Time After Time || Chris Cornell

9. I've Been Away Too Long

Seattle Washington, July 28 1984

(Chris is 20, Andi is 20)

CHRIS:  I was tightening the bolt to one of the symbols on my drum set, that I had situated in the living room of a small 2 and a half bedroom apartment - the half part is the small little den room that I'm taking - that I'm sharing with my new band mates, Hiro Yamamoto and Kim Thayil in the University District of Seattle. I answered an ad in the local Seattle paper 'The Stranger' for a couple of 'dudes' looking for a drummer/singer for a band they were trying to start. I answered the ad and met Hiro first and we hit it off really well I think. I mean he is a little older than me - they both are -but he's into the same kinda stuff that I like to play so... which lead me to meeting Kim just a few days later and we hit it off really well too.

Kim went to school with Hiro so they were already close.  After a few band practices with them, Hiro just asked me if I wanted to just move in so we could basically play as much as we could. I was all for it, since I really didn't have a place to stay at all. We've lived together now for a couple of months now and it's actually pretty freaking cool. Since the neighborhood is riddled with college and university kids, we can play until like 3 in the morning and no one even gives a shit how loud we are. 

I left home not too long after my 18th birthday and I've been staying with friends, basically couch surfing until my brother Peter found out and said I could stay with him until I found a place on my own. I just couldn't stay in that house with my mom anymore. I'm not going to get into specifics but let's just say that we weren't getting along anymore. Honestly, I don't think we ever got along really well, but I did get along better with her than I ever did with my dad.

The stuff that we are coming up with though, is really fucking cool. the first few times we were jamming together, we wrote like 5 songs in just a couple of days. A lot of it is instrumental though, but there are a couple that we wrote that I have put some lyrics to and I'm going to try them out when Kim gets here. It's my first try at writing something that isn't some sort of sappy poem, and I want to make sure it sounds great. Not to discount the poem that I wrote for Andi when I was 16 or anything, I mean... I didn't want to tell her that's what it was. Fuck, I couldn't even read it to her I was so self conscious about it. This time is different though.

We did try out a couple of guys to sing for our band but it wasn't working out. So right now I'm sort of drumming and singing, kind of like Phil Collins in Genesis - yea I know, but whatever.

I haven't seen Andi in over 2 years. The last time we were together was when I was still living with my mom. We were hanging out as usual in my basement, listening to tunes and talking like we always do. When she started to tell me a little more about how her dad left - though she did add that they are somewhat ok with each other now -  and  how he pretty much broke her heart, I knew exactly what would cheer her up, other than me be being silly and making her laugh.  I surprised her with a guitar I stole - yea, I know but I didn't have a lot of money ok, and that shit's expensive!

I was pretty fucking sneaky about it too. I borrowed a friends guitar case and went into a shop way over on the east side of town. I pretended to apply for a job and handed the store clerk my resume. When he went into the back room, I quickly swiped a guitar from one of the displays and put it in the case. I had no idea which one I grabbed, all I knew was that I had to do it quickly. When the clerk came back out of the room and informed me to fill out an application, my fucking heart was pounding so hard I thought I was going to crack and have a heart attack, but the clerk never noticed a thing. I took the application and walked right out of the store and never looked back. I still can't believe I got away with that. I'll never do anything like that again though. I mean I'm no stranger to stealing - though I knew that I shouldn't have - but it was always just small stuff like records from peoples houses, breaking in and fucking shit up.