Crime Plus Music (5 page)

It may be bluster but it helps.

By the time we're playing our third song, I can feel the difference in the room. The sound of talking has died down and there are a lot of people close to the stage, watching. The drumming is savage, the guitar solo stinging, and is that really me? It is, I'm screaming, then purring, hitting the notes or purposely swerving around them. The stories we're telling are true; girls want just what boys want.

When we step off, Johnny O is grinning. “Fabulous,” he tells us. We get to watch from back there and the headliners surprise everyone when they call to us, “Come on out here,” and reintroduce us. We sing along with their big hit.

A
FTER
THE
SHOW
,
THERE
'
S
A
party and we're invited. Johnny O drives us up into the hills. It's like someone sprinkled pixie dust on us, I think as the gate opens and we ride up a curving driveway and come to a huge mansion. When I step out, it smells like jasmine and evening primrose.

This is absolutely the best night of my entire life.

Which is even better after Johnny O breaks the news to us. Two different A&R people were there in the audience and he's cooking up a deal. “As promised. Rock-and-roll royalty!”

We walk past the house and there's a kidney-shaped pool. Music blasts. Tons of people are drinking or smoking or snorting coke. We toast each other with Champagne.

“A
RE
YOU
OKAY
?” J
OHNNY
O asks. I think I should have eaten something because I'm feeling kind of sick. “Let me help you,” he says. “Let's get you some fresh air,” and he walks me away from the pool, toward a guesthouse at the end of the path. “You just need a good lie down,” he tells me.

I
WAKE
UP
AND
IT
'
S
morning. The sun is blazing. My head feels like it's about to split apart. It takes me a while to realize that my jeans and underwear are missing. I find them in the corner of the room on the floor.

“Johnny?” I call out.

But there's no one there but me.

I stumble out and into the day. The maid is there cleaning up the mess; she lets me use the phone to call a cab. “Where to?”

Why, to Johnny's. I walk past his room to get to mine and as I do, his door opens. A strange woman emerges. I have such a splitting headache I can barely look at her.

In the bathroom I open the cabinet to get the aspirin and shut it and see myself. Only then do I notice the red half-moon prints on either side of my neck. That's when it comes back to me in a rush, someone on top of me. His fetid breath and his nails digging in, choking me until I black out.

“Is that you, Julie?” I hear Johnny asking just outside the door.

I blink. It is, and it isn't. I tell myself it couldn't have been him. He's here, I was there, he has someone with him, and he's never even looked at me that way.

I'm shaking when I emerge. “How did you sleep?” he asks. “You looked so peaceful, I didn't want to disturb you.”

“When did you leave?”

“The party? Late. You could use some coffee,” and he is heading for the kitchen to make it for us. I hear him relaying the good news. As promised, Capitol Records wants to sign us.

I go back inside and shower. I clean every pore twice. By the time I step out, I decide that if it happened, it couldn't have been him. And whatever happened, it was my fault for getting so drunk and passing out. I decide, the best thing I can do is forget about it.

T
HAT
FIRST
DAY
IN
THE
recording studio is surreal. Like Christmas in July, that is if Christmas means you get to try out every guitar you've ever dreamed of playing. I pick an aqua-and-white Fender Stratocaster. And we rehearse endlessly. They want to release a single with a B-side and it's all incredible, including the producer who has worked with all these famous musicians and is full of compliments, what a unique sound we have, how talented we are, what a privilege it is.

I learn later on, that's what they tell everyone. It's called grooming the artist. As in, sucking up so you can get the most out of them.

At night, to get to sleep, I get drunk and high and finally drift off. But in the middle of the night, I wake shivering and shaking. It's summer in LA and Johnny doesn't have air conditioning so it's stifling in that room. Yet, for me it might as well be the Arctic Circle.

I
T
TAKES
A
MONTH
FOR
them to get the single polished and perfect, and then they release it and we go out on tour in support. We are booked into pretty decent sized clubs in the Midwest to begin with. The label backs us up; there's radio play and a ton of interviews. They keep adding dates to the tour.

As for Johnny, he finds a new girl in every port. Meanwhile, Eileen hooks up with Nick, one of our roadies. Tara prefers the groupies, or as we call them, Tara's boys. They all have the same kind of look: long hair and sensitive, slightly hangdog expressions. I can't bear the idea of having someone touch me. I lie and tell them I met a guy back in LA and I'm staying true.

B
Y
THE
TIME
WE
ROLL
into New York, it's December. It's freezing. I can see my own breath. And the city is even crazier than I imagined. All this traffic and noise and grime and all the people walking intently, they are clearly on the way to somewhere important.

“Are we staying at the Chelsea?” I ask Johnny eagerly.

“Sorry, no can do.”

The Chelsea might be historic but it's also been getting some bad press, what with the sad tale of Sid and Nancy. He's booked us into the Hilton in midtown. Boring. Bland. But it's the last stop on our tour and that night we're playing the Palladium.

O
UR
SET
LASTS
FORTY
MINUTES
and we come back for three encores. The last one is a surprise to me, Tara and Eileen have come up with it without saying anything. I know it, of course: “Sympathy for the Devil.”

I let loose and it's wild, the bouncers are dragging kids off the stage but they're like jumping jacks, they keep popping right back up.

Afterward, there's a party at the Factory in Union Square only a few blocks away. When we leave by the side door, it's snowing. What could be more perfect, I think. I open my mouth and a flake lands on my tongue and melts away. I follow along at the back of the pack and then, it's easy for me to slow down and peel off without anyone else realizing.

The Chelsea is right nearby. No one will miss me.

I
STAND
IN
FRONT
OF
the hotel and gawk. To get inside I would have to buzz and I don't have a reason. So I crane my neck and try and imagine which one was Patti's room. There's a black metal latticework that looks like a row of balconies. The snow is really coming down and crystals catch in my eyelashes. The clothing I'm wearing is soaked in sweat. My mom would admonish me: “You'll catch your death.” Is it possible to actually catch death, can you trap it in a net then tuck it into a jar like a lightning bug?

And then, without warning, I start sobbing. And can't get myself to stop. My vision blurs. I'm gasping. “Please oh please,” I manage to get out, and I have no idea who I'm saying it to.

I'm losing it completely when two women step out of the bar next to the Chelsea. One of them shoves the other. Hard. She totters, but regains her footing, “What did you do that for?”

“I saw you making eyes at him.”

“I wasn't.”

“Yes, you were!”

They are both wearing leather mini skirts and high heels and one of them has on this white fur coat.

“Slut!”

“Says who?”

Wait, their voices. I realize those aren't women just as one of them turns and sees me, and says, “What the fuck are you gaping at?”

“Yeah, bitch, what's so funny?”

“Nothing,” I mutter and hurry away.

A
LL
I
CAN
THINK
OF
when I get back to the hotel is running a hot bath and sinking into it. So, it's a surprise when I open the door to the room and find Johnny sitting, yogi style, on my bed.

“Where were you?”

“I just went for a walk,” I say.

“A walk?”

“To the Chelsea,” I admit. “I just wanted to see it,” though I'm embarrassed. It all seems to silly, my devotion to her. And the way I broke down.

“You should have told someone.” Johnny is up and he's moving toward me. “I was worried. We all were. You can't just run off like that, Julie.”

“I'm sorry,” I tell him.

“Are you?” he asks and that's when I realize he's really pissed off at me. “It was fucking embarrassing not to have you there.”

“Look,” I begin which is when he slaps me. I put up my hand because it stings.

“Don't you ever do that again, do you hear me? I'm supposed to be in charge of you, you understand?”

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay?”

I can smell the funk coming off of him, the sour smell of sweat, the sweet smell of pot, the burnt smell of cigarettes, and of course, the alcohol. I try to move away, but he has me flush up against the wall. He's leaning over me, and then I blink and it comes back, all of it, him on top of me, him breathing hard, choking me, and then jamming himself inside of me.

“It was you!” I say, as much in wonder as in horror.

Which is when he punches me in the stomach, once, twice, three times and I crumple and slide down onto the floor. They're not stars you see, they're little slivers of your brain floating away. He drags me by my feet across the rug and then he pulls off my jeans and rips off my underwear, one of his hands is over my mouth as he does it. I'm smothering and I try to squirm away, but I can't.

I give up. I tell myself he'll be done and when he's done it will be over and then, and then, and finally he grunts and pulls off of me, stands up, zipping his jeans and says, “You won't forget now!”

I wait till the door shuts. Then I manage to stand and get myself over to the bathroom and sink down next to the tub, pulling off the rest of my clothes. I run the bath and get in. My body protests. There are stabbing pains, cold meeting heat but then it stops and I turn as red as a lobster. I put my feet up on the wall and slowly, surely lower myself until my head is under the water. I wait until I can see bubbles drifting up and finally I open my mouth and the water pours in. There's a moment when I think I can do it.

That then it will be over.

I hold on for what seems like forever.

Only then, I can't. Something else takes over and my body lurches upright and I'm retching, and coughing and wheezing and hanging over the side of the tub. It turns out I'm just another pathetic Lady Lazarus, rising from the dead.

T
HE
RECORD
COMPANY
BOOKS
US
a private plane for the trip back. “They love you girls,” Johnny says. He has one of his women with him. Eileen has her roadie. Tara has Zach. “Isn't he adorable?” she asks anyone and everyone as he gets her drinks and lights her joint and rubs her feet.

The entire flight west is one big party. Lots of coke being snorted and all that goes with it. But I don't imbibe. I stay stone-cold sober. I sit by the window and stare out at the clouds.

W
HEN
WE
LAND
, J
OHNNY
O announces he has a huge surprise for all of us. The record company has rented us a house in Malibu. It has a practice room in it. Just wait till we see.

“It'll get all your creative juices going, girls,” he tells us in the limo. “It's just like I said. Johnny keeps his promises.”

I
T
'
S
QUITE
A
HOUSE
. I
T
'
S
got a pool and private beach and a whole wing for Johnny. He buys himself a waterbed and has it installed and the ladies come and go. He gets a dozen pairs of authentic snakeskin cowboy boots. And a new classic ride, a British import, a Triumph convertible. He seems to have an endless supply of coke as well.

We are supposed to be working on some new material, or as Johnny puts it, “making us a hit.” He tells us that what we've been doing is great, but to get to be in the top ten on the radio? “Soften it up a bit is all.” A steady beat, nothing too driving; a catchy chorus, nothing too demanding; and of course the lyrics have to be extra special, clever without being so smart they go above the listener's heads. “I'll leave you to it then, ladies.”

O
NE
AFTERNOON
WE
'
RE
SITTING
IN
there working and Eileen says, “Has he ever talked to either one of you about the money?”

We shake our heads.

“We should ask him, I guess,” Tara says.

And we look at each other. It becomes clear that none of us wants to do that.

“Maybe we should find someone else to check on it for us,” Eileen suggests.

So we do. We find a lawyer. He has his investigator do a little discreet digging. He tells us the size of our advance. He shows us the Xeroxes the investigator has found, contracts we supposedly signed giving Johnny O complete control over all of our finances.

“But we didn't sign those,” I say.