Dirty Rocker Boys

by Brown, Bobbie; Ryder, Caroline

  Improbable as this sounds, I did way more drugs than Tommy Lee. At least, during the time we were together. Tommy had already gone through his period of insane drug use with Mötley during the ’80s, and by 1994, his lifestyle was relatively tame in comparison. He would do coke socially, maybe one weekend out of a month. At around 7:30 P.M. every night he would make a cocktail and smoke some pot. That was about as wild as he got.

  Sometimes we would go down the street to a restaurant that Tommy adored, just to get a shot of this cognac that Tommy loved. It was six hundred dollars a shot, and tasted like soft, very expensive flames licking your throat. Tommy and I always knew how to have fun, even as the cracks began to appear in our relationship.

  We went to Japan with Mötley. Things were up-and-down between Tommy and me, as we veered from lovey-dovey to antagonistic from one moment to the next. “I want a tattoo,” announced Tommy. “A real yakuza tattoo.” Tommy had gotten it into his head that he wanted the Japanese mafia to give him some ink, and our promoter in Japan, a mysterious Japanese gentleman called Mr. Udo, had grudgingly agreed he would help.

  We were picked up by one of Mr. Udo’s drivers, who drove us through the backstreets of Tokyo in a van with blacked-out windows. We reached a driveway, and a garage door went up, behind which lay a serene compound, a secret yakuza world tucked away from the hustle and bustle on the other side. We entered a building through the back door and went up some stairs to a small studio where the artist was waiting, sitting cross-legged on the floor. He told Tommy to lie on the floor while he drew a traditional wabori design; then he inked it on Tommy’s skin using not an electric needle, but a needle attached to a long bamboo handle. Tommy was gritting his teeth through the pain, while I checked his face for blackheads. The artist explained to us, through an interpreter, how some yakuza get pearls sewn into their dicks, a sort of “ribbed for pleasure” effect for their women. Tommy laughed and said he was considering getting some, but I rolled my eyes. Waste of good pearls, I thought, squeezing a big blackhead on Tommy’s chin.

  Afterward, we were invited to dinner with Mr. Udo. During the meal I said I was full, which caused the Japanese at the table to erupt in suppressed giggles. “To say you’re full in Japanese means you are pregnant,” whispered our interpreter.

  “Oh, no, not full,” I said loudly, pointing to my belly and shaking my head. I plunged my chopsticks into my bowl of rice, leaving them pointing straight up in the air, which prompted more hushed laughter at the table.

  “Don’t do that, signifies bad omen,” said our interpreter. I had grown up on voodoo, gris-gris, and swamp magic, but never before had I met such a superstitious people. Me being me, I took my chopsticks and put them in my ears. “Well, how about this? Bad luck too?”

  “Please stop,” said the interpreter.

  “What about this?” I said, sticking a chopstick up my nose. Mr. Udo smiled politely, and changed the subject.

  That night, Tommy and I got in a huge fight in the hotel room. Who knows why? All I knew was that the squabbles were getting meaner and more regular. It didn’t help that I was high nearly all the time. I had smuggled meth to Japan in a little matchbox in the pocket of a pair of jeans deep inside my suitcase. Tommy still didn’t have a clue that I was using. Poor guy, he just wanted to have fun and enjoy the trip, and kept asking me to go with him to this press event and that party—but I didn’t give a shit. All I wanted to do was sit and pick my face in the bathroom mirror. “Fine, Bobbie, stay home and be a weirdo,” said Tommy, confused.

  DOWNTURN

  One weekend, not long after we had returned home to Malibu from Japan, some unexpected visitors showed up—Heather Locklear’s sister and her husband. Uninvited and unexpected. “We just wanted to lie down on the beach, so we thought we’d visit you guys!” It was the weirdest thing ever, but I played it cool. “Sure, come on in.” Tommy was also caught off guard, but we were gracious hosts and hung out with them the whole day.

  “Tommy, do you think Heather’s trying to check up on you or something?” I asked him afterward. He said he was as weirded out as I was about it. Maybe I was paranoid, but I was nobody’s fool. It definitely felt to me like her sister had been sent in as a spy. Then, one afternoon, Heather Locklear herself called.

  “Oh, hey, girl, what’s happening?” said Tommy. This is too much, I thought. I couldn’t believe how casual he was being with his ex, like it was no biggie that she was calling, even though they hadn’t talked in over a year. She asked him something mundane, what their dentist’s phone number was or something. Something she could easily have figured out on her own. By now, I was fully spooked. I confronted Tommy.

  “What the fuck is going on? Have you guys been seeing each other?”

  “Bobbie, you and I spend every waking moment together—how is that even possible?”

  “I don’t fucking believe you. You’re all the same. Liars! Once a cheater, always a cheater. Joan Rivers was right.”

  Tommy was so irritated with me by this point, he got on a plane to Vegas by himself, where he met up with buddies and partied it up for a weekend. That was his payback, his big “fuck you.” It was the first time in our relationship that he had gone on vacation without me, aside from touring. I was so mad I packed a bag, and Taylar and I went to stay at Sharise’s. When he got back to Malibu, Tommy called and begged me to come home, and after a few days, I did. I thought we had moved on, but a couple of weeks later, the phone rang in the dead of night. A breathy-sounding girl on the line.

  “Heyyyy . . . can I speak to Tommy?”

  “Who is this?” I asked. The line went dead. Remember, we had a phone service. So anyone who was able to call the house must have gotten the okay from Tommy or me to do so. The next day, I asked the phone company to send me a record of all the numbers that had called. Sure enough, the number had a Vegas dial code. I decided to call this girl, whoever she was, and find out what was going on.

  “How do you know Tommy?” I demanded. “I’m his fiancée.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, honey. Well, me and my friends spent the night with him in his room. We were having a party.”

  “Did anything happen?”

  “Well, maybe some blow jobs.”

  When Tommy came home, I quite justifiably raised hell. I wasn’t counting on Tommy raising it back at me.

  “Fuck you, now you think you’re the phone police?” Tommy grabbed me by my hair and dragged me across the living room. My daughter was watching as he threw me on the couch and pinned me down. “What are you, a fucking cop?” I remembered watching my father do the same to my mother. “Go on, hit me,” I snarled. Tommy let go. Taylar was crying, and I rushed over to her and held her close.

  The next night, Tommy told me he was going to Matt Sorum’s house for a party, and that he wanted to go alone. His buddy Elijah Blue showed up and they left the house together. Fuck that, I thought, getting dressed. What am I, Cinderella? I told Taylar’s nanny that I would be home in a few hours, and drove to Matt’s house. I walked through the party, and saw Tommy talking to some buddies. We made eye contact and then ignored each other for the rest of the night. I left at around 2 A.M. and went to bed. At around 8 A.M. I was woken up by the sound of Tommy getting home. I walked into the living room and there they were, Tommy and his buddy Whitfield Crane, long-haired lead singer of the band Ugly Kid Joe. Whitfield, this goofy, handsome kid who looked like a surfer, was on our sofa dangling his legs over his head.

  “If you were ice cream, what flavor would you be?” Whitfield asked me. “I think you’d be tutti-frutti.”

  “Fucking clown,” I muttered, looking at Tommy. “So why exactly did you bring this asshole home?”

  Tommy grabbed me by the arm and marched me to the bedroom and started yelling. Athena and her boyfriend James happened to be staying with us in the guest bedroom. Hearing the commotion, Athena came running into our bedroom. By this point Tommy had me by the throat, pinned against the wall.

  “You’re a fuckin’ bit
ch!”

  Taylar was pulling on his ankles.

  “Let her go, you athhhhhole!” she said, with her three-year-old lisp. I punched Tommy in the face, and he loosened his grip around my neck. I fell to the carpet, crying. “Oh, shit . . .” whispered Athena, stunned.

  I couldn’t believe Taylar was having to witness the very same bullshit I had grown up with as a child. When I got with Tommy, I had no idea he would be violent against women. Now, enough was enough. There was no way Taylar was going to grow up seeing what I had. I told Tommy I was moving out.

  ENDLESS BREAKUP

  I found a three-bedroom condo in Studio City and moved myself in. Because I had not worked in a year, I had to sell all my jewelry so I could pay my first month’s rent and buy Christmas presents for Taylar. I sold my wedding ring, the platinum bracelet Jani had given me, and Tommy’s engagement ring. He had asked for it back as I was leaving. “Are you serious? Fuck you, cheese ball!” I screamed, slamming the door behind me.

  A few days after Christmas, on December 28, I went back to Tommy’s. He had been calling me nonstop, begging me to come home. “No way,” I said. “Well, I’m not going to let you in to get your stuff,” he said, turning nasty again. “Come on, Tommy, I need my things!”

  “I’m not even going to open the door, not until you give me the ring back.”

  “I don’t have the ring, I told you I had to sell it to get my apartment!”

  He hung up. I went to see my friend Lene Hefner, a former Los Angeles Raiders cheerleader turned porn star, and asked if she would come with me to Tommy’s to get my stuff. “It’s going to be ugly,” she said, sounding nervous. “Maybe we should stop at the police station and have them escort us?” We stopped at the cop station that was on the same street as our home, and a nice officer said he would come with us, for protection. The cop rang the doorbell.

  “Mr. Lee, I am here with Bobbie Brown—can you open the door, please?”

  Tommy opened the door.

  “I am here to supervise Miss Brown getting her belongings,” said the cop.

  “That’s not fucking legal. You can’t just come here and demand things from me.”

  “Mr. Lee, her mail still comes here, so legally this is her residence too. She has a right to get her belongings. She felt in fear for her safety and asked me to come along. I am going to ask that you remain in the living room with me while she gathers some things that belong to her and her child.”

  The cop walked us into the house and stood in the living room. It was beyond awkward. Tommy started following me around the house as I gathered up my things, yelling. “This is my fucking house!” He tried to grab me, and I screamed. The cop came running in. “What happened?”

  “He just tried to grab her,” said Lene.

  “Sir, I am going to ask you not to touch her again.”

  Tommy, who had lost his grip on reality, went to grab my arm again. The cop stepped in, put Tommy in cuffs, read him his rights, and took him away in the cop car. I wished things hadn’t had to become so dramatic. But that’s what Tommy and I were—pure drama. I didn’t press charges in the end. As I had tried to explain to Tommy all along, I just wanted my clothes and some plates, knives, and forks for me and Taylar to eat with, dammit!

  Most of my furniture from when I lived with Jani was in Tommy’s storage unit, so I grabbed the storage unit key that was hanging on the wall, booked a moving van, and went to the unit the following day. When Tommy was released from jail, he must have noticed the key missing, because I opened the door to the unit to find one of Tommy’s associates guarding it. As soon as he saw me, he pulled out a gun and pointed it at my head.

  “Get the fuck out of here.”

  He was skinny, with long hair. I knew he was a yes-guy to Tommy, but this was crazy. What is this, The Godfather? I thought. I just wanted my couch. I backed away slowly, aghast. No couch was worth getting shot for by Tommy’s buddy.

  “Have a nice day,” he said, slamming the door.

  Still, Tommy just wouldn’t stop calling. He sent Jay Gordon over to try and hoodwink me into meeting up with him. Jay invited me out for dinner and secretly told Tommy where we were going. When we walked into the restaurant and I saw Tommy there, I couldn’t believe it. Tommy came up to me.

  “Bobbie—”

  “Jay, I can’t believe you set me up. I’m leaving!”

  I went home and scribbled furiously in my journal. It was the only way I could offload the emotion.

  I’ve tried not to love you, tried to forget you and get on with my life. I recall all the madness, the midnight quarrels, the angry silences and wounding words. Then I remember your smile and the love we once felt. I remember your favorite things in the refrigerator and the love letters you used to fax to me from the road. Your too-tight embraces as we drifted off to sleep. The morning love and our walks on the beach after dinner. Most of all our laughter, so loud and long we forgot what was funny. Last but not least, our shared dreams of our future together. Then my heart aches and impulsively I want to run to your door, share your bed, caress your hair, watch movies, eat root-beer floats, feed the dogs, then laugh some more . . . and share buried hurt. It’s then that I miss us most, because quarreling with you has meant more to me than laughing with anyone.

  Tommy left me a message saying we needed to talk, and we arranged to meet at a restaurant in Malibu for dinner. He showed up holding twenty or so photos of us together, from happier times. All it did was make me feel defeated. How would we ever be able to be that happy again? “I can’t do this, Tommy. I just can’t.”

  Throughout our breakup he had been throwing Pamela’s name into the mix, threatening to spend time with her. We both knew she had the hots for him. Even when we were still together, she had a friend of hers call him saying she wanted to hang out. She had a goal, and when Pamela heard we were broken up, it was on. I heard through the grapevine that she and Bret Michaels had broken up. I told Sharise about it. We were in her car and looked at each other like, “Oh no.” We both saw what was coming.

  On New Year’s Eve, I tried to celebrate as best I could—which was hard, as I found myself at the same party as Tommy, there with Pamela Anderson. What a surprise.

  “Fuck!” said Sharise, nodding toward them. They were at a table, flirting, drinking, and laughing. “You okay?”

  “Sure,” I said, playing it cool. Nonetheless, our friend Becky Mullen marched up to their table.

  “What you’re doing is really fucked-up, Tommy,” she said. “Don’t be flirting with other people in front of Bobbie.”

  “Dude, why’d you do that?” I said when she came back. I was embarrassed. I didn’t want them thinking I cared. Of course I cared. I was just very good at pretending to be a hard-ass.

  Even after that, Tommy continued to call. Sometimes he’d be sweet, sometimes he’d dangle the Pamela threat, trying to make me jealous. But I stood my ground. Shortly before Valentine’s Day, Tommy convinced me to let him come over to my new place. Within minutes the situation had degenerated into a huge fight. In the heat of the moment, he took a bottle and threw it at the wall. Red wine splattered across the room, droplets hitting my daughter’s face. I looked at my little girl, her skin dripping with Merlot. It was like a scene out of Carrie. She started crying, and I flipped out. “Get the fuck out of here! You destroy everything! I don’t have a dime and you are kicking holes in the wall and breaking things in the presence of my daughter.” As he drove home, Tommy called me, crying. A Mary J. Blige song had come on the radio, and it was killing him listening to the lyrics, he said.

  I’m goin’ down

  Cause you ain’t around, baby

  “I’m really sad,” he said.

  “I’m really sad too.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  As in love as we were, it was just obvious nothing was going to work itself out with us. There was nothing more to say. I knew that in relationships, once things reach a certain point, they don’t get better, they only get worse. T
hat night, I knew we were officially over.

  Two days later, Tommy left a message on my answering machine.

  “I’m in Cancún with Pamela Anderson. We have sex toys. I’m going to fuck her really hard.”

  Just the sound of his voice made my stomach churn. I played the message to Sharise.

  “Listen to this motherfucker.”

  We made his message into my voice mail greeting, Sharise and I yelling, “Leave a message after the douchebag,” at the end. Tommy was furious. “Come on, Bob, that’s not cool, what the fuck? Please get rid of it, Bobbie, I’m really sorry.”

  Two days after that, the phone rang—it was our mutual friend Bobby, calling long-distance from Mexico. By this point, Tommy and I had been officially broken up exactly four days.

  “Bobbie, I’m in Cancún with Tommy and Pamela, and they’re getting married. Tommy wanted me to call and let you know.”

  “Right. Whatever, dude, they deserve each other, they’re both fucking assholes,” I said. “Hold on—you are kidding, right?”

  Bobby described the chain of events to me. Pamela had flown out to Cancún on a photo shoot, right around the time Tommy and I were breaking up. The day he smashed the wine bottle in my house, Tommy called Pamela and told her he was getting on a plane. Tommy landed, they had dinner, and Tommy proposed. Three days later, on February 18, they went to a hospital at two in the morning to get their blood tests done. And then, all of day four of their relationship, they were tying the knot. What kind of joke did Tommy think he was playing on me now?

  All day long, Bobby called me with the play-by-play breakdown of the day’s surreal events.

  “They’re saying they’re really in love.”

  “No shit!” I screamed.

  “They just got married, Bobbie, on the beach.”

  “They really got married? You weren’t fucking with me?”