My Appetite for Destruction Page 5

  END OF INNOCENCE

  The managers of the Starwood were these men in their midtwenties. All they wanted was to do drugs, fuck, and party. They were extremely smart, eccentric hippie white guys. They were all gay, and I was this cute blond-haired fuck-boy. They just loved me. I wasn’t into that, but I was young and naive.

  They would give me quaaludes and have their way with me. I just wanted to hang out, be with people, and enjoy life. But when you’re young, doing your own thing roaming the streets, crazy shit happens. I ended up doing a lot of things that I didn’t understand or really have any control over. In retrospect, a lot of things happened to me that probably messed with my head and hung over me for years, particularly when I found out that these young men later died of AIDS.

  Just walking down Santa Monica to the Starwood or to Saul’s house, people would pull up beside me in their cars and ask me if I wanted to smoke a joint. I’d be like, “Hell, yeah!” The next thing you know you’re completely baked and they’re touching you all over and you don’t know what the fuck’s going on. All you know is that an orgasm feels good. Anybody can make you come, and in that state I didn’t have the presence of mind to give a damn. I was used, abused, whatever. Let’s get high. Let’s party.

  One time I was walking along Santa Monica Boulevard and ran into two clean-cut guys who must have been in their twenties. We started talking and they said they had some bitchin’ weed back at their pad, so I went with them to smoke.

  We arrived at this dumpy little apartment and there was another guy there, only he was in his forties, a completely scruffy-looking loser. Right away, I felt uneasy. Something wasn’t right. This guy got up and locked the door behind me. “You want some grass, kid? Well, I want something too . . .”

  The younger guys weren’t friendly anymore. They slipped behind me while the loser walked up to me and ran his hand through my hair. I’ll spare you the ugly details, but they hurt me pretty badly. Part of my mind just kind of shut down, and that day my reality became a bad dream. They didn’t beat me up, but they did everything else and it was pretty devastating.

  I was just fourteen at the time. I went home, stripped, and got in the shower. It was only then that I realized I was shaking pretty badly. After cleaning up I went out and got real high. Party, laugh, onward . . . and never tell a soul about it, until now.

  ORGIES AND ORGASMS

  It was a time in Hollywood where the overriding attitude about sex and drugs was to be free and out in the open. There was no panic over herpes or AIDS, no worries. Saul and I would hang out at Osco’s Disco on La Cienega just across the street from the Beverly Center.

  Of course, it wasn’t normal for fourteen-year-old kids to hang out at a disco, but we had an older look to us. And even if we got carded, Saul, who was an expert artist, had taken our IDs and changed the date to make us of legal age. We never had a hard time getting alcohol or getting into the place. We went there just about every weekend of 1977 and 1978. There were like ten different theme rooms in the place. They were mostly sexual in nature, with settings like the baths of ancient Rome, open deserts with rolling dunes, a fully equipped dominatrix chamber, the wildest shit.

  Upstairs and downstairs, everybody was doing coke and something called “rush,” the popular drug fad at the time. It came in a bottle, and you were supposed to remove the cap and inhale the vapors from the liquid while you were having sex. By raising your heartbeat to insane levels, rush was supposed to intensify the orgasm experience. Throughout the night, we would go through all the rooms. It was an eye-popping experience. We never got bored, and if things started to lag, we’d just pop to another theme room. It didn’t matter; they were all saturated with booze, drugs, and blaring disco.

  It seemed like the more crazy the spectacles we witnessed, the more we hungered for wilder, more perverse thrills. Nothing could shock us anymore. Our nerves were deadened to the point that we stood there watching a three-on-one with the girl servicing every sick whim, only to be manhandled to the point that it was a borderline rape, and we’d be like, “Whatever. Next.”

  GAY SCENE

  All the gay bars were along Santa Monica Boulevard, and most of the area’s neighborhoods were predominantly gay too. I remember hearing Queen’s song “Another One Bites the Dust” a dozen times every day. The Boulevard was definitely the primo gay hangout.

  And the Starwood was the number one gathering spot for everyone. We goddamn lived there. We saw a lot of things that I wouldn’t have seen back in Cleveland—guys getting sodomized in alleys or getting blow jobs from other guys in public bathrooms. Everything was out in the open and people were so into it. Saul and I were witnessing the raw, unbridled climax of a very narcissistic, very adventurous, experimental time.

  Eventually, I had enough. It wasn’t any one event, just the culmination of too many sick, beyond-the-limit nights. I needed to slow it down. I had weathered too many mornings waking up in someone’s backyard with no recollection of how I got there or what led up to getting there. I did what any fucked-up Jewish boy would do once he’s realized how empty and pointless the whole world has gotten. I moved back to my mom’s to give home life another chance.

  I called my mom and told her I was feeling homesick, that I wanted to come home. Things got very emotional. At first she hardly even recognized my voice, but when I heard hers it was like this wonderful oasis had come back into my life. She said very little, because I don’t think she wanted me to hear her break down. She told me to come right home, and that was all she had to say.

  MOM ADLER

  I want to say this right now about my mother. I have never hated or loved a person as much as I’ve hated and loved my mom. I have never put another human being through the torture and abuse that I’ve heaped on my mom. I have never hurt or disappointed anyone on this earth as much as I’ve devastated Deanna Adler.

  And yet I have never experienced anyone with a bigger heart or a more immense capacity to forgive than my mother. To this day we have our conflicts, and I continue to harbor a hatred for her that is all out of proportion with reason. And yet I’ve never depended on anyone or loved anyone so deeply. Deanna Adler has come through for me again and again and again.

  My mom has said, “I love Steven, but I don’t like him.” And I believe I’ve given her no choice in that matter. I’m not a good son, and I’m not always a good brother, but that doesn’t mean I can’t give it another shot.

  That day I called, my mom took a bigger chance on me than she ever had before. She sure didn’t have to. She had peace in her home. She had a loving husband in Mel and a sweet joyful son in Jamie. She had a happy home and a stable, decent life. And yet she risked it all for me. Although she knew it would upset him and probably lead to a bitter argument, she talked to Mel about me. It had been several years since I had been kicked out, and I was hoping time had softened some of the harsher memories. Using what I can only imagine was a lot of pleading and love, she convinced my dad I deserved one more chance to be back in their home.

  THE BIG DAY

  Saul had found a pair of leather pants in a Dumpster by his grandmother’s building. We cleaned them up, and he let me borrow them. I was the only kid wearing leathers at that time. I thought it looked very cool, especially with my long blond hair.

  It was a look, however, that could not have been less popular with my parents. I tried to be optimistic about my return home, and so did they. Jamie was so happy I was back and for that first day, for that first meal together, I knew how much a family’s love could mean.

  Their demands were minimal and, in hindsight, pretty reasonable. They just wanted me to be a normal son. They asked that I be in by six o’clock for dinner and stay home evenings during the week. They asked me to keep my room in decent shape and clean up after myself in the kitchen and bathroom.

  Almost immediately there were a few ominous signs. I was forty-five minutes late for the second dinner we had together. I blamed it on Saul. I told them I didn’t have a wa
tch and had asked Saul to let me know when it was five thirty, but he spaced and by the time I remembered what they said, it was already six thirty.

  But hell, I was used to not coming home at all. When I walked in, it was very uncomfortable at the table. Mom had insisted they wait until I came home to eat and had tried to keep dinner warm in the oven, but the chicken ended up being all dried out. It tasted like sawdust and only served to increase the tension in the air.

  Mom kept saying, “Why can’t you come home on time? That’s all we ask. Why can’t you come home on time?” And Mel was all, “Stop hurting us. Stop hurting your mother. Look what you’re doing to her. This has got to stop.”

  Chapter 5

  Busted Drums, Busted Face, Busted

  MY FIRST SET OF SKINS

  I was fifteen now, and despite pissing off my parents by being late for dinner, I sincerely wanted things to work out at home. So when Mom told me she had enrolled me at Chatsworth High School after I settled in, I did my best to be a model student. It all came down to my ability to get along with people, whether they were in the dining room or the classroom.

  During my hitch at Chatsworth, I met Dan Scheib. He was the grandson of Earl Scheib, the famous auto paint guy. Dan was a decent guy who played guitar but because he came from money, he had every other instrument in creation lying around his house. So I talked him into selling me his drum set. I even tried to jam with him when I went to check the set out. It was my very first time behind a real drum set and it didn’t go too well.

  Dan told me I could have the set for a hundred bucks. But when I showed up to pay, his father walked into the room and told me he wouldn’t allow me to take the cymbals unless I gave him another $25. I looked at Dan, but he had his eyes glued to the floor. I couldn’t believe it. His old man was fucking loaded but it didn’t matter. What a prick! The rich eat their young before parting with a dime, and old man Scheib just looked at me like I was some lowlife shit weasel, a flea market refugee to be bullied into giving him more than I had agreed to pay.

  What could I do? I wanted a real drum set more than anything else in my life, so I anted up the extra dough, took everything home, and set it up in my bedroom. Giving Scheib the extra twenty-five turned out to be a pure waste of money because the cymbals cracked the first time I played them. They were such pieces of shit, they didn’t even have a brand name on them.

  As for the drums, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I was great on books and pillows, but now I had a drum set where you had to coordinate one foot pedal with the other foot pedal and both hands, and I was like, “Oh my God, what do I do now?” So, I visualized myself at the Starwood, putting myself in that same hallowed spot where I had seen all the drummers perform. I put on eight-track tapes of the Doobie Brothers and Boston, closed my eyes, and just listened. After a bit, I tried to play along smartly, because I didn’t want to let down my fans.

  Or I should say “fan,” because Jamie was the only one there and he was my audience. In his eyes, I could do no wrong, and that must have helped, because I quickly got the hang of it. And just like your first car, you never forget your first instrument. I played the hell out of those drums, pounding on them with such ferocity that I’d break the whole set down to the ground during each practice, then pick everything up and reassemble it all. A couple weeks later, I jammed with Dan Scheib again, and you know what? His eyes popped. I could tell he thought that I had gotten a lot better.

  BUSTED

  My first week at Chatsworth High, I met a girl named Lisa. She was a pretty hot-looking senior with long brown hair, a big smile, slender legs, and cute little teacup tits. I had to ask her out. She had a car and a job, which meant she was the perfect catch for a sophomore like myself. Of course Mom and Mel’s rules still applied, so I would sneak out of my bedroom window after dinner and meet Lisa. My heart would be pounding so hard, giving me the best pure high. I miss that more than anything else—the great buzzes I’d get from the simplest things.

  Before you know it, the booze and the drugs have muscled their way in to replace the natural buzz, then they make it impossible for you to enjoy any kind of joy at all, because you’re all torn down, dead inside. You have no clue how you got so out of touch with the simple pleasures. If kids could just maintain a knack for capturing the natural highs in life, then the other crap would turn them off. Drugs would just bore them shitless when compared to a genuine high.

  I’ll never know how long I would have lasted at Chatsworth because I got blindsided only six weeks after I enrolled. Well, I guess that’s my answer: six weeks. The only positive thing was that I happened to be there just long enough to get my driver’s license out of driver’s ed class. Back then, you could get your license when you were fifteen and a half.

  I never saw it coming. I was in homeroom the day two police officers came into school asking for me. Some fucker had narced me out for smoking weed before class. Such a fun way to start off the day: being led away in handcuffs in front of my classmates.

  You never forget your first kiss, your first car, or your first time in the slammer. I wasn’t pissed—okay, maybe a little—but I was mostly stunned. The cops were going all Joe Friday on me, making it sound like I had just been caught with forty kilos of primo bud in my locker. After spending what felt like a whole day in a holding cell, I started to get worried. Maybe these guys actually were determined to make an example out of me. With my luck, it seemed possible that whatever the maximum penalty was for getting high before school, I was going to find out. Turned out I was only locked up at Devonshire police station for three or four hours before they called my parents, but it seemed like forever.

  When Mom finally came to pick me up, the police captain told her that there would be no record of the arrest, that they were just trying to give me a good scare, which I guess was their policy for first-time offenders. I, of course, didn’t know this, and when I got in the car, I went a little overboard with the “Please forgive me—it’ll never happen again—I’ve been such an idiot” routine. But it didn’t really make much difference because Mel had already issued his edict before Mom came to get me.

  Mel said no way I was welcome back in the house, so I was taken to a foster home in Pasadena. There were all these crazy kids running around, screaming at the top of their lungs. I never felt sorry for myself, it was just “This sucks. I’m out of here.” So I called Lisa and said, “Woman, you gotta come rescue me.” Within an hour she was there to pick me up right outside the home. The lady running the place was freaking out, all yelling after me: “You’re not allowed to leave. Come back here. I’m calling the police!”

  MY DESTINY DEFINED

  We were just like Bonnie and Clyde. We laughed and tore off down that dirt road. I can still remember the unbridled freedom I felt as we sped away. That night I realized that home for me would always be where I was loved for what I was, not what I could be molded into. I told myself that home was an illusion anyway. We all die alone, and the people who learn to be their own good company are the ones who have the best shot at being happy.

  Lisa was so very cool. She was always up for anything, and I loved hanging with her. We would drive to Malibu Beach and park up by the cliffs. We’d party in the car, push the seats down, and slide them way forward. We’d screw in the backseat and then pass out.

  That summer Lisa took me to the U.S. Festival in San Bernardino. We went on Sunday, the heavy metal day. Opening the show was Mötley Crüe, who were well on their way to becoming superstars. I remember studying every move Tommy Lee made that day—the way he counted off the next song; the way he twirled his sticks; the way he used those sticks to point at the audience, then at the other members of the band. Those drumsticks became extensions of his hands.

  Most important, I studied the way Tommy smiled that day. He was always beaming. I got chills. That was gonna be me. I couldn’t stand musicians who looked so serious up on the stage, like they were constipated. If you want to look that way, go get a fucki
ng root canal. Playing music is a pleasure and a privilege. Tommy showed me the way, and that was to be my way. Thanks for being an incredibly positive inspiration, Tommy.

  NO REPRIEVE

  They’d only let me back in school if I agreed to see a counselor. He wanted to know about the recurring trouble at home and why I was skipping school. Even though Mel and Mom had relented and let me back in the house after the foster home fiasco and my weekend furlough with Lisa, it just wasn’t working out. I was just impossible and told the counselor so. I said, “Life at home sucks. I can’t stand it and I can’t stay there. If you can pay me three fifty an hour, I’ll get my own place and guarantee a C average.”

  He said, “I can’t do that.” So I told him I couldn’t stay in school; I needed to work.

  I had been home less than three months before I was kicked out and all my shit was on the street again. I should have asked Mel to install a revolving door on the front of the house. At least there were no extended tirades this time; it was just “Hit the road, loser.”

  I couldn’t take the look on Mom’s face. Now, it’s not like I hadn’t seen it before, I just didn’t want to see it again. It meant failure, total failure, my failure. My repeated ability to screw everything up pummeled my parents to the point that now they just went through the motions without any feelings.

  Mel and Mom had most of my stuff out on the front lawn before I got home. The worst was saying good-bye to Jamie again, his teary eyes, wet cheeks, trying to smile through it all. I don’t even want to think about it. He was standing in the yard and I knew if I went over to hug him, I was going to lose it. It was déjà vu all over again, loading up Stormin’ Norman’s troop carrier to take me back to Big Lilly’s, all four feet six inches of her.