Minutes later this real tough-looking woman came up to me and pointed to my cock and then to her mouth. I just smiled. She gestured with her hands as to the size of my cock. I took my thumb and index finger and indicated a length of about three-quarters of an inch. She came over and extended her hand and said, “Let’s go.” I looked at her closely. Man, what a tough-looking broad! She sat down in my lap and said, “Come on, let’s go. Just lay back and enjoy it.” I asked her name. “Peach Melba.” I said, “Peach, my dear, I want to tell you that you have the nicest ass of anyone here tonight, but I can’t go with you.” Peach asked why. I said, “Peach, you’re a man! Now there are certain things that I won’t do and I don’t want some guy sucking my cock, but shit honey, thanks anyway.” He asked me if I would have gone for it if I hadn’t been able to tell. I skipped the answer and commented on his vivid green panty hose. I said that I had a Madonna record that had a picture of Madonna on it wearing the same shade. We both agreed that Madonna was awesome. He told me how he scammed on C’el and even danced with him. We talked for a while more and he told me that his real name was Tim. I told him that I liked Tim much better. Fuck, that guy had about an inch of makeup on his face. I told him that he shouldn’t shave for about three days and then go out in drag with all that stubble. Tim said that he would give it a try. He got up and split.
Thieves. No one is to be completely trusted besides yourself. To trust someone else is an unfair demand on that person. Black Flag “fans” are not to be trusted in the least. Last night they stole from me. I will never trust any of them again. If someone gives me something, I will ask what that person wants in return, and if that person says that he wants nothing in return, I will return the gift. No trust. They always want something in return at some point. I hate having my back turned when they come to collect. None of them are to be trusted. They cheer while you play, and then when you don’t play what they wanted to hear, they hurl insults at you. I learned something from that shit. I learned that it’s all the same—praise, damnation, love, hate, all the same. No one can tell me different. I expect nothing from everyone. I am rarely let down. I am occasionally pleasantly surprised. No one. I will not trust anyone completely outside of myself except Joe. I hope for the same from others. Complete trust is stupid. Complete trust is for fools. It’s right up there with “faith.”
February 13, 1987, 12:10 a.m. Amtrak en route to Chicago, IL: Two girls walk by. “Where do you think Henry’s going?” I should dress up in a Cyndi Lauper suit. I’m going to Madison, Wisconsin, for a show. The closest Amtrak can get me is Chicago. No sweat. I just turned twenty-six on this train. No more of that “Quarter-Century Man” shit for me anymore, I’m on my way to thirty.
Just spent three days in DC. Finished up all the East Coast shows: New York, Boston, Providence, New Haven, Trenton, New Brunswick, DC. Sure was great to see Ian. It’s hard to think of that boy turning twenty-five. I really can’t see it happening. Not that I think he’s going to die before he gets there or anything, but I thought that maybe he would magically escape aging. There is something about him that transcends age. Eternal is such a heavy, clumsy word. I don’t want to use it. He’s like a season. I know he’ll be around. No plane crash will get that guy. Still, it makes me think. What a trip. Ian MacKaye, twenty-five. No way.
The thing I got from this visit is that now it’s just like another town. I don’t even remember the names of the streets. Most of the people I know have moved away. I don’t know most of the people who hang out. I think that the less people I know, the better. I’m not going to visit there anymore, only to play. I don’t need any time among friends. When I open my mouth, I waste my time when I do those things. I lie to myself. There’s no use in that. When I’m in the room with them, I feel uneasy, they feel uneasy. It’s a lie, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t have to work. People games tangle me up. Get me caught in games with myself.
The whole car of this train is alive with noise. All of the people behind me are drunk. I can’t see why they put alcohol on trains. The air is thick with the smell of booze and bad food.
A drunk guy in front of me is telling us all about how all these people he knows think he’s a genius, and he says, “Hah! To me, it’s nothing!”
The old folks across the aisle talk about boring shit, their kids, the Bill Cosby show, and food, that’s it. The man with the cowboy hat should be executed. He’s walking up and down the aisle yelling, “Does anyone want a beer?”
Some guy yells, “Yeah, I’ll take one! He’s got a white hat on, he must be a good guy!”
The man behind me croaks, “Yeah! Bring ’em down!”
Now I hear some people up ahead.
“Did you see that guy with the short hair?”
The citizens are a trip. Thank goodness for Bruce Springsteen to keep all these people in line. Hey! Go to work, be the person you hate, suck your employer’s ass, come home and drink, it’s all right, Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about you. If you didn’t get in line and work all day and hate your own guts, then the Boss wouldn’t have anything to write about and he’d go out of business. The citizen and the Boss walk hand in hand into the darkness. I don’t mind his music though. In a situation like this, I see where he’s coming from.
Four more shows on this trip. Then back to LA for four weeks, then out to Trenton for band practice and tour. Looking forward to getting back out here. California is a kicked-back joke.
February 13, 1988, 1:07 a.m. Chicago, IL: I am twenty-seven years old. Did the show here tonight. Had a real cool time. Went for an hour and a half; it felt like ten minutes.
Stayed up late last night. Tried to get the train at 7 a.m., but it was sold out. Had to fly. The airplane was overbooked so they put me in first class. It was cool. It was strange to look back and see all these sorry-looking folks in coach. I couldn’t help it. I kept looking back at them and watching them watching me. Got off the plane, did two interviews on the phone at the airport. Took a cab to this neighborhood where I always go to get books. Found Proud Beggars by Albert Cossery. Went from there to the club, did two interviews. Took ten minutes to get ready, went out and hit it. Did an interview after everybody cleared out. It was strange. All these people wanted to talk to me. I’m signing all these books and then they had to leave and they freaked. They started shoving all this stuff in front of me to sign and started grabbing me. A trip.
So tired from the last few days that I can’t even think straight enough to write. The interviews are hard to do. I don’t know how much more I can keep this up. I have to get some sleep. Every day has been a brain fry.
I can feel the beast crawling into my bones. My friend is back. There’s that hard skin I lose when I’m back there. It’s coming back. That’s when I’m on—when the beast is running through my blood. I can feel it and it’s so good. I knew there was something missing and now it’s back. The longer I’m out, the better it gets. It’s so easy to forget. When I’m back there, it destroys parts of me, makes me dull. It takes a while for the hard shine to come back. What I really need is the music. This spoken thing is good but I need the pain that the music inflicts on my body. That’s when I’m at my best. Hard to explain to other people. I have to stay away from women. The longer I go without sex, the better. When I’m with a woman, I get weak. No one is close to me, and when I’m in close contact with a woman, I try to get out of myself. I lie to myself and that’s bullshit. For me to do what I need to do, I can be close to no one.
I have been frustrated the last few weeks because I haven’t had enough stimuli. I keep wanting to be back in Europe in the fourth month of the tour, meaner than shit. I haven’t been tested since December. I need it bad. I don’t think I should ever come off the road. If I do, I should go to a place where I don’t know anyone. Association weakens me, waters me down. I will not let anyone pull me off the trail. I must reread the iron reminders that I wrote a few months ago. They are the truth. The part about how the work comes before anything and anyone, even me. The
mission is the only thing that matters. Sex, relationships come second place, third place, last place. The work is all there is.
I remember a while ago. I was with this girl, I told her that the work comes before anything. She got offended. Hey fuck that shit. Females play a smaller part in my life than they used to. As soon as they get in the way of the work then it makes me not like them. They don’t know me. No one knows me. The work knows me. The road knows me. The beast knows me. Conflict knows me. Women make all that stuff taste cheap. I was with this girl recently. When I hit the road, I missed her for about a day, and now I don’t think of her at all. Time to fall out. Tomorrow is Madison, Wisconsin. Another day. Bring them all on. Let them destroy me, let them try. I welcome the hard things.
2:40 p.m. Madison, WI: Got here a couple of hours ago. Been outside a long time. Now I’m inside Victor’s coffee store listening to two men discuss why drinking coffee makes them feel guilty. I’m so cold that I can hardly hold the pen. I got a pot of coffee—that will allow me to stay here long enough to thaw out. Have to do an interview soon. It’s too cold to go back out there too soon.
Looking at all the brightly dressed college kids walking down the street makes me glad that I chose not to go that route. Hearing the shit they talk about is beyond belief. I can’t understand how people of that age can be into such mindless bullshit.
I was thinking about how today is my birthday. I came to this: Who gives a fuck? It’s just another day. I was in this town a year ago doing a talking show. Tomorrow is Milwaukee, then on to Boston for the better part of a week. Will be good to move on to another part of the country. I have been out almost two weeks, I can’t even tell. I have to look at my interview list to find out what day it is. I like doing the shows night after night without nights off. They get better and better when I do a lot of shows straight. Momentum is important. I find that it helps me to be able to free-associate and work openly while onstage.
While on the street, people pass me, about once a block I hear my name being mentioned. “That’s Henry Rollins.” “Where?” “There.” “Wow.” And so on. At this point I thought I would be used to it. I’m not, but it doesn’t bug me like it used to. I have learned that there is a space in my head where I can go where no one can get to me. Often when I’m on the street, that’s where I am. I have learned to find open fields in the space of the seat on a bus.
Now the coffee place is full of people, and they’re knocking into me with their shopping bags. I put the headphones on and I’m out of there. Every once in a while I look up and I see all these people looking at me like they want to sit down. Hey fuck them. All the guys look like Robin Williams. Those Docksiders kill me. Maybe they should have to stand. Maybe they should freeze to death.
Walking around here makes me sick. I don’t like college towns. The streets are full of people wearing the same clothes. It’s like being stuck in a wine-cooler commercial and not being able to find the exit door.
February 23, 1989, 2:56 a.m. Arlington, VA: Have been unable to write for a long time. Hand has been fucked up. The story is long and boring. Haven’t written in weeks. Just thinking about it fucks me up. Fucks me up to the point where I don’t feel like writing any more right now.
3:02 p.m.: Like I said, it’s a long fucked-up story. I’ll make it short. A few weeks ago we were in Geelong, Australia, playing. We’re doing the show—all is well. This guy is standing in front of me, spitting mouthfuls of beer in my face. After a few mouthfuls, I got fed up and punched him. My fist hit his mouth. He fell out. His friends dragged him away. Moments later he came back up to the front. His face was bloody. He pulled his upper lip up and his front teeth were gone. I felt bad about it. Not because I hit the guy but because I knew that the police would be there soon to arrest me. I looked at my hand and there was a hole over the knuckle, deep enough to where I could see my tendon working. I showed it to our drummer and he was not at all interested.
A few moments later something hit the stage. Our guitar player picked it up. It was the guy’s teeth—bridgework. Not much to me, another drunk asshole in my face who got destroyed, but I held on to them all the same. I figured they would be a good souvenir.
The next day the band had a day off and I had a talking show and interviews. My hand had started to swell, and the pain was getting harder to take by the hour. The next day we left for the airport. My hand had turned purple, and looked like it was going to explode.
The plane ride was hellish. The pain was enough that I was passing out and coming to all the way there. I was running a fever as well.
I got to LA about fourteen hours later and had to exchange the Australian money and handle all this business while in excruciating pain.
I got back to my place, and of course the first thing I did was call up a girl I know and arrange a date for that night. Brainless.
The next day I checked into a hospital after my friend who used to be a nurse saw my hand and threw me in her car and sped me to the hospital. I figured they would give me some penicillin and that would be it. How wrong can a man be? Wrong as I was.
I went into the emergency room and the lady took one look at my hand and all of a sudden there was a doctor in my face. He said that I should fill out the forms immediately so that he could start operating as soon as possible. I told him that there wasn’t going to be any operation. He said that I could leave and come back tomorrow when they would amputate my hand, or I could get started today and they would try to save what was left of my finger. This sobered me up and I filled out the form.
Minutes later I was on my back in one of those nightgown things, there was an IV thing attached to my hand, and I was heading toward surgery.
At some point I woke up and the doctor came in to see how I was. He pulled off the bandage and there was this big hole in my hand. He said they were going to leave it open so it could drain. Then he gave me a shot of Demerol and I hallucinated for a while and passed out.
To make a long story short, I was in the hospital for six and a half days. On my birthday, I came to the conclusion that I had had enough. I took the IV out of my hand and got dressed. When the doctor came in, I told him to congratulate me because today was the day that I was going home. He said that I wasn’t going home for four more days. I just smiled and told him that I was leaving in a few minutes and he better make a prescription for whatever it was that I needed. He got the point and wrote a sheet for something. I got out of there and hit the road the next day. I had shows to do. I spent my twenty-eighth birthday sweating it out in a hospital bed. How weak.
I learned a good lesson this time. No asshole is worth this much trouble.
February 13, 1990, 11:50 p.m. San Francisco, CA: I’m in Don and Jane’s apartment. It’s cool to see Don, but the situation with Don and Jane is fucked up. She takes every opportunity to rip on him. He takes it without complaining. She says the meanest things to him in front of other people. Don tries to be cool and deal with it, but you can tell it hurts him a lot. They had some people over for my birthday and it was okay, I guess. I appreciate the thought, but it’s not my kind of thing.
It was hard to take with a room full of Jane’s friends, listening to her lay into Don and make fun of him in front of all of them and their daughter. I will never get married as long as I live. I am around them and it reminds me of when I was growing up and all the acrimony between my mother and father. I watched them battle it out and had to take it from their new wives and boyfriends. There’s nothing I can see that is good about marriage. I might be lonely a lot of the time, but at least I have the option to get up and go when I want to. I’ll hold on to that one as long as I’m breathing.
Now I’m in their spare room trying not to make too much noise for fear of unleashing the wrath of the beast known as Jane.
I have a show in town tomorrow. I am twenty-nine years old. I am lonely and poor and don’t know how I am going to keep my band together and keep the books coming out. Sometimes it’s all I can do to not break into pie
ces. I am wracked with anxiety so bad sometimes that I am unable to sleep. All I can do is get madder and madder and wait for the morning to come so I can get to work and try to keep it all going.
Luckily I am hard as hell and can take this bullshit month after month. Sometimes I feel so tired. I can’t seem to get enough sleep. Never seems to help anyway.
February 13, 1991, 12:34 a.m. Trenton, NJ: I am thirty years old. I am in the basement of Sim’s mom’s house. Have not checked in for a while. Too burned out to do so. It’s not as if there’s been a lot happening.
Things that happened: We did a demo yesterday. I don’t know how many songs. I did the vocal overdubs today. Went fast, just hearing the basic tracks unmixed; it already sounds good to me.
I did the show in Big Bear, California, the other day. I will write more about that soon when I feel more like writing.
The woman who I have been writing about for months, the woman who filled my thoughts with light, she dumped me for some guy. What a put-down. It’s hard to take it. I liked her too much I guess. It occurred to me the last time I was with her that if it was this good to be with her, being without her would be bad. I feel better now, feeling better with every day that passes. A few days ago, like last Sunday, I was in the pits. I don’t remember crawling like that.
The Portable Henry Rollins Page 21