Read Online It's So Easy: And Other Lies by Duff McKagan - Free Book Online

Justifiably or not, I saw myself as the protector, and the street-fighting skills I was forced to learn while getting my ass kicked as a teenager meant that I was not reluctant to perform that role with my fists.
    I had also stopped going to the same school as Stacy pretty soon after we got together. I switched to an “alternative” high school to make it easier to spend more time playing music. To fulfill the requirements of the alternative school, I had to show up for half an hour every two weeks. It proved too great an obligation, and I got thrown out of that school. That was junior year, and that was it for me and school. Yeah, good riddance, I remember thinking—I was already crafting a new career for myself.
    Actually, career may be overstating the case. I didn’t make a living playing music back then—and never thought I would, to be honest. That just wasn’t part of my calculations: I assumed I would always have to maintain a job. The most lucrative jobs I had were in construction—one summer I managed to save enough to buy a Marshall combo amp. My first restaurant job was at a place called Huwiler’s. It was popular enough to experience a nightly dinner rush, and even though I was a lowly dishwasher, if the pots and pans weren’t clean, the whole kitchen could get thrown out of whack. I really liked the work, liked being part of something with lots of independent moving parts working toward one goal, liked the characters who made up the staff.
    After some odd jobs I had landed a full-time slot at Schumacher’s Bakery. The place took its name from Billy Schumacher, a local celebrity known as a pioneer in the sport of hydroplane racing. In Seattle, hydroplanes were considered godlike chariots, carrying our heroes at ridiculously high speeds across Lake Washington. This particular hero turned out to be an asshole. I was hired to wash dishes. Scraping out cake pans and muffin tins is hard physical work, which was fine. Except that on top of it Schumacher made me wash his cars, dig a drainage ditch, and clean up his dog’s shit. He also treated me—and all the other employees—like garbage. But I couldn’t quit. There weren’t any other jobs out there. And I had to make rent.
    Not long after the panic attack I went away for a week with my family. Stacy was still in school, so when I got home I went to meet her after her classes. She came running up and jumped on me, practically tackling me as she told how much she had missed me. There were tears in her eyes. She did this in front of the entire student body as they spilled out at the end of the school day.
    Wow, this is quite a reaction.
    I am one lucky guy.
    My friends emerged from the building and started whispering to one another just out of earshot. I could tell something was going on. Did they have a surprise for me? Did something happen while I was gone? Then my girlfriend began to cry and told me she had gotten drunk and slept with another guy while I was gone. Right then and there I said we were finished. It wasn’t even an issue, not a subject for discussion.
    But I couldn’t understand the situation.
    Is there something wrong with me?
    I know she loves me—so how could she do this?
    I was destroyed. First my panic attack, now this? I just couldn’t understand why Stacy would do this to me. My only understanding of such things was based on what I had witnessed with my dad. I retreated into a weird place.
    Stacy was completely distraught, too. And she seemed genuinely contrite. She started calling my mom, my brothers and sisters, and my friends. People said, Dude you have to give her another chance. The guy who slept with her apologized, saying it was just a drunken mistake. But I didn’t know if I could go back to her after that.
    I talked to my mom about the whole thing. She said people just make mistakes sometimes. She said it was obvious Stacy had made a mistake and was devastated because of it.
    “I know you love her,” my mom said. “You