The Secret Lives of Hyapatia Lee

by Hyapatia Lee

  ‘You are such a beautiful, strong animal, why are you lying down like that?’

  ‘I am a mountain lion, but I am going to die unless I can find the eye of a mouse, but I don’t know what a mouse is, I don’t even think they exist.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ the mouse thought, ‘I only have one eye left. If I give it to him, I will be blind! I am glad he does not know I am a mouse.’

  After a very long time, and a lot of thought, the mouse came back out.

  ‘Excuse me, but…I am a mouse. I only have one eye left. I am very far from home, and there is no chance I could ever make it back there before I die. I wanted to come to the mountain,now I am almost to the top. I don’t really need my eye anymore. If there were some way to give it to you, I would.’

  Just as he said that, his eye popped out, and the mountain lion was restored to health. Little Jumping Mouse was blind.

  ‘I will take you to the magic lake that reflects the entire world at the very top of this mountain,’ said the mountain lion.

  When they got there, the mountain lion told him that he was a guide and that because the mouse had given up his eyes, his vision, his way of perceiving things, he was ready for a new way of looking at things. As he sat him down by the edge of the lake, he told him he had to go bring others to the lake, since was that was his job as guide.

  Little Jumping Mouse could feel the wind in his whiskers and smell the water of the cool lake. He could hear it lapping at the shore and feel the sun on his fur. He knew that the eagles could surely see him clearly now. He heard the call of one, heard the wings flap and get closer, he could feel the shadow come over him, and then it hit.

  He rubbed his eyes. Everything was blurry. Soon he could make things out, a little bit. He saw a frog sitting on a lily pad. It was the same frog from the river!

  ‘If you think that was something, just bend down real low, and jump up as high as you can.’

  ‘Oh no, I fell for that once already, that’s what started this whole thing!’

  ‘Trust me, what have you got to lose?’

  Little Jumping Mouse thought a minute, he was right. So he bent down as low as he could and then jumped high into the air. He kept going up, and up….and….up. He looked down at the frog.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Didn’t you know? You have a new name now. You are Eagle!’

  And that cuts it off.”

  The band was obviously moved. They could relate to the story as I had. Now they understood it and stopped comparing it to “Muskrat Love”. We played it a few minutes later and I think it is one of the only songs on the CD that has that extra energy needed. This time, they weren’t just going through the motions.

  It took almost an entire year, with me having to go back out on the road to make money and visit my home in Indiana to get keep my head on straight, but we got 9 songs down I was happy to have my own CD to sell at gigs and through my fan club. Porsche had been very important to me in getting it done. She was invaluable moral support through a time when I had little self-confidence. Several people produced it, since we did a batch of songs at a time, months apart, and often the person we were last working with was unavailable. John Butcher, of the Barefoot Servants played on several cuts, as did Teddy Zig-Zag. Slash was going to play on a song or two, but had to go out on the road by the time I got enough money to do some more tracks. Michael Braunstein, who has worked with Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and just about every major name in rock and roll, and Peter Lewis engineered and mixed most of it. Ben Schultz did the rest.

  We threw a big opening release party at FM Station and several of the movie companies I used to work for donated movies to be given away as door prizes. It was a great time and a fond memory.

  It was 1994 and the kids and I were off to the East Coast for a three-week run in some dance clubs there. We took a babysitter, Debbie Kolinsky, a friend of mine from LA whom I had met through a band member. She was 6 months pregnant at the time and wanted to get used to being with children more. The kids knew her and liked her. She had watched them many times before in LA.

  When we flew in to Boston, it was blanketed in two feet of snow. The sides of the streets looked like steep, white canyons. There was no place else to put the snow. We were in the middle of a blizzard and it wouldn’t get better until long after we left. Despite the weather, we did an amazing business and had a fun time. One of Porsche’s old boyfriends, a Marine that lived in the area, helped me out with security.

  When the week was over, we drove in our rented van to Philadelphia. On our Sunday off, we had planned to drivethrough New York City, showing the kids all the famous sights. I knew it would be a stressful trip, me driving a van through the Big Apple with two kids and a pregnant woman who had never been here before. I could not have possibly been prepared for what happened.

  That morning, as we awoke and finished packing, we turned on the television only to hear about a devastating earthquake that had just hit the Los Angeles area. They said the epicenter was in Northridge. Bud was living in Northridge, which was less than five minutes down the road from my house.

  We tried to call, but all the phone lines were down. We couldn’t reach anyone in LA at all. We tried to put it out of our minds, after all, there was nothing we could do, but that was impossible. We packed and checked out of the hotel, promising to listen to the radio and try to call Bud on my cellular all the way. The kids were very worried about their daddy.

  Outside, it was snowing, hard. Visibility was down to a few feet. It was bitterly cold and my asthma does not mix well with such weather. Once in the car, it was a treacherous trip. Between the stress of the weather, unknown roads, concern about the earthquake, and a pregnant woman and two kids in the back, it is a wonder I am alive today to tell about it.

  When we got to the club, they were ready to cancel the gig because of the bad weather. We wanted to go home and inspect the damage. It took a lot of convincing to get Delta airlines to change our tickets, instead of issuing four one-way tickets. They charged for the change, but it was better than the thousands of dollars they originally wanted. Why do such people take advantage of others in times of disasters?

  When we landed in LA it was sunset. By the time we got to our neighborhood, it was dark. Flashing lights and closed roads blocked the path to our house from all but one direction. We dodged holes in the road that were almost the size of Volkswagens. The sidewalks and driveways looked even worse. Houses were abandoned, their occupants living in tents out front on the lawn, or gone altogether. It looked very much like a war zone.

  Our neighbors, the Lopez’s, greeted us as we pulled up. They are a sweet retired couple whose house is their pride and joy. They had survived the earthquake huddled in the bathroom. They thought they were going to die together. Everyone that I spoke with said they believed that would be the end of them. The area smelled of fear and anticipation of death, you saw it in their eyes and felt it in the air. Aftershocks were happening all the time, each taking down a little more of the damaged buildings and spirits. Our neighbors cautioned us not to go into the house. There were no lights or electricity and no running water. The smell of broken gas pipelines promised an explosion if it encountered a spark. As a matter of fact, four houses had already burned down behind ours.

  Three months earlier, the city had completed construction on an underground natural gas main that ran directly in front of my house. The pipe was six feet in diameter. Tall fences were erected to keep people from falling or driving into the huge hole that was dug for it. The earthquake damaged that pipe, along with water and sewage pipes. The streets were flooded.

  A truck stalled on the street behind my house. When the driver attempted to restart the vehicle, the spark from ignition hit the natural gas in the area and caused an explosion. Several houses on either side of the street were burned immediately, others caught fire as the winds blew the flames. All that was left of the road was a hole big enough to bury two semi tractor-trailers in. President C
linton did a news appearance from the corner behind my house when he visited the area to inspect the damage.

  We could not go inside and see much at night, it was too dangerous. There was glass everywhere, and holes in the floor.

  In the daylight, things looked even worse. It was a disaster area. I couldn’t image having been in the house when the quake hit. I would have tried to get to my kids and get out with them as fast as I could. According to what I had heard, that might have been impossible. One young mother broke her neck as she tried to get to her newborn baby in the room next to hers.

  My bed was covered with glass from the large pictures I had hanging next to and above the bed. Everyone in California toldme I was stupid for having put them there. I am not used to taking earthquakes into consideration when decorating. If anything, I think of tornadoes.

  The hall had a four foot framed picture hanging in it. Now it was sharp shards of glass waiting dangerously on the floor. Sewage spilled from the master bedroom’s bath and into the closet, bedroom and hall floors, where my clothes lay after being thrown across the 14-foot room along with their dressers. The dressers had shattered when they hit the wall. There was a crack in the floor from one end of the house to the other that was about half an inch wide. We dropped a pencil down it and never heard it hit bottom. Everywhere was the stench of sewage.

  The children’s furniture in each of their rooms was shattered, as was my office and all of the negatives for my publicity and fan club photos were under the sewage. One added-on room of the house was tilted and cracks lined the places on the wall where it connected to the original, as did the walls of all the other rooms.

  My glass dining room set and shelves were a dangerous mess all over the dining and living room floor. The Activist/Actress “Legend’s of Erotica” Hall of Fame award I had received a few weeks earlier was broken on the floor. The television was face down, as were the stereo and speakers. About the only thing standing was my son’s Playmobile Native American Tipi.

  I was devastated. Everything was surreal. It was so much to take all at once. How would I be able to continue living in LA and pursuing my music and acting career? Would I have to give up my dreams and go back to Indiana? It was as if my home had been broken into again but this time it was destroyed instead of me. I was so grateful I wasn’t there at the time it happened.

  Amidst aftershocks, we tried to salvage any canned goods or boxes that hadn’t shattered or been dipped in “human honey”. Almost all our clothes were ruined, filled with ground glass and sewage. Furniture and knickknacks were mostly shot. Beds were still good, a futon, a couch. A table, here and there. The refrigerator, washer and dryer. Some small appliances. Bud got all of these things since there was no way I could transfer them to Indiana cheaply.

  We were lucky we had our full suitcases. It was more than our neighbors did. There was schoolwork to be done, affairs to get in order for moving us back to Indiana, and breaking our lease. We needed tickets to get home, etc. The National Guard had large tents set up as shelters in the parks. We were north of the city and in a suburban area. There were many parks we could go to and feel fairly safe, considering armed soldiers were within feet. Their guns, slung over their shoulder, big, green and threatening frightened my children. They were nice though, they handed out fruit and helped us find a bench where we could do some schoolwork.

  At night, the kids stayed with Bud. Bud said that we could all come to his house and do the school work during the day, even though he lived with two other girls. After all, the kids each had a room there, with their own beds and a zillion toys. There was a pool in the back, and a yard with grass and plenty of room to ride the bikes that sat in the garage. It was understandable that I would not be welcomed there at night. I would have been more uncomfortable than he would. Tianna Taylor, slept in his bed. We had done some local access television talk shows together. I thought we could still be friends, at least a bit, even though she was now with my ex. After all, I certainly didn’t want him.

  For a few days this arrangement worked out fine, then one day while Kevin and I were in the middle of a lesson. Tianna came home in a rage. She screamed that we were to go leave immediately. She wanted all our stuff, the kid’s things, and us out, too. She wanted us to take everything out of their bedrooms. Whatever was left, she threatened to burn!

  I called Bud and asked him what I should do, he tried to talk to her for a while, then asked to talk to me again. He actually wanted us to do it! He wanted us to pack up as much stuff as we could and get in the car and leave! He said he would talk to her when he got home and patch things up and not to worry about it now but just to do as she said! I couldn’t believe he was actually siding with her and was going to put his kids through this!

  We packed up as much as we could into our small car as fast as we could, and left. I did not know where to go. I did not have a hotel for the night, I had been staying with friends in a place too small for the children and had no key. They were not expected back from work till the evening hours. As we drove around, it all started to hit me, everything I had lost, all the money, the ability to live in LA and pursue my dreams, the friends I would have to leave. It was bad enough that I had to drive around LA for hours with all my possessions and nowhere to go, but the thought of what my children were going through, that broke me down. They had just lost their daddy, then their home in LA, now they were unwanted in their father’s home. He had let some woman they barely knew kick them out of their own house, after just losing another in an earthquake! I cried for them. I had nowhere to take them.

  I wanted to go back to Indiana immediately, but I couldn’t. The bank I had my account in had been destroyed. The branches would not honor my account until they could verify it. That took weeks. The airlines were flooded with people leaving LA. There were three tickets to buy. I had to wait three weeks to get us all on the same flight. My lease, salvageable possessions and my car had to be taken care of before I washed my hands of the whole thing.

  As I drove aimlessly around LA, I knew I had to be strong for the boys. It was the same feeling I had when I finally got enough nerve to divorce Bud. They were so upset. After all, their world had been shattered. I had to somehow act like the adult I was. Kira Nighthawk took over. She was strong and in control. She could hold back the tears, comfort the children, keep and eye out for car-jackers and devise a plan.

  She tried to think of everyone she could call. Porsche was out of town, or she would have called her to begin with. When she came back, she gave me a key to her place so I would never be in such a position again. Debbie, the pregnant baby-sitter was already back home with her mother in upper state New York. My band rehearsed at a studio owned by a woman named Holly Thrasher. I had talked to her a few times and signed autographs on free 8 X10’s to her friends. I hoped she might be able to at least let us stay there for a few hours, if she was home.

  She did better than that, she let us stay until our flight took off for Indiana! She was so generous and kind to my kids, she even provided baby-sitting when I had to go out. Later we took her on the road with us. The kids loved her.

  When we finally got back home it was quite an adjustment. I had done 3 R-rated movies, “Swingers”, “Killing Obsession” “The Wacky Adventures of Dr. Boris and Nurse Shirley”. I’d been on countless television shows as a result of being in the area, studied acting, singing, dancing and guitar playing with many different teachers and cut a CD. Now I had to go back home and put my dreams up on the shelf and count my financial losses. The children had a difficult time letting go of all their toys, desks and things they had out there, especially the pool and their dad!

  MORE SUICIDES

  I lost almost everything I had of my fan club in the earthquake, along with everything else. All the negatives and 8X10 photos I had both for sale and for making promotional kits for my agents to book me with were gone. Most importantly, the box with the cards of all the members and their addresses was totally destroyed. It took me well ov
er a year to get my fan club back up and running and I am sure there are some who think I abandoned them. It was amazing how many members wrote to me asking where I was and how come they had not gotten a newsletter recently. When my children were born, I got cards and gifts galore. Every holiday I am blessed with many greetings. My son’s birthdays are remembered, as is mine, but only one person asked if we were okay after the quake! What a death and catastrophe denying society this is! This is one reason why very few people heal properly from their emotional traumas.

  It was not easy getting work on the road dancing when none of the club owners could get any recent photos of me to see what I looked like or put in the newspaper for advertising. New photos had to be shot, and all the known photographers for such photos live in LA or New York. I was stuck in Indiana so it was a difficult task.

  Double Euphoric was doing well. We were regularly playing around LA and in Las Vegas. We opened for Blackfoot there and in some small towns in Utah. I always did radio interviews to promote my gigs and while doing one in Utah with Ricky Metlocke from Blackfoot, we ran into a small snag. We found out that some local people were going to protest the show and form a picket line across the main entrance to the venue. I had been waiting for something like this to happen. I wasn’t surprised that it was in Utah.

  Ricky informed everyone on air that I had been opening for him since the beginning of his tour in LA and there was nothing obscene or indecent about my show. It was just plain rock and roll. He said if I didn’t play, he wouldn’t either. I was so surprised and honored that he stood up for me. I told the radio audience I hoped people could forgive my past and if they must judge me, to do so based on the present. We soon got word that there would be no problems at the show that night.