He Told Me To Walk This Way

F.I.N.E.

Get Your Wings was released on March 1st, 1974, twenty-five days before Steven’s twenty-sixth birthday. The tour started eight days later. Angela, of course, couldn’t go because she was pregnant, so I stayed behind with her. We spent most of the time the band was on tour at my mother’s house. We basked in the comforts of once again having a mother figure. We had both learned that living away from home actually was hard.Elyssa had of course gone along with the band.

The party thrown after the album’s release was unbelievable. There were actually several; because apparently my boyfriend was now one of the hottest new rock stars out there.

I remember being overwhelmed by what it meant to be a rock star’s girlfriend. It didn’t mean shopping whenever I wanted at the most expensive stores and getting my face put on a magazine every chance I got. At least not for me. To me, it meant being hopelessly paranoid. I was constantly accusing Steven of flirting with girls and cheating on me. I called Steven every night, at each venue, and usually our conversations would end with one us screaming into the receiver, “Fuck you!” and smashing the phone into the wall. After I’d hang up the phone I’d fall apart. I would cry and act like a bitch to everyone. I missed Steven and it was tearing me apart. I needed him. And I couldn’t help but think about the fact that there were groupies who’d tagged along with them on the tour bus. Was I honestly supposed to believe that Steven was just sitting alone at the back of the bus reading the fucking bible, drinking a glass of warm milk while his best friends banged the groupies? Yeah, right. It broke my heart to think about that. But I still called him every night, just because I needed to hear his voice.

Five months later, I got a call from Steven, telling me that he had gotten incarcerated for swearing on stage. But that didn’t matter to me. The next day, July 10th, Aerosmith came home.

But it was December now, and I was sitting in a hospital waiting room in a severely uncomfortable blue chair. Steven was to my left, with his arm around me. Joey was pacing back and forth, chain-smoking, and sweating his ass off. Tom was trying to get Joey to come sit down and stop worrying because, “Angela’ll be just fine”. Joe and Brad were busy at the vending machines. I nervously picked at my fingernail between periods of glancing at the hospital activity. So far, Angela had been in the delivery room for three hours, and I knew things like this could go on for much longer.

“Fuck, these nurses won’t even tell me what’s going on!” Joey said, taking a drag off his cigarette.

“Sit down man; she’s fine.” Joe said, annoyed.

“Why’s it taking so long?” Joey whined.

Just then the white metal door behind him swung open and out came an older looking woman with smooth dark skin. She was smiling, and I could tell she wasn’t new to this. Her hair was up in a messy bun under her little paper nurse hat and her voice was calm. “Mr. Kramer…you can come back now.” She said, taking Joey’s hand.

It looked like a bolt of electricity ran through his body after the nurse spoke. Joey stopped dead in his tracks and started following her, without looking back at us. I couldn’t have honestly expected to be allowed in the delivery room, but I still felt crushed.

The next two hours were literal hell. My mind was racing and I couldn’t sit still. Just about every time someone came to the metal door, I indignantly expected it to be a nurse, informing us that everything was fine with Angela and her baby. Aside from that, I couldn’t keep my mind from wandering over to the fact that Angela had partied while she was pregnant, and if that was causing any problems. It appeared that everyone else was having the same amount of trouble coping that I was: Joe had smoked at least twenty cigarettes and eaten three donuts, followed by four cups of coffee and frequent bathroom trips. Steven kept playing with my hair and kissing my neck, but I had spent the whole time batting him away. I suppose that was his way of expressing being nervous. Brad and Tom had just about devoured all of the three snack machines in the waiting room.