it’s so easy by duff mckagan—read an excerpt!

8/6/2019 Its So Easy by Duff McKaganread an excerpt!

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30314_It's So Easy.indd 1 7/15/11 9:58 AM


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ITS SO EASY(d h l)

Duff McKagan

A TOuchSTOnE BOOk

Published by Simon & Schuster

New York London Toronto Sydney New Delhi



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ouchstone

A Division o Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue o the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Copyright 2011 by Du McKagan

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions

thereo in any orm whatsoever. For inormation address ouchstone SubsidiaryRights Department, 1230 Avenue o the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

Te names and identiying details o some o the people described

in the book have been changed to protect their privacy.

First ouchstone hardcover edition October 2011

OUCHSONE and colophon are registered trademarks

o Simon & Schuster, Inc.

For inormation about special discounts or bulk purchases,

please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at

1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].

Te Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For

more inormation or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers

Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

Designed by Joy OMeara

Manuactured in the United States o America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library o Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McKagan, Du.Its so easy : (and other lies) / Du McKagan.

p. cm.

A ouchstone Book.

1. McKagan, Du. 2. Bass guitaristsUnited StatesBiography.

3. Guns n Roses (Musical group) I. itle.

ML418.M2A3 2011

787.87'166092dc22

[B] 2011013545

ISBN 978-1-4516-0663-8

ISBN 978-1-4516-0665-2 (ebook)



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For Marie Alice McKagan



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He went on and on down the road, nally coming to a black

woods, where he hid and wept as i his heart would break.

Ah, what agony was that, what despair, when the tomb omemory was rent open and the ghosts o his old lie came

orth to scourge him!

Upton Sinclair, Te Jungle



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Contents

Authors note xi

Prologue 1

PArt one

KnoCK in on heAvens Door 7

PArt two

Just An urChin living unDer the street 81

PArt three

loADeD 141

PArt Four

i D looK right uP At night

AnD All i D see wAs DArKness 177



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x C o n t en t s

PArt Five

A gooD DAy to Die 227

PArt six

you shineD A light where it wAs DArK ,

on My wAsteD heArt 275

PArt seven

FAll to PieCes 307

PArt eight

you CAnt Put your ArMs

ArounD A MeMory 333

ACKnowleDgMents 363



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10/29

IS SO EASY

(and other lies)



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ProLogue

August 2010

DJ Morty is standing behind a table in the backyard. Te anemic last

rays o a late-aernoon Caliornia sun stream over the adobe roo tiles

o the single-story house I share with my wie, Susan, and our two girls,

Grace and Mae. In ront o the DJ table is a small patch o polished wood

plankinga portable danceoor we rented along with a ew little tablesand chairs.

Morty scans the tracks on his laptop, ddles with his MP3 console,

and double-checks the cords connecting it all to the amp and speakers.

Hes getting ready or the party. Ive met Morty a ew times at other events

around town; I oen end up eeling like the middle-aged dork at hipster

shindigs, and sometimes the most comortable thing to do is chat about

music with the DJ.

oday, though, as the aernoon ades to evening in Los Angeles, Imeven more out o place than usual. Or at least less welcome. Grace is turn-

ing thirteen today and were throwing a party. Grace has already told me

and her mom to stay completely invisible. Her exact words: Youre not

invited.

Ah, the joys o parenthood.

Still, Susan and I are going all out or the party. Birthdays at this age

are a big deal. I remember when turning eighteen was considered a mile-

stone, but even at that age my celebration had been limited to a ew good



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2 Duf f M ck A g A n

riends and amily members. Partly its to do with socio-economic dier-

ences between my childhood and my childrens. Tese days we live in aar more afuent area than the one where I grew up. When you can aord

more, you do more, and the kids in a neighborhood like this develop a

set o expectations. So in addition to the DJ, theres a photo booth and

a henna tattoo station.

Another reason weve gone all out is that we suspect this could be the

last time Grace, the older o our two girls, will want to celebrate at home.

Oh well.

Planning this party was bewildering at times. When I called thephoto-booth rental company, the rst question they asked me was, What

will the theme o the photo paper be?

Huh?

Yeah, the machine spits out stripsour little passport style photos

on each strip. You can have writing along the side.

I got up to speed ast. Te strips o passport photos will read Graces

13th Birthday Party.

Now the day o the party has arrived and Im making sure everythingis ready. Te woman at the henna tattoo table has her book o patterns

set out and is comortably settled into a chair. I take her a glass o water.

I hungrily eye the ood table, where the makings o a delicious Mexican

east are being laid out. Te caterer is even dredging up tortillas, made

rom scratch, out o a kettle o oil. Teres also an ice-cream bar. I love ice

cream. Tis is going to be a kick-ass party.

DJ Morty puts on Princes Controversy and cranks the amp up to

party volume. I yell to Susan. When she joins me in the backyard, I dragher out onto the little danceoor and start to shimmy. Little known act

about the original members o Guns N Roses: we dance. Everyone knows

Axls serpentine slither, o course. Far ewer people know that Slash is also

a world-class Russian crouch-down-and-kick-your-legs-out dancer. And

me, well . . .

Dad! Grace yells.

I stop in the middle o a move and turn to look at her.

People are going to start arriving any minute!



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I T S S O E A S Y 3

Shes mortied. Already.

Yes, yes, yes, I can deal with this. Shes just growing up.As Graces riends start to show up, Grace again makes it clear that

she has orbidden us rom coming out to the backyard during the party.

Apparently parents are an embarrassment at this age. Whatever. Peeking

out the back door as the party gets into gear, I see little packs o boys and

girls hanging out, smiling, and laughing shyly. Some o these kids are

starting to look like adultsone o the boys is almost my height.

An hour or so later Im thinking I should really take a glass o water

to the guy running the photo booth and see how things are going or thehenna tattoo artist and make sure everyone is behaving. Im responsible

or these kids, aer all. Hell, the DJ is a riend o mine, so I have to visit a

little bit with him. And, well, the ood looks really good, too, and I should

probably get a plate or Susan. And while Im at it, might as well get one

or mysel.

Im not snooping, I tell mysel as I push open the back door and step

out. By no means. I am just being a responsible dad. Yep.

Should I go or ice cream now, or come back or it later?As I round a blind corner o the house I stop cold, stunned: a boy and

a girl are kissing.

Oh shit.

I reeze, not sure what to say or do.

I wasnt expecting this.

My mind rushes through a checklist I didnt even realize I had in my

head. Its a checklist o things I was doing at this same ageand it doubles

as a checklist o things that as a parent I do not want a group o kids in mycharge doing in my backyard.

Are they boozing?

No.

Smoking pot?

No.

Dropping acid?

No.

I started smoking pot at a really young age: ourth grade, to be exact.



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I took my rst drink in the h grade and tasted LSD or the rst time

in sixth grade when I was oered blotter acid by an eighth grader on myway to Eckstein Middle School in Seattle. In the Northwest, mushrooms

grew everywhereon parking strips and in peoples backyards and just

about everywhere elseand I soon learned which ones got you high. By

the seventh grade, I was an expert at distinguishing liberty-cap mush-

rooms rom all the ones that didnt get you high. I rst snorted coke in

seventh grade, too. I also tried codeine, quaaludes, and Valium in mid-

dle school. Tere wasnt a huge stigma attached to child drug use in the

1970s, and there werent warnings blaring everywhere about the dangers.Ten I got into music. Te early punk-rock movement in Seattle was

pretty minuscule, so we all knew one another and played in one anothers

bands. I was only ourteen when I started playing drums, bass, and guitar

in various bands, and I went on tour with the Fastbacks at a time when

other kids in my class were eating cotton candy and dreaming o the day

theyd be old enough to get their drivers licenses. I continued to drink a

ton o beer and to experiment with LSD, mushrooms, and coke.

Are these kids taking mushrooms?No.

Cocaine?

No.

Ten, sometime in 1982, as the music scene became bigger and a

recession hit Seattle, we all noticed a huge inux o heroin and pills. Ad-

diction suddenly skyrocketed within my circle o riends, and death by

overdose became almost commonplace. I witnessed my rst overdose

when I was eighteen. I saw the rst love o my lie wither away becauseo smack and one o my bands implode because o it. By the time I was

twenty-three, two o my best riends had died rom heroin overdoses.

Heroin?

No.

Tank God.

Tese kids arent doing drugs or drinking. No telltale scents or dilated

pupils out here.

My mind races on to other activities I had gotten into by Graces age.



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I T S S O E A S Y 5

My best riends and I started hot-wiring cars in middle school. Car

the led to breaking and entering. I remember breaking into a churchone night in hopes o getting some microphones or my band. My liquid

courage at that age had no conscience. When I couldnt nd any micro-

phones, I swiped the Communion chalices to use as pimp cups or my

cocktails. Tat crime made the papers.

Any o these kids stealing cars?

No.

I saw all these kids arrive. Teir parents dropped them o. None o

them arrived on their own.Oh, God, what about . . . ?

I was introduced to sex in ninth grade. Te girl was olderI was

playing music among an older set o people. Te thing about that rst

time, though, is that I got the clap. O course, I couldnt just stroll up to

my mom at thirteen and announce that I had something wrong with my

penis. Luckily or me, somebody in this older group o riends steered

me to a ree clinic run by Catholic nuns. Te experience was not cool at

all. Nope. It scared the hell out o me. Still, aer a three-day dose o low-grade antibiotics, I was gonorrhea-ree.

But these kids are not having sex. In act, these kids hands arent even

wandering. No, these kids are just kissing.

Sex?

No.

Tis reveriethe run through my mental checklisttakes less than

ve seconds, but the boy and girl have stopped kissing and are now stand-

ing there rozen, their shoulders pulled awkwardly up toward their necksas i to withstand the bluster they expect to come their way.

I take a deep breath.

Sorry, I say.

I nod and quickly retreat back into the house.



16/29



17/29

Part one

KnocKin on

Heavens Door



18/29

cHaPter one

Ive known a lot o junkies. Many o these addicts have either died or

continue to live a pitiul existence to this day. With many o these same

people, I personally witnessed a wonderul lust or lie as we played music

together as kids and looked toward the uture. O course, no one sets out

to be a junkie or an alcoholic.

Some people can experiment in their youth and move on. Others

cannot.When Guns N Roses began to break into the public consciousness,

I was known as a bigdrinker. In 1988, MV aired a concert in which

Axl introduced meas usualas Du the King o Beers McKagan.

Soon aer this, a production company working on a new animated series

called me to ask i they could use the name Du or a brand o beer

in the show. I laughed and said o course, no problem. Te whole thing

sounded like a low-rent art project or somethingI mean, who made

cartoons or adults? Little did I know that the show would become TeSimpsons and that within a ew years I would start to see Du beer glasses

and gear everywhere we toured.

Still, given what Id seen, a reputation or drinking didnt seem like a

big deal. But by the time Guns N Roses spent twenty-eight months rom

1991 to 1993 touring the Use Your Illusion albums, my intake had reached

epic proportions. For the round-the-world Illusion tour, Guns leased a

private plane. It wasnt an executive jet; it was a ull-on 727 we leased

rom MGM casino, with lounges and individual bedroom suites or the



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10 Duf f M c k A g A n

band members. Slash and I christened the plane on our maiden journey

by smoking crack together. Beore the wheels had le the ground. (Notsomething I recommend, incidentallythe smell gets into everything.) I

dont even remember playing Czechoslovakia; we played a stadium show

in one o the most beautiul cities in East Europe not long aer the all o

the Berlin Wall, and the only way I knew Id even been in the country was

because o the stamp I ound in my passport.

It wasnt clear anymore whether or not I would be one o those who

could experiment in his youth and move on.

Every day I made sure I had a vodka bottle sitting next to my bedwhen I woke up. I tried to quit drinking in 1992, but started again with a

vengeance aer only a ew weeks. I just could not stop. I was too ar gone.

My hair began alling out in clumps and my kidneys ached when I pissed.

My body couldnt take the ull assault o the alcohol without bitching

back at me. My septum had burned through rom coke and my nose ran

continuously like a leaky aucet in a neglected mens room urinal. Te

skin on my hands and eet cracked, and I had boils on my ace and neck. I

had to wear bandages under my gloves in order to be able to play my bass.Tere are many dierent ways to come out o a unk like that. Some

people go straight to rehab, some go to church. Others go to AA, and

many more end up in a pine box, which is where I elt headed.

By early 1993, my cocaine use had gotten so bad that riendssome

o whom did blow or smoked crack with meactually started tentatively

talking to me about it and trying their best to keep my dealers out o my

lie when I arrived back home or a break between legs o the tour. Ah,

but I had my ways to circumvent all the do-gooders. Tere was always away in L.A.

One o the lies that I told mysel was that I wasnt really a cocaine ad-

dict. Aer all, I didnt go to coke parties and never did cocaine by itsel.

As a matter o act, I hated the idea that I was doing coke. My use was

strictly utilitarian: I used its stimulant eects to stave o drunkenness

and to allow me to drink or much longeroen days on end. Actually,

mostly days on end.

Because I was adamant about not becoming the stereotypical coke



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I T S SO EAS Y 11

guy, I didnt have any o the ancy grinders that made coke a lot easier

to snort. I would just get my package, open it, break a rock into a ewsmaller pieces in a hal-assed way, and shove one o the pieces up my

nose. O course I could tell that my primitive process was taking a toll.

Te inside o my nose was always on re; sometimes it ared so badly

that I would double over in pain.

Ten the wie o my main coke dealer, Josh, got pregnant. I started

to worry that she had not given up her own coke habit. One thing that

never seeped rom my otherwise porous ethical system: almost anything

could be deemed un and games when it was your lie and your lie alonethat you were toying with, but endangering someone else was unaccept-

able. I was not going to participate in any situation where an innocent

third party was being harmed. Tis was not just basic human decency. I

came rom a huge amily, and by this point in my lie I had something like

twenty-three nephews and nieces, all o whom I had known since they

were inants. No, I was going to put my oot down here with Josh and his

wie, Yvette, and insist that she quit. I didnt yet have the capacity to lead

by example, but I did oer to pay or her to go to rehab.Both Josh and Yvette swore to me that, Geez, o course she had

stopped and that there was absolutely no ucking way she would do that

while the baby was in utero. I was suspicious.

One weekend they came to stay with me and some other riends at a

cabin I had bought on Lake Arrowhead, up in the mountains east o L.A.

Josh had o course brought drugs, and I had given him and Yvette one o

the downstairs bedrooms. I could tell Yvette was high. o check on my

suspicions, I quietly entered their downstairs bedroom and ound herbent over, snorting a line o coke. Seeing this or mysel made me realize

that I had sunk to an all-time low in my lie. I lost it. I kicked them out

o my house and told them that I never wanted to see them again. I was

seethingat them, and at mysel.

I quit coke that day and drank mysel through two brutal weeks o

serious depression.

Even though the eects o my drinking were more noticeable with-

out the coke, drinking proved harder to rein in, much less kick. Tese



21/29


days I know what having the Ds actually means. Te clinical denition

o delirium tremens is a severe psychotic condition occurring in somepersons with chronic alcoholism, characterized by uncontrollable trem-

bling, vivid hallucinations, severe anxiety, sweating, and sudden eelings

o terror. All I knew then was that it wasnt cool. I elt really sick. My

body was alling apart so badly that I looked like I was getting radiation

treatment.

Troughout the Use Your Illusion tour I had recorded songs on

my own, ducking into studios here and there. Tis project had served

largely as a way to kill time I would otherwise have spent drinking, andI didnt know what the demos were or, really. One o themmy version

o Johnny Tunders You Cant Put Your Arms Around a Memory

ended up on GNRs Spaghetti Incident, the album o cover songs issued

just aer the end o the Use Your Illusion tour.

I played a bit o everything over the course o the sessionsdrums,

guitar, bass. I sang, too, and i you listen to the album, its clear I wasnt

able to breathe through my nose on some songs. Ten at some point dur-

ing the tour, a record label employee who was out on the road with usasked where I kept disappearing to on o days. I told him. When om

Zutaut, who had signed Guns to Geen records, caught wind o the

demos, he asked me i I would like a solo deal. Geen, he said, could

release the tracks as an album. I knew he was probably being mercenary

about itby this time Nirvana and Pearl Jam had broken, and Zutaut

probably gured leveraging my Seattle roots and punk connections could

help the label reposition GNR.

But I didnt care. o me it was a chance to realize a dream. I hadgrown up idolizing Prince, who played over twenty instruments on his

debut album, which eatured the amazing credit line written, composed,

perormed, and recorded by Prince.

Cool, my own record done the way Prince did itlargely on my own

getting distributed around the world.

Geen rushed it out as Believe in Me in the summer o 1993, just

as the Illusion tour was wrapping. Axl talked it up on stage during the

last ew gigs. And I even started to promote it while Guns was still in



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I T S SO EAS Y 13

Europeat a signing in Spain, so many people showed up that the street

outside the record store had to be shut down by police in riot gear.I had scheduled a solo tour that would start immediately aer GNRs

last showstwo nal gigs in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in July 1993. My

solo tour would send me rst to play showcases in San Francisco, L.A.,

and New York, and then to open the Scorpions arena tour around Eu-

rope and the UK. Returning to L.A. rom Argentina, I joined the group o

riends and acquaintances Id arranged to back me on the tour. Tey had

already started rehearsing beore I got home. ogether we did whirlwind

preparations or the tour.Axl heard I was planning to go back out on tour. He called me.

Are you ucking crazy? You should notgo back out on the road right

now. You are insane even to think about it.

Its the only thing I know how to do, I told him. I play music.

I also knew that i I stayed at home, it would probably devolve into

more drug insanity. I didnt have any illusions about getting sober, but

at least out on the roadwith a band made up o old Seattle punk-rock

riendsI gured I had some chance o toning things down. And o stay-ing o coke. I I stayed in L.A., the temptation o readily available cocaine

would likely be too much or me to resist. GNR management sent Rick

ruck Beaman, who had served as my personal security guard on the

Use Your Illusion tour, out on the road or my solo tour, too. By this stage

his concern or me seemed to extend beyond his proessional duties. He

had taken a deep personal interest, as a riend, in trying to limit the dam-

age I was doing to mysel. Now, nally, our goals had dovetailedat least

as ar as cocaine was concerned.But Axl was right. Beore the rst gig in San Francisco, my then-wie

Linda got into a stght backstage with another girl and lost a tooth.

Blood spattered everywhere.

Hells Angels packed the show at Webster Hall in New York, and

brawls broke out. I shouted at the crowd to settle down, thinking I could

somehow make a dierence.

Aer the show, people tried to come backstage but I wanted to be

alone.



23/29


Im too tired, I told security. I just cant take it.

Lyrics rom Just Not Tere, one o the Believe in Me songs we wereperorming, reverberated in my head:

You know I look but just cant fnd the reasons

o ace another day

Cause I eel like crawling up inside,

Just ading away, ading away . . .

I toured the record as planned until December 1993. Tere was still aervor or all things Guns, especially in Europe. Audiences knew my songs

and sang along. With the exception o keyboardist eddy Andreadis, who

had been out with Guns or Use Your Illusion and who had been touring

with artists like Carole King since he was barely out o his teens, the band

members were airly inexperienced with arena-scale touring. Te band

had also been thrown together quickly and lacked cohesion: we had some

rough patches, including an intra-band stght at an airport somewhere

in Europe.For the most part I did stay o the coke, though it was by no means

a clean break. Tere were slip-ups. I also switched rom drinking vodka

to wine.

Downshiing to wine was all well and good, but the volume o wine

quickly skyrocketed until I was drinking ten bottles a day. I was getting

really bad heartburn rom all the wine, taking ums all the time. I wasnt

eating but I was badly bloated; my body elt awul.

At the end o the European leg, our lead guitar player pulled a knieon our bus driver in England. I had to re himluckily the tour was

nished. Back in Los Angeles, I called Paul Solger, an old riend I had

played together with as a teenager in Seattle, and asked him to ll in or

the next part o the tour. Solger had gotten sober in the ten years since Id

last played with him; needless to say, I had not. Still, he agreed.

My band and I headed to Japan in early 1994. Over there we crossed

paths with the Posies, a veteran jangle-pop band rom Seattle. Tey came



24/29

I T S SO EAS Y 15

to our gig and said they thought it was cool that the new version o my

band was sort o a Seattle punk-rock all-star band. Good to know: I wasstill Seattle.

Aer Japan, we had a ew weeks o. I returned to L.A. beore the next

leg o the tour in Australia.

Back home I elt as sick as I ever had. My hands and eet were bleed-

ing. I had constant nosebleeds. I was shitting blood. Sores on my skin

oozed. My L.A. house was awash in the etid efuvia o my derelict body.

I ound mysel picking up the phone to tell my managers and band that

we werent going to Australia.Id bought a house back home in Seattle at that pointa dream house,

right on Lake Washingtonand I could eel its pull. I had bought it a ew

years beore, sight unseen, in a neighborhood where I used to go to steal

cars and boats when I was a kid. In the interim, I had barely had a chance

to spend any time there because o the endless Use Your Illusion tour. I

thought it might be the right place to try to recover, relax, recharge.

On March 31, 1994, I went to LAX to catch a ight rom L.A. to Se-

attle. Kurt Cobain was waiting to take the same ight. We started talking.He had just skipped out o a rehab acility. We were both ucked up. We

ended up getting seats next to each other and talking the whole way, but

we didnt delve into certain things: I was in my hell and he was in his, and

we both seemed to understand.

When we arrived in Seattle and went toward baggage claim, the

thought crossed my mind to invite him over to my place. I had a sense

that he was lonely and alone that night. So was I. But there was a mad

rush o people in the terminal. I was in a big rock band; he was in abig rock band. We cowered next to each other as people gawked. Lots o

people. I lost my train o thought or a minute and Kurt slipped out to a

waiting limo.

Arriving in ront o my house in Seattle, I stopped in the driveway

and looked up at the roo. When Id bought the place, it had been old and

leaky, and I had paid to have the cedar shakes replaced. Te new roo was

rated to last twenty-ve years, and looking up at it now I thought it was



25/29

16 Duf f M c k A g A n

unny: that roo would surely outlast me. Still, staying in the house gave

me the eeling that I had nally made it, able to live in a place like this, ina part o town like this.

A ew days later my manager called to tell me Kurt Cobain had been

ound dead at his Seattle house aer putting a gun to his own head. Im

embarrassed to say that upon hearing the news I just elt numb. People in

my band had overdosed multiple times. My own addiction had spun out

o control and my body was ailing. I didnt pick up the phone and call

Kurts bandmates, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic. I gured my condo-

lences would be meaningless anywaya ew years prior, Id gotten into ascrap with Krist backstage at the MV awards, where Guns and Nirvana

both perormed. I lost my shit when I thought I heard a slight o my

band rom the Nirvana camp. In my drunken haze I went aer Krist. My

means o dealing with any sort o conict had been reduced to barroom

brawling by then. Kim Warnick rom the Fastbacksthe rst real band

I played with as a kid in Seattlehad called me the day aer the awards

show and scolded me. I had elt so low. Now I elt lower still, staring at

the phone, incapable o calling to apologize or the earlier incident and toextend my sympathy or his loss and Daves.

Not that Kurts death made any dierence in how I dealt with my own

unk. I just didnt deal at all. Until one month later.

Even aer GNR became wildly successul and my world spun out

o control, my three closest riends rom childhoodAndy, Eddy, and

Brianwould still call and come down to L.A. By the time the tour was

winding down, I didnt want them to see too much. I was playing a game

by then. But they saw the pictures in the magazines and the interviewson MV. And Id call them on the phone all the time. I called them too

ucked up too many times, too late at night. I probably called Andy every

second day while I was out on the road. He would deend me back in

Seattle. He would tell people they didnt know what my lie was like, what

I was going through. He was protective. But I knew he was going to have

a talk with methe one my mom couldnt have. I knew now that I was

o the road, it was just a matter o timethat either I was going to die

or Andy was going to give me the talk. I didnt know what I was going



26/29

I T S SO EAS Y 17

to do when we had the talk. I went to sleep on May 9, 1994, with those

thoughts in my head, albeit garbled by the ten bottles o wine I had con-sumed that day.

Te morning o May 10, I woke up in my new bed with sharp pains in

my stomach. Pain was nothing new to me, nor was the sickening eeling

o things going wrong with my body. But this was dierent. Tis pain was

unimaginablelike someone taking a dull knie and twisting it in my

guts. Te pain was so intense I couldnt even make it to the edge o the

bed to dial 911. I was rozen in pain and ear, whimpering.

Tere I was, naked on my bed in my dream home, a home I hadbought with the hopes o one day having a amily o my own to ll it.

I lay there or what elt like an eternity. Te silence o the empty house

seemed as loud as my raspy, mued moans. Never beore in my lie had I

wanted someone to kill me, but I was in such pain I just hoped to be put

out o my misery.

Ten I heard Andy, my best riend rom childhood, come in the back

door. He called, Hey, whats up, just as he had ever since we were kids.

Andy, Im upstairs, I wanted to answer. But I wasnt able to. I could onlysilently sob. I heard him start up the stairshe must have seen my wallet

in the kitchen. He made it upstairs and came down the hall.

Oh, shit, its nally happened, he said when he reached my room.

I was thankul to have my riend there. It was comorting to think

that I would die in ront o Andy. But he had other ideas. He pulled some

sweats on me and began to try to move me. He must have elt a jolt o

adrenalineotherwise there is no way Andy could have carried the two

hundred pounds o dead weight o my bloated body. As he carried medown the stairs and out to his car, the searing, stabbing pain in my in-

testines spread arther down to my quadriceps and around to my lower

back. I wanted to die.

Te doctor Id had since I was a kid lived just two blocks away, so

Andy took me there. Tough Dr. Brad Tomas was my longtime physi-

cian, I hadnt let him see me very oen once I descended into ull-blown

alcoholism. ogether, Andy and Dr. Tomas carried me to his rst-oor

ofce. I heard my condition being discussed and I elt the prick o a nee-



27/29


dle in my ass. Demerol. Nothing. Another shot o Demerol in my ass and

again nothing, no relie whatsoever. One more shot. Again nothing. Tepain kept on spreading and I was starting to panic. I whimpered as my

spirit began to blacken and ade.

Tey decided to rush me to the emergency room at Northwest Hos-

pital. Dr. Tomas told Andy to drive me, as it would be aster than wait-

ing or an ambulance. He said he would meet us there. Andy drove as

ast as he could without jerking the car too muchevery little movement

made me moan and cry.

As they put an IV drip o morphine into my le arm at the hospital,the sta asked me questions I could not answer.

Name? Address?

Andy answered those.

How much do you drink on a daily basis?

Are you on drugs right now?

I just whimpered.

I was mute rom pain. Te morphine wasnt working as I knew it

should. I knew a thing or two about opiates by that stage in my lie. Iknew the warm rush they oered, yet I was getting none o it.

Tey wheeled me into a room next to another guy on a gurney. Te

motion made me writhe in agony.

Dude, I broke my back, said the guy in the other bed. And Im glad

I dont have whatever you have.

Dr. Tomas and an ultrasound technician ran a scanner over my

organs and I saw my doctors ace go white. My pancreas, apparently

swollen to the size o a ootball rom all the booze, had burst. I had third-degree burns all over the inside o my body rom the digestive enzymes

released by the damaged pancreas. Only a ew parts o the inside o your

digestive tract can handle the enzymes, and the outsides o your organs

and your stomach muscles are denitely not among themit just burns

all that tissue.

A surgeon with thick glasses explained the surgery. Tey had to take

out the top part o the pancreascut it o. Sew me back up. And then Id

have to be on dialysis or the rest o my lie.



28/29

I T S SO EAS Y 19

Suddenly I understood the pleading mouthed by miserable souls

back to antiquity, those le breathing aer being run through with arusty sword or scalded with hot oil. I was there.

I summoned all my power to whisper to the ER doctor.

Kill me.

I begged over and over.

Please, kill me. Just kill me. Kill me. Please.



29/29
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