Rock Monster

by Kristin Casey

  “Of course I am… I said I’d be, didn’t I?”

  “I thought you’d be gone. I’d die if that happened, Kristi. Losing you would kill me.”

  “I will never leave you,” I said. A mix of emotions welled up in me too: shame and remorse for hurting him again, but also something new—a tangible sense of leverage. The power balance had shifted. Less of the reliable doormat I’d been, I was now a moving target.

  Gold Dust Woman

  Joe spent the summer of 1992 revisiting the Ringo experience in his second All-Starr Band. I spent the summer getting reacquainting with crack.

  It started with Lisa. With the best intentions, Joe encouraged me to spend time with her. He had every reason to think I might benefit. Lisa had been navigating the rock-and-roll lifestyle longer than I had (not to mention, for a time, the same rocker). She thrived in her role as girlfriend and muse, whereas I was still finding my footing. I liked Lisa, and I admired her self-assurance, but underlying my fondness was a lingering jealousy. It kept our friendship superficial.

  I had more in common with Malika Kinison, whom Majid brought to the house some weeks after Sam’s funeral. Before they arrived, I confirmed with a mutual acquaintance that Malika was indeed smart, strong, and outspoken, as I suspected. He then shared an interesting tidbit. “She can tell whether you’re a good or bad person by touching you.”

  “That sounds weird. Touch me how, exactly? Is she psychic?”

  “’All I know is, she’ll find an excuse to touch you, then either relax and stay, or leave immediately.”

  When I answered the door that night, Malika grabbed my hand before I knew what hit me and held it a few beats longer than normal. Whether she was “reading” me or naturally outgoing, I couldn’t say. I was just happy she and Majid stayed, though Joe didn’t feel the same.

  Since the funeral, he’d been reserved around Majid, who was a complex character with a lot churning beneath the surface. Sam had been his best friend and employer, and his death set Majid adrift—a place not unfamiliar to him. At age eight, Majid had been sent by his family in Jordan to an American orphanage. Ten years later he’d gone to Vietnam, eager to repay the country that had taken him in. He returned changed, somewhat broken, and had since lived on the fringe, though with no shortage of women to care for him. I knew the type. I’d been that type, and I liked to think I wasn’t anymore. So, while my heart went out to Majid, the rest of me was off limits. A man without roots had nothing to lose. As reckless as I could be, I was not completely stupid.

  Though a loner, Majid had loved Sam like a brother and been protective of him. I thought Joe could use a friend like that, and that I could befriend Malika in the process. That didn’t happen. Shortly after they arrived, Joe went to bed early. “I’m fine,” he said when I checked on him. “Just too tired to be good company.”

  I returned to our guests, which is what he would’ve done. It felt wrong when I did it, yet also like a taste of the independence I needed. I splurged on cocaine (using my new credit card’s cash advances), making four runs to our dealer in all and feeling like the ultimate woman-of-the-house hostess.

  Eighteen hours later, Maj and Malika were still hanging out and Joe was still ensconced upstairs. I apologized for his antisocial-ness, but Malika said Sam had been like that, too. “Success is stressful for guys like Joe and Sam. They end up feeling responsible for entertaining everyone. He doesn’t have to with us, but he may not realize that.”

  “I wish I could make him understand. He could kick back while we entertain him.”

  “I bet we can,” she said. When I asked how, Malika grinned. “Pillow fight! It works every time.”

  Her confidence was infectious. The next thing I knew, we were in the guestroom, snipping holes in two (rather expensive) pillows. While Majid waited downstairs, she and I tiptoed to the master bedroom. Sliding open the rice paper doors, we burst in and leaped on the bed, pummeling each other with the jerry-rigged pillows. We squealed and giggled on either side of Joe as he slowly regained consciousness and took in the ruckus. He looked from Malika to me, as downy stuffing settled on every surface, including his head, face, and eyelashes. Then he bellowed and we raced out faster than we’d entered.

  Flying down the hall on Malika’s heels, it occurred to me our little stunt had less eased Joe’s stress than fueled it. When I pointed this out, she shrugged, unruffled to the end.

  •••

  I longed to be so dauntless, to walk through the world with Malika’s moxie and Lisa’s magnetism, instead of shrinking from rebuke and rejection. I often felt exposed, less for what I did than what I was. Joe’s fury told me I was defective and inadequate—or that’s what I heard, anyway.

  I was once chastised in kindergarten by an overworked, stressed-out teacher. With one look at the massive lather I’d worked up at the corner sink, she’d snapped. Kristin! I specifically told you not to use so much soap! (It was true, she’d told the whole class that very morning.) That’s the point, I wanted to say. I’d made that huge froth using just one drop, hoping to impress her with my hand-washing/soap-conserving ability. See how ingenious I am? How smart and deserving of love? But I couldn’t explain it, roiling and frozen by her public scolding. I hung my head and rinsed my hands, vowing to never try again. Never excel, experiment, or attempt to impress another grown-up, ever. I was four years old and I already hated myself.

  I didn’t stop striving, of course, but the slightest criticism wounded me. Dad wasn’t a critical person, but Mom had only to make one exasperated sigh to send me reeling. Not only were her standards high but her values didn’t align with mine. She hated my clothes and hair, humor, politics, causes, and what little she knew of my belief system. She hated the way I stuck out, especially at church where she wanted to make a good impression. By the time I left home, we’d given up trying to connect.

  After my meth debacle, I couldn’t really connect with anyone…until Joe. With him I was attuned for the first time ever. I felt safe to open up, for a while. But old patterns don’t just disappear. Learned helplessness is real and powerful, and I slowly succumbed to it again. Drugs and alcohol blew open the rare portal, but one rogue wave—a harsh word or look from someone who mattered—would slam it shut again. The pillow fight had been my attempt to connect through playfulness. Being playful made me feel vulnerable—leave it to Kris to ruin the picture—so Joe’s lambasting had done damage. Feeling like I couldn’t win made me ashamed and angry. I stuffed those feelings down because no one loves an angry woman. I’d learned that lesson by kindergarten.

  •••

  One day, Lisa came by to hang out. When it was time to go, she needed a ride and Joe volunteered me. After a couple of stops, we arrived at a nondescript apartment in the Valley. I met her roommate Felicia, a pretty, petite brunette. Unlike Lisa, who was dark-eyed and olive-skinned, Felicia was fair and finely boned, bubbly, with an approachable kind of beauty, whereas Lisa was mysterious and smoldering. The girls were polar opposites, with one commonality.

  I thought it odd to draw the curtains on such a lovely spring day, until Lisa dumped the product of our errands on her coffee table: Bic lighters and crack cocaine. Without a word, the girls proceeded to stuff rocks into the charred ends of two glass straws, then fire them up to smoke. One of them offered me a hit.

  “No thanks,” I chirped, guzzling a beer instead. I hadn’t been in the same room with crack in six years and was grateful not to feel a craving. I was also aghast at their amateur tactics. What a waste of perfectly good drugs.

  The man I’d smoked crack with in Austin had set a high bar. Freddie had used precise techniques and expensive paraphernalia: three-piece pipes with dual stems, rubber stoppers, stacked screens, and variable butane torches. On Felicia’s table was a keepsake box full of nearly dead Bic lighters. This was not the girls’ first rodeo, and I felt duty-bound to tutor them.

  “Give me that,”
I said, reaching for Felicia’s pipette. Without inserting a rock, I demonstrated how to tilt the glass, heat it, rotate it, and inhale with careful, practiced technique. Receiving blank looks, I gave up and handed it back. “It’s been fun, girls, but I gotta go.”

  The next time Lisa came over, she spent so much time smoking in our bathroom I was tempted to betray her confidence. I waited for Joe to notice—the chemical smell alone!—but he didn’t. I considered telling Lisa what Marcy Horky had told me—frankly, I’m worried about you—but I didn’t have the balls. The closest I got was joking that her pee breaks were disrupting our pool game. Lisa laughed and continued on, oblivious.

  Days later, I dumped out half a gram on a plate taken from the dishwasher that was still damp, ruining the only blow I had. Unless…? I’d seen cocaine cooked into crack many times, yet hadn’t paid close enough attention to memorize the process. Also, Freddie had purposely concealed the recipe from me.

  I called Lisa and got Felicia on the phone. “I’ve never cooked it either,” she said. “Want me to come over and help you figure it out?” I declined and hung up instead.

  The All-Starr rehearsals were in full swing. I needed to clean up my act, not mess around with crack. What the hell was I thinking?

  •••

  I accompanied Joe to the final rehearsal, seeing many familiar faces: Ringo and Barb, Hillary Gerard, Nils Lofgren, Timothy B., and Zak Starkey. New members included the Guess Who’s Burton Cummings, saxophonist Tim Cappello, and prog rocker Todd Rundgren (whose presence ensured Joe would no longer be the worst-dressed band member). I met Ringo’s tour manager Arlee (Richard Manuel’s widow, the Band’s original singer). She made me feel welcome and cleared a spot on the couch where I could sit and watch the men play.

  Right away, I noticed their new guitarist, a rough-and-tumble guy in his late forties, with ginger hair and tousled looks. He seemed vaguely familiar, though I was certain we’d never met. When he started playing, I knew why. I’d danced to those exact guitar sounds hundreds of times at Sugar’s. It was Dave fucking Edmunds!

  I had no one to share my excitement with. Sandy Helm and Liz Danko weren’t there this time, which saddened me. Then the wife of a new band member walked in—a beautiful, blond, buxom rocker chick, straight out of an MTV video. She was so striking as to be intimidating, but the feeling didn’t last because Cici Edmunds was as sweet as she was stunning. What’s more, she and Dave had just bought a house in our neighborhood, walking distance from Blairwood.

  There was a buzz in the air and adventure on the horizon. My drug use and Joe’s moods were as unpredictable as ever, but when our upswings coincided, life was good. All I had to do was not fuck it up, to resist the urge to self-sabotage.

  •••

  When I first made the leap from snorting coke to smoking crack, Joe voiced concern and then went quiet, rocking side to side, brow furrowed and lips pursed. Did he fear being hypocritical? Did he feel at all responsible for my dependency and perforated septum? I hoped he grappled with those questions. For all my talk of personal freedom, I sometimes blamed him for both. Other times I blamed myself. Either way, I rationalized smoking crack as a break for my beleaguered septum. That’s what I told my boyfriend and myself, which at the time sounded perfectly logical. I remember that clearly—the insanity looked sane to me. Above all, I was certain of two things: first, that I had crack under control (I didn’t), and second, that I’d never seen Joe look quite so helpless as he did while watching me do it.

  I don’t recall exactly how it started, but probably the night Lisa and Felicia came over together. One thing led to another and I fell into it with them. I didn’t hide it from Joe, who was in a buoyant mood, surrounded by three young attractive women. I don’t recall where I scored more when the girls left or how I came to possess an entire cigar-tube-full. I do remember Joe’s expression as I went through it, rock by rock. Next to me in bed, he eyed the size of my stash, timidly inquiring how long I thought it might last. Sensing he felt shut out and scared to death, I offered to cease and desist right then. I’ll save it for tomorrow or next week…say the word, babe, but he didn’t.

  I don’t recall acquiring my first or second pipe, only that, one fine morning at 8:45 a.m., I took a limo to a head shop for a third. Why, I don’t know…in case of an earthquake, I guess. I believed in preparedness. Waiting for the store to open, I cranked the radio and stood through the sunroof dancing my ass off. When the shop opened, I rushed inside, chatty and ecstatic. The clerk scowled in return. I brushed him off, pitying the peasant. How could anyone punch a timecard when there was so much good crack to be smoked?

  I have one other clear memory. An afternoon when Joe was out of town (on Ringo’s tour, which launched concurrently with my crack smoking), I was with Lisa and a friend of hers, driving all over LA and failing to score. We were strung out and broke, and I was frustrated that their dealer refused to front us any. Then, a wondrous moment, as Lisa’s friend remembered an apartment where she’d recently spilled some rocks. It was a long shot, she said, but also all we had. Gaining entry through an unlatched patio door, we found it vacant except for the crack hailstorm that covered the living room carpet.

  Imprinted in my memory is a sense of camaraderie, sitting in a circle smoking rocks off the floor, like friends eating s’mores, laughing gaily around a campfire.

  •••

  My choppy memories of crack are entwined with equally vague images of the tour. There was drinking and drugging and the usual late-night silliness, costarring Zak, Joe’s new, temporary sidekick. The band traveled partly by private plane, and though I don’t recall being on it, I have a bunch of photos that suggest I was. If I was touched by Ringo’s magic, I do not recall that either. I remember going out of my way to watch Burton and Dave perform, but overall the show didn’t hold my attention.

  One highlight was Radio City Music Hall, where I hung out with Cici amidst the usual backstage frenzy. We found an alcove with a private bathroom and while waiting our turn, Cici mentioned seeing Howard Stern among the celebrity guests. I relayed my experience, adding, “He’s a groundbreaker, but also a cunning little shit I don’t trust any farther than I can throw him.”

  Just then, the bathroom door opened and out walked Howard. “Gotcha!” he yelled, pointing at me in mock fury. “I heard every word! Shame on you…shame, shame, shame.” Cici doubled over laughing as I stammered an apology. Howard waved it off. “Forget it,” he grinned. “Happens all the time, actually.”

  Post-gig, the band was in high spirits. They’d had fun and sounded tight. Joe and I celebrated with bumps in our room, and suddenly I was monstering. The next day Joe suggested a Madison Avenue shopping spree, but I was too strung out to risk being seen in that condition. Joe left and returned with a gift—an Issey Miyake party dress in iridescent green-black taffeta. The size and color were ideal, but the fashionable look didn’t suit me. It belonged on someone with real poise and femininity.

  I flew home to recoup, rejoining the band in Kansas City. The previous night Joe had called me in LA, upbeat but lonely, saying he missed me terribly. I arrived at the hotel rested and refreshed, but instead of being given a room key, I was told to have a seat. Hotel security needed to talk to me.

  “Security?” I said, trying to mirror the desk clerk’s buttery tone.

  “Well,” he replied carefully. “It seems there’s an issue with Mr. Walsh’s…furnishings.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said, images of chainsaws and airborne TV sets filling my head.

  The clerk leaned in conspiratorially. “I don’t know the whole story,” he whispered, with barely concealed delight, “but there may have been a glue gun involved.”

  A glue gun had been involved—an industrial-strength one. Also, a desk chair, a coffee table, and an ashtray complete with a lit cigarette inside. Those and other items had been stuck to Joe’s ceiling, most of them surprisingly su
ccessfully. The weight of the TV, however, proved too much, and shortly after it hit the floor, security showed up. Joe and his minions—one Zak Starkey and a Mr. Burton Cummings—managed to bluff their way out of an inspection. It wasn’t until a housekeeper stumbled upon the scene (which by then included Burton actively vomiting into Joe’s suitcase) that security returned, demanding entry.

  I waited in the lobby while Ringo’s team pleaded for leniency. Once it was determined the culprits could stay another night, I was reunited with my mate, who looked as sheepish as I’d ever seen him. I thought the incident both immature and hilarious, and politely suggested he channel his energy more productively in the future. I should’ve taken my own advice.

  •••

  I broke off the affairs with Smokey and Terry Reid to divert my energy toward something, if not more productive, then within my control. Terry and Smokey were married men who’d seen me when it was convenient for them. I hadn’t started two affairs to increase my frustration and insecurity. Besides, the real thrills had been dwindling from the beginning. The passions I shared with Smokey and Terry proved no less fleeting than too many others in my life had been.

  Crack highs were the very definition of fleeting, but at least I had a say in their how and when. (Though how much was another story, I didn’t know it then.) With time to kill and credit cards to burn, I could have crack on my schedule, available when I snapped my fingers. It was hardly guilt-free, but less so than cheating, I had to believe.

  Goodbyes with Terry took an interesting turn when his disappointment and open longing seduced me more than any of the moves he’d made previously. The sudden chemistry caught me off guard, and had I not been craving a hit, I’d have indulged in “one last go” with him. Instead, I cut the cord and he left without arguing, only a look of concern for the vice that had replaced him.