Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up (3 page)

My book party in L.A. was held at an itsy underground club in Venice called the Pink. Originally it had been a lesbian bar, hence the colorful name. Risqué chic from top to bottom. All my friends were there, the pinkest champagne was festively flowing, and I had finally accomplished something of my own that made me proud. My KISS pal, Gene Simmons, was looking at me with his businessman eyes, dollar-sign pupils. Justine Bateman arrived on a shiny Harley D., scanning for Leif Garrett. My ex-lost love Donnie Johnson sent
a bouquet from Miami that was almost embarrassing, taking up an entire corner of the crowded, bzzzz-ing room. Congratulations, Sweetheart. There was a gooey cake with plastic Beatle dolls on top, forever in mid-song, representing
Chapter One
. Girlfriends from high school said, “So you made something out of that loony life of yours, after all.” Bravo. Or is it brava?

I had been to a zillion psychics; they had all told me I was a “late bloomer” and my success would come “later in life.” That’s something you’re not too thrilled to hear when you’re barely eighteen, but that sweet day at the Pink, it seemed that “later in life” had finally arrived. My book was stacked up all over the mini-cavern, the scent of hundreds of roses making me feel giddy and tipsy. Loud sixties memory-music had everybody shouting out instead of just speaking up. The day had come. It was finally my turn to curtsy, and Michael’s turn to bow out gracefully. Ouch.

I was wearing a white, dragging-the-ground, frothy ripped-up lace number, high spiked diamanté heels, and red, red lips; looking madly elegant but feeling like an emotional moron. Veering from wacko gleeful to overwhelmingly melancholy, I felt like I was walking a shredded, golden tightrope. Holding hands with friends, kissing cheeks. Happy/sad. Michael made a poignant, inspired toast with sparkling apple cider about love and regrets, his dark, dark eyes shining with unshed tears. Champagne glasses were held high as he praised my budding talent to the giant skies, cracking up everybody with spot-on one-liners. I was beginning a rock novel called
Blush,
and with his glass in the air, Michael closed his disarming, charming Pamela pitch by saying, “Her first book made you shiver. Her new one will make you—blush.” Applause, applause. Even when his life was collapsing around him, he could send people reeling with his wit and hysterical charm. Laugh, laugh—I thought I would die. All his clothes were still in the closet, tapes in the tape deck, photos on the walls, Opium colognes and body lotions lining the cupboards, his index finger still jammed tight into my solar plexus, but I missed him already.

I grew up believing that true love lasts forever. It’s still an ideal that I aspire to, even though I’ve been squashed flat and hung out to dry in the ice-cold, harsh-assed, whipping wind of reality. It’s such an age-old story of betrayal and pain that I hardly know how to tell
it. Michael and I have been apart four years now, and it’s true that our old and trusted pal Mr. Time has healed the open, oozing wound. But nothing will ever take away those days, weeks, and months when suffering, angst, and terror were the rules of the game. It can’t be any other way when your life flies apart like the biggest bully in the world has stamped your flawlessly concocted dollhouse to smithereens.

And an amazing little dollhouse of dreams it was. I never would have believed for a split second that the California earthquake might come along behind the naughty bully and make sure it was well and truly crushed flat. Michael and I had worked up a pretty lively life scenario for ourselves. Never had any idea what was around the corner of any God-given moment—who might walk through our door and stay awhile, what borderline-renown personality would call and invite us to some sort of spectacular event. Our dinner parties and yard sales were attended by the coolest of the cool. Madonna dug into my heart-shaped carrot cake before it was cut, Billy Idol wore Michael’s old boots down the street. Life was a tempting dessert full of surprises. Our little boy had a gigantic IQ and a heart-stopping smile. It was assumed all around that Michael and I were the Perfect Couple—a match made where it counts. Surrounding our tantalizing yet cozy-wozy love next was the unwieldy, gold-spattered world of show biz and all its come-hither, half-assed promises. But I’m leaping ahead of myself here, so let’s go back, let’s go waaay back—to the days before the Sex Pistols, when David Bowie was still androgynous, when John Lennon was still very much alive. When Pamela Des Barres was still Pamela Miller from Reseda, California, looking real hard for love.

Michael and I met on a movie set in Manhattan. My ex-passion and old friend Keith Moon didn’t show up to play the part of the debauched, mongrel rock star, so the director of
Arizonaslim,
Chuck Wein, had to comb the gutters and agencies of New York City, seeking an impossible overnight replacement for the reckless, feckless drummer of the Who. He came up with the lead singer of a glam band called Silverhead, and I was ever so curious to see who I was going to adore on screen. I arrived at the location, an upscale pad in the West Village, in costume. It was three below zero and I was decked out in turquoise Betsey Johnson knitted short-shorts—Miss
Casual, together, star-of-the-movie. In my mind’s third eye I can still recall the exact instant I set eyes on Michael Philip Des Barres.

It was his twenty-sixth birthday, which in retrospect is pretty propitious. The birthday boy was scroonched up on the couch alongside one of the bit players, a flitty-eyed girl with a shag-do who was attempting to engage him in conversation. He came out of the void as I made my noisy entrance, and stared at my chill-bumped ass with crazy blue-black eyes. Encouraging, to say the least. The degenerate rock star and I had quite a few scenes together that day, so I yanked out my script in hopes of some rehearsal. Wearing silver lame cut down to the belly button, a fake, tatty leopard coat, ladies’ white patent flats and with a chiseled face full of yesterday’s makeup, Michael watched me walk toward him with a lion’s den grin full of chipped British teeth. (What’s wrong with the dentists over there, anyway?) He obviously lived an audacious and irresponsible life; just the kind of person who has always been intriguing to me, much to my dear mother’s dismay.

Michael and I hunkered down to rehearse and wound up snorting piles of coke together. I had tried to stop taking all drugs a couple of times before and almost overcame the urge entirely after going on a two-week papaya fast. I felt so whistle clean and gunk-free; like all my insides were just born. I floated around in a natural sprouted-wheat celestial state for a few days afterward, determined to stay pure. In the early days of zoning out on pot and psychedelics, I considered it some kind of inner soul search, but now I knew better, and besides feeling my liver shudder, I knew that Jesus, Buddha, and Paramahansa Yogananda were shaking their heads in shame and sorrow for the goofy chick who kept slipping off the path. So Michael and I did our scenes together—high as kites—the first of which involved lounging in the back of a limo, discussing Elvis Presley, one of our many, as it turned out, mutual heroes. Since a portion of my heart belonged to an unavailable Southern hunk back home, I wasn’t instantly smitten with Michael, so was able to be myself, and he was mesmerized. He told me he loved my all-girl band, the GTO’s (Girls Together Outrageously), and had harbored a secret desire to meet me after seeing my picture in
Melody Maker
. Was that the one where I stretched out across the conference table?

Michael and I worked hard all day on the low-budget disaster, and by night-crash I was a twitching wretch, wringing my hands in cokedout despair. Debonair Michael, obviously a drug pro, dug up a couple
of Valiums from the flitty-eyed extra, graciously placed them in my sweaty palm, and disappeared into the mad night. I was surprised he hadn’t attempted to woo my ass, but of course it made him all the more provocative.

I slept like sixteen tons and met up with him the next evening where we were filming the backstage scene with his glitter band Silverhead. I perched on his lap, because it was in the script—ha ha—and he casually stroked my thigh while wailing with a gigantic, raspy voice, rehearsing the raunchy set. KISS was the opening act, and I could hear the
thump-thump
of Peter Criss’s bass drum through my sling-backs, while Chuck filmed the whole scene. Something was certainly going on inside my lacy undergarments as I wriggled on his scrawny lap, why deny it? He came back to the Beekman Tower with me and tossed my costume across the room in a brazen heap, plowing into me with his lips until I screeched him to a halt. How much can you take? We couldn’t do the full deed because Michael had caught some unmentionable infection in Japan and was chivalrous enough not to plant it inside me. A true gentleman. I suppose that’s why he hadn’t tried to win me over on the first night. “It’s just as well,” I burbled to myself. “Do I really need this rumpled, stoned-out smart-ass in my life? He’s a rock guy who lives across the ocean, and I’ve had enough of that shit.” We went shopping the next day, and he spent an entire week’s per diem on little trinkets for me, red velvet pumps for himself, and a fancy, romantic dinner at the famous Luchow’s, where we drank fine wine from chilled crystal goblets. White-haired violinists came to our table, playing Strauss waltzes while Michael and I drilled lust holes into each other and ate great buttery lumps of rich food. I think I stuffed down an entire duck crammed full of bing cherries. Poor little quacker.

As the antique music waltzed around us, Michael told me he came from a long, long line of blue-blooded French aristocrats; he was titled and would one day be the Marquis Des Barres. At present he was but a mere Count. He grabbed hold of my hand and announced that I would make a ravishing countess. “I think we shall be married one day,” he said matter-of-factly, right in my eyes. And here I thought I was just having a little fun.

It was no laughing matter, even though there was a lot of laughter involved. Michael pursued me, got in the way of my Southern romance, and trampled it right down on his way to my front door. My mom’s eyebrows were raised; she hoped it wasn’t serious. Silverhead came to Los Angeles and took the underage groupie crowd by storm,
but even though the baby bumpers made themselves mightily available, I was the one hanging onto the lead singer’s tatty leopard coat. We made intrinsic love in his crumpled bed at the Hyatt House, musky, tangy bonding all night long. Michael ripped up the Whisky a Go Go in a last attempt at original raunch. The band put out two racy records that not enough people bought. Silverhead should have made it massive, but when they got back to England they busted up instead.

Michael made me fall in love with him. He insisted. He demanded no less than instant total commitment, which I was absolutely ready for. Long distance I found out that he was already married, but even though I almost fainted with stunned grief, it was too late for either one of us to back off. We moaned and loved into the crackling phone wires, pledged foreverness, played with ourselves until it hurt. As soon as he could dig up the required loot, he would leave behind the first wife, his record company, his parents; give up his entire former existence and come straight to me.

When that day of all days finally arrived, I waited anxiously at LAX, wearing a skimpy, defiant ensemble, watching all the normal folks saunter out of the plane, my yammering heart gift-wrapped, ripe, and ready to be handed over to the final man in my life. Take it!!! Michael arrived forever with his hair dryer in a paper bag and a five-dollar bill wadded up in one of his patent-leather baby-doll shoes. Staggering out last, he was so far behind the others that I had started to shake and shiver like a bad-tempered snowman was standing behind me, sliding his icy finger down my feverish spine. In those long few seconds my mind churned. Had he missed the plane? Bumped into his wife? Changed his mind? Passed out on someone’s floor in London? Then we saw each other, our eyes rapt with relief, desire, adoration, fear. We grabbed on and held tight, locked together at last in a keyless knot. We stopped for a drink at the first bar we bumped into, and he cast his full fate to the Santa Ana winds, spending all the money he had in the world on a couple of cocktails. We murmured to each other in the darkened airport bar, swearing eternal and profound true love, full of sweet-eyed, honey-dripping, sticky-faced tears, and promises, promises. Big Important Promises. He tossed the hair dryer into the trash on the way to the car because I pointed out that it had a European plug and wouldn’t have worked
in our little Hollywood love lair. He was a man without a country or a hair dryer, and even though his hands were empty, they were all over me. This man had surpassed many hard-core, sweaty, and serious odds to get to me, had left a wacky, mortified wife, a set of loony, mismatched, busted-up parents, a glitter-glam career, and a super-trendy record company. I was bound and determined to show him my unceasing, undying affection and appreciation, starting right now! Put yourself in my hands, honey bun. Leave it
all
up to me. You know you’ve got it if it makes you feel good.

We got into my little Volkswagen and drove, all touchy-feely, to my Hollywood fairy-tale pad on Maryland Drive—a do-it-yourself thirties charmer over somebody’s garage, hidden by leafy apricot trees—the perfect passion haven for pent-up lovers. The walls were full of Mickey Mouse, Snow White, Elvis and James Dean, along with a devilish shot of Robert Plant, which Michael promptly removed and replaced with a shot of himself, grinning devilishly, both hands on his cock. We settled down in front of the black-and-white TV and watched happy, ancient half hours, rolled around in the sheets, screaming with nasty glee, shutting out the entire big, bad world. I made American cheese sandwiches on white Weber’s bread, long before they had fake whole wheat, turned Michael onto Dr. Pepper, and the combo became our constant meal of choice.