Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up (25 page)

Miami Vice
was picked up almost instantly, and all of a sudden Donnie was highly in demand all over the country, on the cover of the
Star
and the
National Enquirer
. We still can’t figure out why they singled out him to gnaw at in the rags. Donnie had a way with the dolls; a glamorous stud with a reckless, flagrant, drug-laden past—the perfect fodder for those dirt-hungry, salivating slimeballs to shred for the panting public. Which they did with menace for the next several years.

Instant success meant that Don had to relocate
right now
, leaving 90 percent of his belongings behind for Patti to deal with. It truly happened so fast, his life altering forever right in front of us. He never saw any of his old clothes, furniture, or lifetime of accumulated crap ever again. He bought everything sleek, shiny, and new in Miami, never even mentioning his hippie tree-trunk coffee table or the gigantic, macho canopy bed he made with his own hands in 1979.

Patti decided to stay behind in L.A., since Jesse was just starting school and she was hoping to revive her acting career. Donnie bought her a big trilevel pad in Studio City, and before she split to higher haciendas, she tossed a yard sale in which she sold off all Donnie’s seventies
Stayin Alive—type
suits, big-collared shirts, mismatched mugs, and hand-carved male furniture. There were even a few pair of colorful jockey shorts, soon to be replaced with pure silk undergarments. We almost put up a sign saying,
SONNY CROCKETT
’
S CRAPOLA
4
ALE
, but we thought better of it.

The Des Barres family was on tenterhooks (tender, piercing hooks) waiting to see if we would be able to remain at the abode in Santa Monica. Nick was firmly ensconsed at Roosevelt, and I had come to love the amazingly clean air, the safe neighborhood, and the cozy little house itself, which was built in the late teens with a real live backyard and a fireplace that burned real wood. Finally Donnie said we could stay until Nick’s school year ended, and for awhile I could inhale deeply of that salt-sprinkled air.
Miami Vice
was raging, D.J. was fast becoming a household name and fashion plate. It didn’t look as if he would ever want to move back to the sweet, late-teen beach pad, so I had sincere, grandiose hopes that we could stay there indefinitely.

Patti moved into her palatial Valley digs, and I was finally able to take my beloved antique dresses out of boxes and hang them in my very own closet. As usual, Michael got the biggest closet in the bedroom, while my duds languished in the hall, but once again, I did not say, “How about if
I
get the big closet this time, or maybe we could
share
it?” I saw these ignominious acts as generous shots of love, which ultimately backfired on me. I longed to close the grave-pit gap that now sundered the lovey-dovey tightness that Michael and I once took for granted. He still left me beautiful, tender notes that I clasped to my bosom, wishing they were him. And we still had our harmonious sidekick moments of long-term understanding that only long-term couples can understand. Ha! Our dumb, cutesie-coo love-language stuck like super-glue, whether we were at odds or evens, and we also dealt with Nick as a unit, never disagreeing about what was best for him. To tell the truth, we stumbled around in the scary, maternal/paternal dark together, having no idea what really was best for the little bugger. We were struggling blindly with Nicky and with each other. It was so convoluted and ill, but maybe all relationships are diseased in some way. Give and take. Swallow and burn. Grin and bear it.

The last time I picked up my journal for over a year, I wrote:

May 6
—
Taking it day to day. I’m poking along after a gross bout with food poisoning (infected tuna sandwich in the car) and a forty-eight-hour migraine. I didn’t think I would allow myself such a major slump, but the vibe is so sorrowful. Michael says he’s getting mixed signals from me and doesn’t know what I want from him
. I
don’t know either! I do know I’ve got to get myself creative, find some self-esteem, and get rid of these second-class-citizen feelings
.

It was music that gave my disharmonious marriage a much-needed reprieve. I was hanging out with Nick in his new bedroom, setting up his Transformers and Go-bots, decorating the walls with Japanese posters, when I got an intriguing call from Michael, who was visiting Donnie in Marshall, Texas, on the set of
The Long Hot Summer
. It seemed some upper-stuff New York promoter had tracked him down and wanted to fly him to New York to meet with a hush-hush rock band that was looking for a replacement lead singer. Despite Michael’s smash hit, “Obsession,” he had been concentrating on acting but down deep felt he hadn’t fulfilled his rampant rock-and-roll potential.
He had previously been offered gigs with upstart or old fart bands but refused to compromise himself for the easy dough, the way he felt he had done in Detective. (It was actually very
hard
dough.) He usually referred to his former band as “Defective” and preferred not to refer to it at all.

When Michael got to Manhattan he still had no idea where he was headed and whom he was going to meet. With intoxicating secrecy the silent limo driver had taken him to the Carlyle Hotel, where he sat around in luxury, eating grapes until there was a knock on the door. His mysterious guests were John Taylor and Tony Thompson, who explained that Robert Palmer had dropped out of Power Station summer tour at the last instant and they were hoping Michael might be able to step in. Chequered Past had opened for Duran Duran a few months before, and Andy Taylor had remembered Michael’s way with a microphone. The next morning Michael was on the Concorde to London, where he went straight to the studio and sang his ass off, spent the evening with Andy in a cloud of pot smoke, and returned to New York in a daze with a tape of all Power Station’s tunes to practice, practice, practice. They were going to give him a huge hunk of money for his services, and he would be onstage at Live Aid in front of the largest audience in the history of the universe. Michael was agog with visions of dollar signs, long overdue recognition, and legitimacy.

When Nick and I picked him up at the airport, my soul was surging with hope, desire, and longing for the good life with my chosen man. We had been through such up- and down-heaval for so many years. Maybe, just
maybe
we could work it out after all. Michael was always happiest when he could drown his beaten-back cares and woes in his work, and if that work could bring him adulation from the impersonal masses, just
maybe
he could live without adulation from the personal misses. For the next few months I put bandages over all the heart-hurts and shoved the bubbling bitter stew on the back burner, totally determined to make this yet another new start for all of us.

We made love, I cooked wonderful dinners, we took Nick to the park and watched him swing high in the air, happy and laughing. Then Michael packed his bags, put on his helmet, and went off to war. Packed his bags, put on his mascara, long white linen coat, and lace-up boxing boots, and went off on tour. Private jets, suites at the Ritz, fancy fresh fruit baskets, limo city personified with the hoitytoity stars - since - they - were - teenagers - Duran - Duran - spoiled - brat - baby-boy-multimillionaires.

Actually I came to adore John Taylor and Andy Taylor. John was
a ravishing slab of serious trouble, elegantly charming—almost swashbuckling in a genteel British way. His lips were real red, he had a hearty, naughty laugh and a very improper look in his sparkly eyes (though he always treated me like a true lady). During the tour Michael had woven a sober spell around Andy, and he was making a glorious effort to stay off the booze. He was a mischievous, flirtatious gnome; a cute and sexy, cheeky, smarty-pants superstar. He had lo-oong hair, a quiet little blond wife, and an adorable baby boy, Little Andy, who grabbed my Ray Bans one night and pounded them into dark green granules.

By the time Power Station came to play Los Angeles, Michael was fully integrated into the grand world of superstar heaviosity. He even walked cockier and held his head at a jauntier angle. His new road wardrobe was flowing chiffon—red, black, and white, the Power Station colors—carelessly tossed together with a cocky, jaunty flair. Michael always had an exquisite sense of style, and now he was able to use it dramatically, to the hilt. When Nick and I went to visit him at the hotel (he stayed with the band during the L.A. stint) I actually felt intimidated and excited, seeing my husband in this successful, nonchalant, world-weary mode. Despite the fact that he was inundated with interviewers, butt-licking liggers, record company cretins, newfangled, fangs-bared groupies, and various heavy hitters, his AA humility remained intact—joyous gratitude shining through the platinum-plated excess. Nick took to the fruit baskets and brie plates as if to the manner born and expected the snazzy life-style to continue nonstop. The family languished by the pool, eating strawberries out of a pineapple shell while people peeked through the bushes at the new singer for Power Station, watching his every cocky, jaunty move. God was giving Michael the magic rock-and-roll moment in the sun that he so richly deserved, and for that I was once again truly grateful.

It had been a long time since I had been locked within that very small world inhabited by much-desired, coveted rock gods. The whole thing made my cheeks red despite the fact that backstage was a totally different experience than it had been during the heydays of yore. No visitors were allowed—just the band, John’s model-girlfriend, and parents, a few other band family members, me, Patti, and the road crew, who ate chunks of Cheddar and took photos of each other. I suppose the former backstage pizzazz had been destroyed by charmers like John Hinckley and stupid duped groupies who jacked off peon roadies to gain entrance into the hallway next to the dressing room. Gun-toting security guards had taken the place of
fun-seeking, music-loving “in”-crowders. I briefly mourned the old days while sitting in the new inner sanctum, sipping Pellegrino, waiting for my husband to entertain the hungry crowd. A couple years later when I went to see Robert Plant at the Forum I was the
only
girl allowed backstage, and while I felt momentarily privileged, I missed the feather-boa glory of the sticky, sweaty, heady sixties when rock was young. Corny, but too, too true.

I watched from the side of the stage while Michael drove them wild, feeling pride mixed up with sorrow. He was so damn good at what he did, and it had been such a struggle for him that I cried while he pranced around on the giant stage, his long red scarves billowing, the girls screaming, bright lights hitting him, and loud, thunderous music wrapping him tight in its powerful, baptismal spell. I loved him so much. I felt his turmoil and ecstasy, almost passing out from the crashing weight of it. Nick stayed with my mom so I could spend the night with Michael in the hotel. I carried his wet clothes, I wrapped a towel around him, held him close in his illustrious moment, and loved the needy little boy inside that had been hung out to dry and given up for dead by his twisted, selfish parents. I tried so hard to forgive them like Jesus said, for they had no idea what they had done to their only son. Forgive them, forgive them, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Incredibly, amid all this exciting turmoil, I finished quite a bit of my manuscript. The weight of my work in my hands, as cliched as that sounds, felt like a deliverance from the mundane, the dryasdust flatlands where most people are content to languish, where I had found myself more than one too many times. And miraculously, through a bunch of nutty circumstances, a big-time agent, Mel Berger at William Morris, had taken the project on and actually sold it. The fact that my editors, Jim Landis and Jane Meara at Morrow, thought it was good enough to stick in the bookstores made me feel like shoving back my shoulders and jutting out my chin. I felt real pride creeping in—the good kind of pride that makes you happy to be who you are. I got heartily pissed off when people asked me who I’d used as my “ghost” or cowriter. I had a ghost all right. I had finally glommed onto my very own personal Holy Ghost, tapping into it like a bee dipping into sweet honeysuckle.

I spent days on the phone, looking up photographers who might have taken photos of me in my wilder moments, called acres of music publishers, buying rights to the lyrics I quoted. I got charged the most for “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ” by an old-time lawyer Bob Dylan must have hired eons ago, and since Danny Sugerman is an old friend of mine, didn’t have to pay anything for the Doors’ lyrics. The Boss didn’t want a dime for “Dancing in the Dark” either. What a cool guy.

A double celebration was in order—for my book and for Michael’s tour—so he, Patti, and I got extravagant and rented a limousine to
see Prince at the Forum. Prince had become my pet fantasy-porn puppet. I even had salacious, drippy dreams about him and woke up in a delirious, carnal sweet-heat-sweat, hankering for his tiny, hot highness. As the limo pulled into the parking lot, I asked once again if Patti had any ideas for the book title. She thought for a moment and shook her head. “I’ll get it, don’t worry.” When the limo attempted to enter the private band area unsuccessfully, I yelled out, laughing, “Hey, you’ve got to let me in, I’m with the band!” Patti yelped so frightfully loud it scared me. “That’s it! That’s it! The title for your book!
I’m with the Band
!” It was triple revelry at the Prince Purple Rain show that night. Prince slithered around under the covers onstage, setting my crotch and soul on fire—and I had a title!