Born to Run (52 page)

•  •  •

One morning in the days before I was about to become a father, my dad showed up at my bungalow doorstep in LA. He’d driven down from San Mateo and “just
wanted to say hi.” I invited him in, and at eleven o’clock in a small sun-drenched dining area, we sat at the table nursing beers. My father, in his normal state, had little talent for small talk so I did the best I could.

Suddenly, he said, “Bruce, you’ve been very good to us.” I acknowledged that I had. Pause. His eyes drifted out over the Los Angeles haze. He continued, “. . . And I wasn’t
very good to you.” A small silence caught us.

“You did the best you could,” I said.

That was it. It was all I needed, all that was necessary. I was blessed on that day and given something by my father I thought I’d never live to see . . . a brief recognition of the truth. It was why he’d come five hundred miles that morning. He’d come to tell me, on the eve of my fatherhood, that he loved me,
and to warn me to be careful, to do better, to not make the same painful mistakes he’d made. I try to honor it.

Immediately after he died, I felt suffocatingly claustrophobic. It rained solidly for two weeks. I slept outdoors for that time on the porch, in the cold, in the rain; I still don’t know exactly why. I suppose it was just “death closing in . . . the next man in line” and all that. I
just couldn’t find my way back into the house. During the days I visited all his old haunts: the Blue Moon Tavern; the Belmar Marina; the Manasquan Inlet, a place where my father parked alone for hours, cigarette dangling from his left hand out the driver’s-side window, as the fishing boats left and came in from the sea. Then finally, one night, with Patti’s help, I came inside and gave in to the
tears.

We honor our parents by carrying their best forward and laying the rest down. By fighting and taming the demons that laid them low and now reside in us. It’s all we can do if we’re lucky. I’m lucky. I have a wife I love, a beautiful daughter and two handsome sons. We are close. We do not suffer the alienation and confusion I experienced in my family. Still, the seeds of my father’s troubles
lie buried deep in our bloodline . . . so we have to watch.

I learned many a rough lesson from my father. The rigidity and the blue-collar narcissism of “manhood” 1950s-style. An inner yearning for isolation, for the world on your terms or not at all. A deep attraction to silence, secrets and secretiveness. You always withhold something, you do not lower your mask. The distorted idea that the
beautiful things in your life, the love itself you struggled to win, to create, will turn and possess you, robbing you of your imagined long-fought-for freedoms. The hard blues of constant disaffection. The rituals of the barroom. A misogyny grown from the fear of all the dangerous, beautiful, strong women in our lives crossed with the carrying of an underlying physical threat, a psychological bullying
that is meant to frighten and communicate that the dark thing in you is barely restrained. You use it to intimidate those you love. And of course . . . the disappearing act: you’re there but not there, not really present; inaccessibility, its pleasures and its discontents. All leading ultimately to the black seductive fantasy of a wreck of a life, the maddening boil lanced, the masks dropped
and the long endless free fall into the chasm that at certain moments can smell so sweet from a distance. Of course, once you stop romanticizing it, more likely you’re just another chaos-sowing schmuck on the block, sacrificing your treasured family’s trust to your “issues.” You’re a dime a dozen in every burb across America. I can’t lay it all at my pop’s feet; plenty of it is my own weakness and
inability at this late date to put it all away, my favorite harpies, the ones I count on to return to flit and nibble around the edges of my beautiful reward. Through hard work and Patti’s great love I have overcome much of this, though not all of it. I have days when my boundaries
wobble, my darkness and the blues seem to beckon and I seek to medicate myself in whatever way I can. But on my best
days, I can freely enjoy the slow passing of time, the tenderness that is in my life; I can feel the love I’m a part of surrounding me and flowing through me; I am near home and I am standing hand in hand with those I love, past and present, in the sun, on the outskirts of something that feels, almost . . . like being free.

•  •  •

Those whose love we wanted but could not get, we emulate. It
is dangerous but it makes us feel closer, gives us an illusion of the intimacy we never had. It stakes our claim upon that which was rightfully ours but denied. In my twenties, as my song and my story began to take shape, I searched for the voice I would blend with mine to do the telling. It is a moment when through creativity and will you can rework, repossess and rebirth the conflicting voices
of your childhood, to turn them into something alive, powerful and seeking light. I’m a repairman. That’s part of my job. So I, who’d never done a week’s worth of manual labor in my life (hail, hail rock ’n’ roll!), put on a factory worker’s clothes, my father’s clothes, and went to work.

One night I had a dream. I’m onstage in full flight, the night is burning and my dad, long dead, sits quietly
in an aisle seat in the audience. Then . . . I’m kneeling next to him in the aisle, and for a moment, we both watch the man on fire onstage. I touch his forearm and say to my dad, who for so many years sat paralyzed by depression, “Look, Dad, look . . . that guy onstage . . . that’s you . . . that’s how I see you.”

SIXTY-TWO

EASTERN WOMAN

When my mom went to California, she didn’t return to New Jersey until thirty years later, after my father’s death. A lot of water had gone under the bridge, but for my sister Virginia and me, our father’s primacy was a bitter pill. He came first . . . always. My mother has great and profound love for her children but she will tell you to this day, those were her choices;
they were all she knew how to do.

My mother had married my father by the age of twenty-three. By her generation’s standards, this was when people began families, went to war, went out on their own. When she left, my sister and I were eighteen and nineteen respectively and living under rather harsh circumstances. We had our lives handed to us. We took charge of them. My mother was married. Maybe
she figured my father just needed her more than we did. Without her my dad’s illness could’ve killed him or left him living out on the street.
More likely, he just would’ve come back home or would never have left. My dad was ill but wily. He held us all hostage for many years—in my mom’s case, right up until he died. And she never called him on it.

The other life my mom seemed built for and could’ve
had, the life of dining, dancing, laughter, adult partnership, the equal sharing of life’s burdens, she was not compelled to pursue. We don’t always want what seems best suited for us; we want what we “need.” You make your choices and you pay the piper. She chose and she paid. We all did.

My mother stood behind my wildest dreams, accepted me at face value for who I truly was and nurtured the
unlikely scenario I held deepest in my heart, that I was going to make music and that someone, somewhere, was going to want to hear it. She shone her light on me at a time when it was all the light there was.

When I hit it big, my mom believed the saints had come marching in and blessed us for the hard times we’d endured. I suppose they had.

Amongst many things, my mother taught me the dangerous
but timely lesson that there is a love seemingly beyond love, beyond our control, and it will take us through our lives bestowing blessings and curses as they fall. It will set you on fire, confuse you, drive you to passion and extreme deeds, and may smite the reasonable, modestly loving parts of who you are. Love has a great deal to do with humility. In my parents’ love, there was kindness,
a beyond-human compassion, an anger, a compulsive fidelity, a generosity and an unconditionality that scorched everything in its path. It was exclusive. It was not humble. It was their love.

My mom remains magic; people love her when they meet her, as they should. At ninety-one and battling Alzheimer’s, she delivers a warmth and exuberance the world as it is may not merit. She continues to be
filled with an indomitable spirit of optimism, a heartbreaking toughness, no cynicism, laughter and great humor (for Christmas one year she gave me the complete third season of
Columbo
—“You know, that guy in the raincoat!”). To this day she can give me a true, deeply hopeful feeling about life over the
course of an otherwise-ordinary one-hour lunch at a local diner. My mom is very, very funny,
always bringing laughs. She is a natural show woman, a dancer and stylishly put together to a T for even the most casual outing. She is democratic, egalitarian, without a clue as to how those words might pertain to her. She is heart, heart, heart. Since her return to New Jersey, she has learned (not easily) how to place herself amongst my family. We had our small showdowns, even an afternoon of some
yelling (very rare in Springsteen households). Then I watched her work, contain herself, use her intelligence and love to give herself to us. My mother and father had outlaw in them, and despite my mother’s great warmth, such things don’t necessarily come easy to outlaws. Her resilience, good soul and desire to do right still guide her. She settled in as Mother and Grandma. If you met her, you
would know her in an instant . . . and you would love her. Like I do. She is a raw, rough wonder.

Shortly after my pop passed away, I met “Queenie” (my mom’s childhood alias) for the first time. It was payback time, and my mom enjoys the good life as much as anyone. She’s occasionally traveled around the world with us. She takes pride in the accomplishments of her children, her grandchildren—my
youngest sister’s motherhood and photography career; Virginia’s motherhood, grandmotherhood and work life; and the exploits of her guitar-playing son. We share the laughter, memories and pain of the Freehold days and we take pride in the survival of our love.

My youngest sister, Pam, still lives in California, where my mother visits often. My sister Virginia and I see my mom quite regularly at
our Sunday evening family dinners, just after she’s returned from the headstones at St. Rose of Lima Cemetery, visiting my dad.

SIXTY-THREE

KING OF NEW JERSEY (HOLLYWOOD DAYS)

There’s a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and get lost in a sea of blue. A Jersey-accented voice says, “It’s about time, kid,” and Frank Sinatra rattles the ice in his glass of Jack Daniel’s. Looking at the swirling deep-brown liquid, he whispers, “Ain’t it beautiful?” This is my introduction to the Chairman of the Board. We spend the next half
hour talking Jersey, Hoboken, swimming in the Hudson River and the Shore. We then sit down for dinner at a table with Robert De Niro, Angie Dickinson and Frank and his wife, Barbara. This is all occurring at the Hollywood “Guinea Party” Patti and I have been invited to, courtesy of Tita Cahn. Patti had met Tita a few weeks previous at the nail parlor. She’s the wife of Sammy Cahn, famous for such
songs as “All The Way,” “Teach Me Tonight” and “Only the Lonely.” She
called one afternoon and told us she was hosting a private event. She said it would be very quiet and couldn’t tell us who would be there, but assured us we’d be very comfortable. So off into the LA night we went.

During the evening, we befriend the Sinatras and are quietly invited into the circle of the last of the old Hollywood
stars. Over the next several years we attend a few very private events where Frank and the remaining clan hold forth. The only other musician in the room is often Quincy Jones, and besides Patti and I there is rarely a rocker in sight. The Sinatras are gracious hosts and our acquaintance culminates in our being invited to Frank’s eightieth birthday party dinner. It’s a sedate event at the Sinatras’
Los Angeles home. Sometime after dinner, we find ourselves around the living room piano with Steve and Eydie Gorme and Bob Dylan. Steve is playing the piano and up close he and Eydie can really sing the great standards. Patti has been thoroughly schooled in jazz by Jerry Coker, one of the great jazz educators at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. She was there at the same
time as Bruce Hornsby, Jaco Pastorius and Pat Metheny, and she learned her stuff. At Frank’s, as the music drifts on, she slips gently in on “My One and Only Love.” Patti is a secret weapon. She can sing torch like a cross between Peggy Lee and Julie London (I’m not kidding). Eydie Gorme hears Patti, stops the music and says, “Frank, come over here. We’ve got a singer!” Frank moves to the piano
and I then get to watch my wife beautifully serenade Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan, to be met by a torrent of applause when she’s finished. The next day we play Frank’s eightieth birthday celebration for ABC TV and I get to escort him to the stage along with Tony Bennett. It’s a beautiful evening and a fitting celebration for the greatest pop singer of all time.

Two years later Frank passed away
and we were generously invited to his funeral. A classic bright sunny day dawned in Los Angeles. But upon approaching the church, the scene outside looked like something out of Nathanael West’s
The Day of the Locust
. Television trucks and cameras were set up everywhere, with reporters stationed on the rooftops of nearby homes.
There was a horde of protestors being kept on the far side of the street
with signs blaming Frank for everything from God’s indifference to the decline of brown shoelaces. Inside the church, however, all was serene. There, along with Kirk Douglas, Don Rickles, Frank Jr. and the last of the old Hollywood stars, we said our goodbyes as Frank’s voice filled the church. At the end of the ceremony I stood for a moment with Jack Nicholson on the church’s front steps. He
turned to me and said, “King of New Jersey.”

SIXTY-FOUR

BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME

There were two catalysts that got me thinking about reactivating the E Street Band. One late summer evening as I stepped out of Federici’s Pizza Parlor in Freehold, two young kids came up to me, introduced themselves and said they were big fans of the E Street Band but unfortunately were too young to have ever seen us live. They may have been in their early
twenties. That meant at the last E Street Band show, perhaps they were ten years old. I started realizing there was a sea of young people out there who never saw the greatest thing I did: PLAY LIVE . . . with the E Street Band. Then, visiting my parents in San Francisco, I opened the newspaper to see Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell were performing at the San Jose Arena, an hour south of
my folks’ house. That’s quite a bill. I asked my mom if she was game, and we drove down and took our seats stage right as the house lights lowered.