My Cross to Bear (34 page)

On May 28, 1976, Scooter was indicted on charges of conspiracy to possess narcotics with the intent to distribute. By that point, everything pretty much unraveled with the band, and I had left Macon and was back in California with my bride, Cher. The whole thing became a tabloid event overnight. Because of Cher, because of the band, I was front-page news every day. Now, I’ve never been big on media, but even among people who are, I don’t think there’s a person alive who likes headlines like that. And it only got worse.

One day the phone rang, and it was Mitchell House, my attorney in Macon. He said, “The federal prosecutor wants you to come to the grand jury hearing on Scooter.”

I asked, “Scooter? What?”

He told me, “They indicted him on charges of sales and distribution of cocaine.”

I did everything I could to avoid testifying, but it was made clear to me that my back was against the wall; there was no way to dodge a federal prosecutor.

I got that horrible, sinking-type feeling, like a good friend had died or something. Eventually I was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for my testimony in front of the grand jury and later at the trial. Fuck me, man—I didn’t have no choice. I got back to Macon as fast as I could, drove over to Mitchell’s home, and Scooter was already there.

I walked in and said, “Scooter, what in the fuck am I going to do when they ask about you?” I was crying, man, and I asked Mitchell, “Tell me what I’m going to do—you’re the lawyer.”

They got me settled down, and they said, “Just tell them the truth.”

I said, “What?”

They told me again, “Just tell them the truth and don’t worry about it. One thing we’re going to do is save your career.”

I told them, “Look, I ain’t done nothing to lose my career. All I did was shell out a little dough.”

They both told me they knew that, and Mitchell said, “Remember, after everything that you say, make sure you state ‘to the best of my memory’ or ‘to the best of my knowledge.’”

I agreed to appear, and I must have said those phrases three hundred times. I walked into the courtroom—and as a little footnote, there wasn’t a single member of the Allman Brothers Band there that day, or any day during the whole thing. None of them had the slightest idea what was going on, and I guess they drew their own conclusions without ever hearing from me. I’m not blaming them, but I guess they just had something more important to do. I don’t really give a fuck anymore, but at the time it hurt me real bad.

That was an experience that I hate to relive, because every question was hard, but I know that the judge was totally on my side, or at least he seemed to be. He would ask me if I wanted to take a break, but it was just hell.

It was a rough time, man. People were afraid for my life, because there were some powerful people who thought I knew more than I did. The phone would ring, and a voice would be going, “If you say the name of so-and-so, you’ll find a twenty-gauge up your ass.” I did get a few death threats. There was all this speculation that Scooter was connected to the Dixie Mafia, but if he was, he never said anything about it to me. He never told me about any chicanery, any theft, any buried treasure, any firearms, anybody getting shot—none of that, and by God, he would have told me something after twelve beers. If there was something, I would have heard about it.

Because of the threats, they hid me out in the barracks at Robins Air Force Base, with four FBI guys assigned to me for protection. Have you ever tried to take a piss with three FBI agents standing right there, and the fourth one guarding the door? I wasn’t allowed to read anything or watch TV, but they did give me a bottle of whiskey every night.

The thing lasted for what seemed like an eternity, and it was a complete drag. Every day I was on the front page of the paper, and wherever I went, people would yell shit at me. There was no evidence against me, it was all hearsay. I never understood why John Condon wasn’t involved in this trial, because he had been my criminal lawyer since the thing with Twiggs, and Mitchell House had been more of a guy who fixed parking tickets. I’m sorry, but that that’s the truth. It didn’t seem like he really bent over backwards for me, except when it was time to get his check.

Scooter’s lawyers were trying to make me look bad to lighten the load on him, and the prosecuting attorney tried to make me and Scooter look like real, real close friends—I mean, like we were gay. The judge got so upset that he stood up and threw his pencil down and announced, “This man is not on trial here. If you ask him a question that is out of line like that again, I will throw you out of this courtroom.”

Scooter Herring never sold me huge quantities of cocaine, but on July 19, 1976, he was sentenced to seventy-five years in prison for the coke he had sold me. The conviction was front-page news when it happened, but what was much less sensational was the fact that Scooter only went to prison for eighteen months, not seventy-five years. Of course, no one pays attention to headlines about getting out of jail—that’s why newspapers don’t write them.

For his part in all this, Joe Fuchs ended up spending ten years in prison. Later on, I did meet Joe, and now his widow and daughters still come to our concerts. His widow told me one time, “Joe wanted you to know that nothing was your fault at all, and that you didn’t do a damn thing wrong, and he doesn’t hold you accountable for anything,” which I thought was a beautiful thing to say.

I talked to Scooter right after he got out, and he told me, “Gregory, I appreciate everything,” because there was a bunch of money in his bank account. I wanted to get together with him and have some dinner, but he said, “It wouldn’t look good for you and me to be seen together for at least five years.” When he died in 2007, we’d never met up again.

Scooter was my bud, and we certainly had some good times together. In the time that I knew him and that we hung together, on the road or off, we laughed. We were very good friends; he never did anything wrong to me, and I don’t think I ever did anything wrong to him. There were situations that arose, and I still don’t think anyone knows the full extent of what it was about.

Months later, after the trial was over, I’d be onstage, counting off a slow number, and right in the middle of “one, two, three,” you’d hear someone yell out, “Narc!” It wouldn’t throw me off; it made me play twice as hard. I’d play right through it, because I knew what the truth was. I knew what I’d done and what I hadn’t done, and I just wanted to get on back with my music.

I felt guilty about the whole thing for a while, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t figure out what it was I had to feel guilty about. I wanted some drugs, Scooter got them for me. I paid for them, and that was it—done deal. What was there to feel guilty about? Had I gone out on the street and bought them myself, I probably would have ruined my career. Scooter helped me out as far as that went, but everyone who’s buying drugs is getting them from somewhere else. I’m sorry for what happened to Mr. Fuchs, I’m sorry for what happened to Scooter, but they knew what they were doing when they did it. Everybody made their own decisions, man. And that includes me.

T
HE WHOLE MESS WITH
S
COOTER WAS THE LAST STRAW FOR THE
band. As if the financial mess we’d gotten ourselves into wasn’t enough, most of the guys felt I’d sold Scooter out. They were also scared for their own asses, and worried they were going to get swept into it. And none of this was helped by the fact that we’d all been doing so much coke we were in a permanent state of paranoia.

But when it came down to it, they seemed to feel that my testifying was the worst part of the whole Scooter situation. They felt it was a betrayal of what it meant to be an Allman Brother, even though they didn’t have any idea what I’d been through. Because of that it was easy for the other guys to blame me for the breakup.

In August 1976, the band officially broke up when Jaimoe wrote a letter to the Macon newspaper which stated that there was no more Allman Brothers Band. Not long after, Butch and Dickey came out individually and said the same thing, with Dickey doing it in
Rolling Stone
. I remember in that issue, there was a picture of Betts and a quote from him saying, “I’ll never play onstage with Gregg Allman again.” No problem, brother! I just wish we had held him to that.

Truth is, there ain’t one thing or person alone that broke up the Allman Brothers. It was everything and everyone. Scooter, my recording
Laid Back
, my living in L.A., the drugs—they were all just easy excuses, ways of talking around the unavoidable truth: that none of us knew when or how to walk away.

In hindsight, it’s amazing we survived as long as we did after my brother died. God knows we tried, but once the money started rolling in, well, it didn’t take long for it to take over—there was just too much to walk away from. The second the money well had dried up, we all had to take a good, hard look in the mirror, and we didn’t see a whole lot there that we liked.

The feelings, the closeness, the brotherhood that we’d once shared—man, all those things were fucking gone. The Big House was a perfect example. When my brother and Oakley were alive, that place was ours, it was our space. But after Oakley died, Linda moved out, and we had lost our headquarters. The vision of the band that we’d made there, the image of the band that Duane and Oakley had helped create—all that was finished. When we lost the Big House, the band changed. I don’t think any of us were the same after that.

It was really strange, but it seemed like we got rich and famous overnight, and when it was over, it was the same way. It was like the whole thing had never happened—like “What the fuck was that?” We had five years at the top, and then, bam, it was over. We had spent so much money, it was unbelievable.

I don’t know if my brother is face up or facedown in his grave, he’s done so many damn pirouettes over the money we wasted. On the other hand, I’m sure he’s very proud and smiling about what we went on to do.

W
HEN THE BAND BROKE UP
, C
HER GOT BLAMED FOR IT
. T
HE
press made her out to be the Yoko Ono of the Allman Brothers. Needless to say, there wasn’t much truth to that. When people hear shit, they take it at face value, and then they tell a friend, so a simple rumor can turn into a colossal lie. There’s a lot of stories out there that have absolutely no basis in fact. In the end, people believe whatever they want, but the only thing that broke up the Allman Brothers was the Allman Brothers.

Though the breakup really had nothing to do with Cher, its timing did overlap almost exactly with a big moment in my life with her: the birth of our son. Elijah Blue Allman was born on July 10, 1976, and I lived with him until the time he was walking around. I remember this funny little step that he had, and it was so cute. When he would smile, you could see every one of his teeth, and that would make me and Cher just laugh. He could fart like a moose, this tiny little thing in the crib, and it was great. We would crack up, man. I remember when he learned how to swim—he took to the water like a fish, and it took only a day or two for him to learn.

The three of us lived out in L.A. along with Cher’s daughter, Chastity. I remember when Chastity had to have one of those Stingray bicycles, with the banana seats and those ape-hanger handlebars. I told her, “You don’t want one like everybody got on the street. Go put on some dirty clothes, tie your hair back, and go with me. We’re gonna go to a neat place.”

I took her to the junkyard, and we found a bike. I had it sandblasted, and then had a kid paint it bronze—real nice paint job. Then I went and bought sprockets and chain and tires, all that stuff, and a leopardskin seat, and together we built that son of a bitch. When we were done, she had the baddest bike in the neighborhood, and I used to be her knight in shining armor. Later on, though, she wouldn’t say two words to me, and I don’t know why. She probably heard so many ghastly stories about me that were so well embellished that she thinks I’m just a terrible person or something, and that’s a shame.

As far as Chastity’s sex change, as long as he’s happy, he’s free to do whatever he wants to do. It’s not your everyday thing happening, but I just hope he’s happy and I wish him a very long, successful life.

Living with Cher was all right, but there were things about her that drove me crazy. One night we were sitting at home, and it was about eight o’clock, and she said, “I really don’t feel like staying in tonight. Why don’t we go out and get a bite?”