My Appetite For Destruction (3 page)

So on “family day” my parents, much to their dismay, were treated to a request to take me home. My brother was allowed to stay another two weeks. They liked Kenny. He overate, never questioned anything, and kept largely to himself: the perfect, no-trouble zombie camper.

D
uring the car ride home, we sat in icy silence. I couldn’t have cared less. Camp wasn’t my idea. It wasn’t camping anyway. Camping is going to Yosemite and hiking up where no one can possibly find you, packing nothing but a PowerBar, canteen, and sleeping bag.

You sleep under the stars for a week. You eat roots and berries, spy on wildlife, and smell like ass before you hike out again. That’s camping, which I also had no interest in doing.

The only thing I had any desire to do during that silent, unending, and tense drive back to Canoga Park was to get together with my two best friends, Ricardo and Jackie. They lived just down the street from me. Ricardo was a cheerful Hispanic dude. His mom made the absolute best salsa ever. Jackie was Asian, the mellowest wingman you could ever want to meet.

Jackie went to a local elementary school and Ricardo and I both went to Limerick Elementary. We also played in the junior football league, but on different teams. We were very competitive and had each built a reputation for being fast and tough. The season culminated in a game between our respective teams.

My team lost. To be honest, with the exception of a few dedicated players, we sucked. I think we lost every game we played that year. The league was for ages eight to twelve, and I swear, no one on our team was older than ten. The apathy at school was rampant. The older kids were either too cool or too spineless to step up and play.

I used to think we were always pitted against impossible odds. All the other teams had older kids and they were much bigger than us. We developed a humiliating reputation within the league. Instead of the Eagles, kids called us the Bad News Birds.

On my football team, I was the starting running back and kick returner. I even won a trophy my junior year for Most Valuable Player. The coach used to put me in and keep me in for the entire game. He told my parents I was the best player on the team, but it didn’t matter. Even I couldn’t do anything to end our losing streak.

I
‘ll never forget this one time during practice. There was a gorgeous cheerleader hanging out on the sidelines. I couldn’t help but notice her. I was just eleven years old, but I was already developing a healthy appetite for the opposite sex.

But when I’d talk to my friends about how nice so and so’s ass was they’d just look at me like I was a freak. “Asses are gross.” “An ass is an ass.” It’s like their cocks hadn’t kicked in yet.

Anyway, she was way out of my league, sweet sixteen with long blond hair and these amazing pouty lips, like a crushed rosebud, all full, round, and soft and begging to be kissed. I
just had
to get her attention.

We were having a team scrimmage and when I got in the huddle, I was so amped to impress this babe that I threatened the quarterback. I told him he better give me the ball or I’d smash his face in when we got in the locker room. I swear something snapped inside, and my whole world came down to impressing this cheerleader. Every time I got the handoff I ran like a possessed demon for a touchdown. The coaches were stunned. I scored like five TDs in a row.

I don’t know why I’m wired this way, but there are very few things in life that really light me up. And nothing focuses me or gets me going like chasing tail. Money, fame, status, power . . . nothing comes close to the pursuit of pussy. It gives me an intensity that brings out the fiercest side of my competitive spirit.

When I was with the band I
had
to score the best snapper after a concert. I loved parading around backstage and at the after parties with the pick of the litter. So whether it’s trying to score by making touchdowns or playing in a band, I love the ladies. Primo poon: accept no substitutes.

A
fter mustering a big smile, I went over to the girl after practice and said something that I thought was cool enough to get a kiss off her. But she gave me such a look. Ouch! Then she just turned away as she muttered something about waiting for her linebacker boyfriend to come over to her after practice. I was so crushed.

As the rest of the guys filed off they looked pissed at me for being such a showoff. I remember shaking my head and letting out this huge sigh. I couldn’t believe what an asshole I had been, and all for nothing.

Just as I started walking away from the bleachers, she turned back toward me and gave me a little smile, saying, “What’s your name?” I got this big lump in my throat and croaked out, “Steven.” She repeated my name, nice and low, and believe me, that made it all worth it. To this day, I can still hear the way she said my name.

O
utside of school sports, Jackie, Ricardo, and I spent every minute together. Ricardo was going out with this cute little blond girl at the time, but he always put us first. Nothing was more important than the bond between us. At least that’s what I thought until I received my first lesson in the politics of friendship.

Ricardo and I found some oranges in an abandoned lunch bag at the playground, and we started throwing them back and forth at each other. One orange started to break up from hitting the ground too much. I remember throwing it way up in the air toward Ricardo, who was like thirty feet away. All of a sudden, his little blond babe starts skipping right over to him, and
blam!
The orange came down and just
nailed
her on the head.

She was screaming, covered in orange. Ricardo freaked and started chasing me all over the field. “You’re dead!” he yelled. I tried to sprint away but he caught me and got on top of me. I was helpless. He had my arms pinned with his knees. I thought he was gonna start punching me in the face, or at least spit on me, but he didn’t. I guess he realized that she had already run home and it really was just an accident. But he was really pissed at me. Over a girl . . . a
girl
!

T
he seventies were a magical time, especially for a kid my age. It was the perfect decade for growing up. I remember seeing Kiss records in stores, before I had even heard their music. I thought they looked so cool. And I loved
Charlie’s Angels.
Jaclyn Smith was my favorite. Of course,
Happy Days
was a big show for me. I wanted to be like Fonzie.

I collected Stop N Go gas station mini
NFL
football helmets, which you could only get by purchasing Stop N Go’s inferior version of a Slurpee. I had to have them all, and as quickly as possible, which meant plenty of brain freezes!

I wore tight Sassoon pants, corduroys, or Levi’s. Bell-bottoms were at their peak of popularity, and
everyone
had to have Vans tennis shoes. The
cool
thing to do was to have them custom-made. You would have to wait a few weeks, but it was worth it. Just
having
Vans was cool, really. But they cost about $40 . . . Hey, Grandma!

White moccasins were another hip thing to wear. They were available only in the leather stores at the farmers market. My grandparents would take me to get them. The employees would see us coming in and they would take them down for me, knowing exactly why I was there. They cost like thirty bucks, but my grandma never had a problem buying me new ones once the old pair wore out.

I also loved playing with yo-yos. This was when I was ten years old. They’re not very popular today, but back then they were pretty common for kids, a must-have toy that was advertised all over TV. I became a pro. Every week, we had these yo-yo contests at our local 7-Eleven store, sponsored by Duncan yo-yos, right in the parking lot. Ricardo and Jackie weren’t into it as much, but they would still come along with me on their bikes. I could do every popular move, and I even made up a few of my own. I was in the running to win every time.

As a prize, they’d give me a nice yo-yo, like a glow-in-the-dark one. I won at least ten of those things. I rocked at that and always came home excited. In my mind, I was a stud who could be the best at anything I put my mind to, particularly if the girls thought it was cool.

A
s we got older, Ricardo, Jackie, and I became aware of the drug culture that so many other kids were getting into. It was 1977 and a new phrase that epitomized the attitude of the time swept the nation in an Ian Dury and the Blockheads song called “Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll.” It was in the air and on my mind. My friends and I were very curious about drugs, and it wasn’t long before the fateful day arrived. Jackie and Ricardo must have experimented before me because it all started this way: one day we were all hanging out and Jackie asked if I wanted to get high. Just like that—out of the blue. I knew exactly what he meant. Ricardo had a makeshift pipe he had made out of tinfoil. We walked over to Winnetka Park and sparked up.

We were sitting in this deserted dugout and I remember the first wave of cannabis hitting my medulla. It was subtle at first, then
whoa
. The sounds were what tripped me out most. Ricardo’s voice sounded so different, and the colors behind him, different shades of green on the trees, shadows slipping in and out of the backstop. I couldn’t help but feel that was the greatest, most profound fucking moment. I discovered what I thought was heaven on earth that day. I thought that I had found a connection with God. Then I just started cracking up. There was a Taco Bell just across the street from the park, but I couldn’t order anything because I couldn’t stop laughing.

At the wise old age of eleven, my friends and I entered a new chapter in our lives, and our daily activities changed completely. While we used to bike around, or play catch or whatever, we now smoked weed almost exclusively. We never drank. Jackie began selling weed, so we would always have a supply. After school, we’d be at one of our houses, just watching TV and getting high. Our parents worked, so it was a carefree time. Those were the days; it was summer, no school, just hanging out. Good times with good friends.

It was also at this time that we had a conversation that I consider to be the most prophetic moment of my life. We were eleven years old, hanging out in Ricardo’s backyard, sitting on his dad’s tractor. It was another gorgeous sunny day in the Southland and we had just finished up a nice fatty. All of a sudden Ricardo goes, “I want to be in construction like my dad.” Then Jackie says, “I want to be a mechanic like my dad.” I looked at both of them and all I could think about was Steve Tyler rocking out, shouting, “Dream on! Dream on!” so I blurted out: “Well, I’m gonna be a rock star!”

S
o let me digress for a moment, because this is really important. And while it might not be as sensational as Axl’s chaps or Izzy shooting up or Slash fucking strippers, to me this is more important. It’s revelatory and from the heart.

Whether you want to be a rock star, or play in the Super Bowl, or go to Harvard, you just got to say it out loud and believe it. That’s it. But you’ve got to have 100 percent unwavering faith in what you’re saying. It’s that simple. I did it, the guy who’s helping me write this book did it, and we both know other people who have done it too. Rock star, Harvard, Super Bowl—believe it and you will be it.

W
hen I was twelve, I got my first part-time job at the Pioneer Chicken fast-food restaurant, which was right by where my mom worked at Brent’s Delicatessen. I cooked the chicken and I cleaned floors, whatever they needed me to do. I was at that stage where I’d rather have been making some money than going to school. By now, I was in seventh grade at Sutter Junior High School. I hated it, and I wanted out. The first time I ditched, I remember walking out of the school, shaking because I was so scared I was going to get caught. I walked out the gate and crossed the street, and waited for the inevitable shout from a teacher, but nothing happened. That serious lack of school supervision definitely encouraged me to ditch school every day.

Every morning I’d get on the bus, which only cost like forty-five cents back then; buy a transfer, which was like thirty-five cents; and ride up Winnetka, which was where the school was. But I wouldn’t get off at the school; I would just keep going. The bus would continue down Ventura Boulevard, and I’d get off at the hill in front of Universal Studios.

I used to hang out in the area where people would come out and shop after riding the tram. They had Frankenstein walking around, and people dressed as cowboys and Indians performing the stunt shows. One time I arrived early and met the villain of their little live performances. He sported a sinister, thin mustache and an all-black outfit and whip. He’d shoot the good guys off their horses and stuff. His name was Lance Reamer, a man in his fifties. He used to go to the restaurant where my mom worked, so I introduced myself as her son and said that she’d told me about him.

Lance would let me hang out backstage, and I loved it. It had a really cool vibe. Lance never asked me why I wasn’t in school and actually became a good friend. That was when I realized I wanted to be a stuntman. That lasted about a month.

I
was supposed to be in school, and while cutting out one day, I met another kid ditching classes from another local middle school. His name was Josh. He had shaggy dirty-blond hair and wore a brown leather-fringe jacket. We were just walking around the neighborhood, during an unusually cold drizzly afternoon, when we ran into a pair of twelve-year-old girls, apparently cutting class too.