I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t process these thoughts and so I shut them down, quickly. I had to get through this week and be strong for Nancy. I couldn’t think about what I had lost or what strange portents and premonitions had foretold this terrible event.
We went to The Generals house the next day. The guys were stunned and in rough shape. Flip was such an elemental part of not only the band, but much larger circles of friends throughout the entire southeastern Michigan area. That night, WDET dedicated an hour to Flip and played a few Generals songs, including a cover of Kiss’s “I Wanna Rock and Roll All Night” and a new song, “Never Say Goodbye” sung beautifully by Kevin. The Generals had recently changed their lead guitarist. The new guy, John, was nineteen, blond and freckled. His sister had done the backing vocals on the new song.
Monday, we were back at The Generals. Jimmy Doom was there. As the night wound down and booze ran low, he offered to make a liquor run. When he returned he had a couple cases of beer and a half-gallon of Kiwi MadDog. Kiwi? Neon green, the fluid looked like antifreeze. Jimmy informed us, in a voice that sounded like he’d been gargling with fiberglass, “Least if ya throw it up in the dark, you’ll avoid falling into it.”
On Tuesday we attended the wake at the funeral home. Flip was in a closed casket. I was with Nancy and Sandy, but embraced many old friends as we made our way in. Maxwell and Eric from The Mangos, the guys from Angry Red Planet, Ian and Terese. Acquaintances I hadn’t seen in months or more.
We shook hands with Flip’s parents, brother and sister. They were devastated, but so gracious to everyone that came to pay their respects. When you walked into the first room (the second held his casket) immediately to your right stood three display tables. The largest of the tables was for his family and his childhood mementos. There were awards he had won in school and yearbooks and photographs and toys.
On the second table, The Generals memorabilia lay. Above the table, his bass hung and on the table were Generals records, Mangos records, pins and posters.
The third table was for the Sids. His leather jacket, emblems and photos. I was astounded at how welcomed Flip’s family made us all feel, and how respectful they were toward every part of their wonderful son’s life. Not many parents – and Flip’s parents were older -- could understand their son being in a punk rock band, or part of an outlaw biker gang. But if Flip loved and cherished all of us in his life, his family treated us with kindness and respect. They honored his friendships during the wake, during the funeral and during Flip’s short life.
Patrick, Dan and Charlie were present at the wake. I had recently shared with Deanne that I wanted to have a heart-to-heart with Patrick. I wanted him to understand how hurtful some of his comments to me had been and I wanted to reestablish communication with him. Deanne encouraged me – she thought Patrick would welcome a chance to sit down and talk. I didn’t hang out much those days with The Colors and the only times I might potentially have seen Patrick recently would have been with Deanne. I wanted a moment where I could have his undivided attention. I thought I could pull him aside before he left the funeral home and ask to speak to him later, privately.
I chickened out. My emotions, I recognized, were too raw and I realized I wouldn’t be able to speak my thoughts clearly. I worried that I would not be able to really say what I wanted. I never did have that conversation with him.
That night, at The Generals house, I had gone with Nancy and Sandy to see Tony, Kevin, Matt. I wound up having a rather profound conversation with Jimmy Doom of all people. But I discovered that he was a lot deeper than he appeared. Our talk began, strangely, with me accidentally walking in on him peeing in the bathroom. “Whoops!” I exclaimed. “No problem” he muttered and continued his stream. “Come on in.”
What the heck. So I came in and leaned against the counter while he finished. Then I peed and he sat on the edge of the tub. Meanwhile, he shared with me some very personal things about himself. About his childhood and scars he carried. He was actually a damn decent person. Sometimes, in a moment of shared grief, the defenses and bravado fall away. I thanked him for opening up to me and I shared some things with him, as well.
The funeral was the next day. We arrived just before the service began, soberly getting out of Nancy’s Sebring, embracing old friends as we walked into the Church. Deanne was outside and I spoke to her briefly. She gave me a piece of Bazooka Joe gum and I tucked the candy into my pocket.
We sat, center left, of the altar. I looked around. I felt I was truly living through a nightmare, and a surreal one at that. Flashbacks of the death of Scott five years before. Memories of how much pain I observed everyone in, at that time. In July 1986, when Scott died, I was so green, so new to the group and my experience was one of observing, watching from beyond the center, and feeling like I had no right to grieve. When Scott died, I found myself in the awkward position of actually feeling emotion for someone I hadn’t truly known well. This was different. This was Flip. This was a man I loved and admired. I was in pain but my own personal loss of a dear friend was overshadowed by my knowledge that this would potentially destroy another dear friend.
My life in Gravity was now book-ended by these two terrible deaths. Scott and Flip. I sought out the faces of those that I loved most in this world. Jennifer and Sandy. Tony and Kevin. Deanne, Eric, Dave. Nancy, who wiped away tears during the Eulogy but otherwise had been holding in her sorrow (at least publicly) for the past five days. How did this happen, and why Flip?
Flip’s older brother Ken spoke lovingly about his brother and wistfully reminisced about their mutual love for “Calvin & Hobbes.” Flip’s older sister recited a poem. The pastor introduced the song “Trojans” by the Damned (an instrumental from 1985’s Phantasmagoria) as Flip’s favorite song. John from The Generals and his sister performed an acoustic song. The service had been beautiful and reverential and I felt ripped in two.
Trying to stop from crying, I pulled out the gum Deanne had slipped to me earlier. I unwrapped the Bazooka Joe and looked at the comic. Joe and a friend stand before a stream. Joe asks “Is it true that all salmon swim upstream to spawn?” His friend replies, “Not all of them, Joe!” Joe inquires “Really, which ones don’t?” and the answer: “The dead ones!”
I choked and put the gum back in the wrapper. Later, as we exited the church, I tossed the gum in the trash bin.
Knock Me Down…
I kept my eye on Nancy the next two weeks. She wasn’t seeing that loser from work, happily, but she was remote. She spent a lot of time at her parents’ house and was picking up extra shifts at Bill Knapp’s. Her distraction wasn’t healthy, but people don’t grieve the way you want them to and I certainly couldn’t tell her to mourn differently. She had to go through the experience the best way she knew how. All I could do was be there when she needed me.
I threw myself into writing. I decided to write a novel. The book was fiction, but loosely based on my life. I accompanied Sandy to evening classes at Oakland U to use their computer lab. I would sit there while she was in class. Trying to find ways to write about the No Bev house and about my life. About Flip and about Patrick -- without really writing the truth.
I was trying to find a way to explain my life. Nothing made sense. It’s terrible to think, but if almost anyone else had died that summer I wouldn’t have gone thru such agony. Any loss would have hurt, but Flip was special. His death, I felt in my bones, would change everything.
Three weeks after Flip’s death, a friend of Sandy’s put a shotgun in his mouth and took his life. Sandy asked if I would accompany her to the funeral. He was young – just a few years older than I -- and his family was destroyed by his suicide. I think that’s when the realization began to hit me. I was twenty-two years old and at my second funeral in less than a month. I suddenly felt like I was looking down the barrel of a shotgun myself. What was I doing? How many fucking funerals did I need to go to? I felt I might be next. That something terrible might befall me and my only hope of s
urvival might be leaving Detroit, for good.
I wrestled with this thought over the next several weeks. I was torn. I was in agony. Everyone was. The Generals found another bassist -- a guy from Ohio -- but would anything ever be normal again? It didn’t feel like it, in September of 1991. I felt like we were all doomed, myself included.
We weren’t hard-core druggies. We had our fair share of drink, mind you, but this had never been a self-destructive group of people. We valued our lives. We were intelligent and ambitious. We were creative and we longed to share our ideas, our music, our art, our photography with the world. We weren’t those kind of people. We shouldn’t have been fucking dying!
For the sake of my sanity and my very life, I felt I needed to leave Detroit behind. But to where -- and what -- I had no earthly idea.
Sandy and I had been spending a lot of weekends at Jef’s that fall. Outside of his apartment stood a huge tree, perfect for climbing in. We called it “The Beer Tree.” We would pour a beer into Super Gulp plastic cups, climb into the tree and sit there for hours. Wasted, laughing, hanging out.
Jef had recently applied for a transfer with Northwest Airlines to Seattle, Washington. He was due to leave in a couple months. He suggested that I join him. “Take this chance at a fresh start.” He urged me. “You can come to Seattle, stay with me a while, until you get on your feet.”
I wanted to do it. Seattle seemed inviting. But I had no money saved and emotionally I didn’t know if I was ready to throw myself into job-hunting, apartment-searching and a brand new set of responsibilities. I needed a reprieve from the life I had been living, but I wasn’t yet ready to create something new.
My salvation came from the most unexpected source: my father. He offered me a place to stay, until I could make my way to Seattle. Graciously, he and my stepmother offered me the finished basement at their townhouse in St. Louis. I could work, save money and plan for my move west.
It was very difficult, telling my friends, that I would be leaving. But everyone was supportive and understanding. I appreciated how easy they made my difficult choice. I know some of them had the same thoughts as me.
Once, that October, I commented to Nancy that I was worried our connection would suffer after my relocation. “Why?” she asked, brushing off my concerns. “We remained close while you were in Chicago -- this won’t be any different.” But I feared that this separation would be harder.
Meanwhile, Nancy got a tattoo on her back. A graphic image that she had me draw for her. We adopted a pet snake. Thelonious was an albino corn snake, pink in color. He ate defrosted fetal mice once a day. Thelonious was fascinating to watch. But once, Thelonious bit me and after that I got afraid to touch him. I kept the Yellow Pages for Greater Detroit on his cage to prevent him from getting out and slipped the mice inside to him quickly.
Chuck started coming around again. He had disappeared for a while, presumably back to Kalamazoo. He returned for the funeral. He had broken up again with his erstwhile girlfriend.
As Halloween approached we agreed to meet up with The Generals. They were going to the Sid’s clubhouse in Pontiac and asked us to join them. I dressed as Wilma Flintstone. Sandy was Pebbles and Tony was Barney. I wore a black halter dress, Nancy’s faux leopard coats and put my hair in a topknot skewered with a rawhide bone. Sandy also wore a chewbone in her hair and carried a little “Dino” dinosaur toy. Tony wore a brown one-shoulder toga, festooned with little black triangles and carried a club. Kevin was dressed as a harem girl. I don’t recall if Nancy wore a costume.
That night, after going out to the Sids House and winding up at The Generals, I had sex with John in the basement. John was several years younger than me and worked part-time as a tattoo artist. He had just tattooed his bandmates that week. Each got the word “FLIP” and the date of his death on their biceps.
John and I saw each another casually that early November. I knew I was leaving soon and he wouldn’t have been someone I got emotionally involved with. It was just sex -- an easy way to kill the pain for a short while.
In Mid-November Deanne threw me a going-away/slumber party. She invited Sandy and Nancy, Kristen and a few others. Nancy didn’t make it. I could feel her distancing herself. When we hung out, she said everything was fine but I felt a disconnection.
Midway through the evening, someone pulled out an Ouija board. “Oh crap” I thought. I prayed that nobody was going to try to conjure up Flip’s spirit. I thought that would be ridiculous and in very bad taste. But when we put the board in front of us and placed our hands on the planchette, something happened. Someone or something began to communicate with us.
It began to give messages to each of us gathered there. Each of us were told of something that was coming, some event or occurrence or change that we could expect. Every message was positive, hopeful and reassuring.
And then the messenger told us that he was Flip.
I took my hands off the planchette. I felt really uncomfortable. But the board wouldn’t respond without all of us touching and my friends told me to continue. I did.
I cannot convey what this spirit told us. I can’t even properly tell you that it felt like Flip. But the entity told us that we each had a future, that we each had something important to look forward to. And that spirit told us to tell everyone that it was Flip. I mean -- it commanded, “Tell everyone that you heard from me” and was really, really adamant about it.
Yikes. I felt so weird about the whole experience. But as I began to pack my belongings and ready myself to leave Detroit, I did tell three people. I told Kevin -- we had gone to dinner one night just prior to me leaving. I told Nancy -- who was respectful of my experience but didn’t want to know a lot of details. (Including the messenger expressing his love for her). And then I told John.
John wasn’t surprised in the least. “I believe you, Lisa” he said and then confided, “I saw Flip.”
“What?” I asked. We were down in the basement. That night I had gone to see Pearl Jam, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Smashing Pumpkins at the State Theatre. A girl that John knew, Cassie, had picked a nasty fight with Sandy. We were to the right of the stage and Cassie was between Sandy, Nancy and I and the amps. She was with one of the bouncers of the club and he was defending her. Every time the crowd surged and pushed us toward her, Cassie would push back. We couldn’t control it -- we were physically locked in. But Cassie was being a bitch because I was there. She knew John and I were seeing each other. She wouldn’t have tried something directly with me, but she was being a fucking cunt to my friend. She even went so far as to grab Sandy’s hair. Nancy and I fought her off and the bouncer finally whisked Cassie out of sight.
Later, I ran into her in the parking lot and backed her against a pillar. “Where’s your bodyguard?” I sneered at her. Then I had the misfortune of seeing her, briefly, at The Generals house that night. I was aware that John had a thing for her, and my thing with him was temporary – but still. In front of Cassie, I grabbed John’s elbow and dragged him away to the basement to fuck me.
Anyway, when I told him about the Ouija board he confided that he saw Flip, a few nights after he died. John was standing in the kitchen and looking out through the back screen door, which faced 8 Mile. In the middle of the boulevard, facing him, stood Flip. John saw him, then quickly turned away. “I didn’t want to start second-guessing what I saw” he sighed.
Before I left at dawn’s early light, Leadbelly, Matt’s German Shepherd/Rottweiler started barking like mad into a corner ceiling of the living room. “What’s up with him?” I asked. Tony started asking Leadbelly, “Is it Flip? Do you see Flip?” and the mutt started howling and yelping. As if to say, yes, Flip is up there. Right there, can’t you see, you dumb humans?
Was it so inconceivable that Flip’s spirit could have been watching all of us? Of everyone I’d known, Flip perhaps was the best candidate for Guardian Angel.
Love Will Tear Us Apart…
And then came my final full day in Detroit. My dad
had booked me a flight to St Louis on Sunday afternoon. I had gone to The Generals house on Saturday with Sandy. The Michigan-Ohio game was on and the guys were gathered around the living room television, drinking beer. John gave me a tattoo -- it’s a lizard or gecko. Green with blue spots, it’s coiled in a circle on my upper left shoulder. I had sex with John once more and then left with Sandy to the loft to finish the last of my packing.
Deanne called. “Whatcha doing?” she asked. “Just getting packed.” I responded, while sorting through the pages of the novel I was writing. “Why don’t I come by and we’ll make dinner?” she offered. “Sounds great.” I told her to come on by. I thought this was perfect. Sandy, Deanne and then Nancy (who was due to arrive home mid-evening from work) and I, spending my last night in Detroit together. Three of my dearest friends.
Deanne brought a surprise: the Ouija Board. Butterflies bombarded my stomach. I knew Nancy didn’t want to have anything to do with this, but I was curious about the things that the board had divined for us two weeks before. I knew it would be several hours before Nancy got off work and came back to the loft, so what the heck.
Once again, the board began, the three of us lightly touching the planchette. We asked “Are you Flip?” and the planchette moved to the word “YES.” The messages were similar to the earlier experience, with specific guidance relevant and revelatory to each of us. The messenger tried to convince us at one point that I was pregnant. I knew I wasn’t but I agreed to run out with Deanne and Sandy to buy a pregnancy test. Of course, the test was negative.
The clock struck nine in the evening. Nancy should be getting off work soon. We were sitting on the couches, the Ouija board in front of us. The phone rang. Nancy was calling. She had gotten off work and was at Anne’s. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Oh, just hanging out with Sandy and Deanne.”
The Laws of Gravity Page 13
