Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up (14 page)

June 6, 1978
—
So, having a baby in four months
—
it’s kicking right now! I’m sure a child will help put everything in perspective. Michael and I went through another drug thing
, c’est la vie.
I always pray he’ll truly get over it. He starts rehearsals for the Whisky this weekend, then starts the third album, and Detective is still in chaos. I did a Nestea commercial, and I hope I can do Pampers or something baby oriented. Please! We’re living in a stunning house with Dee Dee, and we have a washer and dryer, fridge, ping-pong table, basketball hoop, a real live garage, and a little yellow cradle that I bought today. We have a yard and a patio, such a thrill!

Though Michael’s lapses threatened to blast the conventional walls down, I was reveling in the normalcy I had created around me. The washer and dryer represented a sane way of life, and seeing orange-ringed boxes of Tide took me back to the service porch in Reseda where my mom spent too much of her precious time taking care of me and Daddy. Sometimes that pissed Michael off, and in eloquent, heated moments he called me bourgeois, denouncing the Valley as the hillbilly capital of California. It killed me when he used that word against me because I didn’t understand the meaning well enough to refute it. I have since discovered that the blasted word means “middle class,” and I guess that’s what I was. What I am? Maybe I have middle-class roots, but back then I just stood there, the daughter of a common coal miner, lard-laden turnip greens dripping off my fingertips, a piece of hay stuck between my two front teeth, wilting into a puddle of bourgeois hog slop. Looking back, I think Michael might have been subconsciously goading me into standing up to him. Who
knows
what might have happened if I had stuck up for myself instead of wincing like I was next in line to be slaughtered. I constantly trapped myself like a poor, bellowing moo cow, eyes rolling frantically, waiting in
that long line to get one of those medieval puncturing rods straight through the brain. I languished in that middle class sometimes—a secret student of coupon-clipping. I snipped twenty-five cents off a box of corn flakes. Fifty cents off a package of Pampers—putting them in the closet to be wrapped around my baby’s pink bottom a few months later. I filled out the dumb questionnaires in
Good Housekeeping
and had a few moments of private domestic contentment. I told myself I just couldn’t help it—a prisoner of my pregnancy. I enjoyed being temporarily engaged in soothing clap-trap trivialities. Taking that Simple Simon escape route relaxed me. So there.

But in between the binges and bourgeois back-sliding, Michael and I had a lovely marriage. We went on another honeymoon to the Hearst Castle and stayed at the outrageous Madonna Inn, where every room had a different sex-drenched, romance-laden theme. We stayed in the cave room, where I stood under the gushing water in the romantic rock shower while Michael took more photos of my big blooming tummy. The daddy-to-be was hoping a little penis was being formed in there, while I knew for sure that the tiny pink dresses I had on layaway would soon be put to use. I was so sure I was carrying a little princess that the only name I had chosen was Dominique—Dominique Delphine Des Barres, or Niki for short.

I had rubbed whole bars of cocoa butter on my stomach and slathered entire bottles of baby oil up and down my thighs to prevent those ruinous stretch marks from wreaking havoc on my highly maintained body. So the morning I galumphed into the bathroom to take the first of five dozen pees and noticed the searing red lines streaking up the sides of my thighs I collapsed into a lumpy heap and bawled. Michael came running in to make sure I wasn’t giving birth. When I pointed out the dastardly imperfections, he soothed me in his arms, promising me it would all be worth it when we had our little baby and saying how he saw the stretch marks as badges of courage and glory. Battle scars. Of course,
he
didn’t have to wear these magnificent, courageous, blemished badges for the rest of his natural life. Thank goodness they have faded to tiny, pale slivers, and he was right: It was all worth it. He missed only one birth class, and all the pregnant couples adored his hysterical, pithy take on parenthood. He took it seriously but had the knack for lightening the thirty-extra-pounds load. “All of you ladies are in the throes of your feminine majesty,” he said triumphantly, bowing to the throng of waddling, sweaty women. “You’ll never be more beautiful or powerful in your lives. Flaunt yourselves!” The people who had already been through
the experience told us how our lives would totally change after the baby was born, but Michael and I refused to swallow this bitter pill. Our magical offspring would sleep until noon every day, oh yes.

One sweaty afternoon Michael came home from a band meeting with a giant T-shirt that had
DOMINIQUE
across the belly area, and I wore it to the baby shower thrown by my relatives, where I received many mundane but necessary gifts. I dolled up for the shower tossed by my pals (boys
and
girls), oohing and aahing over thoughtful stuff like a puffy, rainbow-colored, hanging hot-air balloon and a set of antique Mickey Mouse decals that must have set the kindhearted gift giver back at least forty dollars. Michael seesawed around the room making sure everyone’s punch cup was filled and the dip replenished. And when the final nutcase waved good-bye, we sat together and contemplated weensy booties knitted like a pair of cowboy boots and a stack of post-hippie, tie-dyed T-shirts the size of Michael’s hand.

The desire to be an acclaimed actress never deserted me, no matter how pregnant I got, so when my old genius playwright pal Jim Kennedy offered me a nutty part in
Dogfight
, a musical about Howard Hughes, I somehow managed to make it to the Zephyr Theatre every day for rehearsal. Rotund and weary, I played the part of a horny babe attempting to pick up on a corny cowboy, and no matter how pooped out I was, I got the crowd roaring whenever I struck a seductive, come-hither pose. The cast was huge, and they all fussed over the baby-laden blimp-lady, fanning me backstage while I waited my turn to emote. A fascinating Latino, Edward James Olmos, played the announcer, and a hot tamale, Katey Sagal, sang raunchy lead in the
Dogfight
band, so I felt like I was in glorious company. Every night we peered into the dark audience, scanning for important showbiz casting types who could make us famous, but after a couple weeks, despite the dedication to my craft (ha!), I had to turn my part over to the understudy. I was worn out from waddling around onstage; my hot, swollen feet poking fatly out of my spike heels. I had reached the point where all I wanted was to flop down on the couch and wait. I managed to get to yoga class, the second-to-last birth class, and when Gail Zappa called to invite me to Moon’s eleventh birthday party, I just couldn’t say no.

Moon was holding the heart earrings I brought her way up in the air, watching them jangle and glint when I felt myself spring a major
leak. It was September 30 at about four in the afternoon, and I knew exactly what was going on. Gail gave me some female paraphernalia to soak up the baby water, I got my first contraction and started watching the clock. The anticipation was so intoxicating it reminded me of the Beatle countdown at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964. When the contractions blasted me every five minutes, I called Michael to tell him to get ready, Gail put her sister in charge of the birthday proceedings, hustled the dripping mom-to-be out the door and into her Rolls-Royce. She had been through this three times already and proved to be very adept at taking charge. I reclined on my side in the backseat, remembering to concentrate and attempting to relax when the contractions hit, but I was concerned about leaking onto the leather seat of the Rolls and kept apologizing to Gail for spoiling the fancy interior. She laughed in a tinkly way and assured me it didn’t matter, “You’re having a baby today!” She was ecstatic and made me feel like I was on my way to collect an Academy Award or Pulitzer prize. We grabbed Michael, who had already called Judy and Sparkie, and set out for Hollywood Presbyterian. Considering he was about to become a parent, Michael seemed fairly serene and slightly detached. He was probably in shock. I had my head in his lap and as he stroked my hair each strand seemed electrified. Bzzz-bzzz. Time becomes forsaken when you’re in labor. Minutes turn into weeks. It took a year to get to Vermont and Fountain, and the short ride in the wheelchair, a towel shoved between my legs, took about seventeen months. I waved good-bye to Gail, who promised to return when the baby came, and finally climbed into bed, my eyes crossed with spellbound attention to the matter at hand. I became an animal, alone with my womb; a wordless, focused hunk of primeval wildlife. Since I was about to be filmed and photographed, Sparkie gently asked if I would like some cosmetics applied. I could hardly even remember what lipstick was, let alone have it smeared across my earth-mother mouth. I waved her away, and when Michael tried to caress me, I grunted like a beast, flailing at his fingers like they were pesky flies on my fur. Although composed, Michael must have been a wreck, because when he located Doctor Zeidner at an Italian restaurant, I heard him shout into the phone, “This is Pamela Des Barres’s wife!”

Dr. Z. said he wouldn’t be there for awhile because it was my first baby and since I was only at three centimeters, I was likely to be in labor for several more hours. I took in this information and discarded it instantly as fiction, knowing I would prove him wrong. Even though the pain was beyond mortal thought, I wanted to feel, feel,
feel
it all
wrapped around me like swaddling clothes. I pushed hard and felt something give. I could hear my darling husband, Sparkie, and Judy having a ball in the background, like a party was going on, and I groaned, “Michael, call a nurse.” I knew I was in transition. The stunned angel of mercy found I was now at nine centimeters and when surprise flattened her features, I felt a divine sense of power wash over the careening agony. For a split second I was ferociously immortal. I felt like baying at the moon.

Doctor Zeidner was probably polishing off his zabaglione when the Doctor X on duty rushed in to get everything ready for the big moment. Everybody put on sea green gowns and masks, the girls fiddled with their cameras, Michael paced. The room was aflurry with action, but the contractions had become constant, so I was one with the experience; one about to become two. Me and my shadow, strolling down the avenue. I prayed for a perfect baby and shoved like the brute creation I was, sounds coming out of me that had been heard only in the wild or maybe at a very large zoo. In the distance I heard the birth coach Judy exclaim, “It’s crowning! I can see the head!” That was my cue to thrust and heave with supersonic force, propelling the tiny, slippery being out into the big, brand-new world. The final push felt like a wrenching, all-consuming, full-body orgasm, with a choir of angels tossed in for good measure. Cameras captured the first breath, the first cry, my astonishment at seeing the bright pink male apparatus, Doctor X handing me the buttery bunch of baby, pressing the little bugger to my popping breast, the look of wildcat satisfaction on my face. It was over. Four hours and twenty-three minutes from the first contraction at Moon’s birthday party, I was holding my little boy. Surprise! Only three days before, Michael and I figured we had better come up with a boy’s name just in case Dominique didn’t show up, and we chose Nicholas because it was a simple, gallant name, and Dean after the first mainstream media rebel, James. Weak and elated at the same time, smug but thick with gratitude, I handed Michael his heir and watched them bond. He was supposed to have cut the cord, but Doctor X hadn’t been filled in, and Doctor Zeidner arrived just in time to stitch up a very tender, strategic spot. “Your husband will love me for this,” he said, chortling, hoping his tight stitches would make up for his missing the birth entirely. The euphoria was fading and the pain was pointedly profound. Sparkie tried to take my mind off my pussy by plying me with celebration cake and OJ, Judy praised me for a job well done, and soon little Nicky was wrapped tight in a blue blanket and back
in my arms. Michael got on the phone, making sure everybody knew there was a new Des Barres on the planet. Mom and Daddy were the first to arrive, followed by Gail, my old pal Michele Myer and Tony and Dee Dee. I felt like a queen. O.C. cradled his grandson, besotted, cooing to him in a voice I’d never heard before, while Mom looked on adoringly, equally smitten by the midget bundle.

Michael, Nicky, and I stayed that night in the birth room, and I felt like I was on some sort of dippy-dopey hallucinogenic. Michael was looking at me differently, a burgeoning smidgen of respect lighting his eyes. He said he had been watching me right before Nicky was born and saw a new look on my face; one of stern determination and strength. Miss Goody-Two-Shoes finally facing the hard-core music. After we cuddled and discussed the whole perfect experience, staring endlessly at our dozing offspring, I slept the sleep of a dead woman for the very last time.

Once you have a kid, any itty-bitty sound in the night will raise you, startled, straight off your pillow, alert and ready to dart. Nicky is fourteen now, but the slightest nighttime noise still knocks my personal sandman for a complete loop. Sleep had always been a wele pal o’mine but became a manic obsession soon after the motherbug bit me.

By the time Nicky was two weeks old I was a delirious dunderhead, banging into walls, constantly aching to snooze. I had a pad of paper and a pencil by the bed so I could add up the hours of sleep I was getting each night, and it was never, ever enough. He nursed every ninety minutes, twenty-four hours a day for six months. Michael pretty much continued his life-style undaunted by daddyhood, a fact I rarely questioned or attempted to alter. Like most new mommies, I kept a baby book to remember each
waking
moment: