He looked up. “Anthony Kiedis! What a pleasure. How can we help you?”
“I happened to be in the neighborhood, and I need to withdraw some money. And perhaps you could call me a cab?”
“I’d be happy to,” he said. “Come sit down.”
He called a cab, and I told him I needed to withdraw a couple of thousand dollars, and it was all good. I was sitting there in the middle of the bank thinking, “Hallelujah, I’m gonna be high as a kite in about forty-five minutes,” when all of a sudden, my radar sensors started beeping. I looked up and saw that the same big motherfuckers who had accosted me in the hallway of the hospital were advancing on me from every direction in the bank. Then I looked out the big glass windows and saw uniformed policemen surrounding the building, along with nurses, orderlies, and a friend of mine named Harold who worked as a rehab specialist in the hospital.
I vowed that these guys would have to chase me. Once I get into the open street, ain’t none of these fuckers gonna catch me, including the cops. I will jump on the back of a bus. I will commandeer a car. I will get on a boat. I will disappear into the bushes. They aren’t going to get me. So I jumped out of the chair and went running through the bank, hurtling over anything in my way. I got through a door that led into the office building housing the bank, but as soon as I entered the hall, a whole other contingent of security guards started running toward me.
“Whoop, can’t go that way.” I turned to run the other way, and there were more guys advancing on me from that direction. I had nowhere to go, so I just thought “Fuck it” and went head-to-head with these guys. I managed to knock down a few of the building guards and even made my way out into the street, but I was overpowered when one of those huge hospital guards tackled me and got me in such a strong body hold that I thought my liver was going to squeeze out of my ankle bone. I was a weakened little bitch at that point.
“Easy, pal, easy,” I said. “Why do you fuckers care? Just let me go.”
“No way. Once you escape from lockdown, we’re responsible for anything you do,” he told me. He also told me about the hospital employee who’d seen me in the bank and thought it was odd that I was sitting down with the branch manager when I should have been on the ward. When I turned up AWOL, it was the same as escaping a jail, and there was an all-points bulletin out for me, with every cop in the neighborhood searching.
They handcuffed me and threw me into a cop car and drove me back to the hospital, where I found out that I had been put into seventy-two-hour lockdown because Bob Forrest had been concerned about our conversation. He had called Lindy, and they got it in their heads that I was suicidal, so they tried to get me committed. The hospital could have ignored them, but they probably thought the last thing they needed was another Kurt Cobain situation on their hands. The whole thing was ludicrous. I never once verbalized anything about killing myself. I never once said I had a gun. All I said, in a Jimmy Cagney gangster voice, was “Ah, if I had a heater, I’d shoot my way out of this place right now.” Lunatic Bob Forrest, the then–King of Exaggerations, Rumors, and Lies, had started the whole ball rolling.
And here I was in lockdown. When I got back in, I went straight for the phone and called Eric Greenspan. “I want a fucking lawyer to come down here and get me out. I am not suicidal. Get me out of this hospital.”
Eric promised to help, but he said it might take a little while. In the meantime, I was assigned a room and a twenty-four-hour watchdog at my door. I was already checking out the ceiling ventilation shafts, trying to find a way out, because now my life was getting weirder and uglier by the second. The next day a nurse came in and told me I would be discharged as soon as the admitting doctor signed my papers. After a few hours, she came back in the room. I was already counting how many balloons of heroin I would cop when she said, “Before you go, there are some people here to see you.”
“Uh, that doesn’t sound possible. I’m supposed to be discharged—”
In through the door walked Bob Timmons, followed by a few of my friends and my poor mother, who had flown in from Michigan. I was not at all happy that someone had called my mother and she had to fly out to deal with this mess. I had been ambushed with a full-fledged intervention. We all sat down, and they started to give me the intervention, and I was the sheer disease guy. Everything that came out of my mouth was a lie or a manipulation. Everything I said had an angle so I could position myself to psychologically dominate this scene and get free to go get loaded.
“Hey, everything’s okay. I’m ready to get better, I just don’t want to be in rehab. I’ve been through this. And of course I’m gonna go and get involved in my recovery and yada yada.” I conned them into thinking that I was gonna get out of there and go to work on being a sober guy. I had no intention of it whatsoever, but I told them everything they wanted to hear just to get out of that hospital.
We left the hospital, and most of us went to break bread over my new beginning, which I knew was neither new nor a beginning. Everyone started eating, but I was nibbling and picking and pushing my food around.
“Okay, I’m going to leave now and go home and get my recovery notebooks, and then I’m going to meet up with Mom and fly home with her tomorrow and go back to the basics and work on my recovery.”
“Really, you’re going by yourself? Why don’t I come with you?” my friend Chris said. I insisted on going alone.
I scrammed, got my motorcycle, got some money, picked up some drugs, and checked in to the Bonaventure Hotel, a big, modern, fancy hotel in downtown Los Angeles. It had been close to a week since I’d been loaded, so I was chomping at the bit. Right off the bat, I got crazy high, and a bad-idea lightbulb went off above my head. I got back on the bike and drove to the Chevy dealer by USC to buy a new car. My twisted logic was that even though I had just ditched my intervention posse, I was going to buy a car and then drive around with no destination in mind and get better.
I got to the dealership just as they were closing. “Wait, wait. I need to buy a car. Give me the best big black Chevy you have.”
They were all looking skeptically at this crazy-high guy who came off the street, but then I whipped out my Amex card, they checked it out, and they had a major attitude adjustment. They brought me a nice Chevy Tahoe and were more than happy to follow me back to the Bonaventure and deliver it.
The next morning I decided it was time to hit the road, so I left my motorcycle in the hotel parking lot, jumped into this brand-new Chevy SUV, and started heading east. I was thinking of driving to Colorado or the Dakotas, but I got only as far as East L.A. I just wasn’t feeling right. So I checked in to a motel, got high, got high, got high, and realized that doing some long-distance driving might not be such a good idea.
I drove back to Beverly Hills and checked in to a hotel on Robertson and did all my drugs. I was at the point where I wasn’t even getting high. I was just wide awake, raw, empty, lonely, tired, angry, confused, and terrified of having to deal with the latest mess I’d made. I decided that maybe I should go back to Michigan with my mom. I called her hotel, but she had left town that morning, furious that I had lied to her. I got in my new Tahoe and drove to the airport. I found a pay phone and called Lindy to apologize. When I was in Exodus, frantically trying to get out of the locked ward, I had called Lindy and trashed him.
I flew to Michigan and did the country-house Mom hang, trying to get it together one more time. This was a new bottom for me. I’d been institutionalized in a mental ward, escaped, gotten caught, had an intervention, escaped the interventionees, freaked out, bought a car thinking I’d go cross-country, pumped a bunch of drugs into my system and didn’t even get high, and now I was back on my mother’s couch, shivering through another withdrawal.
I felt so bad that my mom had to deal with one more emotional firestorm. Less than two months earlier, she had buried her soul mate, and now she had this weak little scarecrow to contend with. But moms are resilient, and she looked at the bright side: I was alive and pre
pared to go to battle for myself one more time. There was something to be grateful for when we went over to Steve’s grandfather’s house for a huge Thanksgiving dinner. I helped myself to some turkey, which was the first meat I’d eaten in a long time. Hey, if I can shoot dope and smoke crack and gobble pills, I can eat a damn plate of turkey and not worry about it.
Chapter 13
Nothing
Flea calls 1997 the Year of Nothing because the Red Hot Chili Peppers played only one concert that year, a festival in July, and even that show got derailed two thirds of the way through by a typhoon. But for me, 1997 was a year jammed full of adventure and misadventure, strides forward and many steps backward, another year in my topsy-turvy, Jekyll-and-Hyde existence.
The year began on a positive enough note. I was in New Zealand, setting up my new house. I remember being in Auckland on New Year’s Eve and seeing amateur party people on the streets doing cocaine and champagne. It looked so appalling to me. I was glad I wasn’t in that place. The truth of the matter was that there probably wasn’t enough cocaine in a small country like that to keep me satisfied for any length of time.
I didn’t have any band obligations at this point. One Hot Minute hadn’t sold well, especially compared to Blood Sugar, so we had cut back on the touring cycle. Since I already was in New Zealand, I had planned to take a month off and explore India. I went to Puttaparthi for a week, then to New Delhi. But the highlight of my whole trip was a spontaneous trek I made to Dharamsala to see the Dalai Lama.
I took a train to Rishikesh and then hired a driver to drive through the Himalayas. Dharamsala seemed to be in a different world, carved out of the mountains, with dirt roads and wooden sidewalks, like an old western town. I got a room and then walked into town. I ate at a delicious vegetarian restaurant and then browsed some shops and bought some tonkas. The town was filled with all these bald monks wearing saffron-colored robes.
The next morning I got up and walked over to the Dalai Lama’s temple. I found the office and approached one of the monks who worked there.
“Could you please inform the Dalai Lama that Anthony Kiedis is here? I know he must be busy, but I’d like to say hi to him,” I said.
All of the people in the office started laughing hysterically. “Sir, do you realize what you just said?” one of them replied. “Half of Planet Earth is in line to say hello to Dalai Lama. How do you think you can just come in here and see him? His schedule is booked for the next three years.”
He went on and on, telling me all the pressing issues the Dalai Lama had to deal with and how he was the busiest man on the planet.
“Okay, I understand. Just leave him a note that Anthony Kiedis says hello. I just wanted to make some contact,” I said.
They promised to tell him and then started laughing again. I walked away a little disheartened, thinking, “Oh well. I came a long way to meet the Wizard of Oz, but I guess I won’t. Such is life.” It was a five-minute walk to my hotel, and when I got back, the lady at the front desk seemed excited.
“Oh, Mr. Kiedis. Come here right away. You have a message from the office of the Dalai Lama. This is amazing. They insist that you be there tomorrow morning at eight A.M.”
I got up bright and early the next morning and made it over to the office.
“This is how things will go,” they lectured me. “First of all, you go through the metal detector. Then you must leave your backpack behind. We have to have these security measures because we are constantly getting death threats from the Chinese. Then you will stand in the corner of the courtyard, where Dalai Lama will be walking down the path with his security en route to his class. Maybe as he is walking, he might wave to you, you never know. Don’t expect him to, but maybe he will.”
I dutifully went through the metal detector and handed over my backpack and my camera. I took my assigned spot in the corner, and lo and behold, here came the Dalai Lama over the crest, with his security posse surrounding him. He looked up and saw me, and his eyes lit up, and a big smile crossed his face. He veered off his path and came straight to me. I was shocked, hoping for a wink, and here he was jogging right over.
He cupped my hand in his hands and looked me in the eye. “Anthony. Welcome to India. What inspired you to come all the way over here?”
“I just wanted to see the country,” I said.
“Isn’t India an amazing place? Tell me about your journey. What have you been doing while you’ve been here?”
I gave him a rundown of my itinerary.
“Isn’t it all amazing, the smells and the colors everywhere you go? Where’s your camera? We have to get a picture of you and me.”
“They took everything when I came in,” I said.
“Go get his camera, for goodness’ sake,” he yelled to one of his aides. “What are you thinking? He needs the camera.”
The aide came back with my shitty little disposable camera.
The Dalai Lama smiled. “Let’s take a picture.” The whole time we were talking, he hadn’t let go of my hand. It was subtle, and I hadn’t noticed it for a while, but he was definitely sending me some of his juice.
The aide snapped off a shot.
“Okay, now get a long one, a full-body one,” he instructed.
We talked a little longer, and then he produced a signed copy of his latest book for me. He gave me the book, a few old Tibetan coins, and a white silk scarf, which he blessed.
“Thank you so much for the visit,” I said. “If there’s anything I can ever do to help your cause, let me know.”
“There is something you can do. If Adam Yauch [of the Beastie Boys] ever calls you to play another festival for us, please make yourself available.”
“If Adam calls, we’ll rock the spot,” I promised.
“You know I’d love to stay and chat, but all these Tibetan elders are waiting,” he said. “I have to go teach an advanced course. Of course, you’re invited to come. You won’t understand a word anyone is saying, but I think just sitting there would be an enjoyable experience for you. I’ll tell them to get you a seat right up in front so you can see what’s going on in there.” And then he was gone.
“This is so weird,” one of the aides said. “I can’t believe he invited you, of all people, to the advanced Tantric. You have to study for fifty years to get in there.”
I made my way to the outdoor class, and they sat me down right in the front. The class was filled with these crazy-ass old monks wearing big Roman-looking headgear. They were all meditating and making noises. The Dalai Lama was sitting on an elevated platform, and an aide beside him was doing most of the talking and reading. They started passing around a silver goblet filled with rancid yak milk. All of the elder monks took a good hearty sip of the brew, so I thought, “Yeah baby, give me some of that rancid yak milk.” A monk passed me the goblet, and I took a sip, but I was not prepared. I thought I could handle some weird-tasting shit, but this was not it. So that was why it took fifty years to be prepared for the course. I left at the first break, thoroughly impressed by the perseverance of the monks.
Before leaving for New Zealand and India, I had suggested to Louis that he and Sherry move in with me, because Sherry was expecting a child. I thought it would be nice to invite the energy and warmth and life of a family into my relatively unlived-in house. So I came home to them and baby Cash living under my roof. Cash was an amazing kid, and we had a nice family environment, making popcorn and watching movies together.
But it wasn’t long before I started running again. When I started getting high, my friends didn’t understand it. They all thought, “Oh, now he’s met the Dalai Lama, he’ll never get loaded again.” That had nothing to do with drugs. I didn’t have to go all the way to India for spiritual enlightenment. The blue-collar spirituality of everyday life was right in front of me, it was in every nook and cranny if I wanted to seek it, but I had chosen to ignore it.
I started doing the downtown motel circuit, staying out for six- or seven-day runs. The only
inconvenience was now I had a whole family at home, waiting nervously for me to come back. On one of those trips, I sneaked home at five in the morning, trying not to wake Cash up. I wanted to slip into my bedroom and go to sleep for a couple of days and deal with the consequences of worried people as far into the future as possible, when I saw that Sherry had set up a little shrine for me. She had taken one of the pictures of the Dalai Lama and me and framed it in a sweet little tacky frame and set up a bowl of popcorn next to it. That almost broke my heart.
Another time I sneaked in late at night and opened the door to my room. A little guy sat up in the bed and said, “Oh God, please, oh, oh!” It was Louis’s dad, sleeping in my bed in my absence. I had come back because I needed some more cash to continue my run. As I got some money and started to leave, Sherry was beside herself.
“That’s it. Enough, motherfucker. You’re gonna go into a rehab. This is crazy,” she said.
I agreed to get on my motorcycle and go into Impact, an end-of-the-line rehab in Pasadena. The image of Pasadena is a safe, calm, residential paradise where the little old lady of Beach Boys fame comes from; but North Pasadena, where Impact was located, was a straight hard-core projects ghetto. Impact was known as the Last House on the Block. After you’d been to every rehab and every jail, that was where you ended up. It was the ultimate no-nonsense, get-sober-or-die place.
There I was at thirty-four, sharing a room with three other guys. I was determined to make it through the entire twenty-eight-day stay this time and begin to work through my demons. The problem was, despite all the work I did there, I never wanted to be sober the whole time I was there. I was inching my way forward and white-knuckling not getting high, but my desire to get loaded was still very much a part of my consciousness. Every day I’d spend at least a couple of hours thinking about going out and getting some money and getting high and doing it all over again.
It was worse when I went to outside meetings. Since Impact was run on a merit system, the more merits you got, the more perks you’d accumulate. One of the perks was going to meetings outside the facility. Whenever we’d pile into those short buses and drive to a meeting, I’d stare out the window at the seediest bars in the seediest neighborhoods and fantasize about going in there and drinking with other barflies. Anything to get me out and rolling again.
Scar Tissue Page 40
