The Bewildra mess (see chapter 9) ended horribly. Her drink of choice was beer and she downed the swill in astounding volumes. Occasionally, she also drank wine with her meals and, with a little help from me, could empty a bottle before the entrée arrived. I had never seen anything like it.
Early one evening we went out for dinner. On this particular occasion she drank much more than usual. Bewildra was a drunk whose emotions had the habit of changing drastically for no particular reason. The veneer of civility, cultivated by her upper class education, was soon stripped away after guzzling down a few lagers. It didn’t take much to set her off but, in this case, there were problems with her parents. They had come to the opinion that she was frequenting with trash and deserved to be in better company. I can’t imagine to whom they were referring.
When we got back to her condo she became very belligerent. I should have left but I stood there thinking that it might blow over. She started screaming and threw an issue of Martha Stewart’s Living at me. The corner binding of the magazine hit right above my left eye, drawing blood. She cooled down when she saw the blood but it was too late. After a half hour or so there was a knock at the door. One of the neighbors had called the police because of the screaming.
She opened the door and the first thing the cops noticed was me sitting in the the antique bergère with blood streaming down my face. They tried questioning her but she yelled at them to leave us “the fuck alone.” When one of the cops told her to calm down she took a swing at him, landing a punch in his face. With that, they wrestled her to the ground, cuffed her and dragged her screaming to the cruiser. After a few choice admonitions from the cops, I was told to leave the premises.
She spent three days in jail and when she got out she was nearly catatonic. Her parents pulled a few strings and the police dropped the charges. To deflect attention away from their daughter’s marred reputation, they sought legal action against me which, I assume, didn’t go anywhere because they couldn’t buy off enough people to make a case. Bewildra called me a few times after the dust had settled but I didn’t want to have anything to do with her. Years later, someone told me she had moved down to New Orleans and was living with her therapist.
Soon after this sordid business was over I found myself wandering around a local bookstore. Aimlessly perusing the literature aisles, I came across the books of the Marquis de Sade. I was unfamiliar with his writings other than reading a critique of his work some months earlier. I decided to buy a copy of Juliette and it turned out to be something of a milestone for me. The style of the writing, its use of humor in the most unlikely circumstances, the outrageous story lines and descriptions and the complete clarity of will, for better or worse, became a great source of inspiration.
Juliette
I looked at these writings through the prism of my own recent experiences and their influence was pervasive in many of the songs that I wrote during this time. In fact, the CD that followed the release of the cassette tapes (see chapter 8), entitled Under Whip and Chain, revolved around many of the themes that were expounded by de Sade. Songs such as That’s What I Want, Under Whip and Chain, and 20 Foot Drop would not have been written had I not read his books.
His style is nihilistic and militantly anti-religious. I don’t share the same points of view and yet, at the time, I could not have discovered a better creative mentor. Finding de Sade was the providential slap in the face that was needed to knock me out of my stupor. He has many contemporary equivalents in various fields of art but most are comparatively devoid of humanity. Despite all the terrors in de Sade – and there are countless – he still retains a sense of human dignity because the writing is firmly grounded in intellect. I want to think that this is also true of the material I wrote during this period though, undoubtedly, that is something bordering on the delusional.
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