2009.09.DD - Excerpts from "Sheriff McCoy: Outlaw Legend of Hanoi Rocks" by Andy McCoy

Excerpts from Andy McCoy's autobiography, Sheriff McCoy: Outlaw Legend of Hanoi Rocks taken from the google books free preview:
https://tinyurl.com/yb73hbmq

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[...]

Back to Los Angeles. I learned that Steven Adler, who was still the drummer in Guns N’ Roses at the time, lived just fifty yards away from me. By then, we had already lived at Laurel Terrace for four months or so. The fact that Steve was our neighbor was not good news. There were a lot of rumors about him circulating in L.A., and one of the heaviest was that he had a serious relationship with the most seducing and destructive gal of ’em all—a golden girl called heroin.

I really knew I had to stay away, but as I was taking a walk one day, there he stood. It was too late to turn and pretend I hadn’t seen him.

“Hi, Andy, what are you doing here? What, are you living in that giant fuckin’ castle? Wow! Cool. What are you doing tonight? You should come over later.’’

I went and we got high. Some first-class Mexican heroin and cocaine, totally pure. I realized I didn’t even want to, but I just followed him. Steven’s house was okay, not as big as ours. He led me to a darkened bedroom, where pitch-black, triple velvet curtains hung over the window. The vibe was lead-heavy, almost like I had stepped into a time machine and traveled back a century. It was a true opium den.

Well, I went over for about four days, supposedly to jam with him. I walked over to Stevens house with my ’54 Les Paul Junior in hand, pretending that we were gonna jam, though in reality we just did Mexican horse and nodded. It didn’t take long for Angela to find out what was going down, maybe a day or two at the most. I remember the day when Steven had given me some dope the previous night so I could have a morning fix. That’s when I realized I was plunging head over heels into addiction again. I fixed myself for the last time as Angela was sleeping next to me, looking ever so sweet and serene. But when she woke up, she was all over the place within seconds:

“You fuckin’ cocksucker motherfucker! You just can’t stay away from that shit, can you?!’’ I realized Angela was looking me straight in the eye, and that my pupils were obviously pretty nonexistent.

“It’s that motherfucker Steven, isn’t it?” she asked.

“I know it’s that goddamn, unfortunate ass-licker! That bitch does anything to have some company!”

Then Angela went to inflict some total psychological torture on Steven. You know, an Italian girl who’s fuckin’ mad and basically wants your balls is someone you just don’t mess with. Believe me, I know. I just hoped she didn’t carry that small Derringer handgun I had given to her. Or maybe it would've been for the best—with the gun, at least it would have been all over sooner.

After that episode, Steven vanished from the picture and everything returned to normal. I had only been using for four days. I didn’t get hooked again, thank God, and thank Angela.

[...]

One fine day at Laurel Terrace, Erin showed up. I was watching TV and half-listening as she cried hysterically to Angela. She was begging for pills, sobbing that it was time to end it all. “Shut up already,” Angela said. Erin explained that while driving drunk, she’d tried to crash her car off Mulholland Drive at a spot where there’s a 150-yard drop down the cliff. It’s a perfect spot if you want to commit vehicular suicide—there’s not much left of you after a 150-yard drop. That’s where James Dean and a lot of other people were killed. But Erin didn’t have the guts—she was just vying for attention.

[...]

I went to check out the upstairs bedroom, and sure enough, Erin had disappeared. Angela thought for a minute and remembered that Erin had wanted to visit Steven next door. Erin had already asked me for heroin, but I had told her she wouldn’t find that stuff in my house no more. Erin even offered to give us five hundred bucks if we copped a fix together. If I had been a junkie, I’d have instantly made a $480 profit. But no way! You never introduce no one to heroin—that’s a matter of principle.

At the time, Steven was just about to get sacked from Guns N’ Roses. Angela and me looked at each other and said simultaneously: “Steven’s!” Erin was surely at Steven’s. Suddenly all that talk about suicide took on a whole new meaning, and we realized it was a young woman’s cry for help—a woman who didn’t want to live anymore. Angela instantly said to me: “Andy, you run to Steven’s house right now! Where else could she be? Her Jeep’s still parked in front of our house. Go see if there’s evil afoot!”

I could tell from Angela’s face that she was really worried. She told me to call as soon as I could. I ran over like some motherfucking rapist with the cops after me, fuck, and a pack of bloodhounds, too. I rang the bell for at least three minutes, until Steven Adler came to the door. He looked like an Alphabet City junkie, not stylish at all, the motherfucker, scratching his armpits, shit, even his balls—really fuckin’ disgusting.

He tried to open the door and finally managed to get the safety chain off. I rushed in, like, “Erin, where is she? Is she okay?” “Oh, she’s in the bedroom,” Steven mumbled. “She’s turning blue.” He said it so calmly as if nothing in the world mattered a bit. I became really pissed off and yelled at him: “Steven, how much did you give her?”

Well, at least I had a good idea what she had taken. No answer from Steven. I grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him against the wall. I asked again: “Steven, this could be a matter of life and death! How much?!”

I panicked. I tried to revive Erin. I slapped her face. I gave her mouth to mouth. I kept banging on her chest. Then I remembered what my late friend, my wife’s cousin, Johnny Thunders taught me: If you see somebody overdosing, you must use buprenorphine, or even just salt. Buprenorphine is ten times more effective. It stops the division of heroin in the body, and salt does the same thing to an extent. I finally found a vein and did what Johnny taught me.

I screamed at Steven to call a fuckin’ ambulance. It was useless. That fuckin’ chickenshit was so scared that he couldn’t do anything. He was just like, “No, man, I gotta hide, fuck, I’ll go to the shower.”

Well, no wonder the guy broke a sweat: He had just given our good, mutual friend her first fix of smack, and she was about to die in his house. But I still couldn’t understand how somebody could say something like that, without any sympathy for human life. It made me sick, but I kept on banging Erins chest and everything. Finally she began to breathe, very slowly and faintly, and I could feel a feeble pulse. Then I called Angela: “You call the ambulance now. I can’t do that, I have my hands full trying to save her life.”

I scattered ice on Erin’s half-dead body and tried forcing some strong coffee into her mouth. I tried to walk her around, simultaneously slapping her face. Every once in a while I had to lay her on the floor so I could bang her heart and administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

“Erin, Erin, you’re a strong woman! Breathe!”

I prayed to the holy and good Saint Sara-la-Kali, the patron angel of us Gypsies.

Angela came over with Judie Aronson, her actress friend who lived next door. Judie was always around, although she wasn’t a part of the rock 'n' roll scene. Now she surely realized what kind of people her neighbors were. She and Angela both went white in the face. Angela came to help and took care of first aid, I mean resuscitation, while I kept banging Erin’s heart. I didn’t give a fuck if her rib bones cracked, as long as her heart kept beating.

I took a five-second breather. It seemed like, shit, Erin’s panties were down to her ankles. Remember this: Erin never did drugs, she sometimes took a Valium and sometimes had a drink, but never simultaneously. Although you couldn’t deny that her downward spiral had already begun. In many respects she was like a child, a very naive person who always needed somebody around. I think Axl had written their huge hit “Sweet Child O’ Mine” about her for that reason: Erin was like a small child. When I saw her there with her pants down and almost dying, I couldn’t help wondering if Steven had done something to her while she was out cold. What a cocksucker if so!

We could just about feel Erin’s pulse when we heard the ambulance and the LAPD arrive outside the house. The ambulance guys got to work right away, and I mean instantly. Goddammit, I so respect these guys; they dedicate their lives to helping others. That’s something we should all learn, even if it’s just small things, because then this world would be so much better to live in.

I watched them take care of Erin, and she looked almost like a doll. When they asked me what she had taken, I had to tell the truth: “Heroin, I don’t how much, maybe also Valium. I don’t know about the amounts.”

I talked to the cops. Steve was still hiding in the shower. Motherfuckin’ fuck, what a chickenshit! Me, Angela, and Judie, Angela’s actress friend, began to fear the worst. Would Erin pull through?

“We don’t know,” the paramedics said. They tried to kick-start her heart.

First time: “DUM!”

“Pump it, the pulse is rising, the pulse is rising, yeah, we got her. Hey, she’s breathing again!”

They carried Erin out, and the ambulance chief asked me: “Have you taken a first-aid course or something? I’m sure you have.”

“No, man, you’re talking to the wrong guy,” I said.

He took me by the arm: “You’ve just saved a life. Without you, we would have carried her out in a different kind of bag altogether. In a black one, if you know what I mean.”

“You mean she would’ve died?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

A couple of cops came to shake my hand.

“Thanks, man, you saved her life.”

I watched as the cops and ambulances left and took Erin away. I was starting to feel bad. For the first time in my life— although I had already kicked the habit myself—I was struck that heroin is really public enemy number one. It’s first-rate poison. It’s not just a “small personal problem,” you know what I mean, like, “I just have a small cold.” That’s what I used to say before the withdrawal symptoms got so bad that I couldn’t even get out of bed. The craziest thing is I never received any thanks from Erin, although she reappeared in our life later on and naturally messed everything up once again.

Later that night Axl Rose called me and said, “Thanks, Andy, how can I ever thank you? I really owe you big-time. Whatever you need—money, whatever—you only have to call.” Truth be told, he still owes me, and I hope he still remembers that, because one day I might really need him to return the favor. I take these things real seriously. He and Erin are now divorced—thank God, because that relationship was just so sick and violent.

[...]

But the most surprising thing was that Steven won the case: He got a million bucks, tax-free, and blew it all on heroin. So that was Stevens story with the biggest rock band in the world. He really screwed up that one.

Let that be a lesson for you what a mix of heroin and cocaine can do, especially if they’re perfectly blended and taken intravenously. The last I heard of Steven, he got chased down by LAPD helicopters. He had passed out in his car, nodding out on smack, and somebody had called the cops about a halfconscious driver. Jail, that’s where you ended up, Steven. Maybe you learned something there.

Oh, I forgot, Steven: If you’re currently doing time, watch out when you bend over to pick up the soap.

Love, Andy.

***

I first met Angela when I was having dinner at some Mexican restaurant in downtown Hollywood. Izzy Stradlin, the guitarist of Guns N’ Roses, appeared at my table, followed by Angela. They were celebrating the birthday of club promoter Mike Canters, and I guess all of Guns N’ Roses was there. I started talking to Angela. At the time, I was in the process of separating from Anastasia. We chatted for a while, nothing more, but I think we both felt a connection. Every time we met after that, we always hung out together.

Maybe it was love at first sight or something equally instantaneous. The second time I met Angela was at the Roxy, but she was so out of it that I just wanted to run away. I bought her a drink and told some guy to take it to her and tell her I had to leave. Next day Angela told me she felt really bad about the way she had behaved. But hey, we were still young, and to party hearty was the order of the day.

I think it finally clicked one night when Transvision Vamp played the Roxy. Angela worked there, and we had booked a balcony where we could watch the band without being disturbed. Right there we touched each other for the first time and all. There was also a funny incident when a guy called Cheeseboy was so zonked out on pills that he tried to attack me. About then, me and Anastasia were about to split up and fought like fuck. Cheeseboy told me that Stacy had broken all the windows in his house. I told him that it was no fault of mine, that he should ask Stacy for the money, since she was the one who broke his goddamn windows. Somehow Angela managed to get rid of that guy.

Then Izzy invited me to see GNR open up for the Stones. I went with a friend called Eddie, and it was really boring, actually. It was a typical arena gig: too many people, and unless you were at the side of the stage, you could see nothing. Well, I watched most of the Guns N' Roses set and went backstage to say hi to Slash. Slash said he had some weed, so we decided to roll a joint, but because we had no papers, I said I’d go ask the Stones if they had some. Ronnie Wood would surely have some Rizlas, I thought. I started walking towards the Stones’ dressing room, and I ran across Angela. And that’s when it happened. I never went back to Slash; instead, Angela and I left together.

I still remember Angela wearing jeans and a black derby hat that night. She had rented a limo for the evening and said we had to talk. I, too, felt it was about time we talked. Angela told me all about her feelings, and I told her all about mine, and for the first time in my life, it felt like I was really, truly in love.

Everything happened pretty fast after that. It took about a week lor us to move in together. I just couldn’t stand Stacy’s constant drug use anymore. When I returned from the Iggy Pop tour, I was totally clean, but then I came home to a woman who was high as a kite all the time. It would’ve been just a matter of time before Id relapse. If you’re a former junkie and you have to watch somebody else do dope, you’ll soon do it yourself. It was time for me to leave Stacy and kick heroin. I had found the love of my life.