Maybe I'll Get It Right Next Time...

Chapter 6: Move to the City

"You fix your hair, and you're lookin' real pretty, it's time to get it out on your own..."

Palo Alto, California – June 1986 

The next year passed by in a frenzy. Axl and I managed to keep in touch, he wrote me letters and called me on the phone whenever he could. I learned a great deal about Axl Rose once our only option became talking. He was dynamic and magnetic, brash and unapologetic, sensitive and erratic. I learned that his moods took him over like a title wave takes over a rowboat. On a good day, he was like a radio with the volume turned up all the way, flipping wildly from station to station, but on a dark day, he retreated inwards, quiet, reserved, preferring to listen rather than speak. He was constantly getting into altercations, trouble followed Axl like a bad smell. When I asked him why he had to fight with people, "I don't look for fights," he told me, "I just don't back down."

If Axl was nothing else, he was brutally honest. One night, Axl read to me some lyrics he was working on for a song called "My Michelle". The song was about a girl, Michelle, whom he dated briefly. The lyrics were inspired by the real happenings of her difficult life, stories that she had shared with Axl in confidence at the time. When I asked him if he was worried that she might be offended that he wrote so openly about the tough, often embarrassing, parts of her life. His response was, "Why would she be? It's all fucking true." In Axl's mind, the truth was the truth and someone's feelings about it shouldn't come into play.

Axl felt things far deeper and with more fervor than most people did. You or I might experience dislike, but Axl, he bottled his hate until it fermented into poison and then got high off the fumes. In his most tender moments, he was kind, gentle, and loving; vulnerable in the most endearing ways. Axl comprised so many different qualities that I felt simple and dull in comparison. If people were rain, than I was drizzle and Axl Rose was a hurricane.

We talked a lot about the band, they were really taking off. In March, they signed a contract with Geffen Records, a real record label that promised to record their album and finance a tour. Guns N' Roses was going to be a house hold name. It baffled me that Axl, an up and coming rock star, continued to stay in touch with a high school senior who still lived at home with her parents, but I didn't ask questions. Then, in April, I finally received the news I had been waiting all year to hear, I had been accepted to UCLA. I was moving to the city!

In June, after graduation, I packed up my Ford Escort with all of my worldly possessions and headed to L.A. Both of my parents cried as I pulled out of the driveway. With their advance money from the record company, Slash and Duff had rented a little three bedroom house on Hacienda Place, not far off the Sunset Strip. The three of us were going to live there together. It was all starting to happen for me. When I arrived at the house, it was already dark. Duff and Slash were waiting for me with a bottle of Jack.

"You can unpack later," Duff told me, "your welcome party is at The Whiskey, everyone is already down there."

My heart skipped a beat. I assumed "everyone" included Axl. I hadn't seen him in almost a year and, even though we had been talking, I had no idea what things would be like between us in person.

"Let me change quick and we'll go!" I said, bolting towards the staircase.

Slash followed me with my suitcase, hauling it up the steps. When we reached my room, I dug through my clothes looking for a suitable outfit. I settled on a short, black, leather mini skirt, slouchy red leather boots, and a white off-the-shoulder t-shirt that I tucked into the skirt.

I walked into the Whiskey barley able to contain my own nervous energy. I surveyed the room as I entered it. I saw several familiar faces littered between two adjacent booths at the back of the bar. Axl was amongst them, smiling and laughing, he couldn't see me from where I stood. I wanted to walk right over to him and give him a big hug, but, at the last minute, I stumbled on confidence, chickened out, and followed Duff and Slash to the bar instead. A girl, Duff introduced as Katerina, his latest lady love, was standing at the bar when we got there.