Life

by Keith Richards

  Once you’re a junkie, your smack’s your daily bread. You don’t really get off anymore that much. There’s junkies that keep upping their dosage, and that’s why you get ODs. To me, it just became maintenance. It was to set the trend for the day. Then came all those agonizing moments when there was a drought on, and the old lady’s going, I want some stuff! So do I, honey, but we’ve got to wait. Waiting for the man. When there was a heroin drought it was a bit rough. They really used to put the screws on. There’d be people in the room in dire straits, throwing up. You’d be treading over bodies. And there’s sometimes really no drought; it’s only to jack the price up. And it doesn’t really matter how much money you’ve got. I’m not going to say, “Do you know who I am?” I’m just another junkie.

  When there’s no shit at all, then you’ve got to go down to the pits, and you know it’s going to be like a fucking pool of piranhas down there. It happened to me a couple of times on the East Side in New York and in LA. We knew the trick—you’d score upstairs, and on your way down the other bunch would take it back off you again. Most of the time you’d hear it going on while you were waiting for your turn. The thing was to leave quietly, and if you saw anybody outside—because you never knew if it was going to happen or not—usually you’d give them a kick in the balls. But a couple of times, fuck it, OK, let’s go for it. You cover me. You stay down there, and as I come down with the shit I’ll go bang, and they’ll go bang and then you go bang. Shoot out the lightbulbs and put a few bullets around and do the run, sparks flying. Then with a bit of luck we’re out of there. The statistics are well on your side against being hit when you’re a moving target. If you look at the odds, one thousand to one, you’re going to win. You have to be very close and you have to have good eyesight to shoot out a lightbulb. And it’s dark. Flash, bang, wallop and get out of there. I loved it. It was real OK Corral stuff. Only did it twice.

  It was a very time-consuming routine. I’d wake up in the morning, and the first thing is go to the bathroom to have a shot. You don’t brush your teeth. And then, oh, fuck it, I’ve got to go to the kitchen and get the spoon. Those stupid rituals that you go through. Shit, last night I should have brought a spoon up so that I didn’t have to go down to the kitchen. Every time it got progressively harder and harder to kick. And the desire to go back on the minute you were off got stronger. Oh, just one, now that I’m clean. Just that fatal one more, that celebration, is a killer. And on top of that, you’ve come out of it, you’re off the stuff, but all your friends are junkies. If somebody cleans up, that somebody has escaped the circle. And whether they like you or love you or hate you or not, the first thing they want to do is to pull you back in. “This is really good shit, here.” Certain pressures within junkiedom have it that if somebody cleans up and actually stays clean, it’s like they’ve failed somehow. Failed at what, I don’t know. How many cold turkeys can you go through? It’s ludicrous, but you never realize it when you’re on dope. Several times on cold turkey I was convinced there was a safe behind the wall that was full of the shit and it had everything ready to go, spoon and all. And finally I’d crash out, and when I woke up I’d see bloody fingernail marks down the wall where I’d actually been trying to get in there. Is this really worth it? In fact my decision then was, yep.

  I can be as bigheaded as Mick, and flighty and everything, but you can’t do that when you’re a junkie. There are certain realities that come into play that really keep your feet in the gutter, even lower than you need to be. Not even on the sidewalk—in the gutter. And obviously that was the period when Mick and I went off on almost perfect 180s. He had no time for me and my supposedly stupid state. I remember being at a disco once in Paris and I was supposed to meet the man, and I was sick. People were dancing around little glitter balls, and I’m under the benches, just hiding and throwing up because the man hasn’t arrived. And I’m also wondering, will he find me under here? If he does arrive, he might look around and fuck back off. I was in a distressed frame of mind, let’s put it like that. Luckily he did find me. But being in that position, and at the same time you’re like numero uno in the world, you realize where you’ve sunk to. Just getting yourself in that position leaves a sense of self-loathing that takes a while to rub off. You son of a bitch, you’d do anything for the shit. But I’m my own man, I say. Nobody can tell me what to do. And yet you realize you’ve put yourself in the position where you’re in the hands of a dealer, and that’s disgusting. Waiting for this cunt, and begging him? That’s where the self-loathing comes in. Any way you look at it, junkies are people waiting for the man. Your world gets diminished to dope. Just that, by itself, becomes the whole world.

  Most junkies become idiots. That’s really what finally turned me around. We’ve only got one subject in mind, which is the dope. Can’t I be a little more smart about it? What am I doing hanging around with these dregs? They’re just boring people. Worse, a lot of these are very bright people, and we all kind of know that we’ve been hoodwinked, but then… why not? Everybody else is hoodwinked by something, and at least we know we’re fooling ourselves. No one’s a hero just for taking dope. You might be a hero for getting off it. I loved the shit. But enough was enough. Also, it narrowed one’s horizons, and eventually all you know are junkies. I had to move to broader horizons. You only know all this, of course, once you’ve gotten out of there. That’s what that stuff does. It’s the most seductive bitch in the world.

  The Canadian case went on and on. I was flying up and down from New York to Toronto on a weekly basis. But it didn’t stop me taking the shit at the time. There was a little airport out of which I flew back to New York from Toronto on a private plane. On one of these trips, in the airport before taking off, I went to the john to have a fix. I’m in the cubicle, and just as I’m cooking up the spoon, from beneath the door I see this ominous set of spurs. There’s a fucking Mountie in the whole goddamn rig. He wants to take a pee. And he’s going to be smelling this dope; it’s just flaring up.… Clink, clink and I’m a goner. And we’re down the hole. And clink clink clink and the spurs walk out. How many chances have I got left? I’d pulled my string too long. There was already a permanent black cloud of expecting the shit to hit the fan. I’m facing three charges: trafficking, possession and importing. I’m going to be doing some hard fucking time. I’d better get ready.

  Which is one of the reasons I finally cleaned up. I didn’t want to cold turkey in jail. I wanted to leave time for my nails to grow. They’re the only weapons you’re left with when you go to jail. Also, attached to the junk as I was, I was putting myself slowly into a position where it would be impossible to move around the world and work. There was a tour coming up in one month, in June of 1978, for Some Girls. I knew I’d have to get clean for it. Jane Rose had been asking me, “When are you going to get clean?” and I’d say tomorrow. I had done it the year before, fucked up and gotten hooked again. And this was the last time. I didn’t want to hear about another dope deal. Been there. You get about ten years and you stop; you take your medal and retire. And Jane stuck with me, bless her fucking heart. The old Jugs—which is her nickname—came through. It must have been horrendous for her. Far worse for me. But for her to witness what goes on when you’re climbing the walls, shitting yourself, going bananas. How could she plow through that? At this moment the Stones were gathered at Bearsville Studios, in Woodstock, New York, to rehearse for the tour. I was at home with Anita. Jane better tell the moment when I gave up heroin.

  Jane Rose: I had basically become the courier—I would bring money or drugs from New York to Westchester County for Keith. He still wouldn’t clean up, and his habit was bad now. And he would not admit it. And I couldn’t stand the calls to Westchester anymore. I went up there, and Antonio and Anna Marie were there, friends of Anita’s who lived in Keith’s apartment in Rue Saint-Honoré, in Paris. (Antonio later became Antonia.) So they were in the house, and Keith was waiting for money or drugs. Anita was there. I went up to the house, and they said,
“Where’s the money?” and I said, “I don’t have the money.” I said, “It’s in New York.” They flipped out, and Anita got in the car; she was furious. And I said, “Keith, today is tomorrow.” Because he was always saying, tomorrow I’ll clean up, and this was right before the tour, in May. He and Anita had a huge fight later that day. Keith went upstairs; he was furious. Anna Marie and Antonio looked at this Jewish chick from New York and said, this girl is going to be dead. How could she come out here without the money? Then there was silence, and I went upstairs to the bedroom, the four-poster bed, and I said hello. And he had kicked off his shoes, and he said, “OK, I’m going to do it. I’ve got my machine; I’m going to kick.” And I said, “Want to go to Woodstock? That’s where the rehearsals are going to be. Get away, do it. I’ll go with you.” And after three hours, he said OK. So we were getting ready to go before Anita came back, because I just knew it had to be that way. And she came back before we left. There was a big row and somebody went flying down the stairs. In the end Keith sat in the car and we went to Woodstock. Anita had her drugs or her money. And Keith went to Woodstock and he went cold turkey, with his machine. Mick and Jerry [Hall] came up for two days to be there with me. And I stayed with him twenty-four hours, I stayed in the room, I was there. I don’t know for how many days after that, or if I even talked to anybody. I had a conviction that he was going to get better. I just believed in him.

  If you want to get something out of anybody, I’d say put them on dope for a month or two and just withdraw it, and they’ll talk. Jane got me through the seventy-two hours. She watched me climb the walls, which is why I don’t like wallpaper anymore. You’re barely able to control your muscle spasms. And you’re really ashamed of yourself. And you’ve got to do it. I didn’t go back for another shot, because after coming out of there, I just locked myself in a room. Jane was with me. And Jane just cleaned me up. And that was the last time. I ain’t going there again.

  Anita, on the other hand, was no help. She wouldn’t do the deal. If we’re going to stay together, we’ve got to do it together. And she didn’t. We were spinning out of control. By now I couldn’t live in the house with somebody who was still on junk. It’s a chemical reaction to the body, but it’s also in your relationship to other people. That’s where the difficult bit is. I would have stayed with Anita probably forever, but when it came to that very important time when dope was out of the picture from now on, she didn’t stop. She’d never stopped, in fact. When we did it for several months in 1977, she’d be sneaking stuff round the back. I knew that she was on it; you can just tell by the eyeballs. So now I couldn’t even go and see her. And that was where I said, oh well… that’s Anita. That’s where it blew.

  I was clean and we were rehearsing for the 1978 tour in Woodstock, New York, at Bearsville Studios. One day out of the clouds, by helicopter, there came Lil. She had come with her friend Jo Wood, Ronnie’s soon-to-be wife, for Woody’s birthday. It was about ten days before we went on the road and it was almost miraculous timing to find such a new friend. Her real name is Lil Wergilis, although she’s always been written about as Lil “Wenglass” or Lil Green—her married name. Swedish she is, although she was more of a London girl than you’d believe after a decade there. And talked like one, “Oh, fuckin’ naff” and all that. She was a brilliant Swedish blonde in the bloom of her life. When I first met Lil she was like Marilyn Monroe. Dazzling. Pink Lurex tights and blond hair. But she was also very smart and strong hearted. She was a lovely girl, a beautiful lover, and I’d just got off the stuff and Lil came along and made me laugh. She laughed me out of it. She really brought me out of the abyss. It’s not so easy to kick that shit as I pretend it is, after ten years on the stuff and five or six cold turkeys. And staying off the stuff is another thing, and Lil, bless her heart, took my mind off it totally. We just fell into each other’s arms for a year or so. We had a great time together. Lil was like a breath of fresh air. Lighthearted, loads of fun, outrageous. Up for anything. Incredibly funny, very witty, and a great lay. She was energetic; she did things. Like cook breakfast and make sure I was up on time. And I needed a bit of that. Not popular with Mick; not your Studio 54 girl was Lil. He couldn’t think what I was doing with her. It was a turbulent time for our marriages or non-marriages. Bianca had sued him for divorce. He now had Jerry Hall on his arm, and I got on well with Jerry.

  I took Lil on tour with me, where she was my accomplice in another of my fate-cheating close shaves—the list now too long to be taken lightly. This time it was from fire in our rented house in Laurel Canyon, LA. Lil and I had gone to bed, and Lil, so she said later, heard this distant bang and got up and opened the curtain a little and it was strangely bright outside. Not right. She opened the bathroom door and fire exploded into the room. And we had a few seconds to jump out of the window. I’m dressed in a short T-shirt only and Lil is naked. And we’re exposed—people are gathered, freaking out, trying to put the fire out—and this is a big story as soon as the press gets here. Up pulls a car and we get in gratefully. Amazingly, it’s a cousin of Anita! We are in a state of shock. We go to her house, borrow some clothes, go to a hotel. The next day someone went round to have a look and there was a large sign stuck in the blackened grass that read, “Thanks a lot, Keith.”

  My trial was finally heard in Toronto in October 1978. We knew it might sink us all, but in the face of it, some of us were looking on the bright side. “I don’t think it’s gonna be as bad as that,” said Mick. “You’ve got to say if the worst happens and Keith gets put in an open prison with Mrs. Trudeau for life, that I am still gonna go on the road. Maybe we could play a tour of Canadian prisons. Ha ha ha.”

  The longer the process went on, the clearer it was that the Canadian government wanted to wriggle out of it. The Mounties and their allies were thinking, “Oh, great! Wonderful job! We’ve delivered him to the Canadian government with a hook in his mouth.” And the Trudeaus were thinking, “Uh-uh, pal, this is the last thing we need.” There were five to six hundred people outside every time I turned up in court, chanting, “Free Keith, free Keith.” And we knew that the enemy camp, if you want to call the Canadian government at the time the enemy, our persecutors, were unsure of their footing. Whereas I didn’t mind. I figured the harder they hit me, the easier I would get out. The Mounties, or at least the prosecution, didn’t want to wriggle out at all. But, as Bill Carter observed, in almost every one of these cases brought against us at that time, the law had its hands dirty. They knew I wasn’t trafficking, but they wanted to railroad it through a jury to get a long and historic jail sentence. There they made a mistake. Look at Keith Richards. He’s not selling drugs. He’s got all the money he needs. The allegation of trafficking, just to get a stiff sentence, is absurd. He’s a hopeless addict. He has a medical problem. My lawyers wrote a report that showed that according to all legal precedent and local case histories, if I weren’t Keith Richards, I would probably have gotten no more than a suspended sentence. Only at the last minute did they change the trafficking charge to possession, adding a cocaine charge. But this shift weakened and exposed them, exposed more about the Canadian government than anything to do with “Oh, guess what? Keith Richards is on smack.” What else is new? The idea of the prime minister’s wife buzzing around the hotel trying to get laid was another thing. So one thing overwhelmed the other, so to speak. I certainly felt that whatever the charge was, I was definitely in way above my head, or below it, any way you look at it. Who knows what really goes on? It’s called politics. It’s one of the scrubbiest games in town.

  So we knew it was dead in the water. Now it was, how long will it take for them to get me out of here? They walked themselves into it, now they don’t want to know about it, and how will they find their way out of it? We were waiting to watch the Canadian government melt.

  The Canadian people were the ones that got me off the hook. But really, the mastery of it was coordinating the faux pas of Margaret Trudeau. If they had hit me hard and quick, they p
robably could have got me just for importing. But when it came to court, clearly the new judge had said, get this thing off the hook. We don’t want any more to do with this; it’s causing us more embarrassment and money than it’s worth. On the day of reckoning I arrived in court, this courtroom that had the air of England in the 1950s, with a portrait of the queen hanging strangely on the wall. The actor Dan Aykroyd, who I’d met when we did Saturday Night Live just before this, was on standby as a Canadian and a character witness. The producer of the show, its Canadian founder, who still produces it, Lorne Michaels, spoke in court about my role as a slinger of hash in the great cultural kitchen. He did a very elegant job of it. I was not in the slightest intimidated by the court. I knew by now that they had a real problem. I knew too, from other moments like this, that most of the governments of the world were out of touch with their subjects and that’s what I knew I could exploit. Sometimes you can smell defeat even with all of that artillery arranged against you, and this was one such occasion.