Reckless : My Life As a Pretender (9780385540629)

by Hynde, Chrissie

  We were entering the world of the “knock-on” effect. There was always something available to counteract the effects of whatever the drug du jour required for a smooth landing.

  Valium was quickly becoming a comedown favorite. Doctors were writing scripts right, left and center. Any minor complaint would be rewarded with a prescription for valium during most of the seventies. “Doctor, my toe hurts.” Presto! Yellows were 5 milligrams, and blues 10. It was a nasty addiction, often producing suicidal side effects. Annie herself threatened to stick her head in the oven one day until I rushed out to get her some fried chicken. (Against my principles, but a matter of life or death—the chicken got death but Annie lived another day.) She was always up for any kind of gratification, and was possessed of a fierce sensualism, which could even override the urge to commit suicide.

  Alcohol was by far the cheapest and easiest to find “remedy.” A bottle of MD 20/20 only cost a buck and a half. On the down side, alcohol, more than all the rest, was the gateway to destruction, darkness and depravity.

  I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that I was now twenty-one and the drugs had worked their magic on me. I was well and truly fucked up most of the time, or at best, reeling from the effects of the day before. I don’t like how much this story is influenced by them, but they were the defining characteristic of my generation. And all our heroes. And in the end, this story is a story of drug abuse.

  —

  Hoover had also left Kent and was renting a house on West Street, just off West Market in Akron. She seemed to know all the stragglers. She gave good haircuts, was very welcoming in an Italian mother sort of way, could cook and had good records, and that was the key.

  It was there that I met Scotty, a fuck-up from Cleveland, but a good-looking fuck-up.

  “So, you’re a Scorpio,” I said to his astonishment as we dusted ourselves off, getting up from the floor.

  “How could you tell?” he asked, impressed with my astrological intuition as, indeed, a Scorpio he was.

  “Because you have a scorpion tattooed on your forearm.”

  We weren’t there for his intellect. We weren’t looking for intelligent life on earth anymore. The thing about Scotty, on the plus side, was that he was as close as any of us were going to get to that standard of beauty we found so unobtainable. The skinny, androgynous English musician.

  Apart from the English musician part, he had the look and was right there in northeastern Ohio, not an ocean away. And as he was the first to point out, “I’m not skinny where it counts.” You get the picture.

  On the down side, he was a petty larcenist and always in trouble, which was an attractive trait to me in theory, but a pain in the ass to deal with. Was it auto theft or dealing grass? I didn’t know why he was doing time. I don’t think I even asked. Who cared? It was always something.

  Star-eyed Stella was back and enjoying the perks of Scotty; I’d had my run (he was very accommodating, benevolent, you could say), but I was happy to accompany her to visit him at the Cleveland Municipal Jail. That was the sort of place I got dressed up for. Lawbreakers—right on! A chance to get out of Akron for the day and have a look around inside the pound. Arf arf!

  The Heavy Bikers, they were there too, visiting brothers loyal and true. It was in the elevator that we met again, the gallant security guards who’d held court that night with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. They looked the same as I remembered them—larger than life—but I looked different. I wasn’t jailbait anymore. We were reunited and going D – O – W – N.

  The difference between being “illegal” and “there for the taking” was as clearly defined as, say, a broken collarbone to all present except your hapless narrator. But they were the time keepers, I wasn’t really paying attention. I was more concerned with how many Quaaludes I could shove down my gullet while managing to find a bit of wall to brace myself on.

  They looked tall and regal in their heavy chains and boots and beards and greasy jeans and rotting leathers. But I was hallucinating just that little bit extra. Come to think of it, so were they, in all probability.

  It felt so intimate in the confined space of the elevator; they looked exaggerated, like the reflections you get in funhouse mirrors. Anyone within strangling distance could see I was off my face, so it was no surprise when they cornered me in the parking lot after my eyebrow-raising announcement in front of guards, brothers, old ladies and fellow inmates in the visiting room: “Hey, Scotty. If I’d known there was this little hole in the partition here I’d have brought you some ’ludes.” I might as well have shouted it through a traffic cone.

  Chaos and disorder were to be ongoing themes for me with a mouth that flapped like a rag nailed to a post in a windstorm. Thus my comeuppance shouldn’t have come as a surprise. (Better that girls with big yaps learn when it’s still only a foot in the mouth. But some don’t learn.)

  Truth be told, I was thrilled to find myself enveloped by the very same “friends of the band” I recalled so fondly from that romantic night of chord sequences with Buzzy Feiten. “I must have died and gone to heaven,” I slurred, referring to their winged insignias.

  Stella, who had not been party to that glorious night of yore, recoiled in horror at this invitation to an S. Clay Wilson–style act of sexual violence.

  I continued my descent.

  Okay—you start…

  “Give us your drugs,”

  was the growling demand

  “No I will not!”

  (barely audible dribble)

  “Oh yeah? Why?”

  came the curt reprimand.

  “I need them they’re mine”

  (but let us not quibble)

  “Why do you need them?”

  my predators gaining

  (I picked up the gauntlet

  with no time remaining)

  “You need a club,

  I need to cop”

  That’s all she wrote,

  Signed and sealed.

  Full stop.

  And that was, as the saying goes, my parting shot: game over; good night, Irene; sayonara; bonne nuit. By exceeding the dosage, Quaaludes tend to make you do and say things you might later regret. It says it right on the packet.

  The hairy horde looked at each other. It was their lucky day. “How ’bout youse come to our place for a party?”

  A party? Sounded good to me. What a nice surprise! Who doesn’t like a party?

  “Follow us.”

  I got into Stella’s car, surprised by her less-than-enthusiastic response: “I’m not going to a fucking party. I’m going home. If you want to go with them you can go on your own.”

  I was too loaded to argue with that. If she didn’t want to have a good time then that was her problem. Whatever. She dropped me a block away from the clubhouse and patched out, leaving me in a cloud of gravel dust. Spoilsport!

  But what neighborhood was this? I could see they’d moved from their Gothic mansion in Coventry to a modest little affair in a white slum that had “Jeffrey Dahmer” written all over it.

  I started to twig that the proposed “party” was going to be hosted exclusively by yours truly, as the tattooed love boys methodically unchained a series of padlocks to reveal a dark and noticeably empty house, before shoving me into a dank den. I was led upstairs to another dark room with the smell of the dissection table. A party of one.

  Garçon, make that five glasses.

  Now, let me assure you that, technically speaking, however you want to look at it, this was all my doing and I take full responsibility. You can’t fuck around with people, especially people who wear “I Heart Rape” and “On Your Knees” badges.

  “GET YOUR FUCKIN’ CLOTHES OFF!”

  But, I…

  “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

  Ah. Can I just…

  “HURRY UP—WE GOT SHIT TO DO!”

  Ahhhhh. I…do you guys…

  “SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET ’EM OFF, OR WE’LL TIE YOU UP IN THE ATTIC AND GET TO YO
U LATER!”

  But, you know, if you want…

  “HIT HER IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD SO IT DON’T LEAVE NO MARKS!”

  Oh, that’s not really…do you think…?

  “YOU’RE TOO SKINNY, ROCK STAR—YOU OUGHTA EAT AT MCDONALD’S MORE!”

  Hey, you know, I don’t…

  “SHUT UP OR YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE SOME PLASTIC SURGEON RICH!”

  But…I can’t…

  “STOP TALKIN’ AND START SUCKIN’!”

  I considered their demand while sustaining a volley of lit matches, which bounced off my rib rack and underlit their stony expressions before dropping to the forensically soiled carpet, leaving little trails of blue smoke to struggle briefly and then disappear—like I wished I could.

  The other thing, the good thing about Quaaludes: I wasn’t duly perturbed. I was getting experience, and I was out of Akron.

  Like I said, I’d never blame others for my transgressions. That would just be bad form. Painting oneself into a corner could pass as an art installation by any other name. So I humored them and gave them the Quaaludes.

  Later that afternoon, I was drawing portraits on napkins at the kitchen table in their disappointingly downgraded HQ. You’re welcome. And I found out something useful: bikers associate artistic ability with witchcraft or some kind of magic, and if you can commandeer the old pencil or brush reasonably well you might get a shot at airbrushing some goblins walking across a sand dune on the side of a van or maybe Satan himself coiled around a gas tank. You could even be kept on hand as resident artist. Career Opportunity!

  The ugly blond one gave me a lift back to Akron after stopping by some nurse’s house and grabbing a pack of Marlboros out of a carton in the fridge. Apparently, you could just walk in and have whatever you liked from any chick who had been touched by the club. It was no doubt her car too that he drove while Steely Dan’s “Do It Again” played on the radio. Great song—one of my favorites.

  It was winter and typically around zero degrees. Filthy snow-banks crusted with frozen slush and oil were piled up alongside the interstate’s shoulder. On the way back to my apartment we stopped off at the Brown Derby in Akron and I bought dinner. Surf and turf for the gentleman and a selection of side orders for the lady; all part of the service.

  As he saw me up the wooden staircase above the drugstore he affectionately belted me on the thigh and said, “You ain’t a half bad chick.”

  At the time I didn’t recognize that European turn of phrase but understood that there was something different about this lumbering outsider with the unpronounceable name. He offered to pick me up on his bike after work later that week. I drew my quota of coats of arms while looking forward to the ride, trying to imagine what his bike looked like.

  He arrived on time (they always do at first) on a class bike, pan-head, low to the ground, minimal chrome and a surprisingly cheerful yellow gas tank. The brooding chopper (like all their bikes) was a work of artistic perfection, a fair bit more glamorous than its owner.

  He told me that “green” for a tank was bad luck. I was learning about luck and its assorted talismans. You get to understand superstition if you’re an outlaw, junkie, fairground worker, hooker or biker.

  Although I was now schooled in certain customs, I still thought I was only there for the ride. In fact, nobody was only there for the ride. Like a tattoo or a dog, the Heavy Bikers were for life.

  For the next few weeks he’d pick me up when my working day was through and we’d roar onto 77, him saying, “Let’s boogie through this traffic,” as we sidled up between cars—kicking off them with his steel-toed boots, letting all motorists know to “fuck off out the way”—and boy did they ever fold when they heard the mighty growl of the Harley and saw us approaching in their rearview mirrors. We cruised along like that all the way to Cleveland, and everyone, bar none, deferred to the patch on the back of my Heavy Biker as we sailed right up to the front of the lights. I liked riding with an outlaw. I liked the feeling of moving fast—moving fast and moving away—and soon that’s what I’d have to do. Move fast and move away.

  Annie surprised me when I brought him home. I thought she’d be impressed with his bike. Turns out, like Stella, she wasn’t into bikes. Annie was like Gloria in the Cassavetes film. She had her apartment and her cat, and she wasn’t about to let some know-nothing (me) fuck it all up.

  I could see there were a few things that didn’t add up about that guy. Like when he’d take me to his place—who was the chick sleeping on the couch? Who smoked Salems? Only chicks or black dudes smoked menthols, and black dudes did not feature with the Heavy Bikers, white supremacists that they were. Funny how much one will turn a blind eye to get at the drugs.

  Chicks were a commodity to be exploited and “disposed of” when no longer useful. But chicks (present company guilty as charged) overlooked obvious shit when in the thrall of some muscle. To be fair, a lot of guys take advantage of girls like that. Well, except for the last part, the waste-disposal part. That was fairly unique. They lent a whole new meaning to the expression “dumped”—but I didn’t know that yet.

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you like women?” I said to the ugly blond’s bro after he marched me up the stairs and started knocking me about, in what I was learning was a form of sexual foreplay.

  KERPOW! A flash of white stars exploded, lighting up the room and leaving trails across the ceiling. What happened to the “hit her in the back of the head so it don’t leave no marks” rule?

  The only rule was to never be seen again if you did get out. A little story that a girlfriend (who I learned years later didn’t get out) told me went like this. A chick, let’s call her Hillbilly, decided she’d had enough, walked out on her “old man” and went back to West Virginia. A year later she showed up in Cleveland, gingerly testing the water.

  After a few months of hanging out she started to relax, thinking maybe everything was fine, bygones forgotten. One day she saw her ex and he offered her a lift somewhere—an act of good will. She accepted. En route, he said, “I gotta make a stop, pick something up,” and told her to “come in for a minute” rather than wait in the car. Everything seemed nice and friendly. She followed him into the house, where he told her, “Take off your clothes and stand on the sofa,” pulled out a gun, then shot her in the leg, and said, “Now call an ambulance.”

  Stories like that were commonplace with the Heavy Bikers and they were getting worse. It was time to go. Still, I had a soft spot for my Heavy Biker, and wherever he is now (he’s dead) I bid him an upward and onward journey.

  15

  THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

  Like being in an elevator when you can’t tell if its moving or not; I wondered when I was going to hear the “ding!” and see my floor light up. I was twenty-one and time was slipping away. In boxing terms it was time to punch or get out.

  I was coming up to the final count.

  In the mornings, when I’d walk to Packard’s Gallery on Exchange and Jefferson, as was my custom, I’d take a different route every day so I could explore all the back lanes and passages, zigzagging through the tree-lined streets past the grand old houses along Oakdale to Portage Path: verandas, swings, trellises, squirrels and the red brick roads. I got to know the gardens, their snapdragons and rose bushes. The neighborhoods were run-down, worn out, but they had charm—something you couldn’t find out in the suburbs.

  Highland Square had been left to black families, gays and Akron university professors, or anyone who didn’t mind sharing air with the under-aspiring; in other words, poor people or bohemian types who wouldn’t join a country club even if they could. (May I point out how much I loathe the distinctions of black, gay or anything that implies anything.) I wanted to find that colorless Island that Charlie Mingus talked about. Like Lee Morgan, I was in search of a new land.

  The streets in this neglected part of town were from a time when people sat out on their front porches in the evenings—or walked to the neighborhood deli or visited n
eighbors or looked after one another’s kids—the Akron of my infancy, every fourth house painted blue like the one on Hillcrest Street, before the tractors and plows moved in. A lifetime ago.

  Something was happening to me. Even the gigantic oak trees that had ushered in whole families and seen them right through to their endings seemed to be waving me past—past the Akron houses with their Akron stories. The winds off Lake Erie that swept over northeastern Ohio like searchlights announcing the grand opening of a new discount store seemed to be announcing my leaving. That way. You go that way. It’s time.

  Overhead, the leaves rotated like a paint-by-numbers picture of autumn, scarlet, magenta, gold, chartreuse, bidding me to dab in the last color. Farewell.

  I’d always welcomed the sudden change in air, the signal for the advance of winter and retreat of summer, but c’mon! The hiss through the leaves sounded like smirking.

  “How about everyone just backing off around here,” I thought. I was lost. What was I going to do? The summer—buzzing with pond life and furious insects banging like missiles into screened windows and wavy lines of heat melting everything in the distance—seemed to be telling me to go, in a surrealistic delirium. I was all fucked up.

  I walked on through the falling leaves. They seemed to change course, mid-descent, as if choosing the exact spot to land. Even a leaf had more direction than me. I clung to the heart of Akron. Down the valley and up the hill into Glendale. Oh, my cemetery, console me one more time. I wandered among the crypts and mausoleums containing the remains of Akron families, the little stone markers denoting the final resting places of children. Sad clusters. I’d read the inscriptions, some barely legible, so weathered were they by the harsh Ohio winters. There she is: “Isobel Falor—gone to sleep on this day 1876–1879.” I know your name. When was the last time you heard anybody say it out loud? “Isobel.”

  How often I’d returned, kicking through the leaves. I didn’t want to be faceless in the crowd. I wasn’t meant to be here.