Death Punch'd

by Jeremy Spencer

  I’d been looking for a running partner on tour, someone who could match my weird-ass sense of humor and party-till-you-drop attitude. We christened him Rockshow, because before every show—as the intro was rolling—he’d try to pump us up by yelling, “Are you ready for a rock show?”

  From the minute he was hired, we hung out all day, every day. Like two annoying chimps, it only took a few raucous days until we were on everyone’s last nerve. Not only did we have a blast partying together, making up stupid bonehead jokes and pranking everyone; I could also count on Bobby to help me get out of any sticky situations I managed to get myself into. And if it involved handling the overflow of chicks, he was always willing to be of assistance.

  While Rockshow and I got along famously, that wasn’t the case with the other band members. They thought he was an annoying fuck and looked for reasons to get rid of him. Happy to accommodate, he gave them plenty. A perfect example was the night Bobby found some chick he wanted to bang. He pulled her back to the bus and asked me where they could go.

  “Zo’s gone tonight, so use the back lounge,” I told him.

  “Thanks, man,” he said, disappearing with the chick.

  I went outside to drink a beer and smoke weed. A few minutes later Darrell came charging up to me.

  “I want that goddamn Bobby to pack his shit. He’s fired. I walked in on him and his pants were down around his ankles and he was fucking some chick in the back lounge.”

  “So?”

  That cavalier response really hacked Darrell off, and then Matt got all pissy, too. It was obvious they were angry because the new kid I’d hired was getting laid in our bus when it should have been them. I explained that I’d given him permission. They finally calmed down and agreed to let me keep him on. Like a cat with nine lives, that was just the prelude to the first of nine times Bobby was actually fired.

  Bobby aside, mixing personal and professional rarely worked out. A perfect example was a friend of Ivan’s—one he’d always wanted to hire—who was reluctantly given the position of tour manager. He was this pseudo-hippie dude who smelled like ass and looked like he’d slept in his clothes for weeks. He’d barely begun his new duties when we got a call from our management.

  “Jonathan Davis [Korn’s lead singer] wants to send you guys home.”

  “What? Why?”

  “That guy you hired as your new tour manager was caught scalping tickets out in front of the venue.”

  No fucking way! We were allotted ten comp tickets for our guests for every show, and this dumb fuck was outside scalping them. Though he’d just come on board, he was already taking full advantage of us. We had to go apologize to Jonathan Davis and the guys from Korn. (That’s actually how we first met them.) We told them we’d already fired the asshole and asked them for another chance to stay on the tour. They agreed, but not before making us grovel. Our burgeoning career almost came to a grinding halt that day. We learned that friendship and business could be a deadly combination. Add booze to the mix, and it’s a wonder any of us survived that first tour. I certainly had some close calls, and all of them were alcohol related.

  In any case, as long as I could get drunk and have sex, I wasn’t particularly selective either way. At one of the radio promos, I spotted “promo girls,” hot chicks who worked for the station, being “pitched” by guys from other bands. I singled out this super-hot chick, probably the hottest of all those working that day. I always got off on the challenge of talking to the hottest one. I marched up to her like I was the only guy in the room. Admittedly, I look like every other generic rock guy, but my attitude and confidence set me apart.

  I pitched this chick, convincing her to come back to my bus and drink with me. We started drinking and making out, and then we went to her car to seal the deal. Once inside, she told me she was married and her husband was a crazy UFC fighter. I didn’t care. Like a dog pissing to mark territory, I actually got off more on doing it with her in his car. When it was time for her to leave, she gave me her phone number.

  I was so hammered I started texting her and calling her. Later that night, my cell phone rang. It was her number, so I picked it up and said, “Hey, girl.”

  “Did you call my wife?” The voice on the other end was fucking steamed. I held the phone at arm’s length as if it had a deadly virus. Finally, I asked, “Who is this?”

  “Yeah, play dumb, motherfucker. If I ever catch you, I’ll fucking kill—”

  Click. No reason to listen to empty threats. I powered my phone off.

  She hit me up the next day and we kept flirting back and forth; however, I eventually shut it down because she was married to a crazy bonehead fighter.

  Booze always altered my judgment. However, as long as I got The Conquer, I got the validation . . . and it didn’t matter what I had to do to get it.

  Sex was random and rapid, and when I was drunk, which was almost all the time, it was reckless. After one such encounter, I called Angel. Even though I’d told her we were through before going on tour, I still called her occasionally. She knew what I was doing, but she was hoping we’d get back together. I was still ambivalent about what I wanted. I had her to take care of me when I needed someone to, but I loved getting drunk and having random sex in a different city every day. I was in no hurry to make a decision about getting back with her, because I could do both, and she went along with it.

  I was on my first tour, sucking up as much of the rock-star life as possible—all the while sinking deeper and deeper into my alcoholism.

  Family Values . . . yeah, right.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE AWAKENING

  1986–87

  I come from a long line of alcoholics. My great-great-grandfather Heyde’s family owned a brewery in Kassel, Germany. Really bad karma . . . apparently.

  I was six and a half when I’d watched my grandparents, the Heydes, down a water glass full of rotgut whisky—with a water-back chaser—for breakfast. At one time, this was a way to celebrate being on vacation. It was called a Minnesota breakfast. But somewhere along the line, this fucked-up ritual found its way to most Saturdays . . . then to Sunday mornings. I looked forward to sampling it myself.

  I was always curious about their booze. Both sides of the family were drinkers. Dad was afraid of becoming an alcoholic like his parents, so he rarely drank. However, this was the period when Mom would have her nightly one or four glasses of wine “to relax.” I always made sure I was by her side, taking sips of the cheap-ass wine that came in a green gallon jug. She was part Italian, so it was normal to let kids have a little vino. I nibbled cheese and washed it down with a few sips, more than a few if she wasn’t paying attention. What she didn’t know was that I’d started chugging gulps from the bottle in the fridge.

  Anyway, back to my first drunkfest . . .

  I was spending a week, alone, at my grandparents’ house, the wonderful home of Dutch and Helen in Stanberry, Missouri. As Carl Sandburg once said of such places, “It’s a slow burg—I spent a couple of weeks there one day.” With nothing else to do, I decided to help myself to a Coors original.

  While they were in the living room captivated by Wheel of Fortune, I snuck into the kitchen, grabbed a cold one, scampered past the doorway, and disappeared outside. Cowering behind some lilac bushes in the backyard, I power-slammed the beer. The minute I finished it, I felt that feeling . . . and I dug it. I enjoyed it so much, I decided to keep it going.

  After stealing and power-slamming beer number two, it really hit me. It felt like someone had pushed me down a staircase and then shoved a Craftsman tool chest on top of me, crushing my little lungs. Fucking smashed, I struggled for breath. On my way back to the house, I noticed my shadow on the ground and was surprised to discover that I had not one but two.

  To cover up my crime, I got the bright idea of throwing the beer cans away in the kitchen trash can, under the garbage. A couple of beers and I’d become a miniature Einstein. As I walked out of the kitchen on my way to the bedroom
, Grandpa yelled at me.

  “Hey, Jer . . . bring Grandpa what you just threw away.”

  I stood, frozen.

  “Bring what you threw away to Grandpa,” he repeated.

  Holy shit! I was so busted. I’ve failed to mention that Grandpa Dutch was a big mother. His hands looked like baseball mitts, his fingers like fat sausages; if he thumped you on the noggin, it rattled your brain . . . for hours.

  What to do? How to get out of this one? I went back into the kitchen and spotted a six-pack of Mountain Dew beside the fridge. This could work! Ah, shit . . . it was a six-pack of glass bottles, not cans. My choices were limited, so I grabbed a bottle and staggered into the living room. Grandma sat on the sofa. Grandpa was hunkered down in “his” recliner. I handed him what I hoped would be an acceptable end to this drunken nightmare. He looked at me with that all-knowing gleam in his eyes.

  “There’s no reason to lie to Grandpa. Go get what you threw away.”

  I was fear-stricken . . . and hammered. I stumbled back into the kitchen, dug a beer can out of the trash, and brought it to him. When I held it out, my hand was visibly shaking.

  “You don’t have to lie to Grandpa . . . it’s okay.”

  Jumping up from the living room sofa, Grandma Helen chimed in, “There’s nothin’ wrong with takin’ a snort now and then.”

  I followed her into the kitchen, where she removed a bottle of Jim Beam from the cabinet and poured the whiskey over ice. Grandma Helen had grown up on a farm and, at times, could be pretty country. “Here ya go,” she said, handing me the glass and repeating, “Nothin’ wrong with a little snort.”

  Who were these people pretending to be grandparents? How did I get so lucky?

  Predictably, I did what any normal six-year-old with a major-league buzz would do: I took a big-ass sip and, like a gasoline-fed forest fire, it blazed its way down my throat and into my stomach until it completely obliterated my breath. I couldn’t breathe . . . or speak . . . which was good, because I couldn’t have formed an intelligible sentence if I’d tried.

  Whiskey was absolutely revolting, a way different vibe from beer. It tasted like kerosene smelled. But, not wanting to disappoint, I managed to down it all. By now I was absolutely shit-house hammered. I staggered out of the kitchen and into the guest bedroom and collapsed onto a twin bed. The room was spinning like a carnival ride on acid. I passed out and woke up many hours later. I could try to capture how I felt, but mere words aren’t adequate. Let me just say that experience quenched my desire for alcohol . . . until 1986, the year I turned thirteen.

  The summer of ’86, my parents were involved in yet another musical—this one written by Dad and based on the life of the famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt. He wrote it as a gift to Mom, who played the title role. It was being produced at the University of Evansville, and it was a pretty big deal, involving a cast of thirty and more than one hundred costumes, and it totally consumed them.

  Most nights, I was forced to go along to rehearsal. Sitting in the dark theater, hour after hour, was pretty much a drag until the final weeks of rehearsal when the band was added. That’s when I met the percussionist, a person who would help facilitate my journey to Addiction Hell. Let’s call him Rob.

  Three years older than me, Rob wasn’t just some guy who played timpani and glockenspiel (though he did with a nearby symphony orchestra): he rocked on the drums. He let me sit behind his drum kit and showed me some incredible chops. I was seriously impressed with his playing. Plus he seemed like a cool guy. Going to rehearsals became instantly more fun, since I could now hang with the band. As a bonus, he smoked cigarettes. I was scared of getting caught by my parents or someone who knew them, so he would let me take furtive drags off his cigarette.

  We started hanging all the time. A few weeks passed before I convinced my parents to let me stay overnight at Rob’s. It helped that he could lay on the charm when necessary. He’d been adopted by this really straight couple who worked at the university, which helped convince my folks it was okay. Rob’s parents didn’t suspect that their son possessed a dark side—insecurity issues that he medicated in a variety of ways. Like the cone snail that appears to be a pretty seashell but is armed with venom, Rob was about to inject my life with a poison that would eventually prove to be deadly . . . almost.

  With my new buddy, life was on the upswing, and we didn’t waste any time going for the gusto. Rob had older friends who drank and could get us booze. He picked me up and drove straight to the home of one such friend, who agreed to buy us some thirty-two-ounce Colt 45s—the equivalent of two and half beers in each bottle. The three of us tooled around in Rob’s car jamming the David Lee Roth album Eat ’em and Smile. guzzling our Colt 45s and smoking Marlboro reds. I was in fucking heaven.

  Being a skinny-ass eighth grader, it didn’t take much to get me completely shit-housed. I killed my first beer like it was lemonade, and within minutes I was totally drunk. Halfway through my second beer I became aware that the earth was spinning wildly—requiring my complete concentration to keep from spinning with it. I also became aware I had to barf. Rob must have recognized the signs, because he pulled the car over and said, “Hurry, get out.” I flung the car door open and staggered out—tripping and falling onto the pavement. I struggled to my feet but fell forward again. I wavered back and forth—waiting to toss my cookies—but when nothing happened, Rob yelled, “Come on, let’s go.”

  No sooner had I reached his car door than I began to projectile vomit like Mount Vesuvius erupting carbonated gravy. It looked nasty but smelled worse. Though I felt bad because I showered the outside of his car, what made it really embarrassing was that I’d upchucked like a rookie. This was my first night as a member of the Big Boys’ Club, and I quickly proved I was unworthy of membership.

  How could I be such a lightweight? Oh, yeah, I only weighed eighty pounds, not very big for someone who’d consumed five beers—especially when I downed them at warp speed. Cigarettes didn’t help either. It was like Tattoo from Fantasy Island power-slamming five beers and chain-smoking half a pack of Marlboros. Nothing like ingesting shitloads of nicotine—on top of booze—with a body as skinny as a vegan’s on a diet of bean sprouts and wheatgrass.

  I stumbled into the backseat. My mouth was a toxic waste dump, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make things stop gyrating. I grabbed the edge of the seat and tried to hold on, praying I wouldn’t upchuck again. Rob and the older dude were making fun of me. I’d hoped to make an impression, to show them I could hang and be a badass. I’d made an impression, all right, but one that proved I was a neophyte among pros. Still, you know what they say . . . if you get bucked off the horse, you gotta get right back on it. Believe me, I hopped back up on that motherfucker and rode every chance I got.

  I soon discovered that all of Rob’s friends were equally fucked up, dysfunction being the glue that held the group together. I loved this new cast of misfits; however, it’s probably not a good idea to judge people’s character while in a perpetual alcohol and drug haze. That being said, I thought Rob was the shit. I began spending as much time as I could with him and his buds. When I wasn’t there, I obsessed about being there. When I wasn’t drinking, I anticipated the minute I would be.

  Besides booze, Rob turned me on to a lot of different music—the band Rush, for one. Neil Peart’s drum solos definitely resonated with me. Alex Van Halen had some nasty shit going on, too. “Hot for Teacher” was a serious drum song. We’d jam Rush and Van Halen’s 1984 while driving around drinking. How we managed to keep from getting in big trouble, I’ll never know.

  In addition to beer, I started drinking Jim Beam and Coke, Bacardi and Coke—anything we could get our hands on. Most of Rob’s friends were of age, so we could get anything. One, a guy named Roy, was a crazy meth head. We’d sit out in back of his trailer and get hammered. Roy, who had to be thirty, seemed to dig the fact I was so young. Knowing he could mess with me, he took full advantage.

  “Boy, you ev
er been laid?”

  Sheepishly, I answered, “No.”

  He started laughing, which made me feel really insecure. Then he yelled to his girlfriend. “Rachel . . . get out here and give this boy his first piece of ass!”

  I laughed, but I was terrified. I looked to Rob for help, but he was already a goner. What was I supposed to do? Stupidly, I wanted to impress these older people. But clearly I was out of my element when it came to being a full-fledged fuck-up, even though at the rate I was going, it wouldn’t be long until I could say I’d succeeded.

  Roy was relentless. “Rachel, I said get the hell out here right now! This boy needs to dip his wick.”

  Thankfully, she wasn’t digging it, so the addle-brained asshole finally let it slide. Next, the topic turned to food.

  “Boy, yer hungry, ain’tcha?”

  I said I wasn’t because I didn’t want to impose, but I was totally wasted and actually needed to eat something to absorb some of the alcohol. How drunk was I? I was so drunk I couldn’t have hit the floor with my hat. Everything seemed to be whirling, and it was all I could do to stay upright in my lawn chair. I gripped the armrests like a passenger in an Indy race car, rocketing around that brickyard track at two hundred miles an hour. Ol’ Roy could see I was trashed, and he was determined to fuck with me as much as possible.

  “Jeremy, don’t be tryin’ to fool ol’ Roy now. Yer in need of some grub, and by God yer gonna have some.”

  I started to protest, but there was no stopping that sadistic bastard.

  “Rachel, you fuckin’ cunt . . . fix this boy some spaghetti.” He sure had a way with words and women. As my grandma Helen liked to say, he was slicker than a bald-tire semi on a mile of wet asphalt and dumber than a box of rocks. And he happily played abuser to Rachel’s victim.