The Weeping Song
I’ve told you about the mushrooms and how they cleared a path for me to finally understand and love The Birthday Party and more distinctly, Nice Cave. He’s been such a fixture for the entirety of my adult life if one can even say that I was an adult when that mushroom fueled night happened. I was much closer to a child, just someone who did what their Dad wanted and looked down at their feet as he shuffled towards where they were told to go and tried to figure out who they were and what they might become. Heroin was yet to happen and so was Los Angeles and all of the joys and pains I’ve experienced here. So maybe it’s safe to say that Nick Cave has been a part of me since I was a child.
I sit here trying to write and become completely transfixed by videos of him singing live to some group of disciples in God knows what city in God knows what country. I’m drinking wine and wondering how all of this came to be. How does one become so entrenched in the soul of someone he’s never met? Well, never spent time with.
***
At one point I was in love with Nery. I loved her as deeply as I’ve ever loved anyone, and the truth is that I’ve never loved anyone else to that depth. Our entire relationship lasted from one of my birthdays and ended exactly one year later and on my birthday she left. If you ever read this Nery, the truth is I still love you like we’ve never parted.
When our first Christmas came around, we’d become accustomed to the pattern of how we existed with each other. I want to be kind. I want to share responsibility. Something about me made her intensely jealous and we cycled through ten-day cycles in which the first nine days were days of love and sex and adventure and tenderness and support the like of which I’d never even remotely experienced. And then came day ten and she’d flick a switch, and maybe it was something I did to provoke her but for the life of me I can’t imagine what it was, and she’d calmly and almost religiously eviscerate me for some betrayal which I had simply not committed but that she’d convinced herself had been levied at her. She hated me and wanted me to suffer, and I’d just become an inarticulate writhing mass of tears and defense. And it always seemed to happen at 2 AM.
But on that first Christmas together she had a few little presents for me. She saved one for the last, her smile growing wider and more excited in that beautiful Spanish and Columbian face which I still equate with love and sex and happiness and torture. She handed me a little thing, just a little thing and I think it was wrapped in brown paper, but it may have been a wholly different object. But I know this. I opened it and inside were two tickets to see Nick Cave at the Greek Theatre on June 29th, 2017. So far into the future and as happy as I was, I wondered if we’d even make it. I know these tickets cost her a fortune, a fortune she didn’t have and within the box were little pinned on badges of Nick and the Bad Seeds and the Birthday Party. She cared about what I considered to be precious. That was very new to me. She dug deep into me to find out what made my heart beat. She found Nick Cave and she found baseball and she found making things in my garage and she found herself. She found herself in my heart and I think it scared her.
We kept living this ten-day cycle for a few more months and then it just became too much and on one awful April or May day, who can remember, we fought each other on hills we were both willing to die on. She emasculated me and I called her a cunt and we screamed and tried to outdo each other for hours. For days. It lasted days. And finally, it just evaporated, and she seemed to snap back. The irony of her jealousy is that I am so completely enraptured and amazed that anyone would have me that I don’t see anyone else in this entire world. But she was sure I was still with my ex and countless other women. Christ. It’s such a preposterous idea but she believed it. And so, she flicked the switch to off and she started crying and apologizing and, as usual promised she’d “get help.” But she was leaving. “You can take someone else to see Nick Cave.” She said as she hugged me crying. I’d never seen her cry before. I held her not knowing what to do but feeling like a monster for pushing her to this state, but I had nothing to defend. And then she left, tears sliding down that beautiful angular but perfectly angelic face.
***
It lasted a day. She appeared at my open garage door as I was soldering a guitar amp together with the hopes that it would work when I was done. We embraced and promised to love each other, and we set about trying to be different people. We agreed to be different characters in this movie of our lives together.
And it actually worked for a few months. Gone were her bouts of jealousy but my own came into play. We named it “Jack.” I became obsessed with some meaningless night of sex she had with someone I knew long before we met. I do this. I have this. It makes me feel wholly inadequate as if anyone who loves me is making a deal to be with me. There’s enough about me to like but the sex will never be like that one night they had. It becomes debilitating for me. You’d think heroin addiction would be enough, but I have this as well. Maybe it’s connected. It all boils down to me feeling like someone a beautiful woman is reluctantly in love with. And yet we carried on and on one sunny day we bought a ring and I, on bended knee, proposed to her. And she said yes. That moment burns in me like a phosphorous flare melting asphalt. So bright. So hot. So deadly.
As the Nick Cave show approached, I bought her a dress. I bought her a dress which seemed perfect for her and her body and her sensibilities and it was a design by Susie Bick also known as Susie Cave, Nick’s wife. I remember the day it was meant to arrive; I was in my garage making something. Nery was in the house. I got a text that DHL would be delivering my package shortly. Within hours. I waited. When it came and when she saw it and loved it, I just fell into some sort of dream which lasted until she left. I just believed everything would work out. I believed we’d love each other forever.
***
Finally, June 29th landed on us. The day of the show. We were still so in love. She was wearing the ring and I was beginning to believe that she actually loved and wanted me. Starting but not fully there. She kept telling me that my real Christmas present was that I’d get to meet Nick. She was a psychic and astrologer by trade and so I just said, “thank you baby” and kissed her. We became more excited as the day moved on. At this point I’d seen Nick Cave countless times. Anyone who really knows me would know that I’d be at the show regardless of tickets or money. I’d just be there. Missing a Nick Cave show would be like missing the birth of your first child.
And she kept telling me I’d meet and hug him.
We arrived at the Greek Theatre and navigated the bored and slightly angry teenage parking manipulators and somehow, inexplicably, were directed to the single best parking spot of the entire lot. We nosed onto a driveway of sorts leading to the street. We had no one to wait for or block us. It was magic.
As we walked up to the theatre from our magical little parking spot, I came across so many people I knew. I had a lot of friends who’d been a part of this Nick Cave tribe for as long as I had, and I’d see them at every show. It truly was like church to us. Nery and I would walk and every so often I’d stop to greet someone I hadn’t seen since the last show and sometimes they were women. Sometimes beautiful women. This was always a cause for alarm for me because I was simply not allowed to even acknowledge the presence of any other girl much less one who I’d known for years. None of these women we saw that night were anyone I’d ever slept with or had anything beyond friendship and a bond centered around Nick Cave, but I was so tense. And yet, Nery just responded like a different person. She was happy and embraced these people. Something about this night was altogether mysterious and unexpected. She wore the dress I’d bought her under her little denim jacket. She looked radiant. I was so in love with her, and each new minute of this night felt better and freer and more relaxed than the last.
The show was what it always was. It was some sort of bigger than life spectacle comprised of so many intimate moments of connection between Nick and the audience. In earlier years his shows were marked by his almost feral attack on the crowd as if trying to wound them or at least diminish them. But something changed over all the years, and it seems to be the loss of his son Arthur. Arthur one of two twins he and Susie had who at age 16, fell to his death from the cliffs around their house in Brixton. Who can imagine getting through such a thing? But they did and this tour was in support of the record he and the Bad Seeds had made called “Skeleton Tree.” The record was in its beginning stages of recording when this horrific thing happened and eventually, they returned and completed it with the presence of loss and grief and love hovering above all of the mics and amps and copied lyrics and cables and coffee. Just floating above them like a cloud of some unknown gas that alternately inspired and destroyed them. There’s a movie of the whole affair called “One More Time With Feeling.” It’s a documentary about how a man and a family and a band which is just another type of family gets through something as awful as the loss of a child. See it. Please.
And so, we watched this show. This thing which was such a massive part of who I am. Nick Cave, math and heroin are the three staples of my entire life. Not to dimmish my family and friends but they’re different things. These three are what drove me, for better or worse, to this moment right now typing this in the sunlight coming through the window on my left and lazily illuminating this blue plywood desk which I know you’re all imaging wrong.
Nery, throughout the day and on into the show kept assuring me that I’d meet him. It seemed preposterous but what can you do? You just kiss her and love her, her faith so solid and wrapped around the both of us. We sat about 20 rows back, maybe row S or somewhere towards the end of the alphabet. Close but not totally close. Not like seeing Sonic Youth in Pittsburgh one college night at the Electric Banana with no stage and standing so close I could smell Kim Gordon’s breath.
Nick Cave spends almost the entirety of his shows interacting with the audience. At times this involves him moving out, chair top upon chair top with baffled security guards following and wondering what’s expected of them. Sometimes he’ll quide them; “I do this a lot. I know my way. You’re doing fine.” I’ve seen him say that. And on this night, it was no different. As the show drew to a close with his almost always ending, before an encore, of “Stagger Lee” he started moving out, into the crowd, held up by precarious balance on so many Greek Theatre chairs. He kept getting closer.
Nery had been taking pictures and videos of the entire night. At points it annoyed me. I felt like she was more focused on her phone than this thing that was so precious to me that I wanted to share with her. And yet, I came to understand that she just wanted me to have as many memories of this night as possible. She wanted this to be perfect for me. And so, as he moved, awkwardly, angelically toward us and as he slowly sang the filthy lyrics of his version of Stagger Lee, she caught it all. I have a video that she took at the very moment when two wildly different appeals to me conspired to form magic. Eventually he stood on a chair one row in front of me. Everyone is standing up in some sort of collective, religious ecstasy and singing along with all he’s putting forth. In the video you see him mouthing the words “Well..just..count the holes..in the ..motherfucker’s head!” while pointing directly at me, eye contact and all and I sing this line with him. While all of this is making its way into Nery’s phone a woman from about 20 feet away is screaming “Mike! Mike!” She grabbing someone focused on Nick Cave, likely his idol, standing mere feet in front of him and demanding that he turn away and reach out to me to get my attention for her. The poor guy is dumbfounded. The video ends.
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." She was a girl I’d met on set one day, a production manager I think. Over time we began talking with the rest of the Art Department guys. She was beautiful. At one point, while talking about the best cheeseburger I ever had, I slapped her in the face to describe what a sensation the first bite of that burger felt like. It hit me like an assault! She was completely startled by some, almost stranger, just slapping her but she just laughed and has loved me to this day for such an audacious beginning of a friendship. Sometimes I guess I just do the right thing regardless of how wrong it is.
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 after-show party, a perk of being married to the son of a very famous director.
We start walking out in a movable hug and seeing other happily exhausted friends. I tell Nery 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.
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 Brad Pitt 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.
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.
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?