Behind a Thin Disguise

Dear Jani,

What would it have been

like if you hadn’t

needed him to place a

note in your pocket in

case you were found and

you couldn’t speak for

your actions when they knocked

down the door

at some motel

in Woodland Hills

where you fell

victim to your old friend, JD?

---

“So, where is he?”

“… he’s in the ground.”

Best Western Motel, West Hollywood, 2011. We’d made it—our first real tour as a band was a 5-stop west coast deal that kicked off right smack in the land of my dreams. My drummer and I got in a day early so I dragooned him into a random side trip, retracing the life of my hero, Jani Lane. He’d been a glam rocker; lead singer and songwriter of a band called Warrant back in the 90’s. I’d lived by them in high school, spent most of my time wishing I was right there, in the middle of it all, partying until sunup on the Sunset Strip. But those days were long gone; ghosts of iconic music venues thinned out by high end shops, Tower Records—gutted, and what the fuck was a Dry Bar? Jani himself had died a few months ago. Alcohol, they’d said. I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. And the irony that by the time I finally made it here, he was gone.

Still, seeing the Hollywood sign as we drove up Gower was fantastic and familiar. Though I’d never actually set eyes on it, I had in a way, through the music.

Tommy didn’t have the same connection. He was younger and had his own version of the city. The way his eyes went wide at the girls hanging out of their dresses on the corner of Vine made me laugh. Purebred Iowa farm boy. He was downstairs, checking out the pool while I hung out on the balcony, taking in the smoggy air.

Two doors slammed in the room next door. Raised voices. A couple. He was mad. She was crying. A thud. Something hit the floor. Another door slam. Footsteps. She was alone.

That’s when it really hit me. I was in LA. Jani’s LA. Stuff like this probably happened all the time. What would it have been like back then?

----

On a dead-end street, in a dead-end town

There's a motel that I call home

Just a few small hopes and a few small dreams

Are all that place is resting on

Desiree lives two doors down, she's been there for way too long

Sometime when she's feelin' down I hope she hears this song… [1]

----

It was late. By late, I mean somewhere past 3am, stumbling over your feet in the hallway and praying you hadn’t lost your motel key down a leather couch, kind of late. You were just getting back from a meeting with your promoter, or was it some kind of record guy? Some nights blurred like that—two whiskeys down four beers in—but you were still upright and with any luck, in the right building.

A sob from the next wall cleared your vision. “Ah,” you thought. “I am in the right place.”

That would be Desiree, two doors down. You didn’t know her last name. You’re not sure she had one. The landlord didn’t really care as long as you paid your rent on time. Most of the time, you did—in cash when you had it, in booze when you didn’t. You still owed the money, but you could sit in her living room with some Bailey’s and coffee to forget about it and pretend for a little while.

You paused at Desiree’s door. It sounded like she was crying for real, muffling the noise with something. A blanket? A pillow? You’d been curious since she started a few weeks ago. The walls were paper. She had to know everyone on your floor could hear. It didn’t happen every night, but often enough you got to know her breathing in your bones. Her voice became your beacon home.

Something about the sound cut through your foggy brain and you planted your hand on the faded paint. It was October in Los Angeles. Days were cooler, but her room faced the sun, as did yours. You imagined her heart beating behind the warm wood and wondered what would happen if you knocked. Would she answer? Would she even hear? If she did, you imagined mascara streaking down a blank face. You didn’t know what she looked like. You’d only seen her once from the back—long brown hair teased and puffed out, bigger than her tiny body squeezed into an even tinier black dress with long, skinny legs held up by tall, candy apple heels.

Newly transplanted, with nothing but a guitar and a song from Suburbian Anytown, USA; you wanted to say you’d been around and knew what was up. She was probably a street walker, a drug dealer, someone your mama had warned you about. The reality was that you were still young and pretty bug-eyed, so you thought she could have been beautiful.

----

Sometimes she cries when she’s alone at night

Sometimes she weeps when she's feelin' cold and weak

Sometimes the pain—it just tears her up inside

Sometimes she cries… ooh, I wonder why [2]

----

Mercy wasn’t beautiful, but she made you look. A tiny girl with straw blonde hair straight as a pin, light green eyes, and freckled sandstone skin; she wore her lips bright red, loud as anything.

“You’re too serious!” She’d scream at you after shows, after you’d stepped offstage sweating like Santa Claus in a sauna. In her hands would be a cold towel, dripping straight out of an ice bucket if you were lucky enough to have one or cold water from the nearest tap. She’d wrap it around your neck until you could thank her properly. You never knew just what it was she saw in you, but you were grateful all the same. You weren’t the most talented or the greatest looking—it took years before Al managed to coax you from behind the drumkit to sing—but she always made me feel like you were wanted, like you had something better to give.

“Get a room!” Stevie would yell just before he’d steal the towel to smack you on the head with it. He’d taken over the skins after you moved up, would’ve taken over your bed if Mercy’d shown interest, but your girl stayed true even after you decided to try and make it in the big city.

“You’ll call, won’t you? Write?” She asked as she packed her favorite sweatshirt into your stained duffel. Stevie’d pulled the lease a week early, claimed he’d lost his black book, so you’d been sneaking into Mercy’s bedroom every night. Her dad would’ve killed you, but her Mom just started leaving extra doughnuts on the breakfast table.

“Sure, I will.” You held out your arm and she ducked into your chest with a smile. You were lying. You both knew it. That’s why she wasn’t keeping your clothes. You would’ve asked her to come along, but you both knew she couldn’t. She was going to school, saving up to buy a house, working for free at the local vet clinic, and had put in her name to foster a dog. You were taking both of your dreams with you. That’s how you ended up together. You with your head in the clouds; her with her feet on the ground. One of you had to be stable. It wasn’t gonna be you. You weren’t built for that. Neither was I.

----

Ballerina on your bedroom door

Well I know that you've got dreams

But I've got my own

Maybe someday I'll hit those big city lights

But I'll never forget your face

On warm summer nights [3]

----

           Lord knows, Theresa had tried. She was your first girlfriend, straight out of high school. She liked the fact that you grew your hair out a little long but still went home to help your mama do the laundry. She liked the fact that you knew how to separate whites, from jeans and egg yolks both. Your mama taught you well; you could make a mean omelet even on a camp fire.

           “When are you gonna find a real job?” she’d ask as if bussing tables at the local blue plate wasn’t paying the bills. But she only ever saw the mostly empty buckets after cover gigs, after the guys had pooled together loose change for a pitcher of beer you all shared before splitting the ones and fives between the band.

           After a while, it started to piss you off. “This IS my job,” you’d say. “You love it when I’m on stage and your friends think you’re cool, but you want me to what, take classes to sit in a box and crunch someone else’s numbers?”

           She’d pout, for a second. You still remember her lips forming that heart-shape you loved to kiss. She had the bluest eyes and the prettiest curls and you thought maybe, you might be able to make her happy if you could get her to understand. She could never make that leap though. Maybe she didn’t want to. This was her home and she just wanted what everyone else did: a husband who stuck around, with two kids, maybe some cats. “Couldn’t you just do it on the side?”

           How do you explain to someone that music isn’t just something you do for fun? How do you describe how it feels when you’re onstage, when the lights are burning your eyes? When you’re exhausted and shaking but everyone in the room, all the shadowy faces you can barely make out behind the blank spots left by the spot lights, is singing words that you wrote, to music you came up with, while sitting around on a hot summer day, shooting the shit with your friends? How do you get someone to understand that music isn’t just a hobby, that it’s through your teeth and in your bones, so much that you have to let it out?

----

I've always wanted to sing

And I've always wanted to be

Somebody's idol, somebody's daydream

Maybe their fantasy [3]

----

           That was my life, and you were my hero. You came out of nowhere, with the parade of girls and booze; the pretty glam rocker, who had the balls to write real ballads every other self-proclaimed metal Sunset Strip sorority boy couldn’t touch. You painted for them, a party animal but wrote about the girls back home, the girls who broke your heart, what happened behind closed doors when two people couldn’t figure out how to make it past a 6-month long one-night stand that ended with broken bottles and a beautiful, blue-eyed blond baby girl who went to Bobbie’s mother until you both could get your shit together.

           You taught me everything—how to make music, how to write songs, how to be a musician, how to be a man, even though you weren’t the best at it. You were everything to me back then and yet, you never knew. Would it have made any difference if you had?

I’d like to think things could’ve been if I’d never known about you. Maybe I wouldn’t have picked up a guitar. Maybe I would have stayed at home, gone to college, gotten a real job, become a “real” man. Maybe we could’ve saved Mercy. Or married Theresa. You made me want to be that guy. But you ended up dead in a motel in Woodland Hills with a note planted on you by some well-meaning friend in case you were found:

I am Jani Lane.

What kind of friend would do like that, knowing you could go that way? He obviously knew, otherwise he wouldn’t have left the note. How fucked up is that?

We’ll never really know. What I do know is that I can’t leave her like you did. Not like your friend had left you. She was breathing slower now, so soft I could barely hear it. Maybe she’d be ready. Maybe she’d hear me.

           I left my room and knocked on the door.

----

It's a thin disguise, living our lives behind a thin disguise

One of these days if I got the time,

I'll show you what I'm like on the inside [4]

[1] From “Bed of Roses” by Jani Lane, Warrant, 1990

[2] From “Sometimes She Cries” by Jani Lane, Warrant, 1989

[3] From “Sad Theresa” by Jani Lane, Warrant, 1992

[4] From “Thin Disguise” by Jani Lane, Warrant, 1990