Heavier Than Heaven

He had the desperation, not the courage, to be himself. Once you do that, you can’t go wrong, because you can’t make any mistakes when people love you for being yourself. But for Kurt, it didn’t matter that other people loved him; he simply didn’t love himself enough

The level of heroin found was so high that even Kurt—notorious for his enormous habit—may not have survived much longer than it took to fire the gun. He had pulled off a feat that was quite remarkable, though it bore similarities to his Uncle Burle’s actions (gunshots to both the head and abdomen) and those of his great-grandfather James Irving (knife to abdomen, and later ripping the wound apart): Kurt had managed to kill himself twice, using two methods that were equally fatal

He signed it “peace, love, empathy. Kurt Cobain,”

They made it to the airport a few minutes later, but Kurt hadn’t improved: Krist had to drag him by the collar, the way a schoolmaster might escort a ruffian to the principal’s office. In the main terminal, Kurt punched Krist in the face and attempted to flee. Krist tackled him, and a wrestling match ensued. The two old friends brawled on the floor of the crowded airport terminal, cursing and punching each other like two drunks in an Aberdeen bar brawl. Kurt freed himself from his friend’s grasp and ran through the building screaming, “Fuck you!” as shocked passengers looked on. The last Krist saw of Kurt was his blond mop turning the corner

The last few months of his drug use, he had wantonly shared needles with other users, ignoring public health warnings about HIV and hepatitis. Black tar heroin frequently caused abscesses from the impurities used to cut it. By March, Kurt’s arms had scabs and abscesses, which themselves were a potential health danger

Kurt complained of being hungry, so Krist offered to buy him dinner at a fancy restaurant; Kurt insisted he wanted a Jack in the Box hamburger. As Novoselic drove toward Jack in the Box in the nearby U-District, Kurt protested: “Those hamburgers are too greasy. Let’s go to the one on Capitol Hill—the food is better there.” Only when they arrived on Capitol Hill did Novoselic realize Kurt didn’t want hamburgers at all: He was simply using his old friend to get a ride to score drugs. “His dealer was right by there. He just wanted to get fucked up into oblivion. There was no talking to him. He just wanted to escape. He wanted to die, that was what he wanted to do.” The two men began screaming at each other and Kurt bolted from the car

Jackie Farry recalled picking up Kurt from a $2,000-a-day rehab, only to have him direct her to a house she suspected was his dealer’s. His other trips to rehab had all been the result of ultimatums from his managers, wife, or the court, and all had the ultimate same result: He’d gone back to using again

When he wasn’t at Moore’s or at the Taco Time on Madison—his favorite place to buy a burrito—he could frequently be found at the Granada Apartments, home of Cali’s girlfriend Jennifer Adamson. Jennifer found herself in awe, watching the most famous rock star in the world sitting on her sofa, many times doing drugs, but on other occasions just killing time. “He’d sit in my living room with the hat with the ear coverings, and read magazines,” she said. “People came and went; there was always a lot of activity going on. Nobody knew he was there or recognized him.” In the world of junkie culture, Kurt found some of the anonymity he lacked elsewhere. Yet as Jennifer grew to know Kurt better, she was bewildered at how lonely he seemed. He told Jennifer and Cali, “You guys are my only friends.”

But it wasn’t just Courtney’s disappointment driving Kurt; something was different about him after Rome. Novoselic wondered whether the coma had indeed left him with brain damage. “He wouldn’t listen to anybody,” Krist recalled. “He was so fucked up.” Dylan noticed a shift as well: “He didn’t seem as alive. Before, he had more to him; after, he seemed monochromatic

Buzz had never seen Kurt so distraught, not even when Kurt had been kicked out of Wendy’s house back in high school. Kurt announced he was going to break up the band, fire his management, and divorce Courtney. Before he walked onstage, Kurt announced to Buzz, “I should just be doing this solo.” “In retrospect,” Buzz observed, “he was talking about his entire life