Time Is Nothing (John Frusciante)

Chapter 38

1995

"Johnny," Cecilia nudged as she tried to gain some attention from a dozed off figure that happened to be her husband.

"Mmm," he only mumbled in response, not really waking from his haze.

"I'm going out," she nudged again, soon receiving an answer not very different from the first one.

"Alright," Cecilia then quietly mumbled to herself in frustration and started heading towards the door, exiting the apartment.

There was no point in trying to catch too much attention from John at the moment anyway. He was probably just getting into his high – an everyday sight in the Frusciante household for the past three years. John slipping in and out of his drug infused slumbers, sometimes completely alert with a mind sharper than a pencil, and then again, sometimes drifting off into some far away lands and galaxies only he could access. This seemed to be one of those times. His body was here, yet his mind was adventuring somewhere far away from the reality of this tiny apartment.

During the past three years, things had changed. There was no band anymore, no life as Cecilia knew before John's struggles with fame and artistry, and now, his all consuming addiction to drugs. Their everyday life revolved around nothing else but his habbits and if there was anything that could prove to Cecilia that a person can get used to anything, this was it.

At first, she was furious with him. So heartbroken and hurt over his senseless behaviour and actions. John knew very well what these things could do. He knew how drugs have taken away so many beautiful people from this Earth, people close to the both of them. She couldn't understand how he could find them good and healthy for himself, how he always preached to be feeling great because of them while going through his personal torments with the spirit realm. She couldn't understand how he ended up being so selfish and bringing drugs into a house with her, a former addict herself. They would fight and argue and yell explosively and Cecilia would flush all of his stash down the toilet and absolutely enrage John with that, but it never ended up changing a thing. He would just get himself a new batch and continue with his ways.

And soon, it didn't matter anymore. Cecilia understood that John's pain was so deep that he had no intention of stopping no matter what she did, or who she talked to, or who she called. So she just got used to it, focusing all her energy into staying clean herself for the both of their sakes. And after a while, she just figured that she would much rather have him shoot up at the house where she could keep an eye on him, rather than with a bunch of other junkies in some unsafe environment. He and taking care of him had become her only priorities in a situation where the the choices of the past three years had started to take a toll on the both of them.

They managed to keep things normal for some time at first, but constantly buying drugs is as good as throwing money into the wind. And then it was the house. It burned down and John's guitars got stolen and suddenly, they were practically homeless. They were lucky enough to get out of that house alive and rent themselves a small apartment in Venice Beach, but it wasn't the same as owning a home anymore. And then River died and John fell into an even deeper hole. Soon, Cecilia couldn't afford to keep her studio anymore and she had to give that up and now, the only things keeping them afloat were John's royalties from the Peppers and some of Cecilia's photography work that she was doing less and less. She would take some projects here and there, but she would have lied if she said that she enjoyed them. She didn't, because she knew that everybody in Hollywood knew what John was up to and she just couldn't take the staring and the whispering.

The only project that offered her some real artistic satisfaction during this whole time was John's solo album that she helped bring into being. It was the first time for John and Cecilia to work so closely together, with Cecilia photographing the cover of the album and creating the artwork for it. A process that she enjoyed partly because it was something completely new to her, and partly because she got to do it together with the love of her life.