Not Dead & Not For Sale by Scott Weiland Read Free Book Online Page B

said. “Stay.”
    For five days she stayed with me as the bus bounced through the hills and hedgerows of England and Germany. At the end of the fifth day, she had to go back to work.
    “I am in love with you,” she said.
    I was in love with her, and I told her so.
    “What will happen now?” she asked.
    “I don’t know.”

    As Kiss: Eric (Peter Criss) Scott (Paul Stanley) Robert (Gene Simmons) Dean (Ace Frehley)

I DIDN’T GET HIGH —not seriously high—till the next summer. We were back in the States, still promoting Core , this time on tour with Butthole Surfers, Flaming Lips, Firehose, and Basehead. This was the Barbecue Mitzvah Tour. By then we were the hot band—the majority of the fans were coming to see us —but out of respect for the alternative founding fathers Butthole Surfers and Flaming Lips, whose current hit was “She Don’t Use Jelly,” we only co-headlined.
    The tour was drug-heavy and sex-heavy. I couldn’t see myself passing up the delicacies that came with being a rock star—cocaine, alcohol, Lady Lay. So we rolled into New York, where we stayed at the Royalton Hotel. There was something deadly decadent about the place. What the Hollywood Hyatt House—the one called the Riot House—had been to an earlier rock generation, the Royalton was to ours. It was decidedly postmodern, low-key, high-energy sleek, a place where herointhin models melted into the dark walls and mirrors. Everything about the hotel made you—made me, made all of us—want to get high.
    Mary was in New York. She had been befriended by the magician David Blaine. She had turned eighteen. We hadn’t seen each other for a while. That afternoon she came to the hotel. Her mere presence excited me, renewed all my feelings, had me wanting to be with her and her alone. We went shopping for vintage clothes. I spotted a scarlet dress at a boutique in SoHo. When she tried it on, we drifted into a noir from 1947.
    “I’ll wear it tonight,” she said.
    “Perfect.”
    Back at the hotel, I told her good-bye, arranged for her tickets to the concert, promised that we’d meet afterward, and took a nap.
    That same day, a few of the musicians had put in their orders for bags of China White. I had never shot or snorted heroin before. But I had studied heroin culture. The truth is that I loved heroin culture. I was intrigued by it.

    I had a friend in high school who was a junkie. I loved the work of William S. Burroughs and the brilliance of Charlie Parker. I loved the aesthetic of the Rolling Stones. I knew about John Lennon’s heroin period. In the mideighties, I had been greatly influenced by Perry Farrell and Jane’s Addiction.

    I associated heroin with romance, glamour, danger, and rock-and-roll excess. More than that, I was curious about the connection between heroin and creativity. At that point, I couldn’t imagine my life, especially now that I was entering into the major leagues of alternative rock, without at least dabbling with the King of Drugs. So I put in my order.
    That night, just for the hell of it, STP dressed up as Kiss. We had the one-piece suits, the black wigs, and the makeup applied by a former Kiss employee. Before hitting the stage, I snorted the China White. The opiate took me to where I’d always dreamed of going. I can’t name the place, but I can say that I was undisturbed and unafraid, a free-floating man in a space without demons and doubts. The show was beautiful. The high was beautiful.
    The thing about heroin, at least for me, was that I used to be afraid or ultra-self-conscious when I walked into a bar or club. But on dope I could be Superman or any man. I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. Dope was my savior. The ultimate equalizer, or so I thought.
    After the show, I didn’t want to talk to or see a single solitary soul. It’s not that I didn’t want to see Mary in her scarlet dress or didn’t want to revisit our noir movie. I simply had to be alone with this feeling.
    “What should