I Am Ozzy (14 page)

Frank was looking at me like I was insane.

'Any second now,' I told him, my face bright red, my legs tingling, my eyeballs throbbing, 'they're gonna break down that door, and we'll be fucked.'
'Oh, man,' said Frank, joining me on all fours. 'I can't believe I'm about to do this.'
We must have snorted about six or seven grams each before I heard the tapping noise outside the door.
'SHHH!
Listen
,' I said.
There it was again:
tap, tap, tap, tap
...
It sounded like footsteps...
Then I heard the front door open and a woman's voice. She was speaking in Spanish. The maid! The maid was letting in the cops.
Fuck!
I broke open another vial and put my nose to the floor again.
A male voice: 'Good morning, ma'am,' he said. 'I believe someone at this residence pressed the emergency call button?'
I stopped, mid-sniff.
Emergency call button?
The maid said something in Spanish again, the man replied, then I heard two sets of footsteps in the hallway and the man's voice getting louder.
The cop was inside the house!
'It's usually located right next to the AC thermostat,' he said. 'Yep, here it is - right on the wall. If you press this button, ma'am, it sounds an alarm down at the Bel Air station and we dispatch some officers to make sure everything is OK. Looks as though someone might have pressed it by accident when they were adjusting the thermostat. Happens more often than you'd think. Let me just reset the system - there we go - and we'll be on our way. Any problems, just give us a call. Here's our number. Or hit the button again. We have someone on call twenty-four hours a day.'
'
Gracias
,' said the maid.
I heard the front door close and the maid walk back towards the kitchen. All of the air came out of my lungs. Holy shit: that had been a close one. Then I looked over at Frank: his face was a mask of white powder and snot, and his left nostril was bleeding.
'You mean...?' he said.
'Yeah.' I nodded. 'Someone needs to teach Bill how to use that fucking thing.'

The constant fear of getting busted wasn't the only downside to coke. It got to the point where practically every word out of my mouth was coked-up bollocks. For fifteen hours straight, I'd tell the lads how much I loved them more than anything else in the world. Even me and Tony - who
never
had conversations - would have nights when we'd be up for hours, hugging each other and saying, 'No, really, I love you, man - I
really
love you.'

Then I'd go to bed, wait for my heart to stop beating at eight times its usual speed, then fall into this fucking horrific withdrawal. The comedowns were so bad that I used to pray. I'd say, 'God, please let me sleep, and I promise I'll never do cocaine again, as long as I live.'

Then I'd wake up with my jaw aching from spouting so much bullshit the previous night. And I'd do another line.
It was amazing how quickly it took over our lives. It got to the point where we couldn't do anything

without it. Then it got to the point where we couldn't do anything with it, either.
When I finally realised the pot wasn't enough to calm me down from all the coke, I started getting into
Valium. Then eventually I moved on to heroin, but thank God I didn't like that stuff. Geezer tried it, too. He
thought it was fucking brilliant, but he was sensible. He didn't want to get involved. Frank, the roadie,
wasn't so lucky - heroin ruined him in the end. I haven't heard from Frank in years now, and I'd be
amazed if he survived, to be honest with you. I hope he did, I really do, but when heroin gets hold of you,
it's usually The End.
During the making of
Vol. 4
, we all had moments when we were so fucked up that we just couldn't
function. With Bill, it was when he was recording 'Under the Sun'. By the time he got the drums right on
that song, we'd renamed it 'Everywhere Under the Fucking Sun'. Then the poor bloke came down with
hepatitis and almost died. Meanwhile, Geezer ended up in hospital with kidney problems. Even Tony burned
out. Just after we'd finished the album, we did a gig at the Hollywood Bowl. Tony had been doing coke
literally for days - we all had, but Tony had gone over the edge. I mean, that stuff just twists your whole
idea of reality. You start seeing things that aren't there. And Tony was
gone
. Near the end of the gig he
walked off stage and collapsed.
'Severe exhaustion,' the doctor said.
That was one way of putting it.
At the same time, the coke was fucking up my voice, good and proper. When you're taking heavy-duty
amounts of cocaine, this white gunk starts to trickle down the back of your throat, and you find yourself
doing that phlegm-clearing thing all the time - like a sniff, but deeper and gunkier. And that puts a lot of
stress on that little titty thing that hangs down at the back of your throat - the epiglottis, or the 'clack', as
I've always called it. Anyway, I was taking so much coke that I was clearing away the phlegm every couple
of minutes, until eventually I tore my clack in half. I was lying in bed at the time in the Sunset Marquis
hotel, and I just felt it flop down inside the back of my throat. It was horrific. Then the fucking thing
swelled up to the size of a golf ball. I thought: Right, this is it - I'm gonna die now.
So I went to see a doctor on Sunset Boulevard.
He asked, 'What's the problem, Mr Osbourne?'
'I've sucked my clack,' I croaked.
'You've
what
?'
'My clack.'
I pointed at my throat.
'Let's have a look,' he said, getting out his lollipop stick and his little flashlight. 'Open wide. Say "
ahh
"
for me now.'
So I opened my mouth and closed my eyes.
'Holy mother of Christ!' he said. 'How in God's name did you do that?'
'Dunno.'
'Mr Osbourne, your epiglottis is the size of a small light bulb, and it's glowing almost as brightly. I don't
even need to use my flashlight.'
'Can you fix it?'
'I think so,' he said, writing out a prescription. 'But whatever it is you've been doing,
stop doing it
.' That wasn't the end of our medical problems, though. When it was time to go back to England, we
were all terrified of taking home an STD from one of the groupies and giving it to our other half. Catching
some exotic disease was always a big worry when we were in America. I remember one time during a
particularly wild night at a hotel somewhere, Tony came running out of his room, going, 'Aargh! My knob!
My knob!' I asked him what was wrong, and he told me that he'd been messing around with this groupie
when he looked down and saw all this yellow pus coming out of her. He thought he was about to die. 'Did the pus smell funny?' I asked him.
'Yeah,' he said, white in the face. 'I almost puked.'
'Ah.'
'What d'you mean, "ah"?'
'Was it the blonde chick?' I asked. 'The one with the tattoo?'
'Yeah. And?'
'Well, that probably explains it then.'
'Ozzy,' said Tony, getting visibly angry. 'Stop fucking around, this is serious. What are you talking
about?'
'Look, I ain't a doctor,' I said. 'But I don't think the yellow stuff was pus.'
'Well what
was
it then?'
'Probably the banana I stuck up there earlier.'
I don't think Tony knew whether to be relieved or even more worried after that.
Of course, one failsafe way to make sure you never gave anything dodgy to your missus was to get a
shot of penicillin. I'd learned that after getting the clap one time. But in those days we didn't know any
dodgy doctors, which meant the only way to get a 'safety shot' was to check yourself into the emergency
room of the nearest hospital.
So that's what we did after making
Vol. 4
By then we'd left Bel Air and were on the road in small-town America somewhere, doing a few shows
before our flight back home. I'll never forget the scene: me, Tony, Geezer, and pretty much the entire road
crew - I don't know what Bill was up to that day - checking ourselves into this hospital one night. And of
course no one had the bottle to tell the good-looking chick on the front desk why we were there, so they
were all going, 'Go on, Ozzy, you tell her, you don't care, you're fucking crazy, you are.' But even I couldn't
bring myself to say, 'Oh, hello there, my name's Ozzy Osbourne, and I've been bonking groupies for a
couple of months, and I think my knob might be about to fall off, would you mind terribly giving me a shot
of penicillin to make sure my missus doesn't get whatever I've got?'
But it was too late to turn around and walk away.
So when the girl asked me what the problem was, I just turned bright red and blurted, 'I think I broke
my ribs.'
'OK,' she said. 'Here's a ticket. See this number? They'll call it out when the doctor's ready to see you.' Then it was Geezer's turn to go up.
'I've got whatever he's got,' he said, pointing at me.
Eventually the doctors twigged. I don't know who came clean with them, 'cos I certainly didn't. I just
remember this bloke in a white suit coming up to me and going, 'Are you with the others?' and me
nodding. Then he showed me into this room with Tony, Geezer and about half a dozen other hairy English
blokes all bent over with their trousers down, their lily-white arses ready for their penicillin jabs. 'Join the line,' he said.

It was September when we got back to England.

By that time the deal to buy Bulrush Cottage had gone through, and Thelma, Elliot and the baby were already settled in. It always made me smile, going home to Bulrush Cottage - mainly because it was on a little country road called Butt Lane. 'Welcome to Butt Lane,' I used to say to visitors, 'the arsehole of Britain.'

It wasn't just me and Thelma and the baby who got a new place to live around that time. I also sorted out a bigger house for my mum and dad. As always, Patrick Meehan's office took care of the dough side of things, although when the land behind Bulrush Cottage was put up for sale we bought it with our own money - or rather, money we made by selling the Rolls-Royce that Patrick Meehan had given Tony, which Tony had then given to us. I think that was the first time we'd bought
anything
with our own money. To this day, I don't know why we did it. Maybe it's 'cos Thelma dealt with all the paperwork. I made her do it because the farmer who sold us the land was a cross-dresser, and I didn't want to go anywhere near him. Fucking hell, man, the first time I saw that bloke, I thought I was hallucinating. He had this big bushy beard and he'd drive his tractor down Butt Lane while wearing a frock and curlers in his hair. Other times you'd see him by the side of the road, his frock hitched up, taking a slash. And the funny thing is, no one would bat an eyelid.

Tony and Geezer also bought houses when they got back. Tony got a place in Acton Trussell, on the other side of the M6; and Geezer bought somewhere down in Worcestershire. It took Bill a bit longer to find his rock 'n' roll retreat, so in the meantime he rented a place called Fields Farm, out near Evesham. In less than three years, we'd gone from piss-poor backstreet kids to millionaire country gents. It was unbelievable.

And I
loved
living in the country.
For starters, I suddenly had enough room to get even more toys sent over from Patrick Meehan's office. Like a seven-foot-tall stuffed grizzly bear. And a gypsy caravan with a little fireplace inside. And a myna bird called Fred, who lived in the laundry room. He could do a wicked impression of a washing machine, could Fred. Or at least he could until I put a shotgun in his face and told him to shut the fuck up.
I have to say I really pigged out on the calls to Patrick Meehan's office after we moved into Bulrush Cottage. Everything I'd ever wanted as a kid, I had them deliver. I ended up with a whole shed full of Scalextric cars, jukeboxes, table football games, trampolines, pool tables, shotguns, crossbows, catapults, swords, arcade games, toy soldiers, fruit machines... Every single thing you could ever think to ask for, I asked for it. The guns were most fun. The most powerful one I had was this Benelli five-shot semiautomatic. I tried it out on the stuffed bear one time. Its head just
exploded -
you should have fucking seen it, man. Another thing I'd do is get these mannequins and tie them to this tree trunk in the garden and execute them at dawn. I'm telling you, it's really terrifying what booze and drugs will do to your mind if you take them for long enough. I was out of control.
Obviously, the most important thing I needed to sort out after moving to the country was a ready supply of drugs. So I called up one of my American dealers and got him to start sending me cocaine via air mail, on the understanding that I'd pay him the next time I was over there on tour. It worked a treat, although I ended up waiting for the postman all day like a dog. Thelma must have thought I was buying dirty magazines or something.
Then I found a local dope dealer who said he could get me some really strong hash from Afghanistan. He wasn't wrong, either. The first time I smoked that stuff it almost knocked my fucking head off. It came in massive slabs of black resin, which would last even me for weeks. There was nothing I loved more than when someone came over to Bulrush Cottage and said, 'Dope? Nah, I don't smoke that stuff. Never has any effect on me.'
If you said that, you were
mine
.
The first person who claimed to be immune to dope was our local fruit 'n' veg man, Charlie Clapham. He was a right old character, Charlie was, and he became a good friend. One night, after we'd been to the pub, I got out the tin of Afghan hash and said, 'Try this.'
'Nah, never works on me, that stuff.'
'Go on, Charlie, try it, just once. For me.'
So he grabbed the brick out of my hands and before I could say anything he bit off a huge chunk of it. He must have eaten at least half an ounce. Then he burped in my face and said, 'Urgh, that tasted 'orrible.'
Five minutes later, he said, 'See? Nothing,' and went home.
It must have been about one o'clock in the morning when he left, and the poor fucker was meant to be at his market stall by four. But I knew there was no way he'd be doing a normal day's work.
Sure enough, when I saw him a few days later, he grabbed me by the collar and said, 'What the
fuck
was that shit you gave me the other night? By the time I got to the market I was hallucinating. I couldn't get out of the van. I was just lying in the back with the carrots, a coat over my head, screaming. I thought the Martians had landed!'
'I'm sorry to hear that, Charlie,' I told him.
'Can I come over tomorrow night and have some more?' he said.
I rarely slept in my own bed at Bulrush Cottage. I was so loaded every night, I could never make it up the stairs. So I'd sleep in the car, in my caravan, under the piano in the living room, in the studio or outside in a bale of hay. When I slept outside in winter, it wasn't unusual for me to wake up blue in the face with icicles on my nose. In those days, there was no such thing as hypothermia.
Crazy shit would happen all the time at that house. The fact that I was usually pissed up and fucking around with my shot-guns didn't help. That's a great combination, that is - booze and shotguns. Very fucking safe. One time I tried to jump over a fence in the back garden while holding one of my guns. I'd forgotten to put the safety on and my finger was resting on the trigger, so as soon as I hit the ground, it went
BAM! BAM! BAM!
and almost blew my leg off.
It's a miracle I ain't an amputee.
I'd shoot anything that moved in those days. I remember when we got rid of Thelma's Triumph Herald and replaced it with a brand-new Mercedes - after yet another call to Patrick Meehan's office. The car was always covered in scratches, and we couldn't work out why. I'd get it resprayed, park it in the garage overnight, but the next morning the paintwork would be covered in all these nicks and gouges again. It was costing me an arm and a leg. Then I realised what was happening: we had a family of stray cats living in the garage, and when it was cold they'd climb up on the Merc's bonnet, because it was nice and warm. So, one day, I came back from a long session at the Hand & Cleaver, got my shotgun, and just fucking obliterated the place. I got two or three of them that first time. Then I kept going back every day, picking them off, one by one.
But y'know, that's one of my regrets - the cruelty to animals. I could have found another way to get rid of those cats, but like I said, I was out of control. It got so bad, people started to call my house Atrocity Cottage, not Bulrush Cottage. It was me who came up with the name - I just blurted it out one night when I was pissed - but from then on it stuck.
People would come to stay with us and they'd never be the same again. Take my old mate Jimmy Phillips, the bloke who'd played bottleneck guitar in Polka Tulk. He got so fucked up on booze and Afghan hash over at Bulrush Cottage one night that he ended up taking a shit in the kitchen sink. Then there was the time when one of my old schoolfriends from Birmingham brought his new wife over for a visit. The day after they arrived, I woke up in the morning with a terrible headache and a big hairy arm around my shoulder. I thought my mate must have been having a go at Thelma while I was asleep, so I jumped out of bed, ready to chin the bastard. But then I realised what had happened: I'd got up in the middle of the night to take a piss and had gone back to the wrong room. Talk about an awkward fucking situation. I was stark naked, too - so I just grabbed my trousers from the floor and dived back into the bed, put them on under the sheets, and then staggered back to my own room, with no one saying a word.
I've never seen them again to this day.
And, as time went on, things got even crazier. At one point - don't ask me why - I started to wear medical uniforms all the time. My assistant, David Tangye, bought them for me. You'd see us staggering up and down these country lanes between the pubs, out of our minds on booze, dope, acid - you name it - wearing these green American-style scrubs, with stethoscopes around our necks.
Every once in a while, the lads from Led Zeppelin would also come over to Bulrush Cottage. Robert Plant didn't live too far away, actually, and I'd go over to his place, too. I remember one night at Plant's house - not long after we'd got back from Bel Air - I taught him how to play seven-card stud. That was a big fucking mistake. As I explained the rules, he said he wanted to place bets - 'just to see how it works, y'know?' - and then he kept raising the stakes. I was just beginning to think what a fucking idiot he must be when he pulled out a royal flush, and I had to give him fifty quid.
He fleeced me, the cheeky bastard.
After a few nights out with Zeppelin, I worked out that their drummer, John Bonham, was as fucking nuts as I was, so we'd spend most of the time trying to out-crazy each other. That was always the way with me, y'know? I'd try to win people over with my craziness, like I had in the playground at Birchfield Road. But, of course, behind the mask there was a sad old clown most of the time. Bonham was the same, I think.
He would just drink himself to fucking bits. One time, we got his assistant, a guy called Matthew, to drive us to a club in Birmingham in my car. But when it was time to go home, Bonham was so pissed, he thought it was
his
car, so he locked all the doors from inside and wouldn't let me in. I ended up standing in the car park shouting, 'John, this is
my
car. Open the door!'
'Fuck off,' he said, through the window, as Matthew revved the engine.
'John, for crying out--'
'I said
fuck off
.'
'BUT THIS IS
MY
CAR!'
Then something finally clicked inside his head. 'Well, you should fucking get in then, shouldn't you?' he said.