Dirty Rocker Boys

by Brown, Bobbie; Ryder, Caroline

“Look at that ass!” he said, flipping me over. Then he put his face in between my ass cheeks and made motorboat noises, before collapsing in giggles.

  “What the fuck!” I screamed. I fought back the tears.

  “What’s wrong, dude?” said Tommy, confused. The playful energy in the room vanished as I unloaded my hurt.

  “Last time I saw you we were engaged; then you dumped my ass and married Pamela! Now you’re putting your face in my ass? What the fuck! Why do you have to be such a child!”

  Tommy told me not to cry and tickled me. I couldn’t help but break into laughter in between tears. Tommy’s casual demeanor was luring me into a false sense of security. He had always been so good at that, at joking away the pain. Tommy cuddled me and said he wanted me to stay the night. I looked around the room—the decor was feminine, there were knickknacks I knew didn’t belong to him. I could feel Pamela in the room with us. It felt creepy.

  “I don’t think so, Tommy.” But Tommy Lee gets what Tommy Lee wants. Almost.

  I ended up staying. We didn’t sleep together, we didn’t even kiss. But we laughed all night long, until at some point in the wee hours, he fell asleep. I was high, of course, and just lay there, mind racing, heart pounding. When dawn broke, I wrote him a note, left it on the pillow, and tiptoed out. “Had a good time, got to go, bye.”

  After that he came over to my place one day; another night we went to a party. Still, nothing sexual happened, but he was calling me every day. I started to wonder . . . could I do this again with Tommy? Was there a chance for us? One day he called and said he had to go out of town to do something with Snoop Dogg for a few days. I didn’t hear from him again. I read that he had gotten back with Pam. Within two weeks of filing for divorce, she had called it off, and all was forgiven. As I struggled to process the hurt and anger of being rejected a second time, I thanked God I hadn’t allowed anything to happen between Tommy and me. Because that would have fucking annihilated me.

  (It wouldn’t be too long before Pamela would file for divorce a second time. In early ’98, Tommy was led from their house in Malibu in handcuffs after Pamela accused him of attacking her as she held their two-month-old second son, Dylan. Tommy went to jail for four months for spousal battery. Again, I wasn’t surprised.) I cried myself to sleep for a few nights at my town house in the Valley, cursing myself for letting Tommy back in, even for just a second. And then I got back to what I knew best—the club scene and my new best friend, crystal meth.

  At first I liked crystal because it made me skinny. Then I liked crystal because it had become part of my daily routine. Wake up, brush teeth, feed dog, do bump. One hit would last me about eight hours, and it wasn’t even expensive. Unlike coke, this seemed like a healthy habit to have. This doesn’t feel like a problem at all, I told myself, admiring my figure in the mirror, enjoying the energetic high I felt every day.

  I had been sober, off of coke for five years when someone offered me a line and I figured it couldn’t hurt. Then I remembered why cocaine didn’t agree with me. The comedowns, for me, were suicidally awful. I felt depressed and guilty. I could never sleep properly because all I wanted was more coke. I would need another line, need another line, need another line. Coke would make me want to stay locked in with the lights low, talking about stupid shit that didn’t mean dick for hours, saying creepy shit and doing creepy shit. I didn’t want to go out into the daylight and accomplish my goals, hell no. With crystal, things were different. When the high fades, you just pass out cold because you are so tired from being up for three, four, five days straight. On speed, I was more than happy to leave the house and run errands, which I enjoyed so much more than the whole dungeon vibe of cocaine nights. But, as energetic as the speed made me, there was a downside. Speed brain.

  Speed would render me slightly autistic, in the sense that it would make me tunnel-vision on the most mundane of things. I would quite happily spend an hour and a half sitting down and cutting a piece of paper. Meth-fueled crafting became a big part of my life. My favorite reward after finishing a modeling job would be to go Michaels, buy a bunch of crafting supplies—glitter, felt, neon paints, googly eyes, yarn—then come home and go crazy with the glue gun. For, like, days. “Watch out, I will glue your ass to the wall,” I’d tell my friends when they came over. I was making journals and writing poetry in gold glitter ink and doing whatever felt like fun. I became a pretty badass crafter when I was on speed. If only Etsy had existed back then, I might have made a fortune.

  I would go through phases where I stopped using for a while. That’s when I would go to the gym, join spin classes, book this modeling job and that modeling job. But as soon as there was a lull, I would get bored and start partying again. Or if I started to gain weight, I would immediately freak out and start using. I’ll say this, when you book a swimwear job and have to lose fifteen pounds within a week, speed delivers. It amps up your metabolism so much, the weight slides off like butter from a hot potato. For someone like me, who had always been body conscious, crystal meth was the cure-all panacea I had been waiting for all my life. I didn’t care about the speed brain. Not even when things started getting really trippy.

  Before the government started regulating the over-the-counter sale of pseudoephedrine (a key ingredient in crystal), speed was insanely strong. On one hit, I could be up for four days before feeling sleepy. Depriving your body of sleep for such extended periods, you start hearing and seeing shit that quite simply is not there. You enter a new realm of existence, populated by shadows, spirits, and demons that you catch glimpses of in the corner of your eye. Sometimes, my own body would play tricks on me. I would be standing there, holding a drink, and suddenly, I would pour it over my own head. Strange things were afoot.

  Since then, I’ve read some spiritual, New Age–type of books about what can happen to your soul when you are an addict. They say that addiction can make a person vulnerable to malevolent energies that may start using your body as a conduit. Who knows the truth, but things got freaky. At the height of my addiction, I would walk into a party, then feel something push me so hard I would go flying and land on my face in the middle of the floor. To the people around me, it just seemed like maybe I was epileptic, or drunk, or both. But to me it was like something otherworldly was playing tricks on me. Poor Kevin Costner—how was he to know that his speed-freak date was potentially being toyed with by malicious entities who were using her body as a portal? As I lay facedown on Kevin’s carpet, trying to own it by cheerfully yelling, “Face-plant!” I couldn’t help but wonder if my body even belonged to me anymore.

  HOOLIGAN’S HOLIDAY

  Danny Boy, lead singer of House of Pain, had turned into something of a personal bodyguard for me. Between him, Sharise, Annie, and my flirty new BFF Mark McGrath, I never felt alone. Thank God for friends. It was the first time since I had arrived in Los Angeles that I had been single, and their support pretty much saved me.

  Danny Boy would stay over at my condo in Studio City for days on end and laugh at whoever I would bring back. One night he came downstairs to find some guy sucking my fingers while I was half-asleep on the couch. “Hey, dude, go get a fucking meal if you’re hungry,” said Danny Boy, scaring the shit out of the guy and waking me up.

  “What’s happening?” I said, drowsy.

  “Homeboy here was eating your arm. Hey, I can take him to Burger King if you like.”

  Another time, I woke up in my bed with some guy humping my leg. I kicked him out of my bed with the full force of both my legs, and he landed with a yelp—remember, my bed was pretty much on stilts. “Danny Boy! Some fool’s rubbing up on my leg!” Danny Boy came running in, looking mean. “Hey, Superhump. Time to go.”

  If we were out and a guy started hitting on me, Danny Boy would get in his face.

  “You okay, Bob?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine, babe, fuck off!”

  “Okay, cool, I didn’t realize you were shopping.”

  Danny was like the big brother I never ha
d. Yes, he had tried to hit on me, right at the beginning of our friendship. But we nipped that in the bud pretty fast.

  “I think I could love you,” he said, dreamy lust in his eyes.

  “What?”

  “I know you were with Tommy, but I don’t need you to pinch my nipples and pour wax over me. I’m not freaky like that.”

  “Stop!”

  “Really, you’re not trying to hook up?” He was surprised that I could want to spend this much time with him and not want to have sex. But “friend-zoning”—having pseudo boyfriends with whom I would never have sex—was something of a specialty for me.

  When I told Danny I was going on a date with John Corabi, Tommy’s bandmate in Mötley Crüe, he just shook his head and laughed. “You’re on a hooligan’s holiday, girl,” he said. I wasn’t sure what he meant, and then the penny dropped—it was the title of a Mötley song. John picked me up in his car—I can’t remember what kind.

  “Let’s go to my place,” he said, and I agreed, feeling giddy about doing this with one of Tommy’s bandmates. The ultimate revenge. I went to John’s house and stayed the night, doing nothing but making out like teenagers. In the end though, I just could not bone down with that dude. Not only was it weird that I was doing this with one of Tommy’s bandmates, it was weird that he was making out with me. I remembered how in the rock scene, guys always seemed to have so little loyalty to one another—in that world, it’s each dick for himself. I promised myself I would never ever make out with any member of Mötley Crüe, ever again.

  Next!

  Mark McGrath, after months of flirting, joking, druggy nights, and innuendo, was about to get his shot.

  “Okay, Mark, you’re up.”

  I figured we might as well just get it over with. I was already acting all girlfriendy with him, taking acne cream over to his place when he complained of having breakouts and buying him presents.

  “We’re going to do this.”

  “Really? You’re serious?”

  “Yep, now. Get naked and get in bed.”

  He was tripping over his pants.

  “I feel like I’m on The Love Boat.”

  Just as it had with Tommy, months of friendship and “platonic” hanging out had created quite the buildup. Whether the sex was “good” or “bad” wasn’t an issue. It just felt exciting to be intimate with someone who I cared about as a friend, and whose company I enjoyed so much. Which is why it annoyed me when he started acting all insecure.

  “You can’t even feel this, can you?” He wasn’t especially big, but I didn’t care.

  “Stop saying that!”

  “Bobbie, is my dick too small?”

  “Shut up!”

  Of course, the more we slept together, the closer we became. Even though it was supposed to be a casual “friends with benefits” type of thing. Soon I became “the problem” in his relationship with Carin. For my part, I was distressed about breaking my rule of sleeping with men who had girlfriends. But Mark and Carin were so on and off, it was hard to keep track of what was going on. Mark and I seemed to spend more time together than they did. It was strange, and none of our friends really understood what was happening between us. I don’t think we did either. All I wanted from Mark was him to continue to make me laugh. As long as the fun and the partying lasted, I wouldn’t have to deal with my problems.

  Next!

  Poor Bryce. He was a model guy, truly convinced that he was the hottest shit in town. Great-looking, tall and muscular, he had all the girls in love with him, and he knew it. I decided that he would be a perfect candidate for me to flip the script on. I was hanging out with Bobby Hewitt, the drummer of Orgy, and his new girlfriend Shannon, who would become his wife. Bryce and I went back to their house after a night on the dance floor.

  Maybe I’ll fuck him and send him home in a cab, I thought. Guys hated it when I did that. When Bryce went to the bathroom, I told Bobby and Shannon I was going to take Bryce outside and screw him on their trampoline. They were amused by this and found themselves a good vantage point from which to spy on us.

  I took Bryce into their backyard and pulled him onto the trampoline. The thought of him trying to bounce on top of me was making me giggle. We started kissing and getting into it. Then he murmured, “Hey, do you have any spit?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Maybe Bryce had cottonmouth from the drugs we had been doing. Maybe he was hoping for some spit to grease up his weiner. But what was I supposed to do, hock a loogie on his junk?

  “No, I do not have any extra spit on me. Don’t ever in the future say that to anybody ever again. That is seriously the biggest turnoff of all time.”

  I hopped off the trampoline and grabbed my bag. I was out of there. Over it.

  “Wait, don’t you want me to come home with you?” he said.

  “I don’t know. And before you ask, no, I don’t have any spit in the fridge.”

  He followed me home and repeatedly attempted to seal the deal, even though by this point I was fully over it. Bryce the Adonis could not wrap his head around the fact that a woman was turning him down. It simply did not compute.

  “Girl, you know you want this,” he said, grabbing my hand again, pulling it toward his crotch. I snatched it away, exasperated.

  “Bryce, look at me. I don’t want ‘this.’ And I don’t want to give you spit. Now here’s some money for a cab. I’m going to the store, and I would love it if you could not be here by the time I get back.”

  Thankfully, Bryce and his spittle-deficient mouth had bailed by the time I returned.

  For months after that, his friends would come up to me. “What did you do to Bryce? You totally messed with his head!” One day he messaged me. Now I understand what love means, and that is thanks to you. I rolled my eyes and laughed.

  Next!

  I met this cute kid called Stevie Sculthorpe, a singer and model in a band called Take 5. He looked young. Really young. Like, nearly as young as Leo. But he told me he was twenty-six, so I took him at his word. We kissed a couple of times, and my girlfriend Lisa started hanging out with one of the other kids in his band, so she and I went together to one of their showcases, where I introduced myself to Stevie’s mom. “Your son is so talented, Mrs. Sculthorpe!” I said, “and he really knows how to dance.” She just scowled and walked away. I could not believe how cold and mean she was. Poor Stevie, I thought.

  I stood side-stage and watched the guys do their solo performances, after which they each introduced themselves to the audience.

  “Hi, my name’s Stevie Sculthorpe, I’m seventeen, from Miami, Florida.”

  Wait. Seventeen? I screamed and ran out of there. He was still in high school! No wonder his mom hated me so much! I had unwittingly been playing Mrs. Robinson. A few nights later I ran into Tilky Jones, one of Steve’s bandmates, and he said Steve’s mom had wanted to call the police on me. I didn’t blame her! Her teenage son was hanging out with Tommy Lee’s ex-fiancée? What a nightmare. Embarrassed as I was, I ended up making out with Tilky too (he was a ripe old nineteen) and then ignored both their calls. Talk about jailbait.

  Next!

  Shane West was a handsome actor who, like me, is from Louisiana. I ran into him at a Wild West–themed bar/restaurant on the Strip called Saddle Ranch.

  “Bobbie Brown?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m a Southern kid too. How are you?”

  He flashed me a smile and his familiar accent immediately put me at ease. Thank God, I thought, someone with manners. Something happens to people when they live in Hollywood for too long—the ambition, the pressure to be more than what you are, it can make people pushy and selfish. You even see it on the freeway—L.A. drivers are notorious for cutting you off, for yelling, and for not letting you pass. It’s a hyper-competitive town on all levels, and often people won’t make the time to talk to you if you don’t fit into their “plan” in some way—that’s just the Hollywood way. In a town like that, it can be hard to make real
friends.

  When we started sleeping together, I realized that as much as I was digging his vibe, there might be a little compatibility issue. Shane was the kind of guy who would wake up and want to make out before brushing his teeth, which grossed me out because he drank a lot and his morning breath was brutal. One night he played a show with his band and invited me to come and watch. Oh, I wish you hadn’t done that, I thought, standing side-stage. The music really wasn’t to my taste. Afterward we went back to his house and he wanted to fool around.

  “Don’t you want to shower first?” I said, imagining his sweaty balls. “You’ve just been onstage for two hours.”

  “No, baby, who cares.” Ew, I thought.

  We had been seeing each other several nights a week, so I kind of assumed that we were exclusive. I stopped seeing other guys and stopped returning their calls. It was nice to feel like there might be something special happening between Shane and me. Then one night I was chatting with a girl out at a club, telling her how I was dating Shane, when she informed me that Shane might not be as devoted as he seemed.

  “Bobbie, I was at his place just the other night with a video recorder, taping him fucking this other girl. I’m sorry.”

  I was furious. I went to his place and threw trash all over his car.

  “You’re a scumbag!” I screamed at him.

  “But, Bobbie, we’re not exclusive!” he protested.

  “Then why did you have to go acting all exclusive? Or is that just what actors do? Listen, I’m not going to be loyal to someone who is fucking other people. I don’t like to share dick, you know what I mean?”

  Next!

  I brought home the MTV VJ Simon Rex one night. He was a good-looking kid who would later became known for dating Paris Hilton. Simon had also done a sex tape, a solo one, called Young, Hard & Solo III (am I the only person on earth who hasn’t done a sex tape?). I met Simon through Bryce, who had gotten over the humiliation of being dissed by me, and now we were all friends. Simon had a sweet, private-school kind of charm to him, and we started hooking up after the clubs. Three weeks into it, he called me, saying he needed to talk.