PORTLAND, OR (1985) "Courtney Love"

The girls in the Portland music scene were scrappy, tough-girl types. Strippers. Shoplifters. Small town operators.

I was 24 and I’d written a first draft of a novel and I went back to Portland for the winter to work on it.  Portland was the easiest place to do this:  I could stay at my parent’s house, undistracted, the rain falling outside.

At night, I’d go into town to see bands and hang out.  I joined a one-off band with some old musician friends.  And then I started working for my dad, cleaning out his old office.  And then I met Kat.

Kat (21?) was very cool, very talented.  She had led—and written songs for—a promising band called the VenaRays. She was a stripper to pay her rent.  I would sometimes drive her to the strip-club for her shifts.  She lived in an old Victorian house with some other goth music people.  

Incidentally:  1985 was the year Goth broke in Portland.  Everything that year was black leather, black lace, Siouxsie and the Banshees, candles, hairspray, “Love Cats” playing everywhere.

      We slip through the streets while everyone sleeps
      Getting bigger and sleeker and wider and brighter

I wasn’t Goth myself.  I dressed in a very particular “downtown film student” style I’d learned at NYU.  I think Kat liked that I was different from the other guys.

*

I’d been with Kat for about a month when she suddenly started talking about a friend of hers, Courtney, who was coming back to town.  Kat would get stars in her eyes when she talked about this friend.  Courtney was “amazing” “brilliant” “incredible”.  All the Portland scene girls seemed to agree. 

With Courtney’s impending arrival, Kat became less interested in me.  She and Courtney were going to start a band.  She and Courtney were best friends. She and Courtney were moving to San Francisco.  Kat was obsessed. 

I didn’t know what to think.  Most of the prominent girls in the Portland music scene were scrappy, tough-girl types.  Strippers.  Shoplifters.  Small town operators.  Like how “amazing” and “brilliant” could this Courtney be?

At practice one night, I asked my band-mates if they knew of this girl “Courtney”?  They all turned pale and became agitated. 

They got right in my face.  They said:  “Whatever you do … WHATEVER YOU DO …  Do not let Courtney into your house!  Do not lend her money!  Do not lend her anything!  And never let her USE YOUR PHONE.  She’ll call England and talk for six hours and your phone bill will be HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS!” 

I was like, “So she’s a thief?”  They were like, “She’s WAY WAY WAY WORSE THAN THAT!” 

I was like, “okay, whatever” and shrugged it off.  I’d been through some crazy stuff myself by then.  And I had lived in New York City.  I wasn’t really afraid of this Courtney.  In fact, I was curious.  Who was she calling in England?

Post Punk guys

*

So then one morning, I woke up in Kat’s bed, in her shared Victorian house.  Everyone was gone and the phone rang.  I answered it and a husky female voice started jabbering incoherently.  I just listened.  Finally, the voice became clear and it asked for Kat.  I said she wasn’t there.  The voice started berating me and babbling and lapsed back into incoherence again.  Then the line went dead.  I thought: “That’s probably Courtney.”  I felt a certain excitement rising inside me.  

*