After ninety days, Absurda prances up to Beverly Hills beaming like a farmer’s daughter in a “Got Milk?” commercial. Her hair is growing out and her skin’s all peachy. Holding her hand is a guy who she hooked up with while he was rehabbing for Oxy, Perc, and booze. Claims he is a surfer. He hands me an embossed card that says “Hugo Bollatanski, Esquire,” which Alchy says is a fancy way of saying lawyer. He breezes around all tan and wearing a white suit. Dude surfs about as often as I climb Everest.
Absurda is raring to play, so we shoot The Ruling Class video and all but finish Multiple Coming. In the summer we head out for more months on the road supporting Blues.
Hugo buckles his belt to Absurda and hops on the tour bus. He and Alchy is always yack-yack-yacking about the upcoming election. I despise all the smarmy fuckers. Even though we play a benefit for Gore, I don’t tell them if I voted it would’ve been for Bush Jr.
In the middle of the tour, Hugo decides he needs to be Hu-Gone and will relocate to D.C. to work with some political types. Absurda acts like it’s cool. I know she’s bleeding, so I warn Hugo not to dirty-deal Absurda. The next day, Absurda, during the preconcert meal, pulls me over so no one can hear us. “Ricky, you surrendered your right to intrude into my personal life when you broke up with me. I can take care of myself, thank you very much.”
For the next few months, Hugo flies in and out regularly and Absurda seems good. When we arrive in D.C. for two shows at the Cap Center, Mr. Suavola is in the dressing room with flowers and chocolates. I’m thinking I may have to do some reevaluating. Then Absurda don’t show for the sound check for the second night. Can’t reach her nowhere, so we head back to the hotel and the chambermaid lets us into her room. The two of them is in bed and they ain’t moving. Towels laid out on the floor that stink of crack smoke, a few Percs on the bathroom sink, and empty bottles of bourbon and Tylenol PM. Alchy dials 911. Lux is trying to slap Hugo out of his stupor. I kneel by the bed. I feel Absurda breathing. I lift her and carry her to the shower. The paramedics show up and zip ’em off to the hospital.
We cancel the rest of the tour and Absurda reenters rehab. Me and Lux go home to L.A. Alchemy goes to New York to hang with Salome and Nathaniel. He comes back just before Absurda gets out of rehab again. This time, her sister Heather comes to babysit. In early 2000 we start recording most of Noncommittal, which we’re gonna do in three months. Faster than anything we done since More.
After an all-night session, Marty is driving me and Alchy to this seventeen-acre spread, fifteen of which is woods, that Alchy is buying in Topanga for under $2 million cash. Once you turn off Topanga Canyon, you gotta be Davy Crockett to find the place. It’s a mile or so drive up this twisty road through the forest ’til you get to the very cool three-story, five-bedroom main house built back in the ’20s. He shows me “my” room on the second floor. On the grounds is an ancient two-story dance hall, which is a fancy name for whorehouse that he is refurbishing into a guest house for Salome and Nathaniel. We walk down this path to what was once a stable, which he is converting into a recording studio. I’m looking out for snakes when Alchy decides to stick his dick in my business again.
“This may not be the optimum opportunity—”
I cut him off. “Don’t futz around. What’s on your mind?”
“That’s why I love you.”
“Why I love me, too. So what?”
“I sense there’s something still unfinished between you and Absurda.”
I been percolating on that idea myself, only every time I think about making some move, or even talking to her about us, I hear, “Oh, thank you, Alchemy,” and I get that pukey feeling.
“No, we done our thing. Besides”—I’m thinking I need to come clean with Absurda before I finally tell him what I seen—“I’m enjoying the fruits of being an Insatiable.” He can’t retort nuthin’ to that. I hear him rolling the saliva in his mouth like he wants to spit, but he only nods.
We do some gigs on the West Coast just to try out the new songs, then come back to L.A. for some remixing and maybe rerecording for Noncommittal. We plan the release to coincide with a world tour starting in fall 2001. We ain’t back two days when Alchemy gets a hysterical call from Salome. Brockton had a stroke and is in bad shape. He jets back east before his mom flies off to biddy-bip land.
We decide it’s hiatus time. Me and Brewer finally team up for “The American Van” spot, which was an absolute gas. One afternoon at the Malibu Market, I eye this very young-looking preppie girl wearing a skirt and V-neck yellow sweater. I shoot her a half smile. She don’t react, so I’m moseying back to my car when I hear her razzing me. “Hey, you.” I turn around. “Yes, you, creep! You some kinda freak? You want to kill me?” I been aggressed on by plenty of drunks. That PLEASE LET ME KILL YOU T-shirt caused me shitloads of problems, but mostly I handle it without muscling up. This girl gives me the shivers. I hadn’t done nuthin’ squirrelly. I can’t fight her. She sure don’t want no autograph. Then she is laughing so loud everyone is gawking at us. “Mr. Tough New Yawker, Ambitious Mindswallow, never figured you to have such small balls.”
“You figured right the first time. You can check for yourself anytime you want.”
“I think that’s premature. That another of your specialties?”
My brain locked. I’m back to being a Queens dork.
“C’mon, tough guy, think you can handle me drink-for-drink at Moonshadows?”
I give her the Miranda Wrights. Her name’s Bryn Smithson and she’s just turned twenty-two and her address says Lincoln, Nebraska. She seen us when we played the university in Lincoln when she was seventeen. She went to Pepperdine and now works for Pfizer pushing legal drugs all over SoCal and Arizona. We start hanging out. Over Christmas, Bryn heads home to Nebraska. She don’t ask me to join her. I wished she had so I could say no. I’m not thrilled about meeting anyone’s family, especially hers, who is religious Christians.
The idea of seeing my own family gives me a rash. Absurda don’t want to see hers neither. Lux is off on a trip to Europe and South Africa. I find out Heather is gone, so I invite Absurda, Marty, and Falstaffa to hang at the Topanga compound. I clean out any sign of Bryn ’cause I want to keep it from Absurda that I am an “article” for the first time since her.
On Christmas Eve we order up food from Gelson’s market. Absurda is not indulging in any substances. Later, the two of us are sitting on outdoor chaise longues in front of the living room fireplace when she zings me.
“So, I heard you’re dating a teenager.”
“What?” I fake ignorance.
“C’mon. Sue saw you trying to impress her at the Ivy. Flea saw you at the Lakers game. Ricky, stop Nadling. You afraid I might tell her how you acted like an A-one asshole when you broke up with me?”
I’m thinking it’s finally time to get a few things straight. “I been meaning to tell ya, that night outside Madam Rosa’s, I saw—”
“Stop. Ricky, there’s nothing to discuss.” I’m too familiar with her Fond du Lac frigid face that says I ain’t getting nowhere. “You got drunk and high and you messed up.”