After a gig in Coolangatta, the band drove home while Joe and I opted for a commuter flight. Arguing all morning, Joe had resorted to the silent treatment as I shadowed him through the terminal. The small airport was practically vacant (due to a holiday or a worker strike, I forget) and the lack of witnesses spurred me on until I cornered him.
“Stop ignoring me. It’s childish,” I fumed.
“You’re chasing me and I’m childish?”
“You’re childish for making me chase you.”
“I’m trying to get away from you!”
“I get that. It’s not happening.”
“Stop yelling—everyone can hear you.”
I rolled my eyes. “There are three people here and one is wearing headphones.”
“I don’t care,” he growled. “Lower your voice.”
“Make me.”
He did, yanking me into the restroom, where he backed me into a stall and fucked me hard and fast up against the wall.
That shut me up. So much so that when he zipped up and left, I was too stunned to chase after him. Well, that was interesting.
The flight to Sydney was quiet and calm—we didn’t speak but the tension had passed. Later, Joe blamed our fighting on the stress of low-budget touring. When the Party Boys run was over, we moved to the Hyatt and succumbed to old habits. Monstering hard, we crammed a month’s worth of sex and drugs into a forty-eight-hour period. Physically, he rocked my world. Emotionally, it felt as intimate as an answering machine message.
•••
In New Zealand, our routine stabilized. Joe was there to produce a record for Herbs, a folk-reggae band known for heartbreaking harmonies and powerful lyrics. Their style was soulful, collaborative, and unrushed, like the band members themselves. I connected right away with Charlie (the bassist), Dilworth (the guitarist), and their manager, Hugh Lynn, a trim, serious, sage-like Maori with self-possessed magnetism. He showed us around Auckland, then his studio, where we met his staff and friends.
The local tribe held an official welcoming ceremony at their temple on a cliff. Two-dozen members pressed their noses to ours. They sang songs and the elders gave speeches. When it was Joe’s turn, he introduced me as “the woman I love” then sang “Desperado” a cappella. It was the kind of sublime moment that made the high of cocaine seem petty and ridiculous. That there was none to be found in New Zealand was a relief. Later, we met more friends of the band, and one of them offered us speed.
I’d never snorted crank—having been an intravenous user in my day—yet I’d done enough blow with Joe that the straw felt natural in my hand and I barely hesitated. From there, we went to a rehearsal party that turned into a six-hour jam session. I danced with everyone who asked, from little kids to tribal elders, self-consciousness be damned. On the way home, we stopped at the Hells Angels’ clubhouse, but finding them a surly and suspicious lot, we didn’t stay there long.
Hugh had rented us a beach house in Omana Bay, a cozy wood-frame cottage separated from shore by a gravel road and ten million mosquitoes. We settled in with the help of Andrew, our temporary personal assistant. Hugh came by with a numerologist friend who insisted on doing our charts for free. She said my soul number (nine) indicated an old soul and my inner-self number (eleven over two) was identical to Joe’s destiny. Hugh declared us “meant for each other.” Joe didn’t say anything. He’d been sullen all evening, and when our guests left, he clammed up entirely. He declined my every attempt to connect, from sex to a shoulder rub, back scratch, or the porn video he’d had Andrew pick up “as a joke.” I stormed into the bedroom and slammed the door. Joe spent the night on the couch.
In the morning, he went hunting for clams, returning with just two in his bucket. He looked so forlorn, I offered to help, and we walked the beach until my feet became painfully scraped up. Squatting to investigate, I discovered a veritable carpet of clams stretching all the way down the beach.
“Right under my nose,” Joe said, digging away.
“No wonder you couldn’t see them,” I teased. He chuckled, and life was good again.
•••
In Christchurch, he stuck to me like glue, leaving my side only once to tape a TV interview. One morning, I awoke to him counting my freckles. When I stretched and rolled over, he feigned dismay and made a production of starting over.
“You’re a freckle farm,” he said. “No, a map of the universe. I’m going to name them, like planets.” I giggled and he shushed me. “Quiet now. This is serious business.”
“Right, sorry.” Then, “How long might this take, exactly?”
“I’ve been working on it for days,” he sighed. “They move around when you’re asleep… It’s very complicated.”
He tried going dot-to-dot to form a picture, but it tickled and I squirmed. “Enough!” I cried, wrapping my legs around his neck. We spent the morning making love without any drugs, toys, or kinky scripts. As days passed, I became relaxed and unguarded. Joe even caught me singing to myself and gasped, he was so delighted. One night in bed, I snuggled him so relentlessly, he almost fell off the edge.
“Honey?” he whispered, nudging me awake. “Open your eyes.” I did, to see two inches of mattress between him and a drop to the floor. Behind me was enough room for three more bodies. I scooched backward, sheepish.
When Herbs played a gig in Christchurch with Joe as “special guest,” word got out he was in town, and fans started closing in. They hovered at restaurants and approached him in bars and everywhere else we went. Antiquing one day, we were suddenly surrounded. I stepped out of the way while Joe signed autographs, but two young women singled me out, asking pointed, personal questions in a rude, aggressive way. In a blink, Joe pulled me back to his side. The fans moved on, but I felt deflated. I didn’t like Joe’s fame appearing out of nowhere. Something that big and unpredictable just might extinguish me someday.
•••
After three weeks in New Zealand, we returned to Sydney. Joe had meetings with record exec Tim Murdoch and a promoter named Sam Righi. The former was crazy like a strip club bouncer; the latter, sophisticated and charming. As warm and friendly as they were to me, I felt painfully out of place.
When his meetings were over, I picked a fight with Joe to make myself feel better. I accused him of neglecting me. He refused to talk to me for three days, then ran out of coke and took to bed for two more, with extreme fatigue. If Trevor hadn’t shown up with a fresh supply, we’d have missed the Hard Rock Café grand opening in Sydney. Joe pulled it together and we emerged from Sam Righi’s Rolls-Royce to a mob of fans and paparazzi. When an MTV crew shoved a mic in Joe’s face, I froze, then stepped out of frame. Inside was more of the same: mics and cameras every few feet, until a doorman swooped in and delivered us to VIP.
I hated being so self-conscious, especially on camera. Smack dab in the middle of the best party in town, surrounded by celebrities and revelers, I was determined to rise to the occasion. A couple fat hog rails in the ladies’ room and I was back in our booth, chatting up INXS members like we were best friends. When Toni Childs’s guitarist made eyes at me from stage, I flirted back without missing a beat.
Before bed that night, Joe and I went for a walk. I thanked him for being so good to me. “I am grateful, even when it doesn’t show.”
“Thanks for that,” he said, stopping to gaze in my eyes. “I’m lucky to have you, too.”
I buried my face in his neck. I could learn to be poised on camera and mingle with celebrities, but Joe’s loving, soulful eye-gazes would always overwhelm me.
•••
In April, we returned to Auckland, where Joe played a benefit for Greenpeace (which I supported) and one for the Hells Angels Defense Fund (which I didn’t). No matter how many times we visited their clubhouse, only one or two of those guys were personable in the slightest.
The Herbs and everyone conne
cted to them were utterly genuine. While Joe worked in the studio, Margaret (the numerologist) and Natalie (Hugh’s secretary) took me to lunch and other girlie gatherings. Some days, I’d sit in Hugh’s office reading about Maori culture, or call his massage therapist, Lance, for deep-tissue work and conversation. Lance had Hugh’s same quiet confidence, and I was extremely attracted to both men. It made me feel guilty and vaguely resentful, and I reacted by accusing Joe of flirting with Natalie. Her bubbly personality was invaluable in the studio, but since bubbly wasn’t my nature (sober, anyway), I became jealous and irrational. Joe ignored my catty barbs, and I realized how awful I was being. I apologized and told him the partial truth: that I was afraid I didn’t make him happy.
“You know I love you, Kristi. C’mon now, stop it.”
“You seem unhappy, though. You never laugh or joke around anymore.”
“I’m under a lot of pressure, trying to do right by Hugh and the band. This record has to be special,” he said. “Besides, I’m tired of being everyone’s clown.”
I quit complaining. I’d been losing myself in him for months, never imagining he, too, might want to reinvent himself.
•••
We’d been in New Zealand three weeks when Rick the Bass Player arrived, on tour with Neil Young. We hung out like old times and had group dinners where Neil was the center of attention and Joe was relieved not to be for once. We attended an Ice-T performance, followed by dinner with the rapper and his entourage. Neil, Rick, Ice, and Joe gathered at the head of a long table while I studied Ice’s beautiful girlfriend. Neither of us received any attention, yet she seemed perfectly content. I was bored and wanted a bump. Glancing at the floor, I’ll be damned if I didn’t find one. I slipped the folded paper packet to Joe, who pocketed it without offering me some.
With Joe and the band spending long hours in the studio, Hugh organized occasional diversions to recharge everyone. We went caving with the band, floated in isolation tanks alone, saw Rudolf Nureyev perform, and explored a labyrinth of World War II cliff tunnels with Andrew in tow. Joe remained distant through it all. He’d shed tears watching Nureyev dance. I’d cried in my isolation tank, for different reasons. Finally, I suggested a romantic getaway for us to reconnect. He arranged a weekend campout but invited Andrew along. At the campgrounds, I sent Andrew on a nature walk and corralled Joe into the camper loft for our best sex since Coolangatta. It didn’t bring us closer. Joe’s walls came down when he was good and ready, for reasons only he could fathom.
One week later, he doted on me at our favorite Japanese restaurant, attentive, sweet, and romantic. When he got up to sing karaoke, fans closed in immediately, so he rushed offstage and pulled me outside with him, laughing together like kids. Days later, we threw a dinner party at the beach house for the band and their friends. Afterward, we all dropped acid, and Joe took requests on an acoustic. When they left, we took more acid and made love until sunrise. The next day we took a helicopter to an isolated property called Butterfly Bay. It was for sale and Joe wanted to buy it.
The house itself was small and airy, nestled in a private beachfront cove. We wandered its parameters, trying to imagine living there, far from everything we knew.
“What about your career?” I asked.
“Maybe I don’t need it,” he said.
“Retire?”
“I could quit making records and trying to impress everyone. Be free of the headaches and ego trips. Be myself here, just me and you.”
I played along. “I’d quit stripping, and then…what?”
“Anything you want.”
I let myself dream. “I could write stories and screenplays.”
“Write and cook.”
I laughed because I didn’t cook. But I could learn.
We sat in the sand, at the crest of the cove, above sloping fields of brush. When it was time to go, Hugh shouted in our direction, causing thousands of butterflies to fly out, en masse, and flutter skyward. Joe and I followed suit, climbing aboard our helicopter, back to the real world.
•••
The Herbs tour kicked off in a tiny club in Taupo, empty but for a handful of drunks. Things picked up at subsequent shows, and between times we went antiquing, filling both tour vans with Joe’s impulse buys. As winter approached, the drafty vehicles became as cold as they were cramped. Traffic was unpredictable, less from cars than sheep crossing—and by crossing, I mean filling the space of both lanes and then hanging out there indefinitely.
No one complained, least of all me. With my legs propped up on a box of Joe’s junk, I’d snuggle closer, shivering happily and enjoying the scenery. One day, Charlie pronounced me “family.” My boyfriend proclaimed his love for me daily. We’d had one real spat early on in the tour that had blown over quickly. Since then, nothing but peace, love, and harmony.
We crossed to New Zealand’s South Island during the worst storm anyone could remember, including the ferry captain. Joe watched over me on deck for two hours while I clung to a railing, nauseated and green. According to Charlie, the air quality inside Cook Strait was the purest in the civilized world. “Had I known that,” I quipped at dinner that night, safe on solid ground, “I would’ve breathed more of it.” The entire table—my tribe, my family—burst out laughing.
For the first two weeks on tour, I hadn’t a care in the world. It felt too good to last.
Joe found my neurosis endearing. “That’s just your nature,” he said. “If there’s nothing to worry about, you’ll worry about that.”
I knew he was right. I would’ve changed if I’d known how.
Calling my parents hadn’t helped. Spurred by a sense of duty, it had done little more than remind me how disconnected we were. On top of that, they’d put down our dog. Obi was old, but of all my siblings, I was closest to him, and no one had told me till afterward. Thoughts of Obi—and Rocky, back home, being cared for by my neighbors—brought tears to my eyes. The tour was going well. The band was accomplishing things and fulfilling their dreams. Joe was relaxed and happy, living show to show, with his lady at his side. Meanwhile, I began to feel like a spectator, a disappointment to my parents and pets, and a wannabe writer who could barely bring herself to journal. Instead, I immersed myself in books—A Moveable Feast, Duncton Wood, Oscar and Lucinda—reading about real writers, fictional gamblers, and anthropomorphized woodland creatures.
On the drive to Queensland—a picturesque town reminiscent of Lake Tahoe—Hugh, Joe, and I took mushrooms. The men were fine, but I got mildly carsick. Later, at the hotel before dinner, Hugh went door-to-door passing out acid. When I declined, Joe did too in a gesture of solidarity. A disparity in mood became apparent at the restaurant, where band and crew were seated already, amped up and tripping their brains out. They held it together until entrees were served, when a massive food fight broke out. A double-fisted, ten-person mêlée—everyone in our group except myself, Joe, and Natalie. We ducked under a table, and when Joe and Natalie laughed, I did too, so dissociated in that moment I actually needed a cue.
I told Joe I should probably go home soon, and when the band found out, they sought me out, one by one, urging me to stay. We were in Taranaki at the end of May, on the one-year anniversary of our first date. Joe arranged a candlelit dinner in a private section of the hotel’s dining room, where we sipped champagne and watched snowfall outside. Joe said he loved me and was sorry for not having flowers. I buried my face in his neck, half laughing, half crying. What was wrong with me? I had everything—a fairy-tale setting with my own Prince Charming—yet I wanted only to escape.
That night, the power went out around 2:00 a.m. All the hotel guests migrated to the lobby, warming ourselves around the freestanding fireplace, drinking hot spiced wine and cocoa courtesy of the elderly proprietors. It was like a family reunion holiday, with kids and people of all ages, most of us strangers, though a mere few staying that way. They played cards
and board games through the early hours, the younger ones well past sunrise. Joe and Charlie went outside to play in the snow. I drank tequila in the bar with the crew. Four months among the best people in the world, and I still felt like an imposter.
Most mornings, Thom (the percussionist) practiced a Maori stick-fighting technique in motel parking lots and courtyards. I’d watch from my room, nursing a hangover, envying his form and dedication. Hugh had this trick where he’d look at clouds and “will them” to disappear. He called himself the cloud eater, and I’d feign amazement, playing along. Charlie’s singing had the power to convert, which it did to me, on a nightly basis. Dilworth was an ex-rugby player who’d lost a leg to gangrene before he tapped into his musical softness. He had a volcano inside him, according to Hugh, but they were all forces of nature, as far as I was concerned. They formed a bubble of loving protection around me and Joe, honing in when we needed it. The most profound example took place the morning after our one and only serious fight on tour.
It was quick and fierce, with hurled insults, dishes, and knickknacks. Whatever we’d fought about was forgotten by morning when Dilworth, Charlie, Tama, and Thom arrived bearing juice and coffee. They hugged me as they entered, then casually swept through the room, collecting broken glass and pottery. I pitched in and Joe did too. Someone hummed a tune, one of my warrior brother cleaning crew. There were no side-eye, judgmental looks or heavy sighs. No condemnation or taking of sides. Just acceptance, compassion, and familial love, reminding Joe and me what the bubble felt like, inviting us back inside.
They were the tribe I’d sought all my life, with a place for me at their table. But I felt like I had nothing of value to bring to it, and I told Joe to send me home.
With a Little Help From my Friends
Ringo Starr introduced himself by kissing both my cheeks. I flinched—I couldn’t help it. Did a Beatle really just touch my face? Twice…on purpose!? Ringo chuckled and then shrugged. “I live in France,” he said, by way of explanation. As if I needed one.
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