Bruce Moves Out

Around the time I was finishing up the recording phase of "Going For Broke", my closest friend, business partner, ex-roadie, and housemate for over two years, Bruce was having a lot of the same types of difficulties in his relationship with his girlfriend Laura that I had had with Patti, a few months earlier. Bruce and Laura were both barely twenty years old...and Laura showed a lot of the same insecurities and instabilities that Patti had...and although I could clearly see that their relationship wasn't working, Bruce had strong feelings for her...she was his first real girlfriend...and it seemed to me that he kept hoping that something would magically change, although I think he probably knew, deep down inside, that it wasn't going to. Most of the time they argued and fought, and very often, the source of their disagreements centered around the drugs. As I had mentioned earlier, Bruce and I were a lot alike where our drug use was concerned...we both believed that nothing exceeds like excess. And like Patti, Laura tried to "fit in" to that lifestyle, which really meant she just tried to keep up...but like Patti, although she could consume large quantities of cocaine, she became more and more irrational and volatile when she did. Bruce did his best to try to keep Laura happy, but it was a losing battle...she was never happy for very long...and the converted barn we all shared wasn't big enough to conceal the arguments and the problems they were going through. I can't really say for sure what was really going on with Bruce where Laura was concerned...I think he was in love with the idea of being "in love"...but we did talk frequently about how frustrated he was with her unpredictable behavior....and her inabilty to be happy for any real period of time. Bruce and I were pretty easy-going as a rule, and having fun and being happy had always been a priority with us...and eventually, I think Bruce felt embarassed when I, or any of my guests, had to experience the endless turmoil that their relationship had become. I don't think he really knew what to do about it, because he wasn't ready to break things off with her...but I think he felt if he stayed any longer at the house, it would be unfair to me. I don't think Bruce ever really wanted to move out of the place...he loved it as much as I did...but he couldn't control Laura anymore, or her outbursts or tantrums...and so, reluctantly, and I believe largely so they could continue their fighting in private, Bruce informed me that he was moving out, and that he had rented a place a few miles away. I also think that Bruce was starting to fall under the inescapable grip of opiate addiction at that time too, and was beginning to relax his own strict standards about who he would do business with...and I think he knew those new people in his life would not be welcome in my world...and almost from the moment he moved out of my house...Bruce began to slowly move out of my life. Once he had gotten his new place, I saw him with far less regularity, and I noticed him being guarded with me, and less open with me than I had ever known him to be. I attributed that to his problems with Laura, at the time...but today I believe that the change in him that I was seeing was the beginning of full blown opiate addiction changing a close and trusted friend into someone I didn't know anymore. Although we still did business together for the next few years...it was on a much smaller scale, and with a lot less regularity. Our business partnership rapidly became a memory...and the business dealings I did have with him were often a problem, because Bruce wasn't handling his business with the same promptness or professionalism I had come to expect from him. Within a year, our business and social interactions had been reduced to occasional, at best...and within three years Bruce and I would have nothing more to do with each other...until nearly sixteen years later...when I finally decided to do something about my drug problems...and we found each other again...but that is another story.