Save Me, Kurt Cobain

by Jenny Manzer

  “I’m not sure I liked her anyway,” I said, to be supportive. Even though I hadn’t met her.

  “Why didn’t you like her, Nico?” he asked, but softly, so I pretended I didn’t hear.

  “I said, ‘Why didn’t you like her, Nico?’ ” he repeated. “I think you know.”

  Maybe I did know, but I couldn’t say. I couldn’t speak at all.

  Obe and I both knew all the words to “The Reasons” by heart, so we yelled them out while he drove down Dallas Road by the sea.

  “How I don’t know how to sing. I can barely play this thing. But you never seem to mind, and you tell me to fuck off when I need somebody to. How you make me laugh so hard.”

  He parked the car, and I could see the happy dogs charging into the waves, which were churned up by the wind. How badly I still wanted a dog. I stopped singing for a minute, watching a man struggling to keep hold of an orange kite. What was a grown man doing flying a kite? Obe kept singing. He claimed he was a better singer since learning to play guitar, but I thought maybe he just sounded better to himself.

  “I know you might roll your eyes at this, but I’m so glad that you exist,” sang the Weakerthans and Obe.

  The man lost control of the kite and it whipped away into the sky, slithering into the air like a salamander. I turned to Obe to see if he’d seen it, too, the kite’s great escape, and that’s when Obe kissed me. I was surprised, and he was surprised, but then we both smiled and looked out the window again. When he drove me home, a flare gun of panic went off in me, because it seemed something was about to change, but maybe that was good, or so I told myself.

  Verne and I prepared to move into our new house, a tiny heritage bungalow with a moss-covered roof that needed fixing. “We’ll get to it eventually,” Verne had said, his new motto. A package arrived for me in early August. There was no return address. I was afraid to open it, even though I had given up on messages from the dead. I still had trouble being optimistic. It was a hardcover book, white with blue lettering on the cover: Peroxide Blues by Jasper Jameson. I turned immediately to the back to see the author photo, but in place of the headshot was the sketch I had done of Cobain, or Daniel O’Ryan, or Jasper Jameson—the man in the cabin. Next to the image was my name in small print: N. Cavan. The author bio was brief: Jasper Jameson is a bestselling author. The Pacific Northwest is his home.

  I laughed, because I was delighted, and also pissed that he, of all people, had stolen my art. The sketch had been a gift, but it was meant for him. Something fluttered out of the book. It was a check made out to Nicola Cavan for ten thousand dollars. The signature at the bottom looked like a tangled hairball. On the memo part of the check he had scrawled: For art school.

  Have you ever had a thought, and wondered if you would feel differently about it when you were older? Right then, I thought that someday, I would no longer believe that the man I met was Kurt Cobain. I knew that someday, when I was older, I would believe that the musician with the blazing blue eyes wanted to leave his drug-suffocated world so badly that he shot himself in a Seattle greenhouse on a rainy spring day. But today, I believe he’s alive and driving a rusted Pontiac Phoenix, tending his turtles, and plotting his next story. And today is all I have.

  I saw an interview online with Krist Novoselic that made me remember the owl items hidden under my bed, the ones I had saved for my mother. He said after Kurt Cobain died, he kept searching for left-handed guitars for him at pawnshops. Then he’d remember that Kurt was gone and he didn’t need left-handed guitars anymore.

  Kurt Cobain wrote a song about Frances Farmer, who was a glamorous film star who killed herself. You might think that she was the inspiration for Cobain naming his daughter Frances, but you’d be wrong. Frances Bean Cobain was named after a singer with the Vaselines, a Scottish indie band that Kurt Cobain revered to a feverish degree—which mystified some people. (They weren’t that good.)

  The song was called “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle,” as if she were restless being dead and had left matters unfinished. The lyrics were about missing the comfort of sadness. And now I see what he meant. Sadness is comforting, in a way. It’s a heavy wool blanket draped over your shoulders. No one will steal it from you. Happiness is terrifying. It’s a small green shoot, as delicate as an eyelash or the small white cap of a snowdrop. It can be taken from you at any minute, any second.

  After Kurt Cobain’s body was found, his fans burned their plaid shirts. Grunge was dead. I know now that my mother is gone forever. What can I burn? Everything I have of hers is precious. While I grew up, she was out in the woods, buried under the snow in a forest by a lake like a fairy-tale princess. I’m still planning to visit there, the park, when I am ready. I want to see what she saw—the forest, the mountains, the lakes, and the sea.

  There is a comfort in being sad. But I am ready to give it up.

  In 2012, I read a newspaper article mentioning a Nirvana concert in Victoria that took place in March of 1991. The show was at a forgettable nightclub and drew a small crowd. In just a few months, however, Nirvana would become the biggest band on the planet—rocketing to superstardom with the album Nevermind. That Times-Colonist article about the Victoria show got me thinking—which led to the idea for this story. Since then, I have read countless articles and many books about Nirvana and the life of Kurt Cobain, all of which served as background for writing this novel. I am particularly indebted to the works of Charles R. Cross: Heavier than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain, Cobain Unseen, and Here We Are Now: The Lasting Impact of Kurt Cobain. I also consulted Kurt Cobain by Christopher Sandford, Grunge Is Dead by Greg Prato, Love & Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain by Max Wallace and Ian Halperin, as well as Kurt Cobain’s own Journals. I read dozens of online articles, blogs, websites, and zines. And of course, I listened to Nirvana.

  The major exhibition Nirvana: Bringing Punk to the Masses at the fascinating Experience Music Project Museum in Seattle helped me actually see how much Nirvana and Kurt Cobain meant to modern music. I would also like to acknowledge the heartfelt interview given by Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, taped as part of the EMP show, in which he recalls searching for left-handed guitars for Kurt. The story still brings tears to my eyes.

  I acknowledge Winnipeg’s the Weakerthans and their songwriter John K. Samson for allowing me to reprint a few lines of their wonderful, quirky song “The Reasons,” from their unparalleled Reconstruction Site album.

  Many thanks to the exceptional fiction teachers I’ve had over the years, from Barbara Greenwood in elementary school, to Jack Hodgins at the University of Victoria’s writing program. More recently, Vancouver fictionista Zsuzsi Gartner offered me the right manuscript consultation on this novel at the right time, with her stellar advice, encouragement, and good humor.

  My friend Shanna Baker tolerated my spontaneous outbursts of facts about Kurt Cobain’s life and offered continuous support. Kris Rice kindly provided insight into some law-enforcement matters. And Adrienne Mercer Breen, my close friend since the days Nirvana first ruled the airwaves, read an early draft and offered insightful suggestions and kind words.

  I am grateful to my warm and wise agent, Kerry Sparks, who saw something in this strange little story and thought that others would, too. You have truly changed my life. I am also indebted to my rock-star editor, Wendy Loggia, who made every page better with her astute comments and every day brighter with her cheer and encouragement. I am so fortunate to work with the whole Random House Children’s Books team.

  I’d like to thank my family, including my husband, David Leach, my son, A.J. (his first book is Space Monkeys from Mars), and my daughter, Briar. And appreciation in advance to Barrie and Marjorie Leach, who will no doubt lead promotion of the book in Ottawa.

  My sister, Patricia, offered her unbridled support of this story, and all my stories. My father, Ron, who (perhaps sensing the futility) never suggested I do something “more practical” than writing. And thank you to my mother, Kathryn, who
loved words, and books, and British Columbia’s magnificent coast.

  JENNY MANZER is a writer, an editor, and a former news reporter. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia, with her husband, son, and daughter. She loves music but never did see Nirvana play live.

  Follow @JennyManzer on

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