction that the pregnancy was a blessing. If anything, the disapproving attitudes of others only strengthened Kurt’s resolve, just as it had done in his coupling with Courtney. “We knew it really wasn’t the best of times to have a child,” Kurt told Michael Azerrad, “but we were just determined to have one.”

  They had rented a two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles for $1,100 a month at 448 North Spaulding, between Melrose and Fairfax. It was a quiet neighborhood, and they were relatively isolated because neither could drive: Kurt had failed to pay some traffic tickets and had temporarily lost his license; Courtney had never learned to operate a car. It was the first time Kurt had lived outside of Washington state, and he found himself missing the rain.

  But soon after moving in, they departed for the confines of a Holiday Inn. They had hired a drug doctor who specialized in quick detox therapy and he recommended they check into a motel—it would be messy, he had told them. And it was. Though later Kurt tried to downplay this withdrawal, claiming he “slept for three days,” others painted a far darker picture of the detox, which entailed hours of vomiting, fever, diarrhea, chills, and all the symptoms that one would associate with the worst influenza. They survived by copiously using sleeping pills and methadone.

  Though both were detoxing for the sake of the baby, Kurt had to leave in two weeks for a tour of the Far East. “[I] found myself realizing that I wouldn’t be able to get drugs when we got to Japan and Australia,” he wrote in his journal. In the middle of his detox, Kurt had to film a video for “Come As You Are.” He insisted all shots of his face appear obscured or distorted.