Scar Tissue (47 page)

Jaime was even able to relax a bit. The shock and horror started to subside, and I wasn’t getting high, so I got a little bit of my sex drive back, and things got more joyful. She began to look ahead to a brighter future for us. When our relationship was working, it was tons of fun, because we were best friends and we laughed about everything. Jaime had a way of defusing my seriousness and was a great companion. How wonderful was it to be in love with a sexy, sweet girl who also loved basketball?

On Christmas Eve we drove the Bronco over to Blackie’s. I had arranged for a giant ribbon to be placed over this rocking truck. Blackie answered the door, grumbling that we were late, and I told him to come out and see his present. He was befuddled, so I threw the keys in his hand and he got nervous. Then he stepped down the path from his front door to the driveway, and he saw that perfect Michigan winter car, and my poor dad seized up. He looked at the car and looked at the keys and said, “No! No! That can’t be,” trying to hold back the tears. It was really touching.

Christmas morning belonged to Mom. It was her time of the year; the whole house was done up in Christmas fashion. She had the old-school stockings hanging above the fireplace, with a stocking for Jaime, of course. There was the classic golden retriever, and the snow was falling outside, and my sister Jenny, the baby angel of the family, was into all of it. It was a magical time.

I came down at seven-thirty in the morning and started the fire. Under that towering tree, there were more presents than should be allowed by law. The first thing we did was go for the stockings, which had twenty individually wrapped gifts from my mother, things she had amassed all year long.

Then we opened the presents. My job was to deliver them, and people were getting jewelry and fine suits and sweaters and electronic stuff and blah, blah, blah. Steve Simmons had walked into an idyllic situation, because the love and generosity were flowing. The dog had a ribbon around his head, the fire was blazing, various delectable foodstuffs were constantly coming out of the oven, Johnny Mathis and Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby were on the stereo. So this crazy guy Steve, who was the new love of my sister’s life, stopped everything and said, “I just want to take a minute to say that this has been the best Christmas of my life. You’ve all been incredibly generous and given me so much . . .” We were thinking, “Yeah, he’s right. I guess we really have lavished stuff on this guy.” And he continued, “But I’m not quite done asking you for something.”

The room got silent. “Geez, what more does this guy want?” He said, “I’m going to have to take this moment to ask for your daughter and sister’s hand in marriage.” He reached over to Julie and said, “Julie, with the support of this family in this room, will you marry me?” Everyone started crying. I couldn’t believe this guy was busting this incredible proposal right there in front of the whole family. It was the ultimate capper to the morning, and Julie accepted.

After a few days, it was time to fly to Pennsylvania. Jaime was thrilled to give her dad the F-150 truck, which was a badge of honor in his community. Jaime’s parents were liberal enough to let us sleep in her old bedroom, with them down the hall. I felt so awkward about having sex with her in that house. She was a go-getter fireplug, and she’d rip off my clothes and throw me down on the bed, and I’d be whispering, “I can hear them in the kitchen. We can’t make too much noise.” She didn’t care, she just wanted to be loved.

From Pennsylvania we flew down to the Caribbean for some R&R. I had called my travel agent and asked her for the most pristine spot on the islands. It was an exorbitant amount of money per week, but with everything that I’d been through the past six months, I didn’t care. I wanted to go to the warmest, most beautiful, most relaxing place I could find. Lying in the sun and swimming and eating and exploring and having sex were my idea of getting healthy, and it worked. We had a little house right on the beach, with no television or telephone to distract us, just hundreds of acres of tropical paradise. I needed that. Even after a week of gorging myself on lobsters and grilled fish and gobs of dessert and being Mr. Exercise Guy, my clothes were still falling off me. But eventually, I got my strength back.

Now it was time to face the music back in L.A. It was difficult coming face-to-face with Flea again, but I’d much rather see him knowing that I’ve changed the direction of my compass toward sobriety than to run into him when I’m loaded or when the compass is stuck on “Stupid.” When push came to shove, Flea was incredibly supportive of me. I came back with some shame and embarrassment and regret for having disappointed the whole operation, but we’d been through it so many times that it had become customary. Flea is the type of friend who can be off doing his own thing, but when the shit hits the fan, he’ll be there for me. At moments like this, he’s nonjudgmental and accepting of the chaos. I don’t feel like “Oh shit, now I have to go get an earful. This guy’s gonna condemn me.” He’s like “Dude, I’m really sorry you had to go through that. I’m glad that you’re alive, and let’s go party,” meaning let’s go write music.

Dave stayed sober through all my troubles. He understood the mechanics of alcoholism, so he was incredibly supportive. He was probably hurting over the experience and bumming out on it, but he never once subjected me to any negativity because of my behavior. It was uncanny how loving and forgiving and tolerant they were all willing to be.

Now that I was back on my feet, our first priority was finishing the album. So we booked the studio for the end of January, and right before that, Flea and I took a trip to Taos, New Mexico, to write and play music and figure out the rest of the album. We rented an authentic adobe villa, and I holed up in my bedroom and wrote. Then Flea would take out his acoustic bass or a guitar, and we’d work on the song together. We were there only four or five days, but each day we finished a new song.

Flea had stepped up to the plate in my absence, even contributing lyrics to the album. He wrote the bulk of the lyrics to “Transcending,” which was his tribute to River. “Pea” was his attempt at flying his humble flag. But he also wrote the intro to “Deep Kick” and the vocal melodies to the verses for “My Friends” and “Tearjerker.” He was supplying me with a lot more information than I’d been used to receiving, but I was open to it, and it was a necessity, because I’d been so disengaged from the creative process.

Taos was productive and fun. We even went up to the mountain one day and skied through a blizzard. There’s a peculiar thing that happens every time you get clean. You go through this sensation of rebirth. There’s something intoxicating about the process of the comeback, and that becomes an element in the whole cycle of addiction. Once you’ve beaten yourself down with cocaine and heroin, and you manage to stop and walk out of the muck, you begin to get your mind and body strong and reconnect with your spirit. The oppressive feeling of being a slave to the drugs is still in your mind, so by comparison, you feel phenomenal. You’re happy to be alive, smelling the air and seeing the beauty around you and being able to fuck again. You have a choice of what to do. So you experience this jolt of joy that you’re not where you came from, and that in and of itself is a tricky thing to stop doing. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you know that every time you get clean, you’ll have this great new feeling.

Cut to: a year later, when you’ve forgotten how bad it was and you don’t have that pink-cloud sensation of being newly sober. When I look back, I see why these vicious cycles can develop in someone who’s been sober for a long time and then relapses and doesn’t want to stay out there using, doesn’t want to die, but isn’t taking the full measures to get well again. There’s a concept in recovery that says “Half-measures avail us nothing.” When you have a disease, you can’t take half the process of getting well and think you’re going to get half well; you do half the process of getting well, you’re not going to get well at all, and you’ll go back to where you came from. Without a thorough transformation, you’re the same guy, and the same guy does the same shit. I kept half-measuring it, thinking I was going to at least get something out of this deal, and I kept getting nothing out of it.

We went back in the studio, and by the end of February, I had knocked out my vocals. We’d gone from getting nothing done for months to shazam! finishing the vocals. After I completed my last vocal, I was so jazzed about being done that I thought, “You might have to go get high.” It was the same celebratory cognition that I’d had with Hillel after
Uplift Mofo
. I was a fucking broken tape. I had to rush into the bathroom at the recording studio right after this idea, because the thought of going downtown and copping was making my bowels churn in anticipation of getting high. Then I said good-bye, told everyone I’d see them in a week or so, and bolted for the darkness of downtown to start up the unstoppable chain of madness one more time.

Unfortunately, Jaime was coming to visit me in a few days. When she arrived at LAX, I was AWOL. She had to go right from the airport to a modeling job, and she kept calling me from the job, saying, “Where are you?” It takes away a lot of the thrill of killing yourself when people are looking for you and you’re disappointing them, because it
is
a lot of fun when you’re out there killing yourself. You’re escaping from the cops. You’re avoiding getting stabbed to death by dealers. You’re running the risk of overdose. You’re having escapades of delusion. It’s exciting. But when it becomes “Oh shit, someone’s looking for me,” it puts a damper on the insanity party.

I hid out in a motel. This was the beginning of the great motel tour. I didn’t check in to the Peninsula or the Four Seasons, places that I could have easily afforded. No, I opted for the Viking Motel or the Swashbuckler’s Inn, shitty, torn-up, dirty-ass, dope-fiend motels that were for poor families who had no place else to go, or for prostitutes, dealers, pimps, hoodlums, and other scandalous motherfuckers. And a bunch of white drug addicts who were sneaking away from their real lives.

I started checking in to these places up and down Alvarado Street, because they were a few blocks away from where I bought my drugs. Maybe that’s part of the thrill: You can make your score and then drive three blocks, check right in, and you’re smack in the middle of this circle of hell. If you’re in a reputable hotel, chances are that you’ll run into somebody you know.

When Jaime was looking for me, my motel sophistication hadn’t evolved that far yet. I had made it only to the Holiday Inn in Hollywood. That was where she and Dave Navarro tracked me down. Dave had the smarts to call up Bo, our accountant, and ask her where my last credit-card transaction had occurred. She called the company and told Dave that I was at the Holiday Inn.

I was in there trying to sleep off the heroin and escape from myself and this latest mess I’d made when I awoke to a crazy knock on the door. I went to the peephole and looked out and saw Dave and then Jaime lurking in the back of the hallway. It was that bad combination, your loved one and your friend conspiring together.

“Come on, dude, open the door,” Dave said. “I love you and I want to help you get better. This isn’t happening. Let’s go to rehab right now. Throw away your junk and let’s go.”

I wouldn’t open the door. “No, you don’t understand,” I called out. “I feel really bad. I need to sleep. I’ll call you later and we’ll go tonight.”

“Nope. Nope. I got the car outside,” Dave said. “I’ve already called Exodus. They’ve got a bed waiting for you. Open the door.”

I opened the door. At that point, I couldn’t fight or argue anymore. I had fucked up, and the only way I had to appease these people who were unhappy with my behavior was to acquiesce and go back to rehab. So I went.

By April 1995 the world of rehab had evolved into a much different animal than my first stay in 1988. Going to rehab had become commonplace. Among rehabs, Exodus was famous for two reasons. It was the place that Kurt Cobain had left right before he died. Kurt had climbed a four-foot fence to escape when all he had to do was walk out the front door. They can’t keep you in Exodus against your will, but I guess if you don’t want to see anybody on your way out, you bolt.

Exodus was also famed for the renowned doctor of rehabology who ran the place. Guys like him claim to know how drugs affect the body, but to me, all that information amounted to nothing. As long as a dope fiend is high, he’s crazy. The minute he isn’t high and he starts working the program, he’ll start to get better. It’s the simplest plan on earth, but they try to complicate it with psychiatric jargon and detoxology. Just get a junkie off the streets, get him three squares, and get him working on his steps, and he’ll get better. I’ve seen it in thousands of drug addicts I’ve come across who have attempted to get well. It doesn’t matter how wonderful their detox or therapist was.

Exodus was off the beaten path in a larger hospital in Marina del Rey. It wasn’t connected to the prison system, so there were no end-of-the-liners there who chose rehab over prison. It was plusher than a Section 36 facility, but not as much so as Promises, a Malibu rehab that makes the Four Seasons look like the Holiday Inn. But again, the place doesn’t make the difference. You’re either going to do the work and figure out your problems, or you’re not. You don’t need Promises; you can get better at the Salvation Army on skid row. I’ve seen people get well in both, and I’ve seen them not get well in both.

Being there that time was actually a beautiful experience. I made ten of the most atypical friends I’d ever make in my life. There was a weird old lady from some town up north, a Brazilian doctor, and a pillhead from Texas. My first roommate was a gay kid from the heartland of America, Kentucky or Missouri or someplace. He had the classic story, young misunderstood kid grows up in a football town in the Midwest, doesn’t get the whole macho deal that his whole world is revolving around, so he’s alienated, isolated, and ostracized by his family. He moves to Hollywood, finds his gay brethren and the drug and alcohol world, and hits the downward spiral. He was so into Vicodin that he’d crush them up and sprinkle them on his cereal for breakfast.