"Shady Bizzness: " Life as Eminem's Bodyguard in an Industry of Paper Gangsters" (13 page)

I told her it was unfortunate that she had to go through this but to
take it as a lesson. We all would go through it in some way. She thanked
me for the advice and said I always managed to say the right things. I told
her how I really didn’t want to come back out on this tour. I would have
rather stayed home and resolved some of my own family issues and spent
more time with my sons and made things right with my wife. She told me
that Slim told her that about me, but that he needed me with him because
I was like a positive force for him, and he knew that things would get done
with me being there. My total focus was always on him. I wasn’t chasing
any women or smoking any weed. I wasn’t taking any Ecstasy or Vicodin.
Sometimes Slim and Paul would ask me to take something with them. I
would decline every time. I always felt as if they were testing me. If I had,
then they would have something to hold against me. I always told them,
“I’m not here for that. If I were to do that, then who would take care of
y’all?” I was trying to do the right thing. It felt good to hear Kessia tell
me Slim felt that I was a positive influence. I feel that he meant it, but
unfortunately, Paul has that man’s mind in the palm of his hands. Slim
never did express how he really felt.The sad part of it all is that Slim’s not
going to realize this until it’s too late, when Paul is finished using him and
throws him away. Slim’s going to find himself alone. Everyone around him
sees this, but he either can’t see it or he won’t see it.

Between Mark’s black eye, Kessia being disrespected, and Slim’s
sexual escapades with minors, things were unbearable. I felt as if there
was not one positive thing coming out of this whole tour. I knew I had
to find something to keep my mind focused and to keep myself from
being depressed, because everybody was depressed on this tour. People
were depressed about their money not being right while these groupies
were being flown out, and things of that nature. People weren’t feeling
as though they were being treated fairly, and it was only the first week of
the tour. A lot of tension had been carried over from previous tours, and
it was building up. You could hear people saying that this would be their
last tour and things like that. I even promised myself that this would be
my last European tour, and my only recourse to keep my sanity was to get
deeper and deeper into my Bible. That’s all I had. I had the Lord, I had
my faith, I had the thoughts of my wife and kids, I had their pictures that
I kept inside my Bible that I kissed good night every night, and that’s all
I had to keep me going. I got into my Bible like never before, because
among so many negative elements, that’s all I had to look to. I couldn’t run
from it because I was there. This European tour let me reinvent myself. It
let me look back on my mistakes of the past, and try to correct things and
handle things the right way. I was looking at Slim and seeing the mistakes
that he was making and I was like, Man, this guy is going to have hell to
pay. I mean, I know people can change their ways, but he was doing one
negative thing after another.

It was November 2nd, and we were in Stuttgart, Germany, and this
was to be Kessia’s last day on the tour. She was ready to go home after the
nonsense she had been going through,accompanied by the embarrassment
and the way Slim was talking to her. He would make comments in front
of everyone like, “Kessia, when you going to give me some head, when

you going to give me some pussy?” He would be saying it jokingly, but
you could tell he really meant that shit. That’s the way he used to play; he
would say shit in a joking manner, but you could tell he was dead serious.
He belittled her, and she had finally reached a point where she realized
she didn’t have to deal with that shit. She had taken all she could take, and
from talking to her, I could tell she was ready to go. She had also figured
out that he was flying in someone else, and it wasn’t his wife. What Slim
saw in Kessia was that she was someone he could communicate with.
They could laugh together, plus she was a nice-looking young lady. I guess
he started letting the fame go to his head. He decided he needed bigger
and better things, he needed finer women. He needed more. At one time,
Kessia was his whole world. I remember when we were leaving Phoenix,
Arizona, and he told Kessia he loved her on the cell phone. However, he
was high on Ecstasy. From what I understand, Ecstasy can do those things
to you. She was his way to escape. He didn’t deal with all the drama with
Kessia that he did with Kim, his wife.

On November 3rd, we reached Zurich, Switzerland. For some
reason, at this one show, a local group strong-armed the promoter to
let them perform at this venue. We found out about this after all the
drama happened. We had the largest dressing room, but the dressing
room was like Grand Central Station because each group had to pass
through our dressing room to get to the stage. This is where the drama
started. The group that strong-armed the promoter was comprised of
some Haitians, and everywhere we went, to do interviews, for example,
they tried to come through, but I always shut them down. I told them,
“Man, back up. We are doing an interview, so back up, ” and they would
pretend they couldn’t speak English, but I had heard them speak English
earlier. I said, “Man don’t play, just get back, and speak English when you
talk to me. ”They said, “Well, we’re just trying to get back to our dressing
room, ” and I was like, “Well, whatever. Y’all just have to wait because we
are in here conducting interviews, so y’all can’t be running through here
with your people and your little groupies or whatever. ” So, the promoter
stepped in and was like, “Well, they need to get to their dressing rooms,
” and I was like, “Well, y’all should have given us a different dressing
room because we don’t want all this traffic running through here. We
got valuable stuff in here, and if people come in here and take our stuff
there’s gonna be a problem. ”

So the promoter talked to these guys and told them to notify us
before going into our dressing room. They ignored that, though, because
when we were on stage they were all in our dressing room, eating Slim’s
food and drinking Slim’s liquor and the whole nine. There was no one
who could stop them since our room was on the way to their room. Upon
our return to our room, we found that we had basically been looted.
Luckily, however, we hid the “Chronic 2001” tape, because it could have
been stolen and bootlegged. I always felt like Slim’s road manager/
babysitter. I always had to make sure he kept up with the “Chronic 2001”
tape before the release. I often found myself carrying his tapes and his
rhyme books around, plus keeping up with his personal property. I can
recall a time in California when Slim thought he lost his rhyme book. I
had to look every place we had been in the last twenty-four hours, only
to find out that he left it at the studio. Those types of situations always
made me feel like I wasn’t being paid enough. With this situation, with
this group stealing our liquor, Mark and I basically had to go fetch it
from these guys’ dressing room. Of course, this group fronted and was
speaking shit in a foreign language. They were too scared to speak in
English because they knew they would get their asses kicked. We took
back the little bit of liquor that was left for Slim.

After a show, Slim’s crew liked to smoke their weed and get drunk.
Slim was angry about our liquor being boosted. We told the promoter of
the show what happened. I knew this group was going to be trouble from
the beginning. We wanted them out of our area—period! We ended up
throwing them out of their dressing room. Their little female manager
came to say something about us “sharing. ” She tried to be cute, but we
weren’t going for it. “The group had already strong-armed their way on to
the show, then stole our liquor. Please! We have no words for y’all. Ain’t
nobody coming back through here—NOBODY!” She was mad, speaking
that German shit again. Regardless, we put them out. So our crew started
to cool out and the promoter bought us some more liquor. Then one of
the Haitian guys from the local group decided to come up and battle
Slim in a battle rap. He was outside our door talking to Proof, who didn’t
know these guys had tried to give us a problem earlier because he wasn’t
around, so he brought him into our dressing room. I was like, “Yo, what
is my man doing in here?” They were exchanging numbers. I said, “Y’all
are going to have to do that outside! They were stealing our shit earlier. ”
The guy from the local group was like, “Anyway!” I cut him off. “Anyway
nothing! You come up in here keeping up traffic, starting all that shit
earlier, stealing our shit and now you want to come and politic with us?
Fuck that shit! You got to get the fuck out!” Proof didn’t know all that
shit went down. The guy still had his pen in his hand from trying to get
Proof’s number. The dude gave me a funny look. I grabbed his wrist
because I didn’t know if he was going to try to stab Proof or me with the
pen. Then he was reaching for his pocket, so I grabbed that arm. I shook
him up, then threw him out of our room. He tried to say some words. I
told him, “If you come back in here, I will beat the shit out of you, flat
out! Just because we are in your country, don’t think you won’t get your
ass whipped!”

The promoter then came into our room to see what the problem
was. I said, “It’s those same guys you let on the show—that weren’t even
supposed to be on the show—keeping up all kinds of shit. I want them
out of this building. ” Now, the venue had a hotel attached to it, and the
guys were staying at the hotel and kept sending people down to start shit,
so I told that group, “If y’all are going to do something, do it, because I’m
not going to keep going back and forth with y’all. Nobody has time for
this shit!” Now, when I thought of Switzerland, I thought of snow and
ski slopes, pretty women, furs, and diamonds. The last thing I expected
was to be getting into it with some ghetto people at a show. We ended
up getting out of there without anything happening, but these guys were
some unruly characters. Finally, we signed a few autographs, got on the
bus, and we were out!

Nicole, the one from LA, had arrived. She was
fine, too; she was
definitely hot. She made all the women Slim has ever dealt with look
like beauty pageant trainees. She was gorgeous. She was Puerto Rican
and Mexican mixed. When I first met her, I didn’t care too much for her,
but she turned out to be good people. She was wealthy and really didn’t
seem to want for anything. She seemed to have more than Slim, to be
honest with you. My first impression of her was that she thought her shit
didn’t stink, that she was arrogant and snooty, but all in all, she was nice.
Plus, Europe has a way of making people adjust. Besides, you can’t have
two arrogant, obnoxious people in the same room—that would be her
and Slim. She was the only female who kept Slim in check. She didn’t
play those little word games when he would ask her for head in front of
everyone. Sister didn’t play that. She was cool. She read a lot, and we got
close. For some strange reason, all of Slim’s mistresses would confide
in me. I guess because, aside from Proof and myself, we were the most
levelheaded people there. We were always sober and driven by family.
She was family oriented too, because she had a little girl. She knew who
to talk to and who was full of shit. She also brought a different feel to the
tour. By the time she arrived things were looking better because we were
all adjusting to being over there.

Our stomachs were feeling better as we adapted. We even found a
Kentucky Fried Chicken to make up for all the pork we had been served.
Things were looking better, but of course Slim had spent $4, 000 to fly
Nicole to Europe. At this point, none of that even mattered because we
knew where we stood. We knew, his crew and me, his bodyguard, that we
weren’t his first priority. Therefore, we lacked in loyalty as he lacked in
appreciation for us. That’s basically where we stood.

We boarded the tour bus on November 5th, heading for Koln.
Koln was the spot. It was everything we thought it would be. Koln was the
best part of the tour for many of us. It reminded me of Manhattan mixed
with Paris. There were a lot of English-speaking people there and a wide
variety of ethnic groups, as well, from Indians to Germans to Ethiopians
to Italians. A lot of military guys were there, too. Probably some of the
most beautiful women in the world stayed in Koln. I mean, they were
hot!
Stockholm had some fine women, but Koln had some exotic women.The
women looked like Vanity, Apollonia, Jennifer Lopez—they were built
and always wore spandex and halter tops—it was a nice sight to see. And
they loved American men, especially black men. To be from Detroit was
the icing on the cake. Slim rocked the show, and it was off the chain. All
the shows were basically the same—same show, different city. The fun
started after the show. I figured Slim was in with Nicole, so it was my
chance to get out and see some sights.

I had basically been cooped up for the entire road trip, catering
to Slim and running him around. Koln was a nice city with a lot of nice
restaurants, nice American restaurants. At this point, I had lost about ten
pounds, so I felt like I had a lot of catching up to do. And I was looking
to get out and see some sights. When I had some downtime, Proof was
my hanging partner. On this particular night, we got together with some
people we had met. One guy owned a clothing store with his cousin and
sister. They were Ethiopians and were pretty cool. They took us out to
what they considered their hood, but again, there were all different races
and all these exotic-looking women. We went to one bar, and the setup
was that you would pay and get a ticket, and when you got something
from the bar, you got your ticket punched and paid for all your punches
as you were leaving the club. You had to keep good track, because at the
end they would hit you up. Upon entering the club, everyone had to have
a double shot of Absolute and cranberry juice. I thought it was cool that
they set you up like that at the beginning. The five of us went in, and
they were playing nothing but American music, everything from Puffy to
Jay-Z to 95 South, and I mean the DJ was on jam. I felt like I was back
at home. Proof and I were just relaxing, having some drinks and getting
a lot of attention because we didn’t really fit in; we weren’t dressed like
everybody else and looked like we were from the States. Women were
coming around us, hoping we would talk to them, but Proof and I were
waiting for the music to come on that we wanted to dance to, and then
we were going to ask some ladies to dance.

The people we were with were already dancing and were asking us
when we were going to dance, and I was like, “Hold on. I’ll be out there
to show you a little something. ” We were having a ball. It was hot as hell
in that club, and I had on a T-shirt and flannel. Needless to say, it didn’t
take long at all before I came out of that flannel. The DJ started really
bumping, so I grabbed this one young lady, and I guess folks didn’t think
a man of my 6’8”, 320 pound stature could put it down like I did. I have
always been a good dancer, and I don’t think there’s a man out there
my size who can dance as well as I can. I was showing her how we do
it in Detroit, and I was breaking it down from the old to the new, and I
knew I was throwing down because the floor had cleared up and all the
women were staring in awe. Next thing I knew, Proof grabbed a girl and
was doing his thing, and Proof and I turned the club out.We danced with
these girls for at least fortyfive minutes, and there were ladies waiting in
line to dance with us.

Every time we would come off the
floor, someone else would come
up right away and ask us to dance. Then we saw people trying to imitate
our dance moves, and that, for me, was the most fun part of the tour. I
really enjoyed myself. It gave me a chance to forget about Slim. When he
goes to a club, you can forget about having any fun at all.You always have
to watch for him to get into a fight or for someone to bump him, and the
man has a bladder the size of a peanut. Every five minutes, he would have
to go to the bathroom, which meant that I would have to follow him to
the bathroom. He drank like a fish, and as quickly as the liquor went in, it
came out. If he wanted to holler at a girl, I would have to hang nearby to
let him do his thing and not crowd his space. If we were in a place where
there were a lot of guys who knew who he was but were giving him grim
looks, I would stick close by him. I never let anyone get close to him or
do anything to him. But Koln was a nice time, a real good time.

The only thing that sticks in the back of my mind about Koln that
made me feel like I was some kind of a robot was when Slim and Nicole
wanted to go shopping. I was like, “OK, give me a few minutes because I
have to use the bathroom. ” Number two that is. So I’m doing my thing
and not five minutes later Slim is banging on the door trying to rush me,
threatening to leave without me. I was like, “So be it if that’s what you
choose to do. Damn, can I take a shit?” I mean, I wasn’t going to have a
sequel to it later on. I said, “I am allowed to take one shit a day, right?
Just give me a moment in here!” He still was trying to rush me, and I was
like, “Man, I am not rushing this. This is my personal time, ”blah, blah,
blah. “If y’all are in that much of a rush, then go! I don’t appreciate you
rushing me when I’m letting nature take its course. ” Finally, he went
and waited in the lobby. To me, he was trying to play big shot in front of
Nicole to give the image that he doesn’t even allow his people to take a
shit, and when he says, “Let’s go, ” it is time to go, but that wasn’t the case
on that day because I was taking my time. That shit pissed me off, and I
told him how I felt. I said, “Are you in that much of a rush where I can’t
even take a shit? The stores don’t close for another six hours. C’mon man,
its not that serious. ” He tried to laugh it off, and Nicole was looking at me
like, “Damn, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do, you know?” That
was the only negative memory I have of Koln.