Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [263]
ERIC GARCIA The thing about Layne is, especially toward the end, that I’d just hear all these horror stories about how he was and where he was at. The last time I saw him, I had to drop some stuff off at his condo. At the time, he was doing some soundtrack work. And he came down to meet me, and he was kind of frail-looking and he was wearing gloves, which I thought was odd because it was kind of summertime.
But his brain was firing on all cylinders. We were just shooting the shit really, but he was funny and articulate, and his eyes were alive. He’s obviously having a good day at that point, I guess. It was weird, because I expected to basically see a hollow shell of a guy with sunken eyes, talking really slow, on the nod or something like that. But he wasn’t. There was still a light on; he was still there.
SUSAN SILVER In the last couple years, Layne was extremely isolated. I don’t know who he saw, but of the people that I know, it was really only Todd who saw him. I was dealing with my family problems at that point. By late ’99 I was in my own private hell. The new primary drug addict in my life was my husband, and I was also going through fertility treatments and eventually got pregnant in late ’99. Meanwhile, Alice was not active; Jerry had another manager, and he was struggling with his own addiction.
RODERICK ROMERO I was Krist Novoselic’s best friend for five years, after Kurt’s death. Krist really tried to help Layne, ’cause obviously he’d already lost Kurt, so it was like … Krist is one of the most caring and kind and sincere people on the planet. He would show up at Layne’s apartment, and bring food to him. Layne wouldn’t let anybody in; he had surveillance cameras. Krist would come back and say, “I dropped more food off for him. Fuck.” I’d say, “Well, anytime you want me to go with you …” He said, “It’s just kind of freaky. You don’t want to.” He really cared. It was like, maybe he could help save somebody.
NICK POLLOCK The last time I ever saw Layne was probably a year and a half before he died. I was living up on Capitol Hill with my first wife after finishing college, getting my design degree, and I was walking into QFC on Broadway, and I see this guy shuffling around. He looks like an 80-year-old man with this obviously fake curly wig on and weird-ass mismatched clothes. Looking like a homeless person. Looking like he was just nuts. I think it was a disguise. But I caught his profile, and I’m going, “Oh, my fucking God.” I knew who it was, and I came around the corner and his back was to me, and I go, “Excuse me.” And he turns around and he looks and he goes, “Nick!” and he gives me this big hug.
I was in such shock because he was like a skeleton. His skin was gray. I don’t remember him having any teeth. We had a nice conversation—“Let’s get together,” the usual things that people say—but this is surreal. This is a nightmare. I don’t even know who I’m talking to. My friend, but not my friend. I was in such shock. I went home, and I just bawled my head off.
JEFF GILBERT Layne sequestered himself and did nothing but play video games and do drugs. I bumped into him probably about six months before he died, in the U District. He looked like an 80-year-old version of himself. He looked very jaundiced. He wore a leather jacket down to his fingertips to cover up all the needle marks. He had a knit hat on, pulled down, and his eyes were so sunken in, just dark. Smelled pretty ripe. I gave him a hug, and we talked for a while. I said, “Damn, man, you need to get out in the sun.” That was my attempt at humor. But I felt this horrendous amount of sadness for him. He was a dead man walkin’.
MIKE INEZ Me and Mark Lanegan would go by