veil | W. Axl Rose

Ⅷ

October of 1985

In October, in wind and ashes, Anastasiya started her first year at University of California.

Her father paid the hefty tuition, while her mother saw it as a way to at least make Anastasiya seem more respectable. She was simply ashamed that her daughter was feeding off them and didn't have a "real" job—selling paintings didn't count in their eyes. They had paid for her books and she had sold them for art supplies and going in with Lena on dope.

The day after Orientation Day was the day you signed up for classes. People were running about frantically with papers and booklets. She had come over on the streetcar. She took the "W" to Vermont and then took the "V" north to Monroe Drive. She didn't know where everybody was going, or what she should do. She felt sick.

She had imagined that you just went somewhere and told them you wanted to take Architecture, and they'd give you a card with a schedule of your classes. It was nothing like that. Everybody who ran around like crazy knew what to do and they wouldn't talk. She felt as if she was in middle school again, being mutilated by the crowd who knew more than she did. She sat down on a bench and watched them running back and forth. Maybe she'd fake it. She'd just tell her parents she was going to UCLA and she'd smoke pot and paint everyday. Then she saw this bald guy running along. Thankfully, he explained it all to her, and then went running off with the rest of the people. There was no need for her to worry or hurry. She was going to get the worst classes, the worst professors and the worst hours. She strolled about leisurely signing up for classes. She appeared to be the only unconcerned student on campus. She began to feel superior.

The day before the fall quarter started, Sofiya was practically glowing. I'm flying to New York for the weekend, she told her daughter, brushing it off like it was nothing. Something about a literary collaboration with a Manhattan writer. But Anastasiya knew better. It wasn't just the weekend. Sofiya couldn't wait to leave California and spread her wings. And Anastasiya always had this bitter thought at the back of her head that, had it not been for her, she would never have had to take those wearying jobs at Cinema Scene magazine. She already would have been half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar, and writing during mercury retrograde. Anastasiya felt her guilt like a brand.

     For the first two weeks of UCLA, she just bumped from her home to departments and to Glendale Galleria for mindless walking during free period and from Glendale to the afternoon lectures and back to home like a numb trolley-bus. The sunlight tilted through the blinds once in a while, and she'd peek out to see if the leaves on the trees were dying yet. Life was repetitive, resonated at a low hum. She hadn't seen Guns since mid-August—around the time Lena convinced her to get a tramp stamp tattoo. Sharp tribal lines framed an Om symbol at the center. She wasn't under the influence, just to be clear. She'd been thinking about for a while, and the opportunity just arose. So far, the only ones who'd seen it were her, the tattoo artist, and Lena. Save it for a VIP, Lena would joke to her.

    Speaking of Lena, she got pretty run-down with drugs and all and ended up in rehab. She lasted about a week, through which Slash sneaked her dope until she managed to bail.

    Guns didn't see the golden mean in anything. They went from one extreme to another. And Axl, being both the dominant business force and the dominant musical force, with a desperate need for control, insisted that it had to be his way or the highway. They were slowly running out of funds for rent which led to their ruthless acts to manage somehow. Lena and Slash would look out the Hell House window which overlooked a garage. There was a black mechanic working down there, and Lena would go down and give him a blowjob for fifteen bucks. Slash thought it was marvelous because he got to watch. The rest of the band would ransack girls' purses while the other was doing her. Izzy was openly dealing. The squalor inside Hell House was overwhelming, more overwhelming than it had ever been. The depravity spilled over. They would get horribly fucked up, and every now and then, Duff would show up at Anastasiya's place, strung out on heroin, looking for a spot to crash. She would escort him to a small garden shed out back, considering her mother would have killed her if she saw some junkie wandering inside.