The key to making the drug work for him was in the delicate balancing act it became to keep it at the right levels for him. It was a juggling act we were constantly aware of. We never dropped the ball. Without the medication, or too little of it, one slip, and one only, could prove fatal if he were to become fatally depressed and attempt suicide. But for three years, it made Nick’s dreams come true, and ours for him. It gave him life as surely as blood or oxygen or his heartbeat. Without it, we could never have helped him. With it, he had a real life.
He went back to the hospital three times in the next year, for five days or a week each time, to adjust his medications. Considering how often he’d been in for the year and a half before, it really was a miracle. And the hospital he went back to was the small, friendly one in the East Bay. He was comfortable there, never objected to it, and I liked it because I knew he was safe and well cared for there.
Sometime during this period as well, Nick managed to spend a few hours one afternoon with his biological father. Bill came by his school, and I don’t know if it was an accident or prearranged. They spent an hour or two together, and I think Nick was startled by how ravaged Bill seemed by his drug life. And after that afternoon, they did not meet again. Ever. Nick had satisfied his curiosity and seemed ready to move on.
Being on lithium allowed Nick to pursue a normal life. He went to school, and concentrated on his music. During that entire year, he devoted himself to his band. I knew it was important to him, but I had no idea just how talented he was. I began to hear ripples of how good they were, and how well the band was doing.
But the best and worst of the lithium was how normal it made him feel. The danger there is what happens to most manic-depressives who take lithium. At some point, they decide they’re fine, cured obviously, and no longer need it. When that happens, disaster strikes, as surely as the sun comes up each morning. But Nick took it for nearly two years before challenging it, which gave him plenty of time to enjoy life, and his music. And I was thrilled for him. We all were.
15
Music, MUSIC, MUSIC!
When I saw Nick play with Link 80 for the first time, he absolutely bowled me over. He had a talent and a stage presence, an energy and a charisma that took my breath away when I saw him. And as I told a friend when I watched him onstage, I felt like Mick Jagger’s mother. It was incredibly exciting!
He had talked about the band a lot, but he was fairly modest about his talents. I’m not sure he even realized how gifted he was. He was just as busy writing lyrics, and rehearsing and performing, as he was organizing and selling the band. He handled all their bookings for a long time, until they got a booking agent, ordered artwork, made flyers, ordered merchandise to sell at their shows, booked their tours, and called all over the country to promote them. He really had enormous talent, and was willing to work as hard as he had to, to sell it. And I realize even better now that he was enormously respected by people in the business.
“Nick’s and my friendship first sprouted at a Link 80 Subincision show at the Club Cocodrie in San Francisco. We both had heard a lot about each other, and seen each other in passing, but had never met till that afternoon. After seeing Link 80 perform, I suggested setting up a show with my band, The White Trash Debutantes, so we exchanged telephone numbers. We did not speak for another three weeks. I remember it well, it was 1 A.M. and I was ready to turn out the lights when the phone rang. It was Nick calling about a show. My first reaction was to ask him if he knew what time it was, and have him call back in the morning. Before I knew it, we were engaged in a lively conversation that lasted nearly an hour. Nick was a charmer and a go-getter. He had big plans for the band, and what was better, he had the ability to get them done. Well over seventy-five percent of the people you meet in the music industry are “slackers,” and it was refreshing to meet a young guy with such energy and drive. Our show never transpired, due to a riot that had erupted at the club the week prior, and our gig was canceled. However, our friendship grew. His childlike innocence was very endearing. Although Nick was barely seventeen, I found him wise beyond his years. He tried to understand people from all walks of life, and would often support the “underdog” even when it was not “cool” to do so. Maybe because he had suffered some of the same pain in his own life, he could relate. Nick brought his own struggles into his music for all to share. It was a form of therapy, I am sure. When he took the stage, he brought with him all his frustrations to help make the show more exciting and wild. However, what I found most memorable about his performance was the humble way he thanked the audience. He so much wanted to get his life together, make his mom proud of him, and find success in his real love—MUSIC.
I am going to miss Nicky not only for his gift of music, but for the times we spoke about the ups and downs that life brought us. He would always have an open ear for me, and I also would listen to him. Nick had so many plans for his new band, Knowledge. Nick Traina was a very special person who touched everyone he met. I will miss him very much.”
Ginger Coyote
White Trash Debutantes
Nick’s booking agent wrote of him:
Nick was much more than some disenfranchised punker. He embraced beauty, art, poetry, and goodwill as readily as anger, pain, and malice. The intensity of his range was inspiring, and I had hoped to become lifelong friends and partners in his personal and musical discovery of self and life. I miss him and think of him often. I’m mad at him for fucking up, and cheating me and everyone who loves him of time with him. I have dreamt of him—met with him if you will—as I have with other people I love who have left this world before me. He seemed good—really good, as though the demons had gone to rest. I pray his soul is at peace.
Steve Ozark
Booking Agent, Ozark Talent
Myk Malin of Burnt Ramen Studio engineered a demo recording Nick sang on, in late 1995, when Nick was seventeen, and talked in a letter to me about how difficult Nick still was at the time. He said Nick felt self-conscious doing the “scratch vocals,” although he did them.
He goes on then, “The next time I saw Nick was May ’97. He had heard some stuff from the studio that was good and wanted to come in to record two more songs. My impression of Nick was totally different, that time he was self-assured and extremely nice.” They recorded two cover tunes, and Nick gave him a copy of his most recent Link 80 CD, Seventeen Reasons, and a Link 80 sweatshirt. Myk asked Nick if he could use two of his songs for a compilation called “Ramen Core,” and Nick agreed, and then promised to come back soon to do some more recording. Myk talks about the enormous impact Nick left, and says he wishes he could have helped him.
“In the grand scheme of things, it’s difficult to say what really makes a person unique. But it is the savage poetry of his short life that made a great impression on me.” I was deeply touched by his letter.
A memory I will always love of Nick is when I went to see him at a small club filled with smoke and lights and wild-looking kids, many of them in punk rock outfits. There was lots of rainbow-colored hair, and I felt a hundred years old as I waited for him to come on, and watched everyone milling around. There was an aura of expectant tension. I was excited to see him play finally, and thought it would be fun, but I had no particular expectations, and I was in no way prepared for what I saw when his band came on, or the frenzy of the audience that loved him so much.
Nick’s band came on, adjusted their instruments, checked their mikes, and within instants exploded to life before me. And although I’m hardly impartial in my assessment of him, Nick was terrific. I was totally unprepared for his professionalism, how powerful the music was, his voice, his stage presence, or the quality of his performance. Nick leapt and jumped, reeled and careened, like a boomerang exploding in midair. I loved it!
And between sets, he told the audience that I was there, and that if it weren’t for me and everything I’d done for him, he wouldn’t be there. Tears filled my eyes as he said it. And it delighted me to watch the audi
ence go crazy over him. They reached, they screamed, they sang with him, they begged for more. And after the performance, he was besieged by groupies. It was an incredible experience watching him, and I was vastly impressed by his power and magnetism as a performer. There was absolutely no doubt in mind, as I realized something I never had before, Nick was going to go a long, long way as a rock star.
Afterwards, he came to find me, and I told him how impressed I was. Our friend Jo Schuman was with me, and even with her vast expertise in the music scene, she was as impressed as I. I was so proud of him, and as he dripped sweat, he put an arm around me, as girls clamored to get near him. It was an unforgettable moment in my life. One of many that I will always cherish. And I’ve been told by his friends that whether I was in the audience or not, he always dedicated at least one song to me at each performance.
I saw him at a bigger nightclub after that. It drew a tougher, older audience and had room for a far bigger crowd. The audience looked blasé when he arrived onstage and he looked nervous, at least to the practiced eye of his mother. He started off somewhat cautiously, and within minutes it had happened again. He had taken a huge hall of strangers, and turned it into a sea of writhing, screaming, dancing, singing, shouting people. Nick onstage was magic.
I loved going to see him. I loved what he did, how he looked when he performed, and when I went back to see him at the small club again, I squinted at him from the distance, trying to pretend I was a stranger. What I saw was an incredibly handsome young man, and I was startled to realize that he was very sexy. He was muscular and well formed, and I could see why the girls screamed when they saw him. He had so much charm, a dazzling smile, his arms seemed to reach out to the crowd and pull them to him. He had incredible charisma. And aside from that, he had real talent. He had a great voice, and the lyrics that he sang, when you could understand the words, were very well written. He made me so proud, and I had so much fun going to his concerts. The best part was that we were proud of each other.
Nick onstage, at shows, in concerts, at sixteen (photo credit 1.22, 1.23)
My son and I were both very lucky. At an early age, we had both found our passions. I was about his age, nineteen, when I wrote my first book. And now, he was willing to work his tail off to get what he wanted, and enjoyed it while he did it. There was absolutely nothing else in the world he loved more than his music and his band.
One of Nick’s closest friends was another young performer on the music scene, perhaps his best friend, Sam Ewing. Nick and everyone else called him Sammy the Mick, and he and Nick used to love to horse around before, during, and after Nick’s concerts. He talks of the unstoppable passion Nick had for his music, and how much he loved singing. They were like two kids just playing and having fun, but no matter how much Nick played around, nothing in the world could stop Nick when he was singing.
“I always tried to sabotage Nick when he was onstage. I would trip him and throw things at him, and push him offstage. And once, he hit the ground hard. I jumped up and actually lifted him off his feet. He wanted to scream, but Nick continued to sing. I turned away from him and he just went on singing. I whipped around and kicked his feet out from beneath him. He fell to his knees, still singing. I reached down to push him over, and he pulled my shirt off. I jumped on top of him, and we wrestled. And all the while, Nick sang his little heart out. I grabbed a water bottle and dumped it on his head. He did the same. The entire crowd was doused. And through it all, Nick just kept on singing!”
Not all his performances or their antics were as rough as that, but the two had a great time together. Sammy went on some of their short tours, and supported Nick, particularly if he was down, or bone tired after a string of shows and concerts. Sammy the Mick was always there to cheer him on and boost his spirits. The two got identical tattoos with the word brothers on them. He loved them. Another manic passion.
And Nick gave Sammy a birthday cake after a performance at the Club Cocodrie, and presented it to him onstage. Inevitably, it turned into a food fight. There were a thousand Nick and Sammy stories. They flirted with girls together, sang together, and generally fooled around, egging each other on to behave like wild, happy children. Sammy the Mick came to Hawaii at Easter with all of us that year, and he and Nick looked like choir boys, in gray suits, on Thanksgiving. They were the best of friends, and full of fun, and it always warmed my heart to see them together.
Nick was not only singing but managing the band when he was eighteen, booking them on tours around the state. He arranged publicity, organized a video. He seemed to be juggling a dozen people who were peripherally involved in his career, and he did it all between constant performances and rehearsals. We had always respected each other, but now we had more than just admiration for each other, we had something in common. We both worked in creative fields that we loved.
I loved talking about his work with him, he took it so seriously, and I knew he would go far with it, because he was willing to put his heart and soul into it. He couldn’t have done otherwise. It was his passion. It was what he lived for. From those early lip-sync contests at school, he was suddenly the real thing. He was on his way to becoming a rock star.
I think one of his finest moments, and my favorite memory, was his last spring with us; before he went on tour, his little brother Maxx entered the lip-sync contest at school, the same school where Nick had gone, and the band he was portraying was Link 80. Samantha dressed him up to look like Nick, dyed his hair black like Nick’s, gelled it, and Victoria carefully painted tattoos identical to Nick’s. It was a thrill even for me to see one son onstage, so competently imitating the other. And Nick just loved it. Nick watched him, fascinated, grinning from ear to ear, and cheered him on from his seat. He had brought the rest of the band with him, and Maxx was thrilled to have him there. It was one of those absolutely perfect moments that I will forever cherish. I will never forget Nick’s smile as he watched Maxx, or Maxx’s look of adoration for his older brother. Nick was his hero, and he adored Maxx.
Nick’s relationship with all his siblings was extremely good. From whatever skirmishes he’d had with his younger siblings in his early years, once he matured and was on lithium, he had grown into a loving, protective, very conscientious older brother. He felt a particular kinship with Maxx, perhaps because they were boys, and autographed a poster to him on Maxx’s eleventh birthday that said “To the coolest Traina since me, love from your big bro, Nick.” Maxx idolized him, his “coolness,” his music, his sense of fun. Nick never lost his childlike playfulness, but over the years he added to it the wisdom and insight, sensitivity and compassion he’d added to his own soul, through years of crawling bravely through his pain and struggles. He had a lot to give us all, and didn’t hesitate to do so, but over the many layers of his soul and spirit was a thick overlay of just pure sheer fun. He loved to tease his sisters, and play with them, admired them enormously, and the last year he would look at them in awe, and then talk to me privately, feeling, as I did at times, both stunned and old. “How did they get so grown up and so beautiful?” he would say to me in a whisper after they left the room. He was crazy about them, adored his baby sister Zara, and was fiercely protective of them all, particularly of Sammie.
Nick and Sam always shared a magical relationship. A spoken and unspoken bond that, when they were together, shut all others out. She would have done anything for him, and done anything to protect him. I knew, from watching them over the years, how deep their bond went. They were like Siamese twins of the soul. And although she always fought us bitterly over the idea that there might be something “wrong” with Nick, I think she knew it herself, and wanted to do anything she could to protect him from getting hurt. More than anyone else, he confided in her, and she in him. All of which was why what came later was perhaps hardest of all for her. Although I know full well how much the entire family suffered when we lost him, sometimes I feared that Sam took it the hardest of all. But one cannot measure grief or pain, who am I to say ho
w deeply the others felt? I know that each of his siblings felt his loss as an irreparable blow, as I did. Beatie, surely, felt the same agony we did. He was, for his entire life, her baby brother, the baby that had been born to be hers. Like Sam, she protected him fiercely, and used her own professional psychiatric expertise to help him when she could be useful.
In the last two years, when I took an occasional vacation with friends, Beatrix always stood in for me, making responsible decisions, and reaching out to him as best as she could. She hospitalized him once, when he would listen to no one else and had stopped taking his lithium for a while. She had a gentle, persuasive way with him, and he respected and loved her. And he was particularly proud to be a part of her wedding. Nick’s relationships in the family were usually powerful, and for the most part very good.
After Nick was gone, wrestling with her own agony, Beatie wrote this about what she was feeling.
Tears
His Bright Light Page 20