FicWad

Alan Niven
This band was going to be the death of me, I was sure of it. David Geffen himself and I were in the car on our way over to the house that the guys had lived in all of one night to see what the fuck had gone down here the night before. I’d gotten a call last night from Geffen who had gotten a call from Tom Zutaut, one of our publicity guys who would be spending the next few days in the hospital thanks to my newly signed delinquents. Tom said that they had beat up because they thought he stole drugs from them but something doesn’t sit right with his story.

Those guys could get whatever drugs they wanted from Izzy if he had the connections I reckoned him to. They had decent money from their advance right at this second; the disappearance of some coke wouldn’t send them into the kind of rage that had been exerted on Zutaut. The guy had teeth knocked out and broken ribs and a broken nose and who the fuck knows what all. I don’t see any of those guys losing their cool over dope like that. Shit though, who knows what people will do on coke? I’d also gotten a call from Electra chewing my ass because their precious Nikki had gotten arrested over there at whatever party they were throwing; they want me to talk to them about toning it down and not causing trouble that brings cops. My head is starting to hurt.

We drive up to the house and the first thing I notice is that the tree in the front yard has been uhhh damaged somehow? Two huge limbs have broken off of it and it’s split almost in half; how the fuck did they manage that? Do I even want to know? Geffen gets out of the car and raises his eyebrows at me; I just shrug. We walk up onto the porch and I try the door before I knock and it’s not locked. Geffen and I walk into the living room, which is a wreck; liquor bottles and beer cans and cigarettes everywhere; must have been one hell of a party. Passed out on the two cheap, broken down couches are none other than Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee; apparently they didn’t follow Electra’s directions to go home immediately after they got let out of handcuffs. I go over and shake Nikki awake and Geffen wakes up Tommy. There’s a lot of moaning and groaning and cursing but they eventually are awake enough to understand who’s standing in front of them. “Allen what the fuck are you doing here? We didn’t invite you to the party!” Nikki growls.

“Yeah, well, I’m here to clean up your mess Sixx. Where’s my band?” I ask.

“Upstairs asleep I imagine; or maybe not,” he says with that enigmatic smirk of his.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I ask him.

“Nothing,” he answers and lights up a cigarette. Yeah right, any time that look is on his face it’s not nothing.

“I’ll go get them,” I tell David but he just shakes his head.

“I’m coming with you, might as well know what we’re dealing with here. It’s my money after all,” he says as he walks behind me up the stairs. We get to the first bedroom door and I open it to find a passed out Steven with his arm slung over a big breasted brunette. No surprises there. I wake him up and tell him to get his ass downstairs pronto. The room across the hall holds some surprises though. Izzy and Axl are curled up in one of the two twin beds in the room; Izzy’s body spooned around Axl’s whose face looks a little puffy and red like he’d been crying at some point. Well, that wasn’t something I thought I would see this morning but whatever…except this is going to be a PR nightmare if it ever gets out that these guys are gay? Bi? Who knows but I need to market them to a female audience. Geffen, who is very openly gay reaches over and shakes Izzy’s shoulder. Izzy’s sitting up in a second with a gun pointed at us.

“Izzy what the fuck? Do you sleep with that thing under your fucking pillow? It’s me, Alan and Geffen…” I trail off when he lowers his arm and just outright glares at us.

“The fuck do you want?” he snarls, looking down at Axl who is blinking sleep out his eyes and shifting around a little.

“We need to know what went down here last night, meet us downstairs. Any surprises waiting for us across the hall? Anyone else have guns? Knives? Hand grenades? Rocket launchers?”

Izzy just snorts and shakes his head. “No, but if you find something you don’t like or don’t want to see don’t blame me.”

David and I head across the hall warily. I open the door and what appears to be a ball of hair is curled up in the bed. Looks like it’s Duff who is impossibly curled up around Slash who’s dark mop of curls would be recognizable anywhere. How the hell can they sleep like that? It does not look comfortable. So them too huh? But that’s not what bothers me. What bothers me are the syringes and the burnt spoon on the night table. Heroin, just great. “Duff,” I say quietly and shake his shoulder. He doesn’t stir. “Duff!” I say louder and shake him again. He opens his eyes and I watch as a soft look crosses his face and he reaches over and brushes some of Slash’s hair out of his eyes. “Duff!” I say to him and he just about jumps a mile when he realizes that he’s not alone in the room.

“What the fuck are you doing in my room?” Duff asks bewildered, his eyes huge.

“Chill out man, we need to talk to you guys about what the hell went down here last night,” I reassure him.

“I’ll tell you what the fuck went down,” Duff growls and sits up, making sure the blankets are still covering up his curly haired lover. “That fuck that works for you, Tom or whatever? He fucking came over here and tried to force himself on Slash! Fucking kid could hardly stand up, much less fight him off! I made sure his hands won’t be touching anything or anyone else for quite a while, that’s what fucking happened! Fuck my head hurts,” he mumbles and rubs at his temples. I notice that there’s a fair amount of dried blood on the back of his hands.

I knew something wasn’t right with Tom’s story. “Is he on smack?” I ask nodding towards the passed out guitarist who hasn’t even moved this whole time. Duff just glares at me. I gesture towards the needles and spoon on the nightstand. I don’t get an answer. “Get him up and downstairs in five minutes ok?” Duff nods and runs his hand down over his face. Geffen and I head back downstairs to wait. How in the hell am I going to keep the relationships between these guys under wraps for very long? How am I going to keep the press from fucking figuring it out? One wrong move and their career could be totally derailed… I think my head probably hurts just as much as Duff’s does right now.

Five minutes later I have five Gunners and Two Crue members flopped on the floor in front of me or draped over the two couches in the room. I clear my throat as a signal for everyone to pay attention and 7 pairs of eyes turn towards me. Drunk, pissed off, tired, smacked out, a range of emotions are reflected back at me. I look over at David Geffen and see his eyes sparkling with amusement at my discomfort. “Soooo,” I begin, “we got a call this morning from one of our publicity guys Tom Zutaut saying that he was in the hospital and that you guys put him there. He said he came to the party last night to meet you guys and that you beat him up and threatened to shoot him because you thought he stole some drugs. We want to hear what you guys have to say.”

“Drugs my ass,” Izzy snorts. “We fucking put him in the hospital but it wasn’t cause of no fucking drugs! I found him outside my door trying to get into Curly Sue’s pants! Kid said no, to get the fuck off of him; your guy had a problem listening to that so we took care of the problem.”

I look over to Slash who’s nodding out on the sofa “Is that true Slash?” I ask him.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, he fucking shoved me up against Izzy’s door and tried to put his hands all up on my shit! I told him to get the fuck off of me man but he wouldn’t go away; so we made him go away.” That’s apparently all the curly haired kid has energy to say because he curls up into the arm of the couch and dozes off again.
“So who else besides your guitarist has a smack habit?” Geffen asks.

“Kid doesn’t have a smack habit,” Izzy growls. “He was fucking clean! He put himself through seven days of fucking hell on earth to get clean when we got signed and then that piece of shit that works for you comes over and puts his hands all over him and we’re fucking back to square one! I don’t know what you sick fucks heard from other record labels but we’re not doing shit else but making music now that we’re signed; are we fucking clear?”

“Whoah whoah whoah; we didn’t send Tom over here for anything other than to meet you guys and get an idea of who you are; his conduct was totally inappropriate and I can assure you he will no longer be working for us. We don’t expect you to do anything other than make music Mr. Stradlin; but we do ask that you survive long enough to do that. Are those ok terms?” Geffen asks from his spot in a shabby recliner.

“You just keep predatory pieces of shit away from us; especially the kid, they really seem to like him for some reason and he seriously can’t deal with any more shit. That’s our one non-negotiable,” Axl says in his deep baritone.

“Does somebody want to let me in on whatever the hell you all are talking about here?” Geffen asks, totally bewildered. He lives in his own little world and he’s a decent guy who looks properly shocked and horrified at Tom’s behavior. I can’t say that I’m surprised though and I know exactly what these guys are talking about. I’ve heard all the ugly rumors going around town from Avi and Electra and Virgin; I didn’t know it was going on in our company but I guess it was niave to think it wasn’t. If even a third of the shit I’ve heard these guys went through is true then it’s too much; no wonder they’re either strung out or drunk. I probably would be too.

Izzy sort of chuckles but it’s a dark, hollow sound. Mr. Geffen, there’s no way you don’t know what fuckers from record companies want from guys like us who are trying to get a deal and we’ve all paid the price several times over.”

“Well not here you won’t; all we want if your music, can you give us that? Give us your best effort on an album? Get your guitarist cleaned up again?” David asks.

“I’m not making any promises on getting him completely clean; he’s had some really fucked up shit forced on him, shit he can’t get out of his head. He’s a fucking 19 year old kid in love that old men can’t seem to keep their dirty hands off of; if that were you how easy would it be for you to stay clean and stay sane at the same time? He’ll be fine eventually; I’ll make sure he stays alive and can play and Duff will make sure he stays happy more or less how’s that?” Izzy asks blowing smoke up into the air. The kid never moves; he sleeps through the whole conversation.

I look over at Geffen who’s giving the kid a funny look. “Do I know him?” Geffen asks.

“Yeah you know him; he lived across the street from you when he was a kid,” Duff tells Geffen.

“That’s it! That’s why he looks familiar! Hudson’s his last name; his mother is Ola! She was friends with Bowie!” Geffen crows.

“Yeah, that’s his mom,” Duff says. “She doesn’t need to know any of this ok? He doesn’t want her too.”

“Yeah, I imagine not; she’s a hell of a woman; no wonder that boy’s so damn talented. I don’t know how you guys all lucked out and found each other but every single one of you has something amazing inside to offer the world and you shine even brighter together; don’t forget that. Stay this way; stay friends, stay open, stay protective of one another, stay together and you’ll go places you never dreamed of. But please stay alive and sober enough to play and out of jail; can you do that?”

“We can try,” Izzy sighs.

“Now, about the tree outside; what the fuck happened there? Nikki that has your fucking name written all over it…”I groan.

“Me? Nikki asks from the kitchen doorway, “Why does it have to be me?” I just give him a look.

“That was the destructo twins,” Axl huffs. Whenever Nikki and Izzy get together some major shit always goes down; last night they decided that blowing up the tree in the front yard sounded like a good idea.”

“What?! How the fuck did you manage that?” I ask.

“Ball of bullets and a loaded gun, that’s how,” Izzy drawls.

“You almost got us fucking arrested with your ball of bullets asshole!” Axl seethes and starts to turn slightly pink.

“Shut the fuck up Fireball you’re not in jail and if you were I’d come get your angry little ass wouldn’t I? So quit worrying about shit! Settle down before you start foaming at the mouth again like you did last night! I am not in the mood to hold your ass down on the ground while you try and bite me again so don’t fucking push your luck this morning darlin,” Izzy hisses and gives Axl a deadly look. Axl has the good sense to keep quiet but not Nikki.

“Fucking tree was obstructing our view so we trimmed it back,” Nikki laughs.

“Obstructing your view of what asshole?” Axl challenges.

“The street that’s what! Never know who’s out there; you’ll thank me one day,” Nikki tells Axl.

“Sixx I will never thank you for anything as long as I live so don’t hold your fucking breath!” Axl sneers.

“Axl thinks I’m a bad influence on Izzy,” Nikki says with fake simperiness in his voice.

“Name one good thing that’s ever happened when the two of you got tothether!” Axl dares Nikki.

“Well, let’s see…he brought me back to life when I drowned in the pool?” Nikki offers sarcastically.

“That is not a good thing from my point of view,” Axl informs him.

“Hmm well ok, how about Tommy got laid?” Nikki asks with an evil smirk. A streak of red hair is all I see as Axl jumps off of the couch and launches himself at Nikki. Nikki grabs the red tornado by his shirt collar and holds him up in the air while Axl flails around and tries in vain to get at him. “Izzy your pitbull needs restraining,” Nikki giggles as he continues to hold the furious singer up in the air.

“Just keep him up there for a little bit,” Izzy says with an evil smile. “If you put him down now he’ll come after me and I already dealt with that shit in the past 24 hours.”

“Izzy you piece of shit when I get down you’re going to wish you were never born!” Axl screeches and then kicks Nikki in the nuts when his attention moves over to Izzy and he’s not expecting it. Nikki drops him and doubles over and Axl slams out the front door.

“Goddamnit Nikki, do you always have to try and piss him off so bad all the time? Now I’m gonna hear about that shit forever and I’m gonna have to go the fuck after him! Mother fucker! I wish his uptight little ass would shoot up once in a while; he’d be a lot fucking calmer!” Izzy snaps and follows their singer out the door slamming it behind them. The noise wakes up the sleeping guitarist on the end of the couch and he looks up, confused.

“What the hell was that?” he asks.

“Axl and Izzy fighting again no thanks to Nikki,” Duff grumbles.

“How long have they been together?” I ask.

“10 fucking years,” Duff groans rubbing his eyes and looking over at Slash. “If you act like that in 10 years I swear to god I’ll kill you in your sleep!” he tells him. Slash just glares at him and pouts.

“The guilt would eat away at you; you’re too nice to be a killer,” Slash says sleepily.

“Don’t push your luck with the smack or you’ll find out how not nice I am,” Duff sighs. Slash gives him this pleading, puppydog face that would make even Hitler have to give in to him and Duff shakes his head and holds his arms out and Slash snuggles up underneath one.

“Ok, now about that…I say gesturing at the two of them, “You can do whatever you want behind closed doors but like Tommy over there you’re going to have to keep that shit under wraps in public and believe me very soon you are going to have almost NO privacy; think you can handle it?”

“We got it,” Slash reassures me. They so don’t got it; if they had it he wouldn’t be higher than a fucking kite right now.