Death Punch'd

by Jeremy Spencer

  Who the fuck tells a father who’s always supported him in every way, who’s bought him everything he wanted and let him practice drums in the basement—with a band so loud it rattles the second-story windows—that he’s gonna stab him? Only an ungrateful bastard like me . . . that’s who.

  It took some time to restore order. Eventually, I went around Dad and convinced Mom to let me spend New Year’s Eve with Rob. It’s not like I needed an excuse to have a big blowout celebration. But, hey, this New Year’s was extra special. We were gonna hang out with his older brother, Joey, a guy who’d recently been released from prison. How cool was that? Partay-ing wit da big dogs!

  On the way there, I learned this would be the most time Rob had ever spent with his own brother, then nearly thirty. Joey had been court-ordered into a reform school before Rob was born. By the time he got out, Child Services had removed baby Rob from their crackhead mother, putting him up for adoption. So this was his first chance to reconnect with a brother he really didn’t know at all.

  We drove to Joey’s pad, which turned out to be a hideous shithole in a run-down apartment building. Had I not known he was a convict, his hard-ass vibe would have been a dead giveaway. To this day I have no idea why he’d been in prison. All I knew was that he’d spent most of his twenties in and out of jail. Still, the more hardened the criminal, the more exciting I would have found it.

  We arrived shortly after noon. Getting to know you was not to be part of this gig. We barely said hello before we started drinking beer and whiskey . . . lots of it. By midafternoon, I was already soused. We broke out some joints with hash oil and added that to the mix. At this rate, there was no way I would make it to midnight. In fact, by six P.M. I was on the verge of passing out.

  Like Roy before him, Joey started making fun of me. Rob, trying hard to impress his brother, joined in. The more shit they said about me, the more paranoid I became. We were all baked and we’d already consumed a week’s worth of booze, but Joey had something else in mind: “Let’s score some crank!” (That’s slang for meth. If you knew that, I’m preaching to the choir.)

  I’d snorted it before, along with coke. I knew it would keep me awake so I could continue drinking, a side benefit. Coke never did anything for me, but crank was a motherfucker.

  We drove to a shitty part of town and scored the crank. We hurried back to his dump, anxious to add it to the mix. Although I was toast, I rallied a little when he pulled out the drugs . . . along with A SYRINGE. “We’re gonna shoot up, boys!” he announced. My first thought was, This is real taboo territory. I’d always believed anyone who shot up was a worthless junkie. However, I was so wrecked I replaced that thought with, Fuck it, I’m in!

  Obviously, this was not Joey’s first crank rodeo. He loaded up the syringe like a pro, shooting up with a hefty amount. Then, like Dr. Feelgood, he fixed Rob, who would’ve willingly shot up battery acid just to be hanging with his big bro. Though it took a concerted effort just to hold up my head, I eagerly awaited my turn. Within a few seconds of being injected, I transformed from a slobbering, head-bobbing drunk into someone ready to run a marathon. My heart rate instantly increased by fifty beats a minute.

  Now a passenger on the Amphetamine Express, I could drink whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted, and still be level enough to handle it. Then, from out of nowhere came a sobering realization . . . the three of us were sharing a needle. It occurred to me that this could have dangerous consequences. But before I could act on it, the thought vanished. All I cared about was shootin’ up with the big boys.

  We continued to drink. Smoked more weed. Drank more . . . smoked more. Soon the speed started dominating the buzz. Hours flew by. We decided we needed more speed. Had to have it now! We raced out to Rob’s car like firefighters answering an alarm. We were responding to an emergency, all right, but it was the urgent need to score more crank and stay fucked up.

  Like idiots, we sped back to the crack house. It was New Year’s Eve. Cops were everywhere, patrolling the streets, on the lookout for drunk drivers. Because we felt invincible, we acted like we were invisible. Somehow we made it without being stopped. It was an old abandoned building in Evansville’s inner city, a mecca for druggies, people constantly venturing in and out at all hours. Surely the neighbors had reported what was obviously illegal activity. However, on a night when law enforcement was passing out DUIs like invitations to the Policemen’s Ball, there were no cop cars in sight.

  Joey grabbed the money out of Rob’s hand like a baton in a relay race. He bounded up the front steps of the dilapidated porch and, before he could knock, the door opened and he disappeared inside. Returning in a matter of minutes, he whooped it up like he’d won the lottery.

  We got back to his ramshackle apartment shortly before midnight, quickly shooting up this last batch. I was so high all I could do was just sit in a chair, grip the sides, and hope I didn’t crash to the floor. No longer able to join in the conversation, like a zombie I drank and smoked while they yammered on.

  HAPPY NEW YEAR! (Oops, missed it!)

  The next thing I knew, daylight was streaming in through the plastic curtains. Daylight . . . goddamn daylight. I looked around at the trash heap—and the two of them lying on the floor, passed out in the middle of it—and I suddenly felt like I was among aliens. Uncomfortable and miserable, I wanted to leave, to run out the door and away from whatever horrible shit had happened there.

  Joey was a fucking creep. And maybe Rob was, too. I wasn’t sure how I felt about anything. I was disconnected from my own body. I’d just shot up a shitload of crank with a stranger who’d only been out of prison a few weeks—sharing a needle with a derelict who could have HIV, hepatitis, or God knows what else. Jesus! What the fuck was I thinking? I looked down at my arm, where the needle had broken the skin, and it was bruised. It was the arm of a junkie . . . a loser. I felt disgusted with myself. Only losers shot up. At least that’s how I’d always viewed it. That was me: I was a loser. Who was I to judge Rob or his brother?

  With each passing minute, I got more and more despondent. I just wanted this shitty feeling to disappear. I wanted to fall asleep and not think about what I’d done or who I’d become. In one evening, I’d gone from just another punk addict to that guy?

  Fifteen years old and shooting speed. In just a couple of years, I’d morphed from a decent kid into a drug-addicted monster, one my family could barely stand to be around, one I could barely stand to be around. For the first time, I was scared of what was next. My life was rapidly spiraling out of control, and I was a bystander watching it happen.

  I’d never felt good enough. When my parents or anyone told me I was talented or what a great kid I was, I’d think, Yeah, that’s because you don’t know me or the shit I’ve done. Growing up, I couldn’t have asked for more love, yet I didn’t love myself, so I still felt empty. I tried to mask my insecurities with humor, then later with drugs and alcohol. When someone attempted to engage me in an honest conversation, I’d squirm. I developed a way around it by speaking for both myself and the person complimenting me. For example, if someone said something like “Jeremy, you’re a great drummer,” without skipping a beat I’d add, “But don’t let it go to your head, asshole. Travis Barker’s still my favorite!” Compliments don’t sit easily on the unworthy. Love goes unacknowledged by the unlovable.

  The crystal-clear realization that I was an alcoholic and a drug addict didn’t mean I’d stop using. Hardly. Even if I could quit for a few days, a few weeks, or even months, I was still an addict who craved the highs. Now, however, those highs were coming with less frequency, and it took more and more for me to get a buzz.

  What I didn’t know at the time was the struggle my parents were going through concerning what to do about me and my addiction. While I thought they were unaware of what a fuck-up I’d become (except for the obvious examples), it had been an ongoing discussion since I was fourteen.

  Watching me slowly deteriorate was destroying Mom. She believed ther
e was something they could do that would make me stop. Dad, a child of alcoholics, knew that nothing they did or said would make a difference. When she suggested a drug-rehab facility, he said, “Until he wants to quit, rehab won’t take.” He told her they had two choices: lock me in a room and throw away the key, or hope that when I finally hit the wall, I would hit it hard enough to wake me up but not kill me. That choice was excruciating for both of them.

  The year before I turned sixteen, they consulted a deep-trance medium named Michael Blake Reed who lived near Toronto. Skeptical at first, they’d driven from Indiana to Toronto to see him in person. Like “the Sleeping Prophet,” Edgar Cayce, this guy would go into a deep trance, completely unconscious, and channel a group of disembodied entities called the Evergreens who would speak through him, telling you things no one but you yourself could possibly know and answering questions about your past lives, your present circumstances, and what your future might hold.

  Supposedly, the Evergreens were a “soul grouping” of between 6,500 and 7,000 souls who had lived every kind of life—from murderers to saints—and they acted like a spiritual computer to determine the various choices a person might make; they could glimpse your “possible futures” based on the choices you were likely to make.

  Unbeknownst to me, a year or so earlier they’d told my parents that by my sixteenth birthday, something would happen that would alter the direction of my life. Of course, my parents never told me, so I knew nothing about it at the time.

  The weekend before my sixteenth birthday, my parents were out of town, performing in Indianapolis at the Indiana Community Theatre League Festival. This was an opportunity to invite some friends over and get fucked up. I was hoping to obtain enough LSD to ensure that the party would be epic, but as usual I was penniless.

  Natalie, who was getting her BFA from the University of Evansville, was still living at home. After ransacking the house looking for dough but finding nothing, I stole $180 from her purse, money Dad had given her to buy textbooks. Fortunately, I’d already purchased the LSD by the time she discovered her money was missing. Although I disavowed any knowledge of the theft, she didn’t believe me. While my friends and I were hallucinating and having a wild-ass time, I suffered moments of regret about robbing my own sister.

  The thing I feared most, however, was what would happen when my folks returned and found out about the theft and our LSD blowout. I was ecstatic when, like the great sister and enabler she was, she decided not to tell my folks. Boy, was I grateful; I was also more guilt ridden. There was that damn conscience again. I liked it better when I could commit heinous acts without self-reproach.

  Fortunately, I was able to temporarily repress those feelings when, just three days later, on the eve of my sixteenth birthday, Jarred and I decided to get blitzed. Knowing we had no money to purchase booze or drugs and unable to find someone who would lend us any, we turned to our old standby: huffing gas.

  On the night of January 7, 1989, while my parents were asleep upstairs, we snuck into my basement and started huffing. Though it had happened before, I wasn’t prepared for what happened next. After just a couple of deep inhalations, I began convulsing—violently. This time I couldn’t stop. It was horrifying. I could see Jesus and the Devil . . . and they were struggling to see who was going to get me. I was scared shitless. Unable to stop the wild spasms, I finally lost consciousness. Had Jarred not been with me, I’m certain I would have died. He stayed with me all through the night to make sure I didn’t swallow my tongue or choke to death on my vomit.

  Early the next morning, I came crawling into my parents’ bedroom. Still on my knees, I reached up and shook Dad awake.

  “What, J-Bo . . . ? What time is it?”

  “I need help.”

  “No kidding.”

  “I mean it, Dad . . . I almost died last night.”

  “Oh my God! What happened?” asked Mom, sitting up.

  “You’ve got to put me in one of those places where they lock you up. If not, I’m gonna die.”

  There was no need for further discussion. This was what they’d been waiting to hear. The scene quickly dissolved into a full-fledged drama. Though Dad remained calm, Mom was a combination of happiness and hysteria.

  Dad went downstairs and hurriedly flipped through the Yellow Pages until he found a place called Parkside at Mulberry Center, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic in Evansville. He called them, explained the situation, and they said, “Bring him in.”

  “Jeremy, get dressed,” he yelled up the stairs. “They want you to come in right now.”

  “Right now?” repeated Mom, flitting about.

  “Just as soon as we can get him there.”

  The ensuing hullabaloo woke Natalie. Fearing I’d finally ODed or worse, she came rushing out of her bedroom. When Mom explained what was happening, I heard her say, “Thank God!” She volunteered to help me pack my suitcase. When it was time to leave, she hugged me good-bye.

  “I love you, Jeremy,” she said. “Please let them help you . . . please.”

  “I will,” I told her, and she acted like she believed me. I wanted to tell her, “I love you, too!” But even though the words wouldn’t come, she knew I did.

  “Come on . . . they’re expecting you right away,” said Dad. He carried my suitcase to the car. Hand in hand, Mom and I followed. She gripped my hand like I was going away forever. I guess it was because only a few hours earlier, I almost had.

  Little was said during the entire thirty-minute trip into Evansville. Dad eyed me occasionally in the rearview mirror. Mom nervously fidgeted around while trying to appear calm. Every few minutes she’d look back at me and smile. I could see she was fighting back tears. But unlike the other times, these weren’t tears of despair and disappointment. These were tears of hopefulness. Not tears of joy—not yet, anyway. There were still too many uncertainties.

  We all knew of people who’d been court-ordered into treatment, people who had relapsed the minute they were released. And even though I’d begged to go, there was no way of knowing whether it would actually help me, whether or not it would “take.” I wanted it to . . . I needed it to. There was no doubt in my mind: I’d been spared. I’d stared death in the face, and it scared the hell out of me. I was determined to get clean once and for all.

  The Evergreens had predicted it: something life-changing would happen by my sixteenth birthday. After nearly dying the night before, I felt like it had. Miraculously, I was still alive.

  As we pulled into the Parkside parking lot, Dad turned and said, “Happy birthday, Jeremy.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” said Mom. “I almost forgot . . . Happy birthday, my sweet boy.” Sweet boy? That was something I hadn’t heard for years.

  Happy birthday indeed! Without fully comprehending it, I’d been given the best present anyone could ever have: another chance to live, another chance at life.

  I was determined that my sixteenth birthday wouldn’t be my last.

  CHAPTER 9

  NEVER ENOUGH

  2008–09

  The tour finished and we were stylin’—selling a lot of records and enjoying a Top Ten radio hit with “Never Enough.” The label agreed to release another single and chose “Stranger Than Fiction.” I thought it was just average, but it was the best we’d managed to produce during some sessions we’d recorded at Korn’s studio, so we went with it.

  About this time our manager quit, which was understandable because she wasn’t getting the credit she deserved for finding us and bringing us to the label. Uncharacteristically, our management and label were the same company. This would prove to be problematic in many different ways; however, when you’re looking to get in the game, you sign on the dotted line and hope for the best. In this case, the hope and the reality didn’t quite mesh.

  To replace her, they chose a “really nice kid” to manage us. Fresh out of college and greener than goose shit, he’d never managed a band before. He proved to be more than competent at h
elping with daily tasks. But he was powerless and terrified of losing his job. Sometimes you need someone to rip people a new asshole, or at least stand firm. But when it came to a confrontation between the label and us, he’d cave, always siding with them for fear he’d get axed. (It happened anyway.) This is to be expected when all the power is in the hands of the same corporate entity. Had our management been separate from our label, we’d have had someone in our corner fighting for us. But that wasn’t to be.

  When it came to capitalizing on our success, having an inexperienced manager really hindered our progress. That was the situation we were dealing with while gearing up for our second headlining tour, a ten-week marathon that would prove to be one long motherfuckin’ trek. Fortunately, my legs were working again, so I was in a relatively decent head space.

  On the relationship front, Angel wanted us to get back together, even though she knew I wasn’t going to be exclusive. Clearly a bad idea, but in hopes of “having it all,” rather than nixing that plan, I decided to keep her around for my own selfish reasons. I relished having someone to take care of me at home, and she was a great caretaker. So I massaged it to have it both ways. Selfish, yes, but a perfect depiction of me at the time.

  The Black Sheep in Colorado was our first tour stop, and we sold it out two nights in a row. The crowds were enthusiastic and crazy as always. Colorado seemed to love us, in part because Ivan was from Denver. To fill out our set, we attempted to play our cover of Faith No More’s “From Out of Nowhere,” a song that would end up on the Avengers soundtrack. I thought it was crap; however, it seemed to go over pretty well.

  After the show, several of us ended up next door at a dive bar, drunk off our asses. I’d been there earlier that evening because the toilet at the Black Sheep was a public toilet, crowded with patrons for the show. Ivan and I both used the ladies’ room, and we destroyed it.

  On the way out of the Jane, a chick recognized me. I told her straight up, “If you value your life, don’t go in there . . . ever!” She laughed and asked me to take a pic with her. I said she could now tell everyone she got to stew in the intestinal fumes of the Death Punch drummer and singer. (If you’re starting to get the idea that many of my memories from touring are scatological, just know that being a dumb-ass drunk reduces one to adolescence and the requisite behavior.)