Disgraceland

by Jake Brennan

  Kill Me Now…

  Gimme a Fix…

  Sleep Forever…

  No More Pain…

  Sid couldn’t think straight. Words. Just words. More words. Sid did his best but he understood little beyond the pain.

  Deep. Agonizing pain.

  Nancy was pissed. More words. The tangle turned to a tussle. There was the knife. Pain. Sharp pain.

  No more words.

  Silence.

  When Sid Vicious awoke he found the love of his life, Nancy Spungen, dead on their bathroom floor. Her body crammed between the toilet and the sink in an upright position. Blood covered her knees and legs. Her knees, perpetually scarred, were not the source of the blood, though. It was the single stab wound in her abdomen—just below her belly button—from the five-inch blade of Sid’s knife.

  “I stabbed her, but I didn’t mean to kill her,” he told police at one point. “I loved her, but she treated me like shit.”

  That sounded like a lot of smack.

  Again it was the sign. The sign that said, YOU ARE NOW EXITING RIKERS ISLAND PRISON COMPLEX, but what Sid saw was a sign that said, YOU ARE NOW ABOUT TO GET HIGH AS FUCK.

  Because he’d just made bail. His mum and his friend, Peter Kodick, were waiting for him. They’d arranged it so the first order of business was getting him high. Then there was to be a party for him. And tomorrow, he was supposed to get around to seeing that famous lawyer, F. Lee Bailey, that Mick Jagger had been secretly and generously paying for. Mick Jagger? Shit.

  That was what Sid Vicious was likely thinking on the first day of February 1979, when he left Rikers Island prison, the first day of the rest of his life, that would only last—roughly—another eighteen hours.

  In prison for seven weeks, Sid straightened out. Sobriety begot clarity, and with clarity the ghost of Nancy came knocking. Sid was still reeling from the uncertainty of whether or not he did or didn’t kill the love of his life.

  Imagine that: You wake up dazed from horse tranquilizers and your girlfriend, your soulmate, your best friend, your business manager—hell, let’s be real, the only woman who truly mothered you—is lying dead on your floor. You don’t think you killed her. I mean, why would you? You depended on her. You needed her. You loved her. When you were upset, you’d nurse at her breast. She’d call you “baby boy” and you’d call her “Momma.” Her death—and your uncertainty—haunted you.

  Did you do it?

  Did you kill her?

  How could you do it?

  How could you kill her?

  Did you do it to end her pain? Nancy was always talking about her pain. The pain you helped dull with the love you showed her.

  Love. What was love besides a barometer to measure your pain against? The pain that had been with you since childhood. The loneliness. The distrust of anyone not named “Mum” or, later, “Nancy.” But death? Death had potential. A potential cure for pain. Heroin was a temporary fix. Death was where it was at.

  You said you’d die with her. Happily. She agreed, and so the death pact was real. Wasn’t it? Or was it just something you talked about when the dope sickness got to be too painful?

  Was it?

  Or wasn’t it?

  In times of inescapable emptiness after Nancy’s death, Sid had tried to kill himself, but it never took. He took all of his methadone supply at once. No luck. He tried to slash his wrists, but that didn’t work, either. Then it was suicide by way of a Hell’s Kitchen bar fight but that just landed him back in Rikers.

  He wrote to Nancy’s mother: “Every day is agony without her. I know now that it is possible to die from a broken heart. Because when you love someone as much as we love each other, they become fundamental to your existence. So I will die soon, even if I don’t kill myself. I guess you could say that I’m pining for her. I could live without food or water longer than I’m going to survive without Nancy.”

  With Nancy on his mind, Sid was eager to reunite with the other love of his life, heroin.

  The party that was planned was small but spirited. It would be at the Village apartment of his new girlfriend, Michelle Robinson, who was the methadone version of Nancy. A brunette, she could pass for a sister of Nancy’s, sharing the physical resemblance through the nose and eyes, but she didn’t command a room—or Sid’s heart—the way that his dead lover did. Michelle had invited Peter Kodick, Jerry Only from the Misfits, a handful of other yea-sayers, and Sid’s mum, who was busy fixing one off for Sid. His first shot of heroin after seven weeks of detox in Rikers.

  Sid’s mum had been the worst of influences since he was in short pants. But now, her shitty parenting wasn’t the problem. Her shitty dope was. Sid injected it, but nothing. He was furious. Peter Kodick was dispatched to the streets to find real heroin.

  Kodick scored. And his dope did the trick. Sid nearly OD’d. His friends revived him, but the party died out.

  Dope addicts know that the first hit after detox can be fatal. The trick is injecting the perfect amount. Balancing enough to get high, but not enough to shock your system to death. That was what happened when Sid booted up that first time out of prison. Too much dope. Too much good dope, to be exact. He wanted more but was too high to shoot himself up. He asked his girlfriend to do it, but nuh-uh. She’d seen enough of this junkie hari-kari.

  So Sid’s mum, Anne Beverley, entered the apartment bedroom where her son was sprawled out in need of a fix, sometime in the early morning hours of February 2, 1979. For Sid, the heroin numbed the pain. The pain of missing Nancy. The pain of not knowing whether or not he killed her.

  Kill me now…

  He needed more. That was why Mum was there. So much pain. Lying alone in a strange bed. Thinking of Nancy.

  Was she there?

  Was she dead?

  Was this all a dream?

  Were they back at the Chelsea? Was he gone already? Where was he going? In and out of consciousness.

  There. Then gone. Then back…with the pain.

  Gimme a fix…

  He felt warm hands on his arms. Affectionately tying him off and rooting around for a vein. Were they his mother’s hands? Or Nancy’s? Maybe it was the hand of God, for all Sid knew. Either way, it was a touch he’d grown to depend on. Then, a pinprick.

  Maybe this dope would do the trick. Maybe it would do what the slitting of the wrists and the Hell’s Kitchen beating couldn’t do: end the pain.

  He was drifting. He could hear singing. It was faint in his ear. It was the song that his mum used to sing to him as a little boy, after his dad left them stranded in Ibiza. It didn’t matter. He and his mum had each other. It never seemed like enough for her, but for a time it was all Sid needed. It sounded so sweet to hear her craggy British voice singing along with the soulful American man on the radio. What was that guy’s name? Sam something. His mum used to sing a bunch of his songs.

  And I know that if you love me, too

  What a wonderful world this would be.

  This dope was so heavy. Nancy was definitely there with him now. Or was it Mum? It had to be Nancy. She was always there when the pain got to be too much. She was holding Sid’s head to her bosom. Rocking him back and forth gently. Speaking to him softly. Words. Baby boy…Momma…Just words. Pain. Drifting pain.

  And then…

  Sleep.

  Forever.

  Sid was dead.

  The official cause of death; heroin overdose.

  The unofficial cause of death? Suicide by heroin.

  The rumored cause of death? Sid’s mum gave him a hotshot.

  Why? A maternal act of mercy. In 1996, before her own deadly overdose, Anne Beverley supposedly confessed to journalist Alan Parker that she had indeed given her son his final dose of heroin. Accounts from that night align with that confession.

  Anne Beverley was a lifelong, experienced heroin addict who knew exactly how much dope a person could handle if they had been clean for seven weeks. And, more important, she knew exactly how much dope it would take to kill
a person if they had been clean for seven weeks. There is no way she couldn’t have known.

  But why exactly?

  Sid beating Nancy’s murder rap was a long shot. Rikers, with its rapists and real punks, terrified Sid. So did Nancy’s ghost. Doing twenty-plus years was unimaginable for the fragile rock star. He was suicidal. And Anne could finally take care of him the way a mother should.

  She was still singing to him, though she knew he was probably gone now. But if he could hear her as he drifted away, she wanted him to feel safe, to feel loved.

  And I know that if you love me, too

  What a wonderful world this would be.

  Chapter 8

  Sam Cooke

  Sam Cooke pushed the worries to the back of his mind and pulled his Ferrari into Lou Rawls’s driveway. A visit with his old friend Lou would be good for his soul. Sam knew Lou from way back. Two decades slinging the gospel at the tops of their lungs throughout Chicago’s South Side churches will bond you to a fellow. You can hear that bond and the ease of their relationship in Lou’s effortless harmony in the call-and-response chorus of Sam’s 1962 classic, “Bring It on Home to Me.”

  Lou’s six-month-old son began crying upon Sam’s arrival. Sam loved babies, but Little Lou Rawls Jr. was having none of him and Sam, in return, was getting emotional around the little dude. The next week would have been the third birthday of Sam’s own son, Vincent, who had drowned in the family swimming pool the year before. The death put an increased strain on what was already a strained relationship with his wife, and led Sam on a path of recklessness.

  Nineteen sixty-four was tough on Sam. But it was also productive. It had been his most prolific as a songwriter and in a lot of ways his most rewarding creatively as he began turning his pop craftsmanship to more serious social issues. After hearing Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” just two months after his son died, Sam realized the answer wasn’t blowin’ in the wind at all, but the answer was inside him. Just sitting there. Waiting to be exorcised and unleashed onto the world. So Sam wrote, “A Change Is Gonna Come.” It was a less esoteric, more contemporary take on what Dylan had done with “Blowin’ in the Wind.” It was a direct claim on the happiness that eluded black America and his audience. It was unabashedly hopeful. Nearly sentimental but completely devoid of cheese. It was also Sam taking a swing at reclaiming some personal happiness for himself after the death of his son. And America loved it.

  The baby wouldn’t stop wailing.

  Sam picked up Lou Jr., playfully looked the crying infant in his eyes, and asked, “What’s the matter with you, man?”

  Sam tried humming “Wonderful World.” It was the song that had earned him his nickname of Mr. Wonderful, and it usually did the trick. Women, babies, didn’t matter. Sam’s voice could fix most anyone’s problems. But not today. Lou put his son in his room, and the two old friends retired to the living room.

  Sam Cooke and Lou Rawls met before they were even teenagers, forming a quartet and singing doo-wop on street corners in Chicago. They both joined a gospel group called the Highway QC’s. The QC’s were onto something but were not going anywhere fast enough for Sam, so he joined the Soul Stirrers at the age of nineteen. The Soul Stirrers were well established. They’d been slinging it on the gospel circuit since 1926, before Sam was born. The group’s members were immensely talented, but Sam had a unique and natural gift all his own. Sex appeal, though subversive, was always part of gospel performance, but Sam Cooke brought a different kind of sexuality to it; it was subtle, less suggestive, more sophisticated. It was innate and as effortless as his uniquely intimate style of singing.

  And his singing style was indeed unique. It wasn’t like what other gospel singers brought to the game. It wasn’t all emotion. It wasn’t all truth. Like Frank Sinatra, Sam’s voice transcended style. It transcended technique, and it effortlessly balanced vulnerability and authority. Like Cupid’s arrow, Sam Cooke’s voice was a shot to the heart. And it made him irresistible.

  Irresistible to record executives who saw in Sam a crossover into secular pop music and who wanted a big payday. Irresistible to seasoned musicians who knew a special talent when they saw it and wanted to go along for the ride. Irresistible to young black men who saw a successful artist and businessman who they wanted to be. And irresistible to women who just wanted him.

  Lots and lots of women wanted Sam Cooke.

  Forget Cupid’s arrow. With that voice, Sam Cooke might as well have been Cupid himself.

  When Sam was in the room, you felt his sexuality. Mavis Staples referred to him as “Sam the Seducer.” Back in the Soul Stirrer days, Sam hadn’t quite graduated to bespoke suits yet, but he dressed impeccably and had that tight, processed hair. He kept himself looking good and out on tour as a Soul Stirrer; Sam was as much a sexual conquistador as he was a gospel missionary.

  There were women in every town. Either waiting for him or waiting to meet him for the first time. Old girls. New girls. Black girls. White girls. Sam referred to white women as “snow” and sleeping with black women as, quote, “shoveling coal.”

  It was a well-developed circuit. One that to a young man must have seemed bountiless. And unwanted pregnancies? Well, that was just the cost of doing business. By the time Sam was twenty-one, he’d had three children with three different women.

  But it didn’t matter. He was Teflon. The out-of-wedlock pregnancies and rep didn’t stick. His image remained squeaky clean.

  If that nice boy next door with the wide smile and polite manner, the one who keeps himself so clean and sings like an angel, if he wants to sleep with my granddaughter, then better him than that flashy, campaign-shouting Southern diplomat from down on the corner. If it’s got to be someone it might as well be Sam Cooke. Or so went the thinking of little old lady churchgoers everywhere.

  Understanding the effect Sam Cooke had on people both onstage and off isn’t easy. He was good-looking, charming, and immensely talented but beyond that, he legitimately had that “thing.” The little extra something that is elusive, impossible to describe, and contributes to one’s star quality. Sam Cooke had it. And onstage, particularly in those early days with the Soul Stirrers, “it” was a weapon. To truly understand Sam Cooke’s appeal, you have to understand that he learned how to reach people by being a gospel singer.

  Back when his name was spelled C-O-O-K, before he added the E at the end for sophistication, before he was topping the pop charts or seen ripping through Hollywood in his cherry red Ferrari or out on the town dressed to kill in a Sy Devore suit, before that Sam Cooke, there was Sam Cook. No E at the end. The polite son of a Chicago-by-way-of-Mississippi minister. Sam’s dad was a fire-and-brimstone country preacher who took his musical family—Sam included, of course—on the road to perform gospel music at various church services throughout the Midwest.

  This gospel touring circuit was where Sam Cook started to hone his performance chops. The point of gospel music might have been to celebrate the Lord, but the point of gospel performance was to captivate the audience and vanquish all rivals. Gospel performers were highly competitive. And they had to be. The amount of talent within the scene was astounding; the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, Mahalia Jackson, and the group Sam Cooke would one day join and lead, the Soul Stirrers, all shared immense gifts.

  So Sam knew how to get to people on a spiritual level by using all his God-given gifts to shake you to your core and hold you. You were enraptured. You were powerless against his charms. And because of this, Sam Cooke—aka Mr. Wonderful, aka Cupid, aka Sam the Seducer, aka the man with the golden tongue and the unbridled libido—grew very accustomed to getting exactly what he wanted whenever he wanted it.

  Sam had gotten what he wanted, all right. A shot at the big time. It wasn’t easy, but he was able to navigate his way out of the gospel scene and for the most part avoid the dreaded “sellout” rap. His first single, his first single, “You Send Me,” went to No. 1 on the pop charts. Not just the R&B charts. The top of the pop c
harts.

  And getting to the top sometimes seemed like a giant pain in the ass, but it was worth the sweat. Success was indeed sweet. And Sam deserved it. He was special and he knew it. When most of his peers were blowing their bread willy-nilly, Sam was investing in himself.

  He founded his own record label, SAR, and was writing and producing and giving younger soul musicians on the come-up a shot. And his new manager, the very astute Allen Klein, had just swung a deal with RCA Records, where Sam Cooke, a black man in 1964 America, would own SAR’s master recordings. This was a big deal. It meant power in the music industry. An industry that, in the early 1960s, was entirely controlled by white men and gangster con artists whose record labels distributed their music through a national syndicate of mafia-controlled jukeboxes and who relied on the mob to employ a network of crooked radio promo men to bribe DJs to play their records on the airwaves and thus increase record sales and generate profit from the exploitation of the master recordings owned by the labels and the publishers. Now Sam Cooke owned the master recordings. And the label. This was not only rare for a black musician at the time, it was rare for any musician. Still is, actually.

  Sam Cooke—a black man and a real artist—was also an executive producer who controlled his own future and was able to provide real opportunities for young black men and support, with both his voice and his wallet, the growing civil rights movement.

  It had been a long time coming for sure, but change—in some ways—had come. Sam had come a long way from selling “race records” out of barbershops and shoe-shine stands to hanging with Muhammad Ali and headlining the Copa.

  And now, a stable of younger artists depended on him for guidance, material, expertise, and tour and financial support. Plus, his own career still needed minding.

  He complained to Lou about the pressure. Lou Jr. was still screaming in his bedroom, and the screams were pressing down on Sam’s last nerve.