I wanted to go big on our first date. I wanted to surprise her. I told her to wear a jacket, and that I'd pick her up at six. That's it. I wouldn't tell her where we were going. It was the day after my birthday. And on that first date where Nery and I stayed up talking until 5 AM, and she told me that I was "a huge, neon glowing red flag," we saw Beyoncé. It was at Dodger Stadium. I kissed her for the first time during "Freedom." And yet, this isn't the concert I'm meant to tell you about.
The Beyoncé concert must have worked because we fell in love. You will never be loved the way a Spanish, psychic, borderline will love you. Nery was intensely jealous, and I was ironically enough, wholly consumed with keeping her loving me; I lost sight of the world and everyone in it. This kind of love answers every question and fills every void. And it comes in measured units. Intense relief and exhaustion forge the first moments of each cycle. This moment marks the end of the hours of rage and calm vilification she's levied at me as she's assured herself of another imagined betrayal from me with some other woman. You will never be hated the way a Spanish, psychic, borderline will hate you. This first moment of the cycle appears suddenly and is anointed with her sudden tears and look of shock as if she's come out of a blackout. And there's the hope and demand that this moment will never happen again. Things. Will. Be. Different. Help will be gotten. Promises are made. The cycle lasts for about ten days. The first nine are days of laughing and cooking and exploring and dogs and hours spent talking about everything and crazy sex. These are the best days anyone could ever have. I’d never had anything like them.
We made it to Christmas. We set out to create a list of things that I'd be left without when she left. All kinds of things got tangled up in her. Peaky Blinders got tangled into her smile. The way certain people say certain things in certain types of movies became knotted into the memory of her body. My clothes remind me of her. And I can't watch baseball anymore. It always seemed so close to ending, but we'd pull it back from the edge with raw, red, and wet faces crying in each other and forgiving and hoping.
But we made it to Christmas, and I opened my gift, my best gift, and saw two tickets for Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds at the Greek Theatre. If only we could make it to June. I was truly floored. There was no way she hadn't spent a fortune on these tickets, a fortune she didn't have. God, I loved her in that moment. She was so excited to see me open the little envelope. I wouldn't dare tell her that I would surely have just got the tickets from Stubhub as the concert approached. No one would ever think to give me Nick Cave tickets because they're something everyone would know I already had. The ecstatic and nervous innocence with which she gave me my gift was the kind of thing that she often kept hidden but one of the things that I miss so much.
I haven’t been honest with you. Well, maybe I have. The Beyoncé show wasn’t really our first date. I met Nery on Facebook. I was so intrigued by her and all her crazy psychic, magical and astrological stuff, all things I’d railed against for years. The cynic in me was confused, but there she was. Along with some friends, I’d had tickets for the one night only, worldwide screening of “One More Time With Feeling.” This was the documentary which The Bad Seeds had made while getting back to work on “Skeleton Tree” the album started just as Nick’s son Arthur had fallen to his death from cliffs outside the family’s home in England. The film is an intensely intrusive look at how a family and a band gets past such a horrific trauma. And so, I asked Nery if she’d like to go. And she said yes. She told me later that she didn’t think it was a date but when she fell asleep for a moment during the movie with her head on my shoulder I fell in love. The next day I asked her for a proper date and off we went.
We made it through the rest of Christmas if only barely and we kept cycling though all the pain and joy and then a funny thing happened.
We exploded and broke up in May and tried our best to hurt each other as deeply as possible those last two days of fighting and crying. And when we were exhausted, and it was over, and I hugged her as she was leaving, she said in such a weak afraid, little voice, "you can take someone else to the Nick Cave show." She left defeated, and I felt like a monster.
That lasted a day. She came over, and we set out to apologize and love each other away from the brink again. Jesus, what were we doing? She promised to get help. She promised to find a therapist. I promised to be more open, more someone she could trust. I vowed to do anything I could to help walk her through it. And I damned to hell the people in her family that had destroyed her when she was just a little girl and inflicted heinous abuse on her which she'd been denying her whole life and which made getting help a horrifically frightening thing to do. And when we floated back down to earth, we were all tangled up in each other again. I’ve never loved anyone or anything as much as I loved Nery that day.
The next two months were like some unexplained scene in the middle of a movie where the characters just start acting like different people. The ten-day cycles of joy and raging paranoia disappeared. I think we frightened ourselves into some new way of being together. We got engaged. I bought her a ring and proposed in our back yard. I cried. She moved in with her daughter India, and we spent Tuesday nights all watching the Bachelor together eating popcorn and ice cream. We were a family, just the three of us.
Sometime in June, I bought her a dress. It was a design by Nick's wife, Susie Bick. It was perfectly-made for Nery, and she loved it. She's wearing it in our pictures from the show. It was a beautiful vintage blue floral dress which she wore underneath her jean jacket as we set out for the show.
Throughout the day of the show, she would mention that she would make sure that I got to meet Nick. At first, I reflexively pointed out that while he does spend an awful lot of time singing from within the first few rows of the audience, we wouldn't be anywhere near that close as good as our seats were. She'd just smile slyly and remind me that she was a psychic. It made me happy, although I didn't believe it. And I didn't care. I was so excited to share this thing with her, this thing which has been such a focus of my life for decades. But she kept saying it, and I just kissed her every time she did.
When you get to the Greek Theatre, you're generally herded into a big field just south of the theatre by an army of uniformed kids, all pointing with bored yet slightly angry hands towards an unseen path you're meant to navigate and at the very last kid, halt and park. Somehow, we were led away from the flow and told to park right in front of the only break in the curb nosing straight into the road in which we'd eventually exit. We were stunned. It didn't make any sense, but we wound up in the SINGLE best possible parking space. We could simply drive freely away whenever we got back. This is number one.
As we walked up the sidewalk to the show, we kept running into people I knew. I knew I'd see a lot of people at this show. Nick Cave is one of my tribe's gods. We'd all been coming to every show he's given in Los Angeles for thirty years. Through all the years of drugs and rehabs and bands and girls and dogs and baseball, I'd been coming to every one. And I introduced her to everyone. And even when my friends were women, I never felt the usual tension formed by her possible jealousy. We just kept walking and talking and holding hands, and she'd tell me to remember that my real present was getting a hug from Nick. What can you say to that? You just hold her tightly and smile.
The show was like every Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds show. It was singularly incredible. There's just no one who gives so much of himself and puts so much energy into connecting with an audience. From word one, he's talking directly to people in the front rows. He's leaping into the audience and singing within a sea of groping hands, and phone cameras and everyone is joyful, and he's pulling people onto the stage with him, and you see them have a moment they'll guard like jewels for the rest of their lives and oh please get a picture. And it's all perfect.
The band, which is decidedly a band of MEN, which is to say not BOYS forms a wall of sound behind him, which moves from jagged, pulsing chaos to low, quiet tearful moments of placid beauty. And yes, the audience is about six thousand choir members he's preaching to, but I maintain the show's intrinsic perfection.
The show is the last show of a tour which is promoting Skeleton Tree, the heart wrenching and soul-crushing ode to the trauma a family endures when they lose a child. Arthur, Nick and Susie's fifteen-year-old son and twin brother of Earl fell to his death from the cliffs surrounding the family home in England. This is more like the purging and sharing of pain and joy than just a concert by a band with a singer who sings in the audience a lot. This is a joyful exorcism.
The show moves forward, and she's taking lots of pictures and videos. She wants to document as much as possible for me. I don't ask her to, and at times I'm almost annoyed at her insistence, but I come to realize this is part of the present for her. She wants me to have it forever. And she tells me again to "just wait, he'll find you."
Every Bad Seed show ends with Stagger Lee and maybe one more encore. The Bad Seed's take on the tradition Stagger Lee is unlike any version come before it. It's mean and filthy and filled with motherfucker this and motherfucker that. It's ecstatic. And Nick takes it to the audience and proceeds to sing the entire song from the back of chairs with so many hands holding him swaying and just balanced enough to keep going. We're at least twenty-five rows back. He can't possibly make it this far, but he keeps gaining a foothold on one more row of chairs as he sings out, "Well bartender, it's a plain to see
I'm the bad motherfucker called Stagger Lee!" It continues. The lyrics start and stop as he interjects comments to the audience and flummoxed security guys trying to keep up with him. He keeps coming.
And all of a sudden, he's standing in front of me, and everything gets slow and weird and frantic. I hear someone screaming my name from off to the side. I feel Nery filming all of it from up close on my other side. I try to see who's screaming my name, but I look up to see Nick pointing his finger at me and singing directly to me as I'm reflexively shouting back the lyrics to him. We point at each other and scream and punctuate the line one word at a time, "well, just count the holes..in the .. mother…fucker's…HEAD!" The video she takes on her phone captures it all and even exposes the girl screaming my name while the whole thing happens. It's true, and you can see it. This is number two.
He moves on to some other chair and surely someone else's story of the night. And as my adrenaline ebbs and we stop hugging, the show finally ends, and the lights come up and put us into almost daylight. Just like that, it's over. And we all look at each other beaming and exhausted and smiling, all of us people we don't even know, and this is pure joy.
"See? I told you he'd find you." I don't really have anything to say because I'm little-boy-excited and so I just hold her and thank her for all of it. The crowd begins to haphazardly and with no great energy move towards the brightly lit exits. And I hear my name again. From behind me, my friend Leigh who I haven't seen in years bursts through the crowd, and she's so excited, "Mike! I saw that whole thing! He sang right to you! I was trying to get your attention." In the video of the moment, she's seen yelling my name and demanding that confused audience members divert their attention from Nick Cave, who's on the chairs in front of them to help her get my attention. She's intent. It's all very confusing as her husband Jake is saying hi to me excitedly while Leigh and Nery realize they know each other, and I'm just trying to keep up. "We were saying we'd surely see you tonight, and you were just there next to us!" he tells me. We talk for a bit about the show and how wonderful it was, and the crowd thins, and we realize it's time to leave, and we say goodbye and hug and walk in different directions. But before we get too far away, I hear her yell my name again, and she comes running back to us. "Here, take this. We only have one, and we're too tired to go. You go!" She hands me a pass for the aftershow party, the perk of being married to the son of a very famous director. This is maybe number three. But there's only one.
We start walking out in a movable hug and seeing other happily exhausted friends. I tell her that I love her and that I'll never doubt her again, and she just smiles and says, "I knew he'd find you, but maybe that wasn't it." We only have one pass, and I'm not going to leave her outside. She tells me to go in and see if I can find another pass to bring out for her while she goes to the bathroom. It seems reasonable enough, so I go into the velvet rope lined-off bar and patio nestled into the theatre as she moves away. The scene is what you'd expect. There are lots of industry types and their dates and a few celebrities and people trying to act bored lest they be accused of excitement and some people like me who seem like little kids just giddily trying not to get caught. I see a handful of people I know and promptly borrow one of their adhesive-backed passes and head out to find her. It's that easy. And so in a few moments, we are standing on the patio just waiting to see what happens. This is decidedly number three
We're standing with my friends Dave and Norm. Dave's friends with a producer who works with Warren Ellis, who's the keystone of the Bad Seeds and who's been Nick's right-hand man for decades. Norm is a close friend I'd recently made a record with and whose pass I borrowed to get her in. He has some wildly excited and anxious, little goth/hippie chick on his arm, and she is not at all afraid to show her excitement. The five of us just stand and drink the free water and take it all in.
We look over and see Johnny Depp and Catherine Keener walking up the stairs from the lower patio. They and Nick were all in a movie together years ago. It was called Johnny Suede. I'm struck that they seem to be actual friends hanging out rather than movie stars. And then I'm struck by a crazy realization. The date is June 29th, 2017. When I woke up that morning and looked at Facebook, I was presented with a memory from that day four years earlier. I had written on June 29th, 2013, "I still fall in love a little bit with Catherine Keener every time I see her." When you're in love with a magical sprite of a psychic girlfriend, these things take on much more meaning than mere coincidence. By the time I dumbfoundedly explain this odd déjà vu to all of them and show them the post from my phone, Keener is gone. I wanted to show her. It seemed sweet and sincere and ok to tell her, but she vanished. I wanted to tell you that I had indeed told her. I rationalized that it just adds to the story and who would know? But it's not true. I didn't tell her. And so even her vanishing just added to the moment. This is number four.
We see some Bad Seeds start coming in and being surrounded by friends and fans. We see Warren, and he draws a larger, more intent throng. And we wait. And I begin to go over the whole night and to make a case for leaving so as not to be disappointed if he doesn't come in. Beat disappointment to the punch. What more could I ask for? It was enough. She'd given me enough.
But of course, he comes in. He's in his ubiquitous suit and smiling and laughing. He is not the Nick Cave of my youth. He is not the sullen and the heroin-addicted role model who captivated me and who I followed into all of his vices. This is a wholly different Nick Cave seemingly forged anew by whatever it took for him and his family to get through the trauma of losing a son and brother. We never know what might save us.
I'm starting to get nervous. I feel like I'm compelled to take my chance and meet him. I feel like I'm supposed to nervously walk up to him and not bother him and introduce myself and tell him how much I love his music or something like that but what the hell does a fifty-year-old guy say to his idol that isn't just weird and awkward and I just feel anxious, and Nery takes my arm and simply says, "just wait babe, he'll come to us."
And so, we wait and just talk and pretend to forget about him and let go of tracking his movements, and it almost works, and we find ourselves just talking to friends at a party at which we've all wound up.
When it happens, it happens so quickly that I'm not really sure what's going on. Having truly lost track of where anyone is at the party, I watch her face look up and smile as I hear someone from behind me say loudly, "Is that my wife's dress?!" "Yes, it is, and my boyfriend here bought it for me to wear tonight, and he's been a huge fan of yours forever." Or something like that. She just goes all-in and brings him into our orbit. "Can I get a picture of you two?" she asks, and he simply wraps his arms around me and hugs me as she takes pics. The look on my face, as you can see in the pictures, is intense, goofy, childlike glee. There's no sign of a fifty-three-year-old man who's been in and out of rehabs and failed relationships and broken bands and the dying of a father in his arms. I wish you could see it. And Nick does not merely have his arm around a fan waiting for the next polite picture to be taken. For whatever reason, he has me in a bearhug with a look of "I finally found this motherfucker!" triumph on his face. At least that's the way it looks to me. This is number five.
More pictures are taken, and he hugs her and talks about the dress, and finally, the little goth/hippie chick gets her picture too. And we actually say goodbye, which is an odd thing in that scenario. He moves on, and we laugh and giggle, and I shake my head and remember every time that day that she told me he'd find me.
We are excitedly and stupidly in love, and it's time to go, and so we walk happily down the steps and through the patio and out to the sidewalk which will take us to our car which is waiting for us with a drowsy smile just waking to glide smoothly and unimpededly out onto the road and take us home.
We never made it to our wedding, which we'd planned for her birthday on December 29th. My old demons resurfaced, and so did hers. And finally, on my birthday, exactly one year minus one day after our first date she left. We had one final awful fight, and she went, and everything that had gotten tangled up in her got dragged off the tables and out of the drawers and out from behind the couch and clattered and banged after her like empty cans following the car from a wedding.
And so it's been almost three years since I've seen her or spoken with her or seen the merest trace of her on social media. And she lives just two miles away if she still lives there. Yesterday I broke a vow and reached out and sent her a message, and I just told her that I've been thinking about her a lot. And that they're all nice thoughts. She answered today. She said, "We were a good team." And I just said yeah, we sure were.
Can you feel my heart beat?
