In a few weeks, Paul has become one of the handful of intimates with whom Janis will drop the tough-woman-of-the-streets style she assimilated in San Francisco. He perceived at once how we use her “Pearl” nickname. Paul uses it as we do, and Janis accepts it. She is willing to reveal herself to him, her hopes and fears, the little girl as well as the woman who is not so tough as she pretends.
She trusts him.
Yet all of this positive energy gives rise to a paradox. Janis’s commitment to the work, her excitement at the possibilities she sees opening before her, make her off-hours even harder to bear than usual. She has always complained about the downtime during recording. She gets bored. She doesn’t like Hollywood. She’d rather be home in the Bay Area, close to her friends. Here, she’s got no one to call when she gets lonely. It seems especially unfair now because she has a boyfriend, a new love, and he’s only in L.A. on the weekends. What is she supposed to do the rest of the time?
Seth Morgan was at the tattoo party in Janis’s house back in the spring. He’s a student at UC Berkeley. He’s a rich kid hiding his privilege under a biker-punk veneer. He rides a Harley, has coke in his pocket, drinks Wild Turkey, and enjoys flouting convention with the best of them.
In the summer, after we got back from Hawaii and Ken Threadgill’s birthday party and before we headed out for the gigs in the East, Janis and Seth reconnected. She was attracted by his insolence. He doesn’t give a shit that she’s Janis Joplin. He is neither a pretty boy nor a mountain man. He’s not David Niehaus, but neither is he a return to her old pattern. The pretty boy/mountain man dichotomy represents two extremes in Janis, neither of which is the place where she should settle down. The pretty boys are lapdogs. They fawn over her, give her pleasure, and tell her how great she is. With them, she can do no wrong. The mountain men counterbalance the pretty boys. They’re big, they’re strong, they won’t take any of her bullshit, but they’re not often equipped to give her the comfort, and the counsel, she needs. For these things, Janis turns to her oldest friends in the San Francisco community, the ones who knew her before she was famous. Linda Gravenites, her surrogate mother. The boys in Big Brother. And a few others. Whether Seth Morgan can earn a place in this select circle remains to be seen.
With Seth, Janis falls for the punk and comes to love the inner man. She finds that beneath the bad-boy exterior there is a perceptive intellect. They connect through the drinking and the brag talk and, to their mutual surprise, they discover that they like quiet times together too. They find that they enjoy each other’s company as much, maybe even more, if they don’t go out drinking. They spend mornings reading the newspaper over breakfast on the deck and talking about the news. Seth is surprised to learn that Janis reads the whole front section of the paper every day, that she is aware of current events, that she reads books—Thomas Wolfe, Herman Hesse.*
They talk about books and ideas and the doings of the world. They drive around the countryside, see a movie, have dinner out with just a glass or two of wine and go home early. When they do go out for a rocking good time with Janis’s Bay Area or music business friends, Seth notices that Janis never displays to others the current-events and intellectual interests she has revealed to him.
When Janis returned to the Bay Area in August, after her high school reunion, she and Seth talked of marriage. They considered how they might make a life together that won’t be subservient to Janis’s performing career.
Seth made it clear from the outset that when the two of them are together they are separate from her professional life. Like David Niehaus, Seth is not from the music world and, like Niehaus, Seth is not about to be drawn into Janis’s scene as a hanger-on.
A visit to L.A. early in the recording reinforces this conviction. At the Landmark, or sitting in the control room to watch a recording session, Seth feels like a fifth wheel. He is close to finishing his degree at Berkeley and he doesn’t want to blow it. He comes down most weekends and he tries to time his visits when Janis will have a day off.
“I felt very out of place down at the Landmark and in recording sessions; I just didn’t belong there, as much as she wanted me down there.”
Seth Morgan
This arrangement doesn’t satisfy Janis. Her head can understand Seth’s reasons for keeping a distance, but her heart wants him here, and without him she is lonely.
In Seth’s absence, Janis receives another visitor. One day when the band and I are making waves in the Landmark pool, Peggy Caserta comes to the gate of the chain-link fence that encloses the pool, with Janis close behind. They’re going out to dinner and they stop by to say hello. Peggy was banished from Janis’s house in the spring, along with the rest of Janis’s druggie friends. So far as I know, Peggy hasn’t been welcome in Larkspur since then. The unease I felt when Peggy was with Janis at Woodstock returns.
On September 18, Jimi Hendrix dies in London of a drug overdose—his girlfriend’s sleeping pills, apparently, too many taken accidentally, because he didn’t know how strong they were. As with any death like this there’s a shadow of suspicion that it might be accidentally on purpose.
Is this what triggers Janis to put aside her caution and her pride in controlling her most dangerous habit? When Janis and Sam Andrew heard Nancy Gurley was dead from an OD, their first reaction was to get high. Is it before the news of Jimi’s death, or after, that I find Janis by the pool on another evening? What I see in her face this time gives me a chill. Like Sam, Janis can’t hide the telltale signs when she’s on smack. Her eyes say “I’m stoned” like a flashing neon sign. The pupils are sharp and cold, and there’s a gossamer mask over her face that cloaks her emotions. She retreats inside, hiding, hoping you won’t notice what’s so plain to see. But I see it, and she sees my disappointment. It’s just for now, she says. Drinking to moderate her boredom affects her performance in the studio. A little smack helps her maintain the high she needs for the long hours, the take after take of the same song. This is her excuse.
I’ve heard this rationale before. The junkie logic doesn’t convince me for a New York minute, but you can’t tell anybody what to do. You can only tell her how you feel. I tell Janis how happy I’ve been since she quit. I tell her how it makes me feel to see her high. I tell her I love her.
Most days, Janis displays the same energy she’s had all summer. And she is planning for the future. She’s serious enough about marrying Seth Morgan to consult Bob Gordon about a prenuptial agreement. This is simple prudence, but it also reflects Janis’s lingering fear of being ripped off. Whether she inquires about the extent of Seth’s resources isn’t something I think to ask at the time. It’s possible that his exceed hers. He’s an heir to the Ivory Soap fortune. Be that as it may, Bob Gordon recommends and draws up an agreement that will exempt Janis’s income from being considered part of community property under California law.
The recording doesn’t stop on weekends. The schedule may get a little lighter, but the pressure from Columbia to get the album done is humming in the background.
Since I played music aboard the Festival Express and in Austin with Janis after Threadgill’s Jubilee, I’ve been feeling it’s time to find myself a new guitar to replace the one that was stolen last year out of the Chelsea Hotel. I’ve put out the word among my friends in L.A., and someone tells me that a music store in Huntington Beach has a prewar D-18 (“prewar,” talking about Martin guitars, means made before the Second World War). I hop in the Volvo. Down 101 to the 110 to the 405 to Huntington Beach. The guy at the store says no, we haven’t had any used Martins in a while, but I think there’s a store in Hollywood that’s got one. He makes the call. Yup, he’s got a D-18. Back up the 405 to the 110 to the 101, and I end up, two hours after I set out, on Sunset Boulevard less than ten blocks from the Landmark. But the trip is worth it. The D-18 is five years old. It’s been cracked and repaired. But when I strum an E chord, I know it’s a winner.
There’
s a range of tonal qualities in top-quality acoustic guitars, Martins as much as any other brand. The tone depends on the wood, the age, how much the guitar has been played, and other, intangible factors that make every guitar different. When you pick up a guitar for the first time and play a chord, the first impression can be decisive—good, bad or indifferent. On this Martin, the E chord rings like bells, and I trust my first impression. I shell out three hundred dollars and I take it back to the Landmark. It was worth running down to Huntington Beach and back to get this guitar.
A few days later, on Sunday, I’m in my room in the afternoon, talking with an old friend from Cambridge, Dave Barry. Dave is a talented guitar and piano player and he has taken up songwriting since he’s been living in L.A. He has written a song he wants Janis to hear and he has talked to her about it. He plays it for me on my new Martin. He was supposed to meet Janis at the Troubadour last night, but she lingered at Barney’s Beanery and they missed connecting. Dave has come to the Landmark today hoping to see Janis before she goes to the studio. We’ve tried her room, but got no answer.
The phone rings. It’s Paul Rothchild, calling from the studio. Janis was supposed to be there an hour ago. It’s not like her to be late. Paul tried her room and got the same result I did. I tell him I’ll have a look around.
Before we leave my room, the phone rings again. This time it’s Seth. He’s flying down to Burbank this afternoon. He can’t reach Janis. She’s supposed to meet him at the airport or send someone to get him.
Around the pool and the patio there is no sign of Janis. We run into Vince Mitchell and Phil Badella. The Full Tilt boys took the Boogie Wagon to the studio. Can they hitch a ride with me? I figure we might as well go to the studio and see if Janis shows up there.
The four of us pile into my Volvo in the Landmark’s underground garage. When I pull out onto the short driveway that curves past the Landmark’s entrance, I see that Janis’s Porsche is parked there. Above the Porsche, there’s a light in Janis’s window.
Janis, as is her custom, has taken a single room with a kitchenette in the front building, down the hallway from the hotel lobby. Why she would pick a room overlooking Franklin Avenue, with the morning and afternoon rush-hour traffic, instead of on the back side, facing the courtyard and the pool, is beyond me, but it’s her choice.
It is a little past sunset, only just dark enough now that Janis might turn on a light in the south-facing room. Maybe she was out somewhere and got back to the hotel in the last few minutes. Maybe she forgot she’s supposed to be at the studio.
I back up into the garage so the car isn’t blocking the driveway. Wait here, I tell the guys.
As I pass through the lobby, I stop at the desk and get a key to Janis’s room from Jack Hagy, the manager. A couple of times since we’ve been here, I’ve gone to her room to get something she forgot and wants down at the studio. I can’t say just why I get the key now. I think Janis is in her room, so why do I need it? What if she’s in the shower? Some such idea may pass through my head, but mostly I’m saving time. If I knock and she doesn’t answer I’ll have to come back for the key.
When I open the door to room 105, there’s no one there. That’s the feeling I have even as I see Janis lying on the floor beside the bed. Before I touch the unnatural flesh I know that this is only the vessel. The spirit has departed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Cry, Baby
I HAVE NO frame of reference for this. It’s like a scene from a Raymond Chandler novel: a body found in a Los Angeles hotel room. Seeing it this way helps to remove it one step from being real. I have no doubt that it’s real, but it helps, and I can accept the paradox.
Janis is lying in an awkward position, her head and shoulder wedged against the bed and the bedside table. In her hand, there are four dollar bills and two quarters. On the side table, there’s a pack of Marlboros.
The story is obvious to an interested observer: She got change for a five, bought cigarettes for fifty cents from the machine in the lobby, came back to the room, sat down, and keeled over before she could light one. She was sitting on the bed and pitched over sideways. There’s dried blood on her face where her head struck the corner of the bedside table.
Janis has added a few touches to personalize the place—scarves draped over the lamps to soften the light. Nothing is in disarray, nothing out of the ordinary. The bed is made.
There’s no reason to think this is a crime scene, but that isn’t my call. I know the rules. Don’t disturb anything. Using the sides of my fingers against the edge of the drawer pull, I open the top drawer of the bureau. Right there, in the first place I think to look, in plain view, there’s a hypodermic needle and a spoon. Her works. I close the drawer. Nothing in the other drawers but clothes.
I stand still for a few moments, aware of my breathing, aware of the sound of cars passing on Franklin Avenue, of the silence in the room, the emptiness. In this moment, I am the only one who knows. I don’t want to carry this weight alone. I feel an urgency that I need to resist. It’s up to me to put the knowledge out into the world, but this is something I have to do very carefully.
I leave the room, lock the door behind me. I keep the key. I go down to the garage by the back stairs so I won’t pass through the lobby. I get in the Volvo and start the engine. Without saying a word, I park in the same place where the car was parked when Vince and Phil and Dave and I came down to the garage. Before I knew. The boys think this is strange, and it is. I turn off the engine and I tell them Janis is dead.
I want someone else to see her and the room exactly as I have seen them, so I ask Vince Mitchell to come upstairs with me. Dave Barry asks if he can come too. He’s writing freelance articles these days, and this is private. I don’t want Dave the writer to see Janis as she is now. I don’t want him to write about her like this. Sorry, I say.
Vince and I go into the room. He looks around, takes it all in. Maybe I was hoping it would be different, the room normal, Janis gone, or there to welcome us. With Vince, I confirm the reality. We leave, and again I make sure the door is locked.
I tell Vince and Phil and Dave that I have to plan as best I can how to tell the people who were important to Janis so they will hear it from me, before the news gets out. For a short time it will be possible to control it, but only for a very short time. We’ll have to notify the police, and the coroner. Once the authorities know, there will be no stopping it.
We go to my room and I call Bob Gordon first. He’s home from work at the Beverly Hills law firm where he is a partner. He’s in the shower, his wife, Gail, says. She’ll have him call me back. I can’t sit by the phone and wait for it to ring. I have other calls to make. I tell Gail I have to speak with Bob now. She doesn’t pick up the fraught undercurrents in my voice and finally I have to say it’s a matter of life and death. Just death, really, but the clichéd phrase comes more naturally. Bob comes on the phone—I picture him dripping wet with a towel wrapped around his waist, because he’s not the kind of person who would come to the phone naked. I tell him, and I feel just a little better. Sharing the awful knowledge helps, minutely. I wait while he struggles to recover his composure.
Bob shifts into lawyer mode. He says he’ll notify the police. He’ll come to the hotel and call them from here, so he’ll be here when they arrive. That gives us a little time.
I phone Albert next, in Bearsville. “Oh, no,” he says, and all the breath goes out of him. Janis’s parents are next on the list I’m making in my head. It’s past seven in L.A., after nine P.M. in Texas. Will Albert call her parents? He’s uncertain, fearful, rattled to the core. I’ve never heard him so—disrupted. Would you mind doing it? he asks. What can I say? No? I say I will. But I can’t put off telling Paul and the boys in the band for long, and I can’t give them this news over the phone. When Bob Gordon gets to the hotel, I’ll go to the studio, but I’ll call Janis’s parents before I leave. Albert agrees t
o the order of events I’m making up as I talk. I get the feeling he’ll agree to anything I say right now. He’s not going to help me plan how to do this. For now, Albert is incapable of handling anything beyond his grief.
Bob Gordon makes record time from Brentwood to the Landmark in his Porsche. I take him to Janis’s room. We look, I show him the works, we leave. Together, we tell Jack Hagy, the manager. Bob has called his brother-in-law, a doctor, who arrives minutes after Bob. I give Janis’s room key to Bob and leave them to deal with the police.
From this point forward, the news is going to get out and no one will be able to control it. My need to get to the studio, to be with Paul and the Full Tilt boys, is visceral, like hunger, but I promised Albert I would call Janis’s parents.
I would like to put off this call forever. I wake Janis’s father out of a sound sleep in Port Arthur and I give him a few moments to shake off the cobwebs. Then I say, “There is no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it. Janis is dead.” Seth Joplin’s first reaction is the same as Albert’s. “Oh, no.” He makes the same sound Albert made as his breath leaves him, taking with it a measure of his life.
Bennett Glotzer has been in L.A. for the past couple of weeks. He and Janis were in touch often during the summer tour. He has spent time in the studio, had drinks and meals with Janis. I call his hotel. He’s not there. In these days, you leave messages with the hotel operator, so I leave a message that reveals nothing amiss, asking him to come to the Landmark.
On the Road with Janis Joplin Page 37