Dirty Rocker Boys (10 page)

What the fuck?

Taime Downe was the lead singer of a hair band called Faster Pussycat and he looked like a Nazi tranny. The Cathouse was his club with Riki Rachtman, host of MTV’s
Headbangers Ball
, pure sleaze, full of fast sex and hairspray. It was the dirtiest, most punk rock of the Hollywood clubs. Lita Ford had puked in the bathroom. Christina Applegate worked coat check. Slash fell down the stairs. Axl wore a Cathouse T-shirt in the “Paradise City” video. Every seedy hair metal cliché you can think of had happened at the Cathouse. But never, not once, did I swap spit with Taime Downe.

“Dude, Taime had something in his eye and I was trying to see what it was!” I protested. Fucking journalists. Later that day, the phone rang again. This time it was Jani. “So what’s this about you and Taime? Did you guys seriously hook up?” Jani was on the road, somewhere in Oregon. One of his buddies had heard me on the radio and called him. News travels fast. “Um,
no
. I don’t kiss drag queens,” I said.

Taime wore way too much lipstick for my taste. And he was just an acquaintance. Jani promised he believed me, and we hung up.
Wait, why is Jani acting all boyfriendy?
I thought. We hadn’t had an official conversation about our relationship—apart from him asking me to marry him live on national radio, that is.

A few days later, Jani called me again from the road. He had found a phone booth and called me long-distance. “The show was awesome, and our video is number one on MTV,” he said, excited. “Oh, and Bobbie, I love you.”

“Wait, what?” Then he hung up the phone.

On my twenty-first birthday, October 7, Jani presented me with a platinum and diamond bracelet he had bought in Beverly Hills with the help of my model booker, Tracey. It was the most beautiful piece of jewelry I had ever seen.

“Bobbie, I think you should move in with me,” he said.

Whoa.

It felt like things were happening really fast. Jani was always talking about “when we’re married” this and “when we’re married” that. “Just say the word, Bobbie. I’m your guy.” But I had not given marriage any serious thought since T-Boy broke my heart in high school. I felt too young to be locked down.

A few days later, I went out of town on a modeling job. When I got home, my apartment was empty. Couch, tables, bed—gone. There was a note on the carpet.

Your new palace awaits.

There was an address on the back . . . Jani had gone ahead and moved me into his place while I was away! I got in my car and headed over to his house in Sherman Oaks. I was less furious than you might imagine. Actually, I was flattered—having been dumped by Matthew Nelson because he was too weak to stand up against his brother, it was refreshing to meet a guy who so clearly knew what he wanted. Me. I was used to getting
attention from men, but Jani was more devoted, more chivalrous than any other guy I had met. His fervent belief that I was “the one” was alluring. I had already been let down by a string of men, and his adoration made me feel safe. Plus I admired his chutzpah.

I knocked on the door, and Jani opened it, smiling.

“See? Your stuff looks awesome here,” he said.

“I didn’t know breaking and entering was a hobby of yours.”

“It wasn’t, until I met you.”

I wished I could have called Matthew there and then. “Hey, asshole, guess what: I’m with someone who is more famous than you, who worships me and adores me and isn’t afraid to tell the whole world.” Jani had no qualms about standing up onstage and telling everyone that Bobbie Brown was the most beautiful girl in the room. Thanks to this kind of gallantry I was becoming putty in Jani’s hands. He knew how to push all the right buttons. It wasn’t so much a physical attraction for me, with Jani, as it was an emotional attraction. Whether or not for the right reasons, I was definitely falling in love.

I looked around Jani’s house. It was a sweet place, a family home, with a yard. “Well, I guess I’m here now.” I sat on the couch—my couch. Actually, it wasn’t so bad in here. He’d decorated it pretty nice. It was bright and warm. “Hey, so I found this weird thing at your place,” said Jani. “I wasn’t sure what to do with it.” He pointed at the display cabinet where, alongside his high school track-and-field trophies, my voodoo doll sat, staring back at me.

Yikes!

As soon as Jani left the room, I grabbed it and tossed it in the trash. I wasn’t going to let myself think about Matthew Nelson anymore. That chapter was closed.

Living with Jani was fun. Well, it was fun at first. Fashion had always been my thing, and he loved to be styled. When I met him on the “Cherry Pie” set, he had his jeans tucked into his cowboy boots, complete with moose-knuckle.
Oh, no, no, no
, I thought. Within a few weeks of living together, I was helping him update his look. I got him in some hip-hugger leather pants made that laced at the side and didn’t go up to his boobs. He stopped wearing bicycle shorts, tank tops, and groovy white George Michael jackets. We trimmed his hair so it was less straggly (he would come to me for haircuts for the rest of his life), and we threw out the fanny packs and the goofy hats. He looked one thousand times cooler, and he told me he loved his new look. It was fun playing dress-up with Jani.

“What are your fantasies?” Jani asked me one night. We were in bed, snuggling.

“What if we had a ménage à trois?” I suggested. With Jani, I felt safe enough to try it again, if that was what he wanted. At this point, I kind of assumed that was what
all
rock stars wanted.

Jani nearly fell out of the bed. “No way, Bobbie! Really?”

“Well, what’s
your
fantasy?” I was defensive now.

“I don’t know, you wearing high heels naked, standing in a shopwindow?”

“Oh.”

Even though he was a rock star, Jani was kind of a sex newbie, a down-home boy. I already had a fair amount of experimenting under my belt. He had had one threesome before and hated it. Thankfully, he wasn’t a talker, nor did he expect me to talk. He was a very quiet lover, and sometimes the only way I could tell he was having an orgasm was by listening to his breathing. Also, I couldn’t go anywhere near his ass. That especially freaked him out. He wasn’t into foreplay, and never, ever went down on me. (After he and I separated, apparently that was
all
he was about, I heard through the grapevine via his subsequent wives.) When we were in bed, I was either blowing him or fucking him, and with no other stimulation on the table, I started to get frustrated.

While I was getting pissed off about what was happening in our bedroom, Jani was increasingly annoyed by the guys lurking outside it. I don’t think I have ever had a boyfriend who hasn’t been bummed out by the army of guy friends that I keep within a five-mile radius. I keep my guy buddies close, probably too close for comfort. But I wasn’t a cheater, and I assumed that Jani knew that too. So I couldn’t understand why he would get so upset about all my platonic boyfriends, like Slash from Guns N’ Roses.

I had met Slash at a party and went up to him and moved
his hair away from his face, like it was a curtain. He was kind of shy and seemed to be using his hair as a mask.

“Wow, you’re actually really cute, Slash!”

Slash and I started talking on the phone during the day, like grandmas. We would watch cooking shows together, and soaps. He was useless at sewing, so I would sew the buttons on his jeans. Harmless shit. But Jani hated it. “If you like Slash so much, why don’t you have his babies,” he grouched, and I just rolled my eyes. I had yet to have a boyfriend who didn’t act like he wanted to own me.

Jani was equally pissed about my friendship with Jay Gordon. Jay was this punky glam kid from San Francisco who played bass guitar and, like everyone else in town, dreamed about being a rock star. He was my age but seemed younger, and was tapped into a new, alternative metal sound. He was good friends with a guy called Jonathan Davis, who would become famous for his band Korn and would sign Jay and his band Orgy to his record label, turning Jay into an industrial-metal pinup. But that was a whole decade away, and when I met Jay, he was just a gangly cute kid who liked to dance.

“Where’s Jani?” Jay asked me, one of the first times we met, on the dance floor at Spice. “Oh, Jani
hates
dancing,” I said, shrugging. “I’ll dance with you!” said Jay. We tore it up. Anyone who could keep up with me on the dance floor was a friend for life, in my opinion, and Jay, like me, was a club kid in the truest sense. He loved heavy metal but he dug electronica too; he knew his hip-hop, and he looked exotic. I had a feeling we
would be in each other’s lives for a long time. Jani glanced over at Jay. He seemed uncomfortable. “Can’t you just find some girlfriends to dance with, Bobbie? Please?”

I was partying more and more, pissing off my long-suffering manager and agent. Every time I failed to show for a meeting, I would avoid their irate calls and just send them a fax with “I’M SORRY” written in big letters. My manager, Janis Hansen, a former
Playboy
Bunny who founded a successful talent agency, almost dumped me several times. Especially after my audition with Steven Spielberg.

I had been invited to read for the part of Tinkerbell in Steven Spielberg’s action adventure
Hook
. The casting agent informed us that the role had gone to Julia Roberts but that Spielberg still wanted to meet with me, because he was interested in casting me as one of the mermaids. But I kept rescheduling my meeting with Mr. Spielberg, like a dumbass.

“Bobbie, you know it was kind of rude of you to keep rescheduling on us,” said Steven, when I finally managed to make time to meet him. “People don’t do that to me very often. But I’d still like you to read for this part; I think you could be great in it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m here now!” I said. “Let’s read this thing!”

The double shots of whiskey I had downed to calm my nerves were having the opposite effect I had hoped for, and I was drunk as a skunk. I started twirling around and around on the office chair.

“Bobbie . . . are you okay?” said Steven. No, I was not okay,
I was behaving like a fruitcake, being an obnoxious dick to one of the most respected film directors in the world. Mr. Spielberg did not call me back. Go figure.

“Every time you get in a relationship, all of a sudden you don’t give a fuck about your career and your guy is the only thing you care about. Have you noticed that, Bobbie?” My manager was
pissed
. It was true, but I shrugged it off, like I did all my failures and fuckups. My life was supposed to be effortless and carefree, full of glamorous rock star boyfriends and fun times—that was my image, after all. Every time I let myself care about career opportunities, I had to face my deep-rooted fear that, underneath it all, maybe I wasn’t good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, or lovable enough for any of this. It was much safer for me to laugh and pretend I didn’t care and act like having ambition was dumb and uncool, while burying myself in my relationship. In Hollywood, that kind of immature bravura will only get you so far. The models and actresses around me who knew what they wanted and took their goals seriously would slowly but surely overtake me as I sabotaged every major opportunity that came my way. Every time.

I had been talking to Jive Records about possibly signing with the label and launching a pop career. They had seen me on
Star Search
and were looking for a cute Southern girl to groom into a pop princess. I had met with them several times, done voice tests at their studios, and met with their choreographers. My voice was okay, not amazing, but they especially loved the way I danced. Jani was confused.

“You’re not even a singer—how come
you’re
getting a record deal?”

The whole thing ruffled his feathers, because it underscored everything he hated about the music business. He and so many of the other musicians he knew had worked incredibly hard to get their record deals. So how come someone like me, a pretty face who never even wanted to be a singer, could have serious offers on the table? I wasn’t surprised at all, though. Things had always landed in my lap—from winning my first pageant to landing a modeling contract to becoming the Cherry Pie girl who got the Cherry Pie boy to being courted by Jive Records: I had never had to work for any of it. And I would only miss those opportunities once they were gone.

When Warrant toured Japan in the spring of 1991, I went with the band as Jani’s companion for the entire monthlong tour. He wanted me with him as much as possible, probably because he was worried about the boys I was hanging out with when he wasn’t around. I unpacked my bag in the hotel room and realized I had forgotten my birth control pills.
Fuck.
I walked to the nearest pharmacy and tried to explain what I needed. Spermicide would cover it, I figured. Unfortunately the word for “spermicide” was not in my Japanese phrase book. I stood in front of the little old Japanese lady pharmacist using some improvised sign language for “sex” and “birth control.” After
a while, she seemed to get it and nodded enthusiastically. She handed me a tube of gel with some writing on the side of it that I could not understand.