Sing Backwards and Weep by Mark Lanegan

Author:Mark Lanegan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orion

21

DAYS GONE DARK

One day in early April of ’94, I was lying on my tattered, cigarette-burned sofa, chain-smoking and watching stupid soap operas on TV with the sound off, when my phone rang. As was my normal routine, I let the answering machine pick it up and waited to see if whoever called would leave a message.

“Hey, man, it’s Kurt. I’m back in town. What’re you doing? C’mon over and listen to records with me.”

I thought about it for a minute. Though I loved Kurt, I knew I wasn’t calling back today—(a) I had quite a bit of cash at the moment and plenty of dope so the thought of possibly running out to score for him was a drag, and (b) I assumed Courtney would be there. I had become conditioned to steer clear of their house because every time I had been there in recent months, some kind of drama would erupt between the two of them. It unfolded like some dreary sitcom joke: Courtney would be uncomfortably friendly to me in front of Kurt till she finally triggered an outburst from him. So I blew Kurt off because I didn’t feel like playing the pawn in a fucked-up chess game that particular day.

He called twice more over the next couple hours. Despite the gnawing feeling that I was the world’s shittiest friend, I never picked up, just continued to lie around the place in dirty boxers and the stained robe a stripper girlfriend had left in my bedroom, imagining myself a modern-­day Oscar Wilde. Listening to a Stranglers record and staring mindlessly at the silent TV screen, I was oblivious to the gathering storm headed in my direction.

Late in the afternoon, I got a call from the entertainment lawyer I shared with Kurt, Rosemary Carroll, an extremely smart, no-nonsense woman who happened to be the ex-wife of celebrated writer/musician Jim Carroll.

“Mark, if you know where Kurt is, you need to tell me now.”

A couple minutes later, another message.

“If he is at your apartment and you’re not telling me, we’re going to have a problem.”

I called her back to assure her I wasn’t hiding him.

“Mark,” she said, “I don’t think you realize what’s going on. He checked himself out of rehab yesterday, flew back to Seattle today, and now nobody can get in touch with him.”

“He’s probably fine, Rosemary. Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll check in soon.”

In fact, I had not known what was going on: a highly publicized overdose earlier had been posed to both Dylan Carlson and me as accidental and only much later was it revealed to us as a suicide attempt. I had also not known he’d left rehab and come home on the same day he called me.

I called Kurt: no answer. I called our mutual friends but no one had heard from him. I began to wonder if something was really wrong. I chastised myself for not answering the phone earlier, but I told myself, How could I know? How could I

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