The Sunset Strip Diaries

by Amy Asbury

  We went down onto The Strip and Birdie found that guy Stevie from the Seattle crowd and they snorted a bunch more drugs. He seems like a sociopath to me. He has these dead eyes, void of all feeling. Maybe it’s the drugs. Anyway, he has this horrible bleached and greasy platinum white hair to his shoulders with really long black roots showing. He has sort of dark skin, full lips, and a round, button nose. He never smiles or talks. I guess he has a cute face, but he just looks like such a serial killer, it gets in the way. By 3 a.m., we realized everyone was leaving so we squeezed in a car with some of our guy friends and got dropped off at this lady’s house. She let everyone in but Birdie and me. She locked the tall, spiked gates and our “friends” left us out there. Birdie started getting dizzy and I took her behind a van, jammed my finger down her throat, and made her vomit, which didn’t help whatsoever. As she was laying there all fucked up, she announced that she snorted three LINES of speed with Stevie. According to Natalie, speed is not like coke. You can’t do lines of it if you are not used to it- it would be way too much.

  I spent quite a while trying to hold her up and she eventually fainted. She fell out of my arms and smacked her head on the sidewalk. It was dark and cold and I didn’t even know where we were. Stevie came outside to check on her and we were arguing about who should be taking care of her. She woke up and clung to me and he was mad. He wouldn’t go into the house to get me a phone to call for help- he said the lady inside hated Birdie and me, and she would never allow it. I said, “Screw it; I am scaling this fence myself- I will get that fucking phone myself.” He didn’t think I could do it because of the spikes, but I did. Lesli was walking outside and saw me coming toward the door- he put his arms across it so I wouldn’t go in. He said the lady would be really mad if I went in, but I didn’t care. I was like, “What is she going to do? There is a girl OD’ing on her fucking sidewalk.” He decided to bring a phone out because he knew he couldn’t stop me. The phone didn’t work! The bitch probably unplugged it. I climbed back over the fence and slit one of my wrists on a spike by accident. Finally, after a bunch of screaming and yelling, Stevie called Birdie’s mom for me and she came and got us, completely unaware of anything. I was wrestling with myself, trying to figure out if Birdie needed to go to the hospital or she was going to be okay. When I saw her talking and acting normal, I decided to say nothing.

  The next night we went out again. There were eleven or twelve people crowded in a Jeep with no doors and we were driving around partying. People were throwing things at us from the windows of buildings. One of our friends picked up a brick, threw it back at one of the windows, and shattered it. We took off because a bunch of cop cars pulled up. We raided Natalie’s apartment and partied there while she slept. Then we fell asleep ourselves and when we woke up, we were still clutching beers.

  Although I have done my fair share of partying, I don’t like the road Birdie is starting to go down. She has done heroin with the Seattle girls and now she is doing speed all the time. It was okay for other Hollywood girls to do, like dancers and hookers- that didn’t surprise or bother me so much. But Birdie isn’t like them. She is a sweet girl inside. I know she has a lot of pain in her heart like I do. I don’t want her to get into something she won’t be able to get out of.

  I met a guy around then that seemed like he would be the answer to all of my problems. His name was Presley. He had the look, and wasn’t part of my crowd, so rumors couldn’t fly. He told me his hair was naturally dark black because he was Persian. I thought…Okay…Persian...nothing wrong with that I guess. He had “heard about me” and made a comment that I was breaking up bands left and right and causing fights on The Strip. I rolled my eyes but I was secretly intrigued that he thought I had that much power. I gave him my number.

  When he called, he was trying way too hard to be the bad boy that he thought I would like. I wasn’t having it. We yelled at each other over the phone and I very often slammed it down in his face. He continuously called back to try to tell me off, but we just went in circles. Here are the words from an actual conversation I recorded in my journal:

  He said, “Listen to me; do you want to be with me? Why don’t you get your guard down? Do you think I just want to bang you? I could just keep you around and bang you all the time! I am not a liar. If I say I care about you and I think you’re different, then I mean it! I am so tempted just to get you whipped on me and DROP you. You are SUCH a HEADACHE.”

  I said, “Uh, excuse me, but you will never get me whipped on you. THAT will never happen. I will not be whipped on anyone.”

  He started screaming, “DO YOU WANT TO MAKE A BET?! Do you want to BET that I can’t get you whipped?”

  I said, “Fucking TRY it. You know what? You think you’re so fucking great. But guys like you are a DIME a DOZEN. I can find an asshole like you ANYWHERE. You’ll get ME whipped? Good luck.”

  He couldn’t talk after that. He got all quiet and said, “Why don’t you just let one of those dime a dozen guys talk to you then. This isn’t an act, this is my personality, and I’m stuck with it.”

  I said, “Why do we have to sit here and see who is cooler than who? Why can’t you just relax? I can do it, can YOU?”

  I realized that day that I had become comfortable taking guys down a peg when it was deserved. I didn’t flinch, it rolled off my tongue. It was so hard for me to stand up for myself as a young teenager, so many terrible things happened to me because I couldn’t find that strength. But suddenly, in the midst of all of my misery, it was there. It had actually been there for a few years by then. Would I have been able to do it had I not met the girls I met in Hollywood? Probably not. Who knows where I would have been had I not seen women who could stand up for themselves. Sometimes you learn lessons in unlikely places. Another thing I learned from the girls in Hollywood is that I didn’t have it as bad as I thought I did. There was always someone who had it worse.

  A few nights later, I went to Teddy St. John’s. We watched videos in his dad’s plush house and got drunk. We fell asleep (nothing happened) and he was tossing, turning, jerking and twitching. I could tell he was having nightmares. I tried waking him up and couldn’t, so I slapped him across the face. He woke up and started talking in a completely normal voice, asking me why I slapped him. I told him why and he started remembering his dreams. He said there was cocaine on the ground and he was trying not to touch it, and he wasn’t supposed to be hanging out with me, because he was betraying Jimmy. I ditched him in the morning while he slept in his black and white checkered sheets.

  Birdie was starting to see more of that junkie, Stevie. They were constantly arguing in parking lots and at parties and I had to sit and wait for her. Two chicks from the Seattle crowd called Birdie around that time and asked her a million personal questions. They recorded her answers and played them all over Hollywood. Birdie was devastated for about one day- until a car promptly hit the girl who was the main culprit. Karma had been an even bigger bitch than she was.

  One weekend, while I was at Birdie’s, my dad called her house and told me we had moved. I was like….Wait…we…. moved? Doesn’t that require some sort of planning? Some sort of packing? He gave me the new address of where we lived. I thought, What about my stuff? Who packed it?! Where is it!? My dad said he would come get me, and drive me to the new place.

  He pulled up to Birdie’s in that big boat of a car, driving very slowly. I don’t know whose car it was, but it wasn’t his because he didn’t have one. He drove me about two miles per hour over to a neighborhood in Woodland Hills, a few blocks from the community college I was attending. I was quite happy to be so close to my school, because I could walk there when the next semester started instead of taking a bus. The new place appeared to be in a relatively nice area, until we pulled up to the house where we were to stay. It was the crappy house on the block. Dead lawn. Old cars outside. Two Rottweilers barking. I thought, Dude…we are that house? The one white trash house that ruins the rest of the neighborhood? Great. We entered t
he place and a bunch of random people were sitting around. My dad started introducing me to them.

  “This is Richard, he does construction; and that is Teri,” he lowered his voice, “She is a prostitute, but she is a really nice person.”

  I stiffened.

  “Those two guys live in the back; this guy lives in the other room… she lives down the hall-”

  It was as if we lived in a halfway house. I knew the two young guys in back were dealing drugs, -I forgot how I knew it was so obvious, but I remember being concerned that there would be a raid and I would be stuck in the middle of it. My dad and Debra shared one room, and then there was the clincher: I had to sleep in a makeshift closet! It was big for a closet, but I was pissed.

  My dad told me that I could make some extra money if I ran some errands for Teri the hooker. I was hurt that he felt comfortable letting me be around her. I prayed he wasn’t trying to get me to be a protégé or something- he treated me like a whore who could be offered up to anyone, as it was. He tried to make it sound like she was a good person; she just did that as a job. She actually did give me twenty bucks to go to the phone company and get her phone line turned on. I probably spent it on Jim Beam. And I recall Richard the construction worker giving me a shot of tequila from the freezer. I felt more and more uncomfortable as my dad partied with all of the people. It didn’t feel safe there.

  Somehow, my dad and Debra got my car fixed again. I didn’t know how they paid for it, because neither of them had jobs, but I was relieved. My dad needed to use it straight away and I let him. When he brought it back, I saw that he left his pot pipe in the ashtray again. I was pissed and said he couldn’t use it anymore. I couldn’t believe how irresponsible he was as an adult, let alone a father. The deadline for the next semester’s enrollment came and I asked him if he had paid it. He said, “Nope. Sorry. Couldn’t do it. If you would’ve let me use your car that one day and just walked to school, I would’ve had the money to pay for it.”

  In my journal, I wrote:

  Did I tell you how he was ruining my car? He would insist on using it. Where was HE when I had to raise the money to buy it? He wasn’t even around! I figured if he’d at least pay for me to go to school then maybe it would be worth it. I should have known he couldn’t pay for it- how would he get the money anyway? I thought that maybe he would somehow. But when he told me he wasn’t, I got up and started to leave. I felt like I was going to break down. School was like, the last thing- the only thing- that was normal in my life. I was depending on that little shred of light.

  He wanted to know when I was coming back, because he needed to use my car (!). Can you believe that? I went to my grandma’s to cool off, and then I went back. When I first pulled up, he said he was “real worried” and all this sugary crap. I ignored him. He said, “What, are you just never going to talk to me again?” I said I didn’t feel like arguing and proceeded to make trips back and forth, filling my car with my belongings. Debra tried talking to me throughout the whole thing. I was polite to her. I said to her that it was all right, I shouldn’t be living off anyone anyways; I shouldn't be waiting for anyone to pay for my school. I should get up and go do it myself. She gave me a ten dollar bill that she kept for emergencies. It was evening time, the sun was setting, and we were out on our white trash driveway in sort of a golden light.

  Debra tried to explain in her patient, soft voice how bad my dad’s financial situation had been but I stopped her and said, “Fine. But he shouldn’t have waited until the last minute to tell me he couldn’t pay for my schooling. Now it is past the deadline to enroll. If he would’ve given me notice, I could’ve hustled it somehow. Now it is too late for that.” Then I turned and mentioned to my dad that it had been light-years since he fed me. He said, “Oh, why didn’t you go ‘hustle’ money then, since you were so starving,” mimicking me. I felt embarrassed. My blood was boiling, but I pushed the anger back.

  I told him in an even tone that I was trying to live with it, because it wasn’t as important as school. He said, “Well, I expect you to come back.”

  “No,” I said, looking in his eyes, “You expect my car to come back.”

  I drove away and never returned.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Will I Ever Be Normal?

  I begged my mother to take me back, emphasizing my living with a prostitute and drug dealers. She felt sorry for me, and let me move back in for a few weeks to get myself together.

  Journal Entry 11/29/92

  I am back at my mom’s and soon to be homeless. My dad is back on drugs. But that is no longer my problem. If he wants to remain a druggie, he can go for it. After living with him, I know what it is like to starve and be cold and dirty. It really sucks. I don’t want to elaborate on all that.

  I am sick and tired of Hollywood. It is such a waste of time being there when you realize that the last real heyday of the place was in 1987 when Guns N’ Roses came out. After they made it, no one compared. No one has beaten them yet. All of the other rock bands that came off the Sunset Strip have broken up or been dropped off their record labels. I guess I am trying to say that that big time is over and has been over. There is no one to impress anymore. There is no real ‘in crowd’ that I am trying to break into. There aren’t even any more real great bands to go hear. Why do I even care who hugs and kisses me or who talks behind my back? I don’t even matter. Saying that I was part of Hollywood in the early nineties is as good as nothing. The scene is dead. It is dead and gone and I am trying to hang onto it. Right now on the news they are talking about kids graffitti-ing the Hollywood sign. Very telling.

  The reason I stay there is because I keep thinking that I won’t ever be normal and I should just stick to other troubled people. I think that I will never fit in anywhere because of my troubled past, family problems and the amount of partying I do. How can I go hang around other nineteen-year-old girls, when my friends can drink an entire fifth of Jim Beam to themselves? I don’t even know how to have real fun. How do you even make real friends or have a real relationship with a guy? I will never find out if I don’t remove myself from Hollywood.

  Journal Entry 12/29/92

  My dad called here looking for me. I pretended to be my sister, and he believed it. You are going to think I really lost it but I think a ghost is following me around or else God is playing tricks on me because I keep seeing things and things keep happening that I didn’t do. Then I get a crazy feeling and think I am going insane. I am trying to smack myself in the head- I must be imagining things. It was God or an angel in the street, in the dark, trying to stop me from driving drunk last night. Anyway, let me tell you what happened.

  I went to the Rainbow again (I haven’t paid yet) and got completely ripped. Sabrina and Bradley were there in a booth, both blond and beautiful, chatting with Ron Jeremy. I sat with them and had a grand old time. When the night ended, they invited me back to their place, which was up the street from the Whisky. When I was pulling up to their apartment building, I thought that maybe I should just drive home, I was tired and didn’t know if I wanted to keep partying- but as I tried pulling away, I saw that white figure in the street, stopping my car, telling me not to drive. It was glowing, tall, kind of iridescent. I parked my car, got out, stumbled to their door, and pressed the intercom.

  When I got up to their place, they pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels, put on some music and the party continued, as it always does in Hollywood. True to form, Sabrina attacked me in the kitchen, tried to pull off my shirt and make out with me. I was just laughing and trying to get away. Her friend from the Tropicana was just standing there and watching. Never a dull moment with Sabrina; she is the same as she was when I was sixteen. Anyway, I drank way too much and the last thing I remember was running to the bathroom to barf.

  When I woke up, I was in their bed! I slowly looked down to see if I was naked and I wasn’t- I had my clothes on, although my bra was unhooked. At least my pants and underwear were on! There was a bowl next to me
filled with barf. I thought they were sleeping so I was going to try to escape, but then they woke up and started doing it, right next to me! I pretended I was asleep. Dude- how do I even get into these situations? Can’t I just be some chick who goes to movies and the mall? I swear. Anyway, I “woke up” a little later and Bradley said I not only barfed in their bed, but I barfed all over him! I am half embarrassed for throwing up all over another human being, but I am equally mortified about what could have happened if I hadn’t! They were obviously trying to get me to do it with them, but I was too wasted- thank goodness. I got out of there as soon as possible, and peeled out back to my mom’s. I was trying to hold back my barf the whole way there. When I was a block from her house, I couldn’t hold it any longer. I trying to make a left turn and I barfed all over myself in the car. It sprayed the dashboard. It was so disgusting. I pulled into my mother’s driveway just as she was coming back from grocery shopping. She didn’t even notice I was full of puke and handed me a bag of groceries and kept on walking. She would have to actually look at me to notice something on me, and she doesn’t. I barfed at my new telemarketing job later on after trying to hold down a bagel.

  Six months later, Bradley and Sabrina had a fight. Bradley got himself real doped up on heroin because he was depressed, and ended up shooting himself in the head in the bathtub at Teddy’s house. Teddy was out at the store or something when it happened, so when he came back home and called for Bradley and didn’t hear him answer, he figured that Bradley took off. So Teddy left the house, unknowingly leaving Bradley’s body there. Days later, Teddy’s father came home to a horrid smell. He found the body in the bathtub, and thought it was his own son. I don’t know how long it took for him to figure out it wasn’t Teddy, or any more of the story, but it was a very dark time. We were all completely devastated. Sabrina was a widow at twenty-five. She started dating Bret Michaels of Poison a few years later.