The Sunset Strip Diaries (10 page)

I saw a band in my rock magazines named D’Molls and I thought the singer was cute, so I got their tape. That is how I picked bands at that time. Shoot, at
all
times.  D’Molls were definitely designed for girls out of the Poison template: bubblegum music, lots of color, hairspray, and lipstick; looked like trannies. I ended up liking their music, despite the fact that they seemed to know only one chord on the guitar. They sang about Hollywood and girls gone bad and all of the usual stuff. I didn’t need deep, depressing Metallica sort of music about guys losing their limbs during wars. I wanted something light and carefree- and I got it.

***

For a few months, I was relieved to be away from my old house because Casey and his friends couldn’t find me. No one knew where I lived
. No one had my phone number. I had a chance to have a clean slate and escape the bad crowd I had entered. But then I grew bored. (I know, I was an idiot).

There were two guys in Casey’s crowd who were a little more clean cut than the heroin addicts and such. They were identical twins named Fritz and Andy. They weren’t dirty, they weren’t druggies, they still lived at home with their mother and they still went to high school. They were only two years older than me, unlike the other guys who were four or five years older. They were tall, rich, and spoiled. They had inheritances coming to them when they turned twenty-one because their grandfather had invented some important shit of some sort. They lived relatively close to me, but in a nicer area. I called them and gave them my new number. I convinced my mother they were harmless, so she let me see them.

Andy had shoulder-length dark hair, flipped over to one side. He was very soft spoken, calm, polite and somewhat feminine; I wouldn’t bat an eyelash if I heard that he was gay today. Fritz was more masculine, not to mention friendly and outgoing. His hair was bleached blond, and he kind of resembled Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He wasn’t afraid to get into a fight. Andy was a big old queen but I was in love with him because he was sweet to me. Fritz was just plain hot. I couldn’t decide who I liked better.

They dragged me around with them to get-togethers and parties, and while they were not as big of assholes as the older guys with whom I had been partying, they were still teenage guys, and they tried getting down my pants every chance they got. There was a point when they started to get into a competition over me.  One of them would call and pick me up, and I would go and hang out with him. When that brother went to pick up more beer, answer the phone, or leave the scene at all, the other brother always snuck over to me and persuaded me to leave with
him.
And I always did! I didn’t have any sense of loyalty to either of them. I was easily persuaded and loved the attention, even though I highly doubt their competition had anything to do with me- it was clearly between them and their own egos.

One day Andy grilled me on what music I liked. I tried to pick something that I thought would go over well, something universal, so I told him I liked Guns N’ Roses. He rolled his eyes and said that they were too “hesher” and that he liked bands like Hanoi Rocks.
Hanoi Who
? I thought. Then I remembered briefly reading about Hanoi Rocks in
Circus
when it covered Vince Neil of Mötley Crüe accidentally killing Hanoi’s drummer in a drunk driving accident. Andy showed me a poster he had bought- it said “Self Destruction Blues” and had a picture of Hanoi’s platinum blond frontman, Michael Monroe, exaggerating a wink. He was deeply tanned and had bright blue eyes and teased hair. Hmmm. So this was what was cool? Not being too mainstream? Liking things that were a little more obscure? That made sense. It surely was more ‘Hollywood’ to have eclectic musical taste…I would have to check them out.

Within the next few weeks, I went to the music shop down the street and looked through some Hanoi Rocks tapes and records. I noted that they dressed in vests, hats, glittery sashes, scarves, and tight pants. They wore lots of makeup and had hair-sprayed hair.  That part was all fine and dandy. It was their music that was totally bizarre. I randomly picked
Back to Mystery City
out of the albums that were available. When I got it home, I listened to it and was disturbed. The song “Mental Beat” put me in a bad place in my head and “Malibu Beach Nightmare” reminded me of that awful night on the beach with Jamie. But if Hanoi Rocks were obscure, underground, and cool, then I was convinced I had to start memorizing some songs. I wanted to nonchalantly start singing a tune around someone cool and have him or her say, “Hey- you know that song?” (This actually did happen at some point.) In all fairness, I eventually got the rest of their music as the years went by and fell in love with quite a bit of it, but at that time, I was being nothing more than a poser.

As my tenth grade year came to an end, I started to feel a little better. I hung around my school friend Abby a lot more. She was very tough and mean to many people, but was nice to me. She could be sarcastic and she could be cynical, but I really treasured her. She had been through some abuse in her life, most recently a brutal rape in Hollywood, where she had been a runaway. We both had been through hard times, so finding each other was a blessing. I got a little more confidence just having a friend to confide in and we even started to have fun. We both started to lighten up. We even started laughing and giggling and being regular girls.

I got a second wind that summer and created a new look for myself. It wasn’t too drastically different, it was just more creative. I dyed my hair bright purple and colored my eyebrows with a dark purple eye shadow that perfectly matched my hair. While the other girls wore their hair permed and teased, I wore mine ironed perfectly straight and long. (I did this with a clothes iron on an ironing board.) My new signature look was purple, turquoise blue and black/white polka dots. I had blue nails most of the time and loads of silver bracelets. I had a turquoise blue shirt that stopped just under my boobs and turquoise short-shorts that I wore with lace-up Grecian sandals. I had a skin tight, purple spandex skirt that stopped just under my butt, which I wore with a white top with black polka dots. All of my outfits were from Contempo Casuals, which I thought was comparable to Christian Dior or something- I thought that shit was haute couture. I was proud of my outfits! I had a long, sheer black scarf with white polka dots on it that I tried to wear as a headband but it always fell out. I loved that sash. I also wore this drug store perfume that came in a round white bottle with a black exclamation mark sticking out of it. I didn't care that I smelled like a 1970's douche- I liked that bottle! Any birthday or holiday money I received from faraway relatives usually went toward that perfume.

The summer of 1989 was all about the new movie
Batman
with Michael Keaton, Kim Basinger, and Jack Nicholson as The Joker. It was Batman everything: shirts, cups, stickers and Happy Meals. Disney’s
The Little Mermaid
also came out that year, along with
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Say Anything
and
Steel Magnolias.

I had to attend summer school to make up my failing grades, so I took Biology with a bunch of kids who were younger than I was. I brought a 1 ½ inch plastic brown cow to class every day and set it on my desk. I called it HowNowBrownCow. I was just trying to get attention and I got a lot of it. All of the younger boys in the class called me a witch and drew cartoons about me, but I didn’t care. I just told them to watch out or I’d put a hex on their asses. I became popular in the class, although I was more likely just infamous.

One day, the biology teacher decided to show a boring movie, so I thought it would be perfectly logical to crawl out of the class on my hands and knees (in short shorts, at that). As I was doing so, I looked up toward the class across the hall and saw a delicate boy with fluffy blond hair and gamine features watching me. He approached me later on, in passing, and introduced himself as Justin Sandstrom.

I knew immediately that I could not date him, because I felt his innocence and his big heart. I knew I was too internally warped and was not capable of having a regular relationship with some nice boy my age. He was polite and sweet, lived with his parents- probably the kindest person I had ever randomly met. He acted as if I was some goddess and I felt very flattered. He said, “I didn’t know girls like you actually
existed
.” I gave him my number to pump my ego initially, but we ended up becoming very close friends after I explained why I couldn’t date him.

I told him all of my secrets and he told me about his life, which wasn’t completely innocent. He told me about how he was turned off by girls who came on really strong. He told me stories about sleeping with his ex-girlfriend when her parents weren’t home, going to dances, and all the stuff he did with the girls he dated. He always tried to tell me I was very special and deserved better that the guys I dated, but I couldn’t comprehend that. I felt destroyed inside and I didn’t see an end to that, so I was trying to accept it and move forward.

I turned sixteen that September and was feeling much better about my life. I was going into the eleventh grade and I was excited to take drivers education that year to learn to drive. I signed up for the stage crew for the school plays.  I had Abby as my friend at school and I had Justin to talk to on the phone every night. I didn’t feel so alone. My hair was brilliant purple and I loved it. I thought things were finally looking up. But that wasn’t to last.

My dad, who we hadn’t seen for nearly a year, suddenly started showing up around my grandmother’s house. He snuck into the shed in the backyard and slept there a few nights, watching us through the kitchen windows when it was dark. He hid in the bushes and watched us go to school in the morning. One night he knocked on a window and it scared me because I couldn’t see outside in the dark. I opened the window and promptly told him to get the fuck out of my yard or I would call the cops on him for trespassing.

My sister and I were both confused. Some nights she thought she might want to see him; other nights she didn’t. We tried to respect that one of us might feel one way and the other another way at any given time. We didn’t know
what
we thought. It put us into an absolute tailspin, mentally. We acted out in different ways. She started shoplifting and having crying spells in school. I became very angry and full of rage again and wanted to run away.

I let my dad in the house on one of those nights. He crawled in on his hands and knees, crying. He told me he saw God in the street when he was on acid. He started pouring out all of these disturbing things. It was very hard on me and really did a number on my mind.  He was clearly in a lot of pain. He kept telling me he didn’t want to live. He was full of regret and apologized a thousand times, begging forgiveness. He knew he made a mistake and ruined the family. He said he would do whatever it took to make it up to us, and that he loved us. We felt bad for our dad. It was hard to see him in that state, the former head of our family so vulnerable. It left me raw, thinking that there was no one really in charge of us. My mom was a walking corpse and could barely talk. I was scared.

Seeing him in that state was a lot worse than not having a father. I regretted letting him in the house that night; I realized I wanted him to leave me alone so I could heal. But he was relentless in wanting to talk to me and make things right. I got up and walked out of the house while he was in mid-speech, without my contact lenses on. I couldn’t see anything and to make it worse, it was dark out. I didn’t care, I just kept walking. Tears filled my eyes and my heart overflowed with pain. He followed me and tried to talk to me. He said we could live together; he would get us a place. I said no, I was running away to Hollywood.

I started walking faster in the dark. I saw blurry streetlights through my tears. I just wanted him to leave me alone and he wouldn’t. I suddenly got this rush of adrenaline and thought,
This is it. I am going for it
. I ran straight into traffic on a busy street. I somehow didn’t get hit. My dad ran out, grabbed me, and pulled me back to the sidewalk, while horns blared and cars screeched. I got out of his grip, turned around, and tried going down a different street. I finally just collapsed onto someone’s front lawn and started bawling there in the dark. He sat down next to me. I started yelling at him. I told him the horrible things that I had let happen to me because I had no respect for myself, because I thought I was only good for one thing. I told him that is what he taught me. I yelled it in his face. The things that were coming out of my mouth were shocking me, but I couldn’t stop. I yelled, “It’s because of
YOU!”
  He screamed really loud when I said that and then started crying really hard. It was horrible to hear a man cry. The next thing I knew, a bunch of tiny kittens came out of the bushes and started crawling all over us and meowing. It was surreal. I thought I was having a dream.

He came by a few weeks later. I couldn’t look at him. He apologized to me, saying cocaine was a very sexual drug. I knew inside that he was talking about something filthy and I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t think about what he was apologizing for, even though I had made reference to it when I was screaming at him. I made my mind not think about it. I was picking at my big purple candle and
wishing
he would leave. I just let him ramble on; I didn’t answer him. I remember feeling like I used to feel when my mother would force me to listen to a sex talk, learning about menstruation or something. Just really uncomfortable, no eye contact, picking at something and not responding whatsoever. I was
praying
he would just hurry up and finish the speech. I kept telling myself it didn’t happen.
It didn’t happen. It didn’t happen. Don’t think about it.