B005S8O7YE EBOK (31 page)

It took me a long time to realize that Rick had a very serious problem. It took me even longer to admit that I, too, had a problem. By staying, I was complicit in creating a space in which the abuse could recur. The same gift for denial that had led me to commit so readily to Rick in the first place allowed me to characterize his irrational anger as an aberration. I set it aside, as if it weren’t part of our “real” relationship. My reluctance to leave was exacerbated by the psychological bond that formed between us every time he became abjectly apologetic. When he cried and said he was sorry, swore he didn’t mean it, and promised he’d do anything to make it up to me,
I
felt sorry for
him
. And then when he avowed his undying love and devotion, I was so grateful to be kissing and making up that I was willing to believe whatever he said.

It was a perilous yet irresistible dynamic. One moment I felt completely powerless. The next moment, all the power shifted to me. Rick was so full of remorse that I could say anything at that moment with impunity. I could speak my truth and tell him with righteous passion all the things I expected from him. With conflicting emotions obliterating any possibility of levelheadedness, I was drawn in again and again by Rick’s repentance. I so desperately wanted to believe him.

Before Rick I couldn’t imagine myself in such a relationship. I thought abuse happened only to women who were uneducated or unsophisticated, women with no money or confidence whose fathers or other male family members had been alcoholics or addicts or bullies asserting control through physical and sexual abuse. My father had done none of those things, nor had any other man in my life. I had my own income and a prior history of worldly success. I had plenty of friends and family members to whom I could have turned for help. I could have left Rick with complete safety. I had always been judgmental about women who
stayed in abusive relationships. I’d always thought, If I ever found myself with a man like that, the first time he struck me I’d be out of there in a New York minute. I would
never
stay with an abuser. Until I did.

And through it all, my career went on.

T
hroughout 1976 Rick and I continued to be joined at the hip. At the studio, while I was recording he sat in the lounge, smoked, and made phone calls. He walked up and down the aisles with me at the grocery store. He sat in the salon and read while I had my hair cut, and when I went out to promote
Thoroughbred
he came on tour with me. My band members were Russ Kunkel on drums, Lee Sklar on bass, Clarence McDonald on keyboards, Ms. Bobbye Hall on percussion, and Doyle Hoff, Waddy Wachtel, and Danny Kortchmar on guitar. Often Lou Adler traveled with us. Everyone on that tour had a good rapport with Lou, with me, and with each other. That year the definition of “with me” included Rick, with whom no one had a good rapport. My band would have enjoyed that tour a lot more had it not been for the constant presence of my boyfriend. Rick’s moods and behavior were the hub around which the emotional wheel of my 1976 tour revolved.

One event stands out in my memory because it revealed the strong character of one of my bandmates in particular. It was less than ten minutes before a concert in the Midwest when Rick
exploded at me in the dressing room. This time the manifestation of his fury was verbal, leaving me physically undamaged but deeply upset. When my production manager knocked and announced, “Showtime!” I honored the long-established tradition of “the show must go on” and followed him to the wings. Heartened by the roar of the crowd when the house went to black, I walked onstage, bowed and waved to the audience, sat at the piano, and was sufficiently in the moment to deliver a plausible performance and respond warmly to the audience. But a part of my mind was preoccupied with what kind of mood I’d find Rick in when I came offstage.

On that tour, audiences typically invited me back for multiple encores. Usually I performed the first encore solo, then I brought the band back onstage for the second encore. During that first encore I couldn’t stop thinking about Rick. I finished the song, took a bow, and came offstage looking for my boyfriend. He was nowhere to be seen. Probably he was in the dressing room. I drank some water and waited to see if the applause would die down. It didn’t.

During the second encore we rocked hard, loud, and evidently capably enough that the audience kept up a continuous level of clapping and cheering throughout the song. When we came offstage, again I looked for Rick, but I still didn’t see him. With more than five thousand fans now stomping, applauding, and calling for a third encore, I caught my breath, wiped my face and neck with a towel, and gulped more water. Just as I was about to walk back onstage I heard a commotion from the direction of the dressing rooms on the other side. Every neuron in my brain was telling me that Rick was involved. I wanted so badly to find out what was happening, but the applause was becoming more insistent. Hundreds of lighters and matches illuminated the venue. More than ten thousand feet stomped in rhythm as people chanted, “More! More! More! More!”

It’s difficult to explain how a performer senses the exact right moment to come back out. The timing is crucial. Too soon and there’s not enough excitement to warrant your reemergence. Too late and the audience’s enthusiasm begins to wane. Early in my career as a performer I tried to preempt the myth of the unplanned encore by staying onstage and confessing that I had already planned to do another song, but the audience didn’t want to hear that. On another occasion I skipped the encore altogether, leaving a very unhappy audience making sounds that rhymed with “shoe.” I wish I could have a do-over on that one.

What I learned after trial and error was that audiences enjoy the encore ritual. There’s a predictable rhythm to the custom of an audience applauding a performer back onstage. A request for an encore is a gift given by an audience to let the artist know that she has given a worthy performance. And they respond with even more enthusiasm when the artist is modest enough to convey with sincerity that she had no idea that she was going to be applauded back onstage. The truth is, we never do know. We may hope and prepare for an encore, but if we’re lucky enough to retain some humility, we do not take it for granted.

The night of that concert in the Midwest, the third encore was of course unplanned. (Excuse me; I have to go feed a hungry myth.) On the off chance that a third encore might be requested, I had prepared “You’ve Got a Friend,” a song I often perform solo. On that tour I performed it with the band.

Years later, when I was called upon as an actress to feel conflicted, I didn’t need to look any further than that moment when I was desperate to find out what was going on with Rick at the same time that my fans were calling for me to do one last song. With my sense of theater telling me that the demand was at peak intensity, professionalism prevailed. I went onstage, bowed my thanks, sat down at the piano, and took a moment to collect myself while giving
the band enough time to assemble before joining me onstage. Looking toward the stage left wings I saw… no band.

Okay. I would start the intro myself and carry on until they showed up. I played the introduction, then started the verse, expecting Danny to come in.

When you’re down and troubled, and you need some loving care…

No Danny.

Close your eyes and think of me…

No Waddy, and no Lee. No Clarence, Doyle, or Bobbye.

I kept all my attention and energy focused on the audience and played the rest of the first verse alone. I no longer expected the band. As I began the first chorus with “You just call…” I heard Russ’s brushes softly accenting the backbeat on his snare drum. I looked up. There was Russ sitting at his kit with that calm, reassuring smile that adds light to any stage on which he’s playing. No one else joined us. For the rest of the song, all I could think about was how Russ typified everything about which I was singing. We finished the song, took the final “band bow” as a duo, then left the stage as the audience, now with happy tearstained faces, continued to applaud until the house lights went up. I don’t know why that song always does that to people. All I have to do is sing it. Even a cappella, everyone sings along and all fights are forgotten for five minutes and twelve seconds.

But not all fights had been forgotten that night. As soon as we came offstage Russ headed straight for the band dressing room. I asked a crew member if he knew where Rick was.

“I saw him leave the building a few minutes ago.”

I watched the guy as he headed toward the stage for the loadout, then I walked past the monitor mixing board and saw Danny, Waddy, and Lee outside their dressing room. They were berating someone I couldn’t see. “Someone” turned out to be Lou. The musicians had had it up to
here
with Rick’s moods and disruptive behavior and wanted to leave the tour. With Danny, Waddy, and Lee equally indignant in communicating their outrage and Russ standing nearby in support, Lou was trying to soothe the troubled waters and apparently having no luck.

“Fuck this shit,” Danny exploded to Lou. “You get me on a goddamn plane tomorrow. I’m fuckin’ outta here!” Waddy and Lee echoed their agreement.

The house lights and backstage lights were up, but I was completely in the dark.

“What happened?” I wailed. “Would someone
please
fill me in?”

They did.

From what I could ascertain from their overlapping narrative, Danny had come off the stage after the second encore with his fist in the air saying, “That was FUCKIN’ GREAT!!” For no apparent reason and with no warning, Rick had knocked Danny cold. That was the commotion I’d heard earlier. Lee had stayed with Danny while Waddy and Russ wrestled Rick into the bathroom. As Danny described it later, “Russ wanted to take Rick’s head off, but then Rick started saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.’ ” Waddy and Russ had stayed with Rick while Lee went back to the dressing room with Danny. When Russ heard his cue he left Waddy with a now contrite Rick and joined me onstage. Apparently Clarence and Bobbye had absented themselves as soon as they saw there was a scuffle, as had Doyle, who had previously known Rick in Utah.

Realizing that Rick had driven my band beyond the limits of their endurance, I apologized profusely and said, “Please don’t
leave.” But then the pressure of not knowing where Rick was became too much for me and I said, “I have to go.” If anyone could calm the band down and persuade them to stay, I knew Lou could. I needed to find my boyfriend.

I went to my dressing room, changed to street clothes, and prepared to leave the venue. As anxious as I was to see Rick, I spent the entire car ride back to the hotel in dread of seeing him, a feeling that turned out to be justified. The moment I entered our hotel room he began to make a huge scene, going over in excruciating detail everything that had happened with the band from his point of view (i.e., it was everyone else’s fault) and citing all the wrongs that had been done to him from day one by everyone from Clarence McDonald to a catering assistant two cities ago. I was afraid he would take his frustration out on me physically, so I just listened, nodded compassionately, and made occasional exclamations of compassion such as “Ohh.” The good news was that, other than having to listen to his tirade, I endured no physical abuse that night. When at last his anger was spent, he became affectionate and then we went to bed. The next morning, Rick was more subdued. He didn’t exactly apologize, but he nodded to Lou and the band and kept a respectful distance.

I will never forget Russ’s calm professionalism in setting aside his personal feelings and coming onstage to finish the show with me. I’m still deeply touched by the willingness of my bandmates to endure being with Rick before and after the altercation. And then there was Lou.

“None of us want to be around him,” Lou had said, “but Carole needs you to stay more than you need to go.”

Twenty words.

Years later, when I discussed that night with Danny, he assured me in no uncertain terms—and let me say that with Danny, there are never uncertain terms—that the band had stayed because of the music, and because they cared about me.

“Money had nothing to do with it,” Danny said. “No amount of money could have made us stay if we didn’t want to.”

I knew that.

To my great relief, Rick, Lou, the band, and I got through the rest of the tour without further incident. The same could not be said about Rick and me after the tour.

O
ne of the most incomprehensible things about women who stay in abusive relationships is not just that they don’t leave, but that they don’t want to leave. For more than a year I had suffered physically and emotionally from Rick’s violent outbursts. By 1977, after all those weeks and months, I had to know he wouldn’t change. I should have left. I could have left.

So why did I stay?

It’s well known that women have the ability to forget pain. If we didn’t, no woman would ever have a second child. That ability helped me forget the bad times and allowed me to think of Rick as the man I wanted him to be. After he hit me, the power shift gave me the illusion of control for a while. And I still believed I needed Rick to help me find the place of my dreams.

I kept hoping that once we left L.A., Rick’s anger would disappear. His disposition did lighten considerably when we found the perfect place on Robie Creek, a tributary of Mores Creek off Highway 21 between Boise and Idaho City. The day I signed the check, I, too, was happy. I had just become an Idaho landowner.

In the mid-seventies, most of the land along Robie Creek was
relatively undeveloped. After leaving the paved highway we had to negotiate two miles of rocks and potholes on a winding dirt road to get to the property. I was okay with that. I found it infinitely preferable to sitting in stop-and-go traffic on the Santa Monica Freeway. The property had a flat area near the creek with enough room for a large garden, a small pasture, and the double-wide trailer that would accommodate our family until we could build a more permanent log home. We had already chosen a site higher on the property along Ashton Creek, a small, year-round tributary of Robie Creek. The place felt entirely rural, yet we were only a half hour out of Boise. It was the best of both worlds.