this is my father: notes for later.

going over to kendall's place one day, i found matt home alone. kendall was out of town. so matt opens the front door in pyjama bottoms and red hair. i'd say he looked like he just woke up, but i think he was still asleep. he said nothing, leaving me at the door and disappearing back into the house. i closed the door behind me. the chugging guitar and unholy howl i could hear could not be mistaken for any other band but the melvins. glooey porch treatments. the perfect stoner album. i flopped down next to matt. he handed me the joint he was smoking and i took it. kendall didn't let him smoke. she wouldn't allow any drugs in the house. i wondered how long she was going to be gone.
and that's what we did for the rest of that day and night. smoked dope and listened to the melvins. there was a three quarter moon that night and we spent a fair amount of time figuring out whether we could see something move up there. matt tried to teach me to play drums. i have to say, i use that term teach very loosely, cause matt was in no fit state to teach anyone anything. especially someone as equally stoned as he was. for my part, all i did was bash away and try not to fall off the stool. i wasn't always successful.
after that night, i started listening to the melvins a lot. and i saw more of matt. when kendall got home, a couple of weeks later, i couldn't drag my arse off the sofa. she and matt had a blazing row and kendall left. less than half an hour later, blake and sean turned up to drag me off. i fell asleep on the drive and when i woke up i was still in blake's shitty little v dub bug. alone.
i got up and walked the eight blocks back to matt's. i'd finally found someone who wanted to be wasted more than i did. not even andrew cared less than matt. i wasn't going to let anyone get in my way. not blake. not kendall. not anyone.

what i was doing with matt, was what i had done with andrew. the only difference was, that i truly believed that i could, if i wanted, stop anytime. with andrew, i didn't want to stop. it never entered my head until the very end when i did walk away. i could walk away from matt. what i didn't factor in was that his destructive streak was far greater than mine.
kendall moved out and blake was no longer talking to me. he saw that what i was doing with matt as the reason zuma were treading water. i didn't understand that when i heard it, cause i knew matt was still writing and recording. when i asked him about it, he said it wasn't for the band. but that was hardly my fault. and i didn't really care. i didn't even care about cillian. i had no idea what he was thinking. on those rare occasions i did run into him, he told me it wasn't really his business what i did. that kinda hurt more than i admitted at the time. i was more concerned about losing my drug buddy than anything else. i didn't want to have to throw myself on the mercy of my so called friends when this all blew up in my face. but that's exactly what happened.
matt had been cagey for a few days when he called me into his room. i sat on his bed as he took my hand. i tried to pull it away but he was stronger than he looked. he could barely look me in the eye. as he ran his fingers up my arm it dawned on me what was happening. i was toned but i wasn't that stoned. i pulled away and stood up.
i told him i didn't do needles. he said neither does he. great now we're lying to each other. i walked out. how could i have not seen what was going on. was i that stoned that often? yeah, i was. matt kept at me for a few days but i still refused. this went on for about a week, then he gave up. this was something not even i could or would keep to myself. i summoned the courage to tell kendall. she wasn't happy to see me and i literally had to put my foot in the door to stop her slamming it in my face. interestingly enough, she wasn't the least bit surprised. she took it calmly and told me it was time for me to leave. and she wasn't just talking about her apartment.

'it'd be better if you didn't'
these were the words that blake said to me when he rang to tell me that holly was dead, and i asked when the funeral was. so this was the result of my actions. a banishment, of sorts, from one half of my life. it shouldn't have surprised me. but it did. and it hurt. i thought i'd left seattle on good terms with blake. and everyone else for that matter.
i'd been back in sydney for just on four months when the call came. i rested my hand on my growing belly and thought back to what i'd done to deserve such a rebuke. i had done what i wanted. was that my crime? or that i had done so without malice but with almost total disregard for those around me? yes. that had to be it. i had broken some unspoken code that i was unaware of. well screw him then. blake couldn't really stop me showing up in seattle. though being nearly six months pregnant, the airlines would.
the week that i left, holly had left sean and flown to england with a musician. trav, as he was called was a bass player, just like holly. his band 'motherless' were a punk band probably a decade too late to make any sort of impact. i remember holly would talk about them and trumpet their music whenever you spoke to her. from what i heard, i'm surprised they got out of sheffield. turns out trav had a temper. a vicious one. one that he couldn't always control. he was fine until the band got dumped by the record company and broke up. he beat holly. but as is often the case, she kept it to herself. this did not sound like the holly i knew. she was quiet, but we just figured that was because kendall was so loud, and there was only room in a family for one prima donna. but she wasn't weak. it took her a couple of months to tell anyone and when she did, it was kendall. and even then is was probably only cause kendall was touring england at the time and sensed something was wrong. as you would expect, kendall went off her nut and demanded her sister leave with her. holly did. but a week later she was back with trav. this time no matter what kendall said, holly stayed. when kendall left england it was with a heavy heart and in conflict. matt was in hospital again and he needed her to be with him.
a neighbour found holly bleeding and barely breathing on the floor just inside the front door of the flat she and trav were living in. he'd hit her in the head when he tried to open the door. so she was either trying to get away from trav or after he beat her trying to get help. probably the latter seeing's how no one heard any screaming. there was yelling apparently. but that was hardly out of the ordinary for trav and holly. she died before the ambulance could get to her.
trav was nowhere to be found.

when my mother rang to tell me the news, james and i were in the middle of one of our not too infrequent arguments. about what i couldn't tell you, but you can bet i was being impossible and that it was inconsequential. there were times when i would just snap for no apparent reason. when that happened, james tried to stay out of the way. this time he had no room to move.
james picked up the phone when it rang, and i yelled at him for doing so. he put his hand up, suspended in mid air trying ward off my tirade. he walked out of the room stretching the phone cord around the door jamb. i went after him. as i opened my mouth to speak, or more to the point harangue him, james told me to shut up. he pushed past me and hung up the phone. and looked at me. and because we were in the middle of something else he said, 'your father's dead'. he waited to take his cues from me. three words. three words i'd been waiting my whole adult life to hear. well actually probably since i was a teenager i guess. when only his death would have sufficiently explained his absences. i'd rehearsed how i'd react. so determined was i for such an event not to have an impact on me. i would be like camus' meursault and feel nothing. how was one supposed to act when a parent died. what was the expected societal norm. my father had been out of my life for so long, my indifference must be the correct response. mustn't it.
james took a step towards me. to comfort me i guess. i backed away and left the room. i didn't know what to do. the ache started in my stomach and caught me off guard. i heard the front door close. james had gone to pick up charlie from pre school. the silence weighed in on me. what was i going to do now. my father's self imposed absence informed everything i did. he was the reason i wrote what i wrote. shit he was the reason i started writing in the first place. the music i listened to growing up. the music that started the fire. it all came from him. he was the reason i drank. or so i told myself. everything i should have taken responsibility for, i blamed on my father. now there was only myself to blame. i had to take responsibilty for my own actions. so what did i do. i did what was expected of me. i went on a three day bender that ended when i woke up in a hotel room near the beach. i woke up next to stranger. i didn't know his name. or didn't remember. or more to the point i didn't want to remember.who knows. i didn't. i guess it wasn't important for what i was needing.
my father was cremated and his ashes thrown into puget sound, not far from the alki point lighthouse. i didn't have to say goodbye cause i'd already done that years ago. i still listen to the music he exposed us to and i sometimes listen to his music. in a way, in a big way, it was the unconventionality of my upbringing that made me who i am today. so i can thank him for that at least. he was my father but he wasn't a dad. and now all he is, is a face in a grainy black and white photo and a memory.

like everybody else in the world, i heard about matt's apparent suicide attempt on the radio. i had spoken to kendall just a few days before and she had said she was flying to new york to be with him. zuma were touring and sean had called her to say that matt didn't seem to be handling it at all well. from what i heard, matt had been withdrawn(this was not new), he'd turn up for the shows, but wouldn't put much effort into anything else. he blew off publicity so blake and gabriel would have to do it. the new bass player(they'd gone through four since holly died) will, was having a problem with dealing with matt himself and wasn't used to such an insular lead singer. more than once matt had snapped at him for no reason, resulting in will walking off. usually matt wouldn't apologise for anything he said and it was up to blake or gabriel to make peace between them. turns out that matt was using again and either no one noticed or no one was willing to get out of favour with him. how this helped the band or matt, i do not know.
so kendall went to new york and found matt high as the proverbial kite. she was livid. not an ideal condition for her to be in when one was trying to deal with her. she demanded the rest of the tour be called off. carlton, zuma's manager told her in no uncertain terms that leaving the tour was not an option. and kendall in much similiar terms told carlton that if they did not postpone the tour, matt may not be around to finish it anyway. carlton told her that he could handle matt. clearly he could not. and his idea of handling a junkie lead singer was to make sure he got his fix and that he was able to do the shows. three hours before zuma were due to go on, kendall found matt comatose on his hotel room floor. was it a suicide attempt? carlton said no. kendall disagreed. blake agreed with kendall. and that should have been the end of the tour. but kendall managed to revive matt and he went on that night. it was pills he overdosed on, not heroin. standing side of stage, kendall watched as matt pushed past any pain, psychological and physical he was feeling to put on what some commentators wrote was the show of his life.
after the show, kendall took him back to the hotel, where they both fell asleep. sometime during the night, matt disappeared from their bed. kendall found him on the bathroom floor. for the second time in 24 hours she revived him, but it was too much for him. an ambulance was called and the press had a field day. was he trying to kill himself? it's not like he wasn't trying.kendall told me that it was a suicide attempt. to the press no one admitted anything.
kendall got her wish. carlton could do nothing but cancel the rest of the tour. she flew home with matt. kendall knew this was the beginning of the end and she wasn't sure how long she could keep matt safe from himself.

standing at the window watching james play with charlie, i was reminded that the day would come when i would have to tell him about his father. his natural father. not sure how soon that would happen, but i knew it was entirely up to me. charlie was eight and the fact that he called james by his name wasn't lost on him. but so far he hadn't actually come out and asked any compromising questions. we did give him the option of calling james either dad or james and, well charlie chose to continue calling him james.
we wondered what would happen once the baby grew old enough to call her james dad. how that would impact on charlie. i wanted to wait until he was older. james left it up to me.
to me charlie looked like his father. which was fortunate for me in the fact that james and blake were similar in colouring. both had dark eyes and dark hair. though sometimes i had seen blake's hair purple. but recently he seems to have grown out of that hair colouring stage. blake was slighter in build and both he and james had that creative gene going. charlie drew. he liked to draw and he'd spend hours with james when he was working in his studio. the only interest he'd shown in music upo to this point, was to tell me to turn the volume down when i played it too loud. if he did show an interest in music it would naturally be assumed that he got it from me.

i started to lose charlie after that. he'd skip school and on more than one occasion had been busted for grafitti-ing public property.plus he'd not listen to a word i said. when he spoke to me it was with a disrespect i never thought possible. and it was this that motivated me to talk to blake. i phoned him several times, but either he wasn't getting the messages or he was ignoring me. i'd prefer to think that the messages weren't getting to where they should have been. i knew zuma were in europe, but i didn't see how that made a difference. i needed to speak to my son's father and no one was going to stop me from doing that. certainly not his wife. i decided to fly to seattle. i phoned kendall to make sure blake would be at least in the state when i got there. she told me the band were doing some recording in los angeles. i asked her about matt and she sighed and said that he was breathing and that's all she could ask for right now. it made me sad to think that it'd come down to that. just breathing made you alive? i don't think so.
so i flew to los angeles. gabriel had a house in silverlake and that's where i found blake. he was aging well. matt looked like total shit but right now he wasn't my concern. when i spoke with him, blake told me that sara his wife had passed on the messages. i don't know whether that was a pre-emptive strike to ward off a tirade against her or not. i shrugged his comment off and said it didn't much matter now.
i took a deep breath and just told blake he had a son. he asked me how old he was, though i reckon he could have figured it out for himself. twelve now. charlie had just had a birthday. yes i told blake, charlie knew about him. we talked for a while and then blake asked to meet his son. as soon as it could be arranged. blake couldn't leave just now. not in the middle of recording.and i couldn't have charlie flying so far by himself. we made tentative plans for a meeting in a couple of weeks. blake wanted to talk with sara and weather that storm before he flew into another one. blake did ask me though if charlie was into music. i said he was more into drawing. then he said something i thought was strange and very thoughtful at the same time. he said charlie must have got that from james. as if james' DNA somehow ran through charlies's blood.i flew home to my son feeling a lot better than i had the previous week.

i didn't get the chance to call kendall. i woke up and charlie was missing -again. short of locking him in a cupboard under the stairs i didn't know what i was going to do with him. this can't just be about finding out about his father. there had to be more. i had to find him. i had to find out what had got my child so screwed up. after dropping hayley off at school, james and i divided our little part of the world between us and searched for charlie. we came home at sundown not having found him. hayley was with my mother and so we set out again. i ended up all the way in the city looking on streets that i knew attracted broken children. as much as i wanted to find my son, i did not want to find him on these streets. when i walked alone through my front door, it was into an empty house. james wasn't back yet, hayley was with my mother and all i had was my own company and the thoughts in my head that insisted that charlie would be found. that i would have the chance to right the wrongs i had committed. i had been such a fool to think i could keep his father from him. did i not learn anything from my childhood? i decided to phone blake. there was no answer. i left a message and stood at the front window looking out into the street waiting for my son to come home.

so this was my first real gig in nearly three years. with a full band. i'd played more than a few times on my own and with either a pianist or another guitar player. and never in front of more than a couple of dozen people. usually coffee shops or back bars. and right now, i was sober. i can't tell you what a difference that made. i'd run into jacob walden one night and was more than a little surprised that he remembered me. or perhaps i was hoping no one did from back then. who was i kidding he said. all those days wasting away drinking and smoking and sharing big plans. and with some perverse idea of flattery, jacob told me he had never known a girl who could knock back as much booze as i could. he filled me in on who was dead - pete madden, lowey henderson and xana mccabe. and who was alive - everyone else. who was committed. that'd be tully harris. not only did tully drink but he dropped acid. it did not agree with him.
jacob played guitar as well and seemed keen to get something together. hayley was in kindy so it seemed as good a time as any. the last time i was in anything that could be called a band was in seattle with kendall. the fact that i can even remember those days is an achievement for me. when i asked jacob what he had been listening to lately, he said for the past three weeks he'd been listening to sonic youth's 'goo'. great i was a fan of dirty boots and mote. but i told him if he expected us to be able to work together he'd have to listen to something else as well. so we rifled through each other's music collections. from mine he took big star, the la's and nirvana's 'bleach'. from his, i took black sabbath, television and you am i.
we spent nearly every waking hour working on songs and getting the rest of the band organised. jacob knew a drummer which was good, cause no one i knew wanted to work with me anymore. apparently i was too high maintainence.
that first night, it was raining up a storm. the gutters were running and if you got too close to the road you were going to get soaked when a car drove through a puddle. hayley was scared when the thunder shook the house, but james calmed her down. she didn't want me to go out. i read her yertle the turtle, kissed her forehead and told her i'd check in on her when i got home. she told me not to forget. and i didn't. sneaking into her room just after 2 am, i found her curled in ball down the bottom end of her bed. her arms wrapped around a purple hippo. charlie's bed was empty. i woke james and he said he didn't know where he was. the boy was in bed when james ahd turned in just after midnight. well he's fucking not there now i yelled.
three days later i open the door to my twelve year old son dirty and bleeding and high as kite. he smiled at me and i just wanted to slap it right off his face. he ignored all my questions, said he was tired and disappeared into his room. when james got home, he said that we needed help. we couldn't deal with whatever was going on with charlie on our own. for the first time, james said he thought that charlie was capable of doing some real damage to himself. i agreed. four days later we were sitting in the office of a child psychologist doing some bullshit tests that would apparently tell us what was wrong with our son.