Heavier Than Heaven Read online

  It was a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions; no matter how far Kurt moved away from that wrestling mat, in the corner of his eye, he was always looking directly at his father, or—to be more accurate, since his relationship with his father was virtually dead to him after this point—looking at his father’s ghost. Almost a decade after his freshman wrestling defeat, Kurt would fire off a bitter lyric in a song titled “Serve the Servants,” the words yet another move in his never-ending bout with his greatest opponent: “I tried hard to have a father, but instead I had a dad.”

  Chapter 4

  PRAIRIE BELT SAUSAGE BOY

  ABERDEEN, WASHINGTON

  MARCH 1982–MARCH 1983

  Don’t be afraid to chop hard, put some elbow grease in it.

  —From the cartoon “Meet Jimmy, the Prairie Belt Sausage Boy.”

  It was at his own insistence that in March 1982, Kurt left 413 Fleet Street and his father and stepmother’s care. Kurt would spend the next few years bouncing around the metaphorical wilderness of Grays Harbor. Though he’d make two stops that were a year in length, over the next four years he would live in ten different houses, with ten different families. Not one of them would feel like home.

  His first stop was the familiar turf of his paternal grandparents’ trailer outside Montesano. From there he could take the bus into Monte each morning, which allowed him to stay in the same school and class, but even his classmates knew the transition was hard. At his grandparents’, he had the sympathetic ear of his beloved Iris, and there were moments when he and Leland shared closeness, but he spent much of his time by himself. It was yet another step toward a larger, profound loneliness.

  One day he helped his grandfather construct a dollhouse for Iris’s birthday. Kurt assisted by methodically stapling miniature cedar shingles on the roof of the structure. With wood that was left over, Kurt built a crude chess set. He began by drawing the shapes of the pieces on the wood, and then laboriously whittling them with a knife. Halfway through this process, his grandfather showed Kurt how to operate the jigsaw, then left the fifteen-year-old to his own devices, while watching from the door. The boy would look up at his grandfather for approval, and Leland would tell him, “Kurt, you’re doing good.”

  But Leland was not always so kind with his words, and Kurt found himself back in the same father/son dynamic he’d experienced with Don. Leland was quick to pepper his decrees to Kurt with criticism. In Leland’s defense, Kurt could truly be a pain. As his teenage years began, he constantly tested his limits, and with so many different parental figures—and none with ultimate authority over him—he eventually wore out his elders. His family painted a picture of a stubborn and obstinate boy who wasn’t interested in listening to any adults or working. Petulance appeared to be an essential part of his nature, as did laziness, in contrast to everyone else in his family—even his younger sister Kim had helped pay the bills with her paper route. “Kurt was lazy,” recalled his uncle Jim Cobain. “Whether it was simply because he was a typical teenager or because he was depressed, no one knew.”

  By summer 1982, Kurt left Montesano to live with Uncle Jim in South Aberdeen. His uncle was surprised to be given the responsibility. “I was shocked they would let him live with me,” Jim Cobain remembered. “I was smoking pot at the time. I was oblivious to his needs, let alone to what the hell I was doing.” At least, with his inexperience, Jim was not a heavy-handed disciplinarian. He was two years younger than his brother Don but far hipper, with a large record collection: “I had a really nice stereo system and lots of records by the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, and the Beatles. And I’d crank that baby up loud.” Kurt’s biggest joy during his months with Jim was rebuilding an amplifier.

  Jim and his wife had an infant daughter and, for space reasons, soon asked Kurt to leave. From there Kurt stayed with Wendy’s brothers and sisters. “Kurt was handed down from relative to relative,” recalled Jim. He was the quintessential latchkey kid. He got along better with his uncles and aunts than he did with his parents, yet authority issues followed him. His uncles and aunts were less strict, yet in the more laid-back households there was less of an attempt at structured family togetherness. His relatives had problems and struggles of their own— there wasn’t anyone with the space for him, both physically and emotionally, and Kurt knew it.

  Kurt spent several months with his Uncle Chuck, where he began to take guitar lessons. Chuck was in a band with a fellow named Warren Mason, one of the hottest guitar players on the harbor. Whenever they rehearsed at Chuck’s house—rehearsals that always included pot and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s—Kurt would watch from the corner, eyeing Warren like a starving man looking at a meatball sandwich. One day Chuck asked Warren if he’d instruct the boy, and so began Kurt’s formal training in music.

  As Kurt told the story, he only took one or two lessons, and in that short period he learned everything he needed to know. But Warren remembered the instruction stretching on for months, and Kurt being a serious student who spent hours trying to apply himself. The first thing Warren had to deal with was Kurt’s guitar—it was more suited for showing off at school than playing. Warren found Kurt an Ibanez, for $125. Lessons themselves were $5 per half hour. Warren asked Kurt the question he asked all his young students: “What are some of the songs you want to learn?” “Stairway to Heaven,” was Kurt’s reply. Kurt already knew how to play a crude version of “Louie, Louie.” They worked on “Stairway” and then progressed to AC/DC’s “Back in Black.” The lessons ended when Kurt’s poor grades made his uncle reconsider this choice of afternoon recreation.

  Kurt continued to go to school in Monte through the second month of his sophomore year, but then transferred to Aberdeen’s Weatherwax High. It was the same school his mother and father had graduated from, but despite the family roots and the proximity to his mother’s home—it was ten blocks away—he was an outsider there. Built in 1906, Weatherwax stretched over three city blocks, with five separate buildings, and Kurt’s class had 300 students—three times as large as Monte. In Aberdeen, Kurt found himself in a school with four factions—stoners, jocks, preppies, and nerds—and he initially fit into none of them. “Aberdeen was full of cliques,” observed Rick Miller, another Monte boy who transferred to Weatherwax. “Neither one of us really knew anybody. Even though Aberdeen was Hicksville compared to Seattle, it was still a major step up from Monte. We never could figure out where we fit in.” Changing schools as a sophomore would have been difficult for most well-adjusted teenagers; it was torturous for Kurt.

  While he’d been popular in Monte—a preppy in his Izod shirts, a jock because of his involvement in sports—in Aberdeen he was an outsider. He kept up with his friends in Monte, but despite the fact that he saw his buddies nearly every weekend, his sense of loneliness increased. His athletic skills weren’t sufficient to gain him notoriety in a large school, so he dropped out of sports. Combined with his own self-doubt from his fractured family and nomadic lifestyle, his retreat from the world continued. Later, Kurt would tell repeated tales of being beaten up in Aberdeen, and of the constant abuse he suffered at the hands of redneck high-school kids. Yet his classmates at Weatherwax don’t remember any such incidents—he exaggerated the emotional isolation he felt into phantom tales of physical violence.

  There was at least one redeeming grace to his studies: Weatherwax had an excellent art program, and in this one class Kurt continued to excel. His teacher, Bob Hunter, found him an extraordinary student: “He had both the ability to draw, coupled with a great imagination.” Hunter allowed his students to listen to the radio while they worked— he was an artist and musician himself—and encouraged them to be creative. To Kurt, he was the ideal teacher, and like Mr. Kanno before him, he proved to be one of the few adult role models the boy could look up to.

  That first year at Weatherwax, Kurt took commercial art and basic art, fifth and sixth periods. These two 50-minute classes—scheduled right after lunch—were the one time when he was certain to
be in school each day. His skill impressed Hunter and at times shocked his classmates. For a caricature assignment, Kurt drew Michael Jackson, with one gloved hand in the air and the other holding his crotch. During another lesson the class was asked to show an object as it developed: Kurt depicted a sperm turning into an embryo. His drawing skills were exemplary, but his twisted mind was what drew the attention of his classmates. “That sperm was a shock to all of us,” recalled classmate Theresa Van Camp. “It was such a different mental attitude. People began to talk about him, wondering, ‘What does he think of?’ ” When Hunter told Kurt the Michael Jackson illustration might not be appropriate to display in the school halls, he instead drew an unflattering illustration of Ronald Reagan with a raisin-like face.

  Kurt had always drawn obsessively, but now, with the encouragement of Hunter, he began to imagine himself an artist. His scribbles became part of his education. He was adept at cartooning, and in this way he first began to learn the art of storytelling. One recurrent cartoon from this period was the adventures of “Jimmy, the Prairie Belt Sausage Boy,” named after a canned meat product. These tales documented the painful childhood of Jimmy—a thinly veiled Kurt—who was forced to endure strict parents. One full-color, multi-panel edition not so subtly told the story of Kurt’s conflicts with his father. In the first panel, the father figure lectures Jimmy: “This oil is dirty. I can smell the gas in it. Get me a 9-mm wrench, you lousy little creep. If you’re gonna live here, you’re gonna live by my rules and they are as serious as my moustache: honesty, loyalty, dedication, honor, valor, strict discipline, God and country, that’s what makes America No. One.” Another panel shows a mother shouting, “I’m giving birth to your son and aborting your daughter. PTA meeting at seven, pottery class 2:30, beef stroganoff, dog to vet 3:30, laundry, yes, yes, mmm honey, it feels good in the ass, mmm, I love you.”

  It’s unclear whether the mother in the cartoon is meant to be Jenny or Wendy, but the decision to attend Weatherwax had also entailed moving back in with his mother at 1210 East First Street. This was as close to a permanent home as Kurt had, since his upstairs room had remained untouched, a shrine to earlier days within the nuclear family. He’d spent weekends here on and off, continuing to decorate the walls with band posters, many of them now hand drawn. Of course, the best part of his room, and his life, was his guitar. Wendy’s house was emptier than his other stops during these years, allowing him to practice without distraction. But the domestic front was only slightly improved; his mom had finally freed herself of Frank Franich, yet Kurt and Wendy were still fighting.

  Wendy was a very different mom from the one Kurt had left six years previously. She was now 35 years old, but she was dating younger men and going through a stage that can only be described as the kind of mid-life crisis typically associated with recently divorced men. She was drinking a lot and had become a regular at Aberdeen’s many taverns—one of the main reasons Kurt wasn’t immediately deposited back in her care after he left Don. That year she began casually dating 22-year-old Mike Medak. During the first few months they saw each other, Wendy didn’t even mention to Medak she had kids; mostly she stayed at his house, and he didn’t see her children until several months into their relationship. “It was like she was a single woman,” he recalled. “It wasn’t like we were waiting around Friday night for the baby-sitter— it was as if there was no kids.” Dating Wendy wasn’t all that different from dating a 22-year-old. “We’d go out to the nearest tavern or dance hall. And we’d party.” Wendy complained how Franich had broken her arm, how she struggled financially, and about Don’s distance. One of the few stories she told about Kurt was how at five he had walked into the living room sporting a hard-on in front of Don and a bunch of his friends. Don was embarrassed and carried his son out of the room. The incident would become family legend; it still gave Wendy a chuckle to tell it.

  As a 22-year-old dating a 35-year-old, Medak was in the relationship mostly for physical reasons; to him Wendy was an attractive older woman, an ideal date if you weren’t looking for commitment. Even fifteen-year-old Kurt could sense this, and he was quick to judge. Kurt discussed his mom’s dates with his friends, and his words were harsh, though they didn’t touch upon the psychological conflict he must have felt at seeing his mother take a lover who was only seven years older than he. “He said he hated his mom, that he thought she was a slut,” remembered John Fields. “He didn’t agree with her lifestyle. He didn’t like her at all, and he’d talk about running away. Kurt would vacate the house if she was there, since she’d yell at him a lot.”

  Wendy’s siblings remember being concerned about her drinking, but because their family communication style was non-confrontational, it was rarely discussed.

  His mother’s attractiveness also proved to be an embarrassment for Kurt. All his friends had crushes on her, and Wendy’s habit of sunbathing in a bikini in the backyard had them peeking through the fence. When friends would spend the night, they would joke how if there wasn’t enough room they would gladly agree to sleep with Wendy. Kurt would punch anyone who made this joke, and he did a lot of punching. Wendy also seemed attractive to these young boys because she would occasionally purchase alcohol for them. “Kurt’s mom bought us booze a couple of times,” remembered Mike Bartlett. “It was with the understanding that we would drink it at the house.” Once Wendy paid for beer for the kids and let them watch a video of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. “One time a few of us were spending the night there,” said Trevor Briggs, “and we talked his mom into buying us a fifth of tequila. We got drunk and went out walking. And when we came back, his mom was on the couch making out with a guy.” Kurt’s drunken, fifteen-year-old response was to yell at his mom’s paramour, “Give it up dude! You ain’t going to get none. Go home!” It was a joke, but there was nothing comical about his desire for a more traditional family.

  That Christmas, Kurt’s main request was the Oingo Boingo album Nothing to Fear. At the Fradenburg Christmas celebration his aunt took a photo of him holding it. With his still-short hair and boyish looks, he appears much younger than fifteen. Aunt Mari gave him the album Tadpoles from the Bonzo Dog Band, containing the novelty tune “Hunting Tigers Out in Indiah.” It was Kurt’s favorite song that winter and he learned to play it on guitar. Right before Christmas, he’d visited Mari, who’d moved to Seattle, to search record stores. One of the items on Kurt’s wish list was a soundtrack album to the “H. R. Pufnstuf” television show, which he adored. Another album he sought, his aunt had never heard of: REO Speedwagon’s Hi Infidelity.

  He turned sixteen that February and passed his driver’s test. But the biggest event that spring was something far more important to him than his learner’s permit—it was a milestone he talked about constantly through adolescence, though never in adulthood. On March 29, 1983, Kurt journeyed to the Seattle Center Coliseum to see Sammy Hagar and Quarterflash, his first concert. Being big fans of Seattle radio station KISW—the signal would come in clear at night—Kurt loved Hagar’s “butt rock” and he also had a fondness for Quarterflash’s hit “Harden My Heart.” He went with Darrin Neathery, whose older sister drove them. “It was a big deal because it was the first concert we both saw,” Neathery said. “Somehow we got a six-pack of Schmidt. Kurt and I sat in the backseat on the way up and had a hell of a good time. When we got to the show, I remember standing on the floor down by the back, where they did the lights, after Quarterflash had played. We were just in awe of it all: the lights and the production. Then a whiskey bottle came flying from the very top stands and smashed right by us. We about crapped our pants. So we hauled out of there and found a place in the upper rafters to watch Sammy. I bought a T-shirt and Kurt did too.” Kurt would later rewrite history and claim that the punk band Black Flag was his first concert. Yet what every one of his classmates in Weatherwax remembered was the sixteen-year-old Kurt coming to school the next day, wearing an oversized Sammy Hagar T-shirt, and talking like a pilgrim who had just returned from the holy land.r />
  As the 1983 school year ended, Kurt discovered punk rock, and the Sammy Hagar T-shirt was stuck in a bottom drawer, never to return. That summer he saw the Melvins, and it was an event that would change his life. He wrote in his journal:

  In the summer of 1983...I remember hanging out at a Montesano, Washington Thriftway when this short-haired employee box-boy, who kind [of] looked like the guy in Air Supply, handed me a flyer that read: “The Them Festival. Tomorrow night in the parking lot behind Thriftway. Free live rock music.” Monte was a place not accustomed to having live rock acts in their little village, a population of a few thousand loggers and their subservient wives. I showed up with stoner friends in a van. And there stood the Air Supply box-boy holding a Les Paul with a picture from a magazine of Kool Cigarettes on it. They played faster than I ever imagined music could be played and with more energy than my Iron Maiden records could provide. This was what I was looking for. Ah, punk rock. The other stoners were bored and kept shouting, “Play some Def Leppard.” God, I hated those fucks more than ever. I came to the promised land of a grocery store parking lot and I found my special purpose.

  He had twice underlined “This was what I was looking for.”

  It was his epiphany—the moment when his small world suddenly became a larger one. The “Air Supply box-boy” was Roger “Buzz” Osborne, who Kurt had known as an aloof older kid at Montesano High. When Kurt complimented Buzz after the show, he played to Osborne’s vanity, and Buzz was soon playing mentor, passing along punk rock records, a book on the Sex Pistols, and dog-eared copies of Creem magazines. Despite his journal entry, it was not a complete transformation—Kurt still saw Judas Priest play at the Tacoma Dome that summer. Like other kids in Aberdeen, he mixed his punk with loads of heavy metal, though he didn’t brag about this in front of Buzz, and he now favored punk T-shirts.