chapter twenty “TO LEAVE OLD TRIGGERS IN THE PAST”
In total, Opal Jewel’s Paris “vacation” stretched nearly nine months, from late November 1973 to mid-August 1974. Though the fallout from Watergate led US news during that time, much also happened on the cultural landscape. On the Bowery that December, a scrappy new club called CBGB & OMFUG first opened its doors; the following summer, up in the Bronx, a DJ who went by the name Kool Herc siphoned power from a park lamppost and hosted the first open-air hip-hop concert. Cancer killed Candy Darling, a Warhol superstar whom Opal used to spot frequently at Max’s, in March; it claimed Duke Ellington in May.
A lot had changed within Opal’s New York circle too. Rivington’s executives, who’d been eager to cut another Opal & Nev record once Nev completed rehab, had grown impatient with her dawdling in Paris, and had begun to invest in other projects by recently signed proto-punk acts (including Land of the Free and a reimagined Curlicutes). Harlem also felt chilly upon her return.
OPAL JEWEL:
By the time I got back to New York, even Miss Ernestine was looking at me sideways. With my other expenses, I was late on paying her rent, so she’d offered my room to another tenant.
VIRGIL LAFLEUR:
Mad communicated so little during her time away that I had no idea whether she would return at all, and I worried that was due to the way we’d left things in Paris. Once I returned home, I set my sights on moving on. Why should I have allowed my talents to wither? Besides my new classes, I’d had word of a soap opera actress with a spark, with an interesting enough nose to transition to prospects less dreadful, and I could have helped that girl with her audition wardrobe. Then poof, suddenly Mad reappeared, wanting everything back as it had been. Knocking at my door with her luggage, pulling from one of her bags a sad gift of French lavender soaps that she thought would smooth the chafing between us.
I was of course happy for her to return, but I told her in no uncertain terms that if she and I were to continue a professional collaboration, she could no longer take my loyalty for granted. She would need to respect my time and autonomy. Not only has she done so ever since, she has gone out of her way to be generous—she introduced me to HanI, she helped me open this shop… she fought for me whenever she could to be her stylist, when I know it was at times inconvenient to make such demands. These are the things I try to remember when I find myself in a ponderous mood over any of my dreams deferred.
And I remember her word to me that night she returned: that she was truly ready to transition back to work. I gave her sheets and a pillow for my chaise, as well as the rest of her accumulated mail, and I said to her, “That is good news—but you’d do well to check there’s still work to be had.”
Many of the letters were from Mercurials, screened and forwarded to Harlem by Rosemary Salducci. Something about Opal made certain fans, especially young women, pour out their life stories to her, stories of loneliness, depression, rage. They sent her photographs of themselves and asked her when she’d be making new music, when she’d be coming through their towns. Faced with such overwhelming devotion, Opal told me, she struggled with guilt—a feeling exacerbated when she found, at the bottom of the pile of fan mail, all the letters that Nev had written her, still unopened and bound with a rubber band.
Opal’s musical partner had spent the better part of their break in two different rehab facilities, relapsing hard between stays. Before he stopped writing Opal altogether, his letters hit a peak of despair. When was she coming back? he’d wanted to know, and she had never answered him.
OPAL JEWEL:
[After reading Nev’s letters] I went around to the West Village to see how he was doing. It was real early in the morning—I didn’t want any scene. But when I walked up to the house there was a small work crew of guys putting up a gate, closing off the little patch of sidewalk around the stoop where the Mercurials would leave their flowers and gifts. One of the guys on the crew seemed to recognize me so I smiled at him and asked, “Does my friend still live here?” And the guy said, Oh yes, yes, Miss Opal, and let me pass through so I could ring the bell.
Nev came to the door looking fresh and clean. Better than I’d seen him look in a couple of years—red hair shining like the pelt on a damn Irish setter. [Laughs] I joked with him, “Nev, they got you some Blue Magic in that place or something?” But when I went to touch him through the crack in the door, he flinched. Like he was scared of me, like he didn’t know me anymore. And I said, “Oh”.
I nearly walked away but he called me back and took the chain off, so I followed him inside. I could see the house was different—he’d gotten some furniture and dishes, and there were paintings on the walls. Floral patterns everywhere, and vacuumed carpets too. Clearly a woman’s touch. Maybe the girl was asleep upstairs; I didn’t know and it wasn’t my place to ask. I was only glad to see him looking healthy, and I didn’t care much how he got there.
He had a blender in the kitchen, and I watched him reach into a flower box on the windowsill and pluck a handful of green blades out of it, and he tossed them in along with some berries and ice. I said, “What in the world…?” He closed the lid and put that thing on pulse for maybe ten good minutes, pressing and pressing the button so it crunched and whirred while I tried to talk to him, tried to explain that after the tour I’d needed a break to figure myself out, same as he’d needed one to get himself clean. When he finally finished with the noise I said, “Okay, Nev, I can see that you’re mad. I’ve been mad before too. So what do you say we lean into that? What do you say we make our new record?” And he’s just guzzling down this green wheatgrass concoction from a glass, glaring at me out the corner of his eye, that Adam’s apple glugging up and down. [Laughs] When he finally finished drinking, I said, “All right?” And he said, “I don’t know. I’m meant to be taking things one day at a time.”
I told him, “Okay, then, I’ll give you your space.” What else could I do? I let him go behind that gate he was building and I went back to my piece of the city. I waited for him to call and say he was ready, and in the meantime, I started writing some stuff myself. I lived out the rest of that fall wrapped up in my blanket on Virgil’s sofa, steadily sketching out concepts. I had a million beginnings of songs I was nervous but excited to share, hard-charging riffs right in line with the energy and meaning of where we’d been going. I thought when we did get together with Bob, me and Nev, we’d collaborate the same way we had on Things We’ve Seen. Blazing back and forth, punching up the lyrics, making the music bolder, more arresting. We both liked playing with characters, so I dreamed up some that gave both of us shine, characters I knew our fans would love, and then Virgil helped me with some costume and performance ideas to go along with them. I was feeling real good about what I was bringing to the table, hopefully making up for that time I’d needed off.
And then when Nev finally called… Forget being on the same page. We weren’t even in the same damn library.
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT FROM “ROSY TIMES FOR NEV CHARLES,” CBS SUNDAY MORNING, JULY 13, 2008
Serena Altschul: A lot of people would say you came out [of rehab] not just sober, but a different artist altogether. Did recovery make Nev Charles softer, you think?
Nev Charles, chuckling, shifting on his piano bench: Maybe so, maybe so. Softer in some places, stronger in others. The only thing I can say is that when my interior organs stopped smashing against my bones, when I bargained that I would rather die than go through this nightmare again, I promised myself that my life would change in some very key ways. It had to… simplify. I was in this small town in Vermont, no distractions whatsoever, forced to just be in this deafening quiet. But the founder of the facility happened to be a lover of classical music, had apparently taken some lessons himself and felt there was a therapeutic benefit. There was a piano, of all things, in the common area, so us boozers and junkies could listen to him pick through Bach on a Sunday. Now, the piano and I had never got on very well before—I was [bleeped expletive] and still honestly think that I am—but a piano was the only instrument I had access to at the time. I was miles away from my guitars or anything else I had come to rely on, organic or synthetic. I was furious over that at first, because I wanted to rock like I used to, I wanted what I played to match what I felt inside my head. But every day that I passed by that piano in the common room before breakfast time, the opening line of the Serenity Prayer began to loom—God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change… The prayer also happened to be propped in a framed cross-stitch that sat on the lid, so there’s that. [Laughs]
Serena Altschul: And the things you couldn’t change were—
Nev Charles: Yeah, yeah, my passion for music. I started to think, Right, clearly I can’t have the exact situation I want at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t have music full stop, does it? After that, I started looking at that piano like a comfort, like a doorway opening and leading me back to the beauty of basics. Lovely melodies, lovely love songs. “Rosy.” I started playing my old stuff during free time and nobody seemed to mind; in fact, they rather liked the songs and seemed surprised that I had that kind of a range. Then that segued into writing again, scribbling in the little journals they’d given us to mark our progress, drawing from the settings and people around me. The lyrics I wrote still had an edge, obviously, but the stories I felt most comfortable and confident telling were more personal, intimate ones. Sometimes even silly, if I needed a smile.
Serena Altschul: And that direction was opposed to the music you’d been doing.
Nev Charles: Of course I still felt very strongly about the goings-on in the world around me and very proud of the music, for instance, that Opal Jewel and I had made together. But I was less interested in being big and loud, and more inspired by the smaller, more nuanced, more artful scale. It seemed like a good time to evolve, to leave old triggers in the past.
OPAL JEWEL:
He played for me what he’d been writing on his piano, and it was cool. [Shrugs] It just wasn’t Opal & Nev. Wasn’t how I thought we’d land, not after everything we’d been through, and I couldn’t picture how to fit the artist I’d decided to embrace into these songs he’d supposedly written for us. They were like the start of a quirky side project, like doodles—same as my nature poems in Paris had been. Some of them made me tap my feet, but I didn’t hear them and think, This is the kind of work I need to be doing. I was glad Nev was better, but I already knew this wasn’t going to work for the Opal part of Opal & Nev. What would she look like, singing on some funny little valentines?
BOB HIZE:
What Nev had been working on was a series of wonderfully strange and beautiful torch songs—at least they sounded like torch songs; they had the same feel in the music and vocals, even if the lyrics were obtuse. At first we were confused but then got cautiously excited, because these were like Rivington’s versions of what was doing exceedingly well at the time on pop charts and on radio: Billy Joel, Elton John, even dear Jim Croce.II But it was hard to reconcile that kind of direction with the one Opal had in mind, which was more of a doubling down. Bursts of guitar, even faster drums, call-and-response choruses that would be incredible in the rock clubs they were used to playing, or, you know, at the anti-nuke protest. Adding on to that, she had grown so much over the past couple of years—between keeping them together on the road and essentially headlining her own act in Paris, she had become quite a leader herself, a front woman. As their producer I had to throw up my hands and say, “Bloody hell, you two, what is it that we’re doing here?”
OPAL JEWEL:
Wasn’t nobody trying to kill Nev’s creativity, Nev’s music, and especially not his sobriety. I told him I was willing to toss out all the songs I’d written and start from scratch if he’d agreed to do it too, to work together on building something fresh that might work out for us both. But Nev was attached to his songs, and I respected that. I wasn’t ever angry with him, and I tried my best to not resent that, as a white male artist, Nev would always get the benefit of the doubt whichever way he went. I did get frustrated by the process, though. One time I blurted out, “We just need to go solo, then.” I didn’t wholly mean that, but once I put the idea out there I couldn’t take it back.
The idea of solo albums intrigued the Rivington executives but also made them skittish. Opal & Nev had gotten famous symbiotically—Opal’s performance sparked by Nev’s songs, Nev’s songs catching fire through Opal’s performance. Disentangled from each other, both artists might flop. And yet Opal & Nev risked falling into oblivion altogether if they dawdled any longer bickering over artistic direction. Harris, the company’s publicist, proposed a compromise.
BOB HIZE:
The plan was to do a double album. We were going to call it Hers & His, and the idea was that each of them would have a piece of it they could develop to the fullest, something they could both be happy with, each side standing on its own. Opal would sing background for Nev’s side, and he’d play some guitar for hers, to keep some ties between them. Lizzie even had an idea for the visuals—black-and-white portraits, Opal on one side and Nev on the other, with their hands clasped in color on the inside when you opened up the record. The way Lizzie sold it, it sounded very fair, like a way they could be together but also independent.
OPAL JEWEL:
Let’s have a history lesson, now—rewind all the way back to “separate but equal.” Makes sense in theory, right, so how come it’s a lie? Because what you end up with is never equal. Especially if you got a perceived Negro problem on one side and white folks in charge on the other.
I had a bad feeling about it, but I went ahead and said okay. I did have some requests, though: equal time with Bob in the studio, equal budget for my other musicians, anything that would make my portion of the production as good as I could get it. And simply because I asked for what I deserved, folks seemed to think I was a terrorist.
HOWIE KELLY:
I thought, How ungrateful is this girl? He had his problems, sure, but is that any wonder, dealing with her? He’d pulled her ass out of the ghetto in Detroit, and then he saved her life in the riot she caused, and then he even wrote her some hit songs to sing! We’d made her famous in the greatest country on earth! Suddenly none of it’s good enough for her? Suddenly she wants to be the number one boss?
ROSEMARY SALDUCCI:
I got to be friendly with a secretary who worked for one of the bigger labels, and one day we’re laughing over drinks, sharing horror stories from the job, and she asks me, “Is it true Opal demanded her own office space at Rivington?” I said, “No, that’s ridiculous—where’d you get that?” And then she tells me all this stuff she’s heard about what a nightmare Opal Jewel supposedly is. How she randomly barks at people she doesn’t like, and burns smelly roots in the studio… I’m looking at this girl like, Are you serious with this? But that’s how they used to talk about Opal in these industry circles. It was terrible, and I’m sure it had some bearing on how everything went down.
Two weeks before the recording of the Hers & His project was due to begin, Opal remembers, she was summoned to Rivington for a meeting.
OPAL JEWEL:
I’m thinking maybe they want a last-minute change to the album, a couple duets or something. I strolled on over to the studio and opened the door that led to the control room, and on the other side of the glass I could see them sitting around the piano. Nev was on the bench and had his back to me but I could see the other three glance up. Lizzie looked away real quick, and Bob had a handkerchief pressed up against his mouth, like he was two seconds away from throwing up. I’ll give Howie some credit, though: He held his head up the whole time I was frozen there staring at them on the other side of that glass, and he grinned and waved for me to come on in. I just stood there a few seconds bracing myself. Whatever happens, girl, don’t you lose your mind….
BOB HIZE:
I’d been outvoted in the matter, and so I’d told Howie and Lizzie they’d have to break it to Opal. Looking back on her reaction, I do wish I had done it myself. That might have been more kind.
OPAL JEWEL:
I took a seat next to Nev on that piano bench and nudged him. I asked him straight up, “What’s wrong, what’s going on?” but he was just staring down at the keys. Then Howie started running his yap. “I don’t know why everybody’s so glum—we got good news, Opal! You’re getting exactly what you asked for.” I said, “Hurry up and hit me with it.” And that’s when Lizzie told me she’d slipped some radio biggety-bigs in LA demos of Nev’s new music—demos I didn’t even know he’d been recording, by the way, behind that strong new gate of his—and the buzz was already so good that Rivington was ready to bank on him solo, if that’s what he wanted too. Well, I could read between those lines. I knew that meant Nev was gonna fly and my little piece of the project was gonna catch dust up on the shelf.
I said to Nev, “So that’s it? You’re cool with us ending like this?” He said something under his breath then, and it was driving me crazy, him being so mealymouthed and still not looking me in my face. I shoved him off the bench and yelled at him, “Say what you gotta say to me, Nev! Say it with your chest!” Bob and Lizzie ran to get between us and Howie grabbed me by my wrists and pinned them behind me. I’m screaming at Howie to let me go, and Bob’s asking me to please calm down, calm down, and that’s when Nev got up off the floor. He dusted off the butt of his blue jeans while Howie held my arms, and he pointed a long skinny finger down in my face: “You’re the one who left me behind. You’re the one who started it!” That’s what Nev shouted at me, all choked up, like we were six-year-olds on the playground.
ROSEMARY SALDUCCI:
I really do think Opal broke Nev a little. Well, she didn’t do that intentionally, of course, but I bet she could’ve easily fixed the situation if she’d swallowed her pride and sweet-talked him some, just enough so he felt like she wouldn’t go running off on him again. “You’re absolutely right, it was selfish of me to be gone so long, let’s please start over, I’m sorry.” [Rolling eyes] I mean, you and I both know it’s bullshit, the way men pout when the women they love hurt their precious feelings, but who knows? Maybe a little ass-kissing might’ve gone a long way here. [Whispering] I’m just saying, look at all the bubbleheads he’s paying alimony.III
OPAL JEWEL:
Wasn’t no fixing it, not in that moment, not in that studio. Because I could tell it was about more than me being MIA after Nev melted down. It was everything he couldn’t admit had been aggravating him when I was around. The bigger love I got on the road, the more attention I got in the press… things that I couldn’t really help and that his ego couldn’t handle, at least not sober. Now, I could empathize with the fact that sometimes he felt insecure, overshadowed, jealous even. But apologize? We were supposed to be past that! I had already expressed to him, anyway, that I was sorry for my part in the riot, for what it was that had brought us the heat in the first place. And as part of that apology I’d made it clear that he didn’t owe me anything from that point forward—he could’ve walked away from my mess. But Nev said no. Said he wanted to be partners. So now that we were deep in the thing, what was I supposed to do? Feel bad for being me? For expressing my style and my opinions and trying to make the most with the tools that I had? For swimming extra hard to keep us afloat the whole time he was determined to drown? Well, I wasn’t about to say I was sorry for any of that, and I wasn’t about to promise Nev either that going forward I could dull myself down to build him back up. Not even if apologies and promises would have saved us.
The fight fell clean out of me. Even Howie must’ve sensed we were done, because he let go of my wrists. Oh, I was very much at peace. Matter of fact, I took Nev’s hand, the one he’d stuck in my face with so much anger, so much hurt, and I laced his fingers in mine like we were supposed to do on the inside cover of our new album. I closed my eyes and pulled from my heart all the good times the two of us had together, that powerful work I knew could never be tainted, and I sent up a prayer that Pearl would’ve hallelujah’ed: for Nev to have all the love and success his heart could handle out there on his own. Yeah, I prayed the same thing for my career too. But you know what they say ’bout how God answers prayers. [With a pained smile] Likes to meet you halfway.
I. With Opal Jewel officiating the private civil service, Virgil LaFleur wed his longtime partner, the Japanese conceptual artist Han Ishi, in 2011, shortly after gay marriage was legalized in New York. They had met twenty-seven years earlier, when Ishi directed the only music video made to promote Opal’s second solo album, Temper.
II. On September 20, 1973, the folk and rock singer/songwriter was killed in a plane crash while on tour. Several of his songs from the posthumous album I Got a Name, released that December, lingered on the charts through 1974, with the title track used in films and commercials.
III. Nev Charles has been divorced three times. None of his ex-wives—including his first, Wendy Meiers, an aspiring dietitian who was living with Nev at the time Opal visited after returning from Paris—would comment for this book.