We stood to hug like we always did, meeting at the shoulders and chest, then suddenly everywhere else in a full-frontal press. We were locked together from knees to neck, firmly and unmoving. My cheek pressed to his chin as I inhaled his warm skin and that faint musky scent that had driven me wild for months. A longing came over me, years of pent-up frustration. Yet I was frozen, unable to read the situation or trust what my gut was saying. I tried to gauge Smokey’s stance and grip—anything to suggest he felt what I did—but there was nothing. Except that he hadn’t let go of me yet.
I could not, would not, make the first move, but I could open the door and let him through. I relaxed my grip and ever so slightly turned my head toward his. As I did, he mirrored the movement, turning his head toward mine, until our faces met lip to lip. That’s when I knew.
The last thought I had before losing my mind was that we would always be equally to blame for this…a perfectly coincided moment of weakness.
When it was over—our passionate kiss and one other, exquisitely intense, dropped-to-my-knees moment—I pieced myself together, crossed the hall, and went straight to bed. I’d forgotten to retrieve any paper, but Joe hadn’t noticed or even looked up when I’d entered.
•••
Two days later, I awaited Smokey on the bus, half inflamed, half frantic, both thrilled and pained by this game-changer we’d set in motion. The force of my guilt was equaled only by my entitlement. I should bolt right now, but there is no goddamn way I’m letting this moment slip through my fingers.
The bus was parked behind the outdoor stage at a bustling fairground. At midday, it was hot and sunny out, cool and quiet inside the bus. Forty minutes late, Smokey finally arrived, barreling down the center aisle and pinning me to the mattress in back. I wrapped my legs around his waist and dug my nails into his back. Outside, Joe played his heart out. I recognized the song before Smokey muffled it, growling like a bear in my ear as he climaxed. In, out, done, and gone, he left the bus and me, alone, shivering in the air-conditioning, burning up with adrenaline. I reeked of shame and sex and something else I couldn’t name, then later pegged as sorrow. I was officially a cheater, grieving my first true monogamous bond. I washed up at the sink, trembling with dishonor and desire. I wanted him again already.
A few days later, I popped across the hall again, this time with a barely believable yet uncontested excuse of showing Smokey my new outfit. He whisked me inside, maneuvering me face-first into the corner behind the door. He flipped up my skirt, yanked down my panties, and took me from behind, on the spot. I was absolutely undone, in cavewoman heaven.
I was back in our room minutes later, Joe apparently none the wiser. The next day on the bus, someone snapped a Polaroid of me and Smokey. Joe was out of earshot when I showed it to Rick and asked, “What do you think?”
“I think it looks like you’re having an affair,” Rick said, not missing a beat.
His deadpan delivery made it tough to discern humor from commentary. But it simply had to be the former. Only Smokey and I knew the truth, and I wasn’t talking.
Wouldn’t it be Nice
The OAG tour wrapped up around the time fall semester began. I was enrolled at Pasadena City College until a day in biology class when I passed the microscope to my teenage lab partner and drove off campus for good. I’d craved love and adventure all my life. Now that I had it, I couldn’t be expected to sit through freshman courses (suspiciously similar to the math, history, and sciences I’d already passed in high school).
Joe was sympathetic. “If college isn’t working for you, find something that does.”
I considered volunteering—no doubt compelled, partly, by guilt over being a three-time college dropout. I didn’t, because the idea of being depended on by people with real needs made me hyperventilate a little. (It’s important to know your limits, I felt.) I was a capable person and fast learner who’d worked steadily since age sixteen, including as a speed freak. I felt vaguely uncomfortable not earning my keep, at least my own spending money. A nearby flower shop on Ventura had had a Help Wanted sign posted for months. How hard could that be? The worst I could do was kill a blossom or two.
They hired me at noon and I turned in my apron at three. Whatever fair compensation for soul-crushing boredom is, six bucks an hour wasn’t it.
“I just want you to be fulfilled,” Joe said. “Whatever does it for you.”
I had many interests—writing, sewing, and martial arts,. among them—yet none strong enough to tear me from Joe and the fun that followed him around. I didn’t want to miss anything.
Patrick Swayze came over while I was out of town, at my folks’. He spent all night making music in Joe’s half-finished garage studio. Patrick was remodeling the house next door, and after meeting in his driveway, I’d said come by anytime, neglecting to specify a time I was home. Another time, years earlier, Joe got a surprise visit from Keith Richards at a hotel in Indianapolis. I’d left Indiana that morning to put in an appearance at work—probably earning a fraction in cash of what those two put up their noses that night.
I was at home the night Wolfman Jack dropped by. Uncle Wolf (as he asked to be called) was one of Joe’s sweetest friends, and he referred to me as “the woman of the house” in a way no one else had, Joe included. “It takes a special kind of woman to handle celebrity-sized egos like mine and Joe’s. You’re strong like my wife. I can tell,” Wolf said. He proceeded to profess his awe for her, women in general, and the power of female sexuality, which he likened to a righteous mythological weapon against puffed-up male narcissism. Before he left, he asked if I could help him score. I made a run to our dealer and returned with a gram for him alone, but Wolf refused to take it until I did some.
Pointing at a long, narrow piece of glass on the counter behind the bar (which we kept there for just that reason), he said, “Dump it there, do as much as you want, and I’ll do the rest.”
“Okay, Uncle Wolf,” I laughed, “but this may not end well for you.”
•••
My favorite celeb guest was the goddess herself. I met Stevie Nicks after she called to invite Joe to dinner and then extended it to me as well. “Both of us?” I asked. “She actually said that?”
“Of course. When I told her I was in a relationship, she insisted I bring you.”
“Oh my god! That’s so sweet! What’ll I wear?”
Joe laughed. “Calm down. It’s Stevie, not the queen.”
“Yeah,” Rick added. “Besides, she’s probably more nervous about meeting you.”
He and Geno were across the bar, beating me at poker. I gave Rick a look, but he loved teasing me and refused to explain the cryptic comment.
“Joe, what’s he talking about?”
Joe shrugged. Finally, Geno took pity on me. “She’s still in love with him. Has been for years. Doesn’t she keep a special room in her house just for you, Joe, no one else can use?”
“I don’t know…maybe.”
The men awaited my reaction, but the info only made me like her more. The chick had great taste.
At La Toque, Stevie waited at the head of our favorite table, looking as expected—a luminescent gypsy angel in black lace and leather. She greeted me with a hug, but when her darting eyes wouldn’t hold my gaze, I found it comforting to see the nervous habit in someone else for a change. She had a necklace snagged in her hair and fiddled with it to no avail. I offered to help and she sighed, grateful. “Please, it’s been driving me nuts for an hour.”
She and Joe talked while I worked, careful not to damage one strand of her precious platinum hair. When I presented her with the pendant—a silver claw clutching a hematite marble—Stevie insisted I keep it as a thank-you gift.
During dinner, half a dozen of Joe’s friends showed up, apparently all having plans to dine at La Toque that night. It was quite a coincidence. One by one, they joined us, pushing table
s together until we were a party of ten. Our quiet, three-person dinner was officially hijacked when Geno, at the far end of the table, joked about her “One-Winged Duck song”—trying to get a reaction. It worked, and Stevie’s head snapped up. “That’s dove, idiot,” she barked. “White-winged dove.”
Afterward, we took Stevie back to the house, with Geno, Rick, and Rick’s date. The men gravitated to the bar while Stevie took a spot on the floor. Rick’s date and I looked at each other, then followed suit. (I got the sense that’s how it was with Stevie—she did what she wanted and you could either come along or not.) When I commented on her remarkable skin, Stevie shared her youthful secret. “European products, expensive as shit and totally worth it.” From there, the conversation deteriorated into a rambling monologue, causing an amused look to pass between me and Rick’s date. I’d never seen anyone talk so much and say so little who wasn’t on coke or meth at the time, but Stevie had been in my sights all night and not done a single line. Maybe that’s just how she was, I thought. Incredibly, ridiculously ditzy.
She left the same pile of jewelry in three separate spots around the playroom. Each time it was returned, with firm advice to place the valuables in her purse. Each time she promised to do so and each time the cache reappeared somewhere else. Around 2:00 a.m., Stevie abruptly left the room. We followed upstairs to the living room where she sat at the piano and we formed a semicircle around her. And that’s where we stayed for the rest of the night, literally.
At 4:30 a.m., Joe whispered in my ear that it was time to call it a night. I agreed, just as I had the first two times he’d said it. Yet despite my hints, Stevie remained oblivious. Finally Joe pulled me aside and growled, I don’t know what to do…help me!
He was right. I was the woman of the house, after all.
“Stevie,” I purred, sliding next to her on the bench. “I could listen to you play forever, but Joe and I should really get to bed.”
“Of course! It was so nice to meet you,” she said, her smoky voice light and sweet.
I sighed with relief as Stevie continued playing. I raised an eyebrow at Joe. He raised both back at me. Geno observed with curiosity, Rick with absolute glee—on the verge of laughing hysterically. I pulled Joe aside. “Should we offer to call her a car?”
“She has one,” Geno interjected. “Followed you home from La Toque, been parked in your driveway all night.”
I stepped out to have what would surely be an awkward conversation with her driver. Instead, he nodded knowingly. “Just get her outside. I’ll take it from there.”
With renewed hope, Joe concocted a story about something outside Stevie simply must see, something magical in the sky or our shrubbery. The moment she’d cleared the front door, her driver was there, as promised—Perfect timing, Miss Nicks, I know you like to be home by sunrise—and guided her into the back seat. It was the only time all night she let someone else take the lead.
The next day, Stevie called in a panic. Her jewelry was missing—her late grandmother’s heirloom jewelry, to be exact. It had huge sentimental value, and a retail of thirty grand. Joe and I tore the house apart—trash bins, drawers, sofa cushions—to no avail. Stevie begged me to keep looking, so I did. Joe paced and chain-smoked until I gave up. Day three, Stevie’s final call: Never mind! One of her house staff had found the jewelry in her purse that night and locked it up safe.
•••
Joe and Stevie had a right to their eccentricities. They’d followed their dreams, invested their talents, made sacrifices, and taken risks. I didn’t have their courage. I envied their wealth and accomplishments, but mostly the creative expression forever at their fingertips.
The fancy electronic typewriter in Joe’s study did not compel my hands to reach out. It made them clench into fists. To me, it was less a writing tool than a lie detector test meant to confirm my lack of talent. One day Joe made an amazing offer. Until I could put my stories on paper, he would give me his.
He placed a tape recorder on the bar, where we did the bulk of our partying. Then, whenever the urge struck, he’d hit record and start talking, sharing his best rock-and-roll memories. My role was sounding board first, transcriber second—to draw him out, then edit the anecdotes, as coauthor of his memoir. Talk about starting at the top! But the plan came crashing down the first time I hit play and recoiled from the grating sound of a clueless cokehead interrupting her funny, tolerant subject with inane asides and irrelevant questions. It was cringeworthy. I was that girl—the girl you avoid at parties—and Joe’s magnanimous plan evaporated along with my self-confidence.
At eleven years old, it occurred to me that I might want to be a writer. I’d read a book of stories by Roald Dahl, two of them personal essays—giving birth to a love of memoir. At thirteen, I read The World According to Garp and knew for sure. If it took a lifetime to write something one-tenth as good as that, it would be a life worth living—even just in the trying.
That same year, I was one of three students chosen from my class to enter a local writing contest. The night before it was due, I decided I could do better and started over on a new topic. Suddenly the words flowed in a way they never had before. Unused to the feeling, I didn’t trust it and turned to my parents to confirm I was on track. But it was late and they were tired—Seems fine, Mom said, skimming it and handing it back. Deflated, I’d gone to bed and turned in my original essay the next day. It scored an average grade, which, to me, meant last place.
Two years later I showed my dad an essay I’d written for sophomore English. A short piece about relocating to Texas. Earlier that year, I’d come out of my shell with a new group of friends, months before being uprooted. There’d been no discussion or comforting words. Just, Prepare to say goodbye to everything and everyone you know in San Diego. I’d shown Dad the essay at his request, quietly thrilled by his interest. He’d handed it back without a word—literally, not one—nor change in expression. If feelings weren’t Dad’s thing, disgruntled feelings topped the list, but I didn’t know that then. Instead, I thought I must be quite a bad writer if he couldn’t even say, “Seems fine, Kris.” Another type of kid might’ve plugged away undeterred, but I’d never been very resilient. I needed tremendous encouragement. By the time I received real praise on my writing, from two teachers my senior year, I was a binge-drinking alcoholic with a sky-high fear of failure. I wanted to believe them, but I was too far gone by then. Eventually, I penned a few short pieces, nothing recent. But at Joe’s encouragement, I planted myself in his study and tapped out some ideas. Whether they had any potential, I’d never know. When they didn’t blossom into John Irving–level stuff, I quit working on them.
For my birthday in October, Joe gave me a top-of-the-line electronic sewing machine with all the latest bells and whistles, plus ten free lessons. The sewing machine of my dreams never left its box. I slid it under the typewriter stand and went to snort hog rails at the bar.
•••
Around that time, we got a bad batch of coke that burned like hell inside my nose. Joe gave up after two bumps, but I was convinced the pain was worth it. When the ice-pick sensations spread from my nose and face to a whole-head debilitating pain, I lay down and rolled to one side, to snort lines off the plate. I pretended not to notice Joe pacing behind the couch. If he wasn’t going to stop me I wasn’t going to stop, no matter how much it hurt. My sinuses sizzled and buzzed, delicate mucosa stung and throbbed. For a brief moment I wondered—Is this how it feels when cartilage dissolves? Still I did more, until it was gone—the coke and my septum, both.
I saw a doctor who was kind but solemn. “Keep it up and your nose will collapse. Septal surgery is painful and expensive, and you should try to avoid it.” I promised him I would. There were other methods of ingestion. Intravenous was out of the question, and freebasing a hassle. The rectal area was rumored to work, but after a period of fearless (and hilarious) experimentation—packing straws with c
oke and blowing it up each other’s ass—the novelty wore off. It was too inconvenient.
We found another dealer: a loud, crazy Englishman on Beverly Glen. Gregarious and well connected, Gary owned a hair salon and pet-grooming business, and had dirt on half of Hollywood. With a personality as big as his gut, wild white hair, big lips, and a rubbery nose, he was clownish yet weirdly attractive. The accent didn’t hurt, plus he was irreverent and filter-free. I adored Gary, but when Joe did a short tour that fall, I didn’t call him. I stayed home, grieving my septum in isolation—not one line, over seven days. When Joe returned, we went straight to Gary’s.
Our excitable dealer was more so than ever, showing off his fresh score—a blinding white, densely packed snowball of coke that broke apart in sheaths like an iceberg. It sparkled and winked, flirting shamelessly. We bought as much as we could afford.
•••
Christine came to LA on a job hunt. We put her up in our guestroom and dragged her to La Toque to meet J. D. Souther. The fix-up was Joe’s idea and I’d okayed it, realizing my mistake the moment I introduced them. I liked older creative types. Christine preferred young, athletic men. We’d known this about each other for years. “You forgot, that’s all,” she said. In truth, I hadn’t bothered to remember. I’d been high the day Joe concocted the matchmaking plan, declaring it brilliant without any consideration.
The incident was not an anomaly. I wasn’t the same person Christine had befriended five years earlier. I acted put-upon and dismissive, as my low-maintenance houseguest embarked on a major life transition. Her agreeable self-sufficiency was a slap in my face. Her well-meaning concern, a nail in our coffin—I’m worried about you, she said. How dare you! I thought. I couldn’t bear to see my life through her eyes. I knew I was out of control, but since I couldn’t change course, anyone who brought it up had to go. I was relieved when she found somewhere else to stay, hating myself for it, but not enough to stand in her way.
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