Free Face the Music: A Life Exposed by Paul Stanley Page B

me?” I asked.
    They turned to each other, looked back at me, and shrugged their shoulders. Ten more points for my parents.
    It was true that I couldn’t tell the direction of sound, but I had never put two and two together. And nobody else had ever put two and two together for me.
    At that time, New York state had decided to make college available to any resident, and I thought that despite my bravado about making a career in music, I had better apply to the city college system. I had already stacked the deck so much against myself—maybe this new opportunity could be the safety net I might still need.
    Since I hadn’t taken any of the preliminary tests and I had terrible grades, I was admitted to Bronx Community College. I got a student loan and promptly used it to buy a second-hand blue Plymouth Fury to replace my broken-down Rambler.
    When I showed up for the first week of classes, I didn’t think many of the people looked like what I considered “college material.” They probably thought the same about me.
    Despite the change of scenery, college quickly proved to be a continuation of everything I had hated about school. I still had the same basic problem: I couldn’t hear well enough to follow what was going on. And it wasn’t as if classes took up an hour a day; I was supposed to be there nearly all day. And then there were assignments on top of that. When I thought about the time I would have to devote to college, I began to see it as an obstruction. I was willing to put that much time—and more—into reaching my goal, but this wasn’t helping me do that. In fact, it was detracting mightily from it. It made it impossible. And for what? I was never going to succeed in the classroom. It was just a waste of time, and time, I reasoned, was the most precious thing I had.
    This is just more of the same. I don’t belong here .
    This is not for me .
    I thought about the new band, the fact that I was no longer going it on my own. I thought about the ideas I had discussed with Gene—about getting a full-time rehearsal space. Sure, Gene had grown up an only child, his mother telling him he was God’s gift to the world, and Gene believing it. Sure, he had his quirks. But then again, we had real chemistry, and the two of us together were much stronger than either of us on his own. We had a battle plan.
    This is not for me .
    To leave yourself no Plan B is a dangerous thing to do. But going to college was taking away from my focus. For a band, focus was success. I needed to live it twenty-four hours a day, not just nights and weekends. Wasting time at Bronx Community College was sabotaging what I was trying to accomplish. I had my Plymouth now, which meant I had transportation to get to and from rehearsals at all hours.
    This is not for me .
    After the first week of classes, I never went back.

11.
    G ene Klein lived with his mother and her husband in Bayside, Queens. She called me “the bum.” The three of them lived in a three-story house: a tenant lived on the ground floor, and Gene and his family lived upstairs. One day I was standing in the front yard talking to Gene, who was hanging out the window. His mother leaned out and, in her thick Hungarian accent, said, “Stan, please, this is a quiet neighborhood.”
    In other words, I was from the wrong side of the tracks and didn’t understand that things were different here in this nice area of town.
    In his mother’s eyes, Gene could do no wrong. If I happened to call when he was in the bathroom, she would say, “the king is on the throne.” Even when he was on the toilet, she believed he created masterpieces. I, on the other hand, couldn’t get a compliment out of my parents if my life depended on it. They went out of their way not to compliment me—I think they thought they were toughening me up that way. Gene could do no wrong; I could do no right.
    Of course, when you considered the particulars of my situation, it wasn’t so surprising that Gene’s mom