Fall to Pieces: A Memoir of Drugs, Rock 'N' Roll, and Mental Illness (14 page)

The detox meds they gave me (to reduce cravings and keep me from convulsing) threw me into reverse. I could barely move. And I still can’t understand why anyone ever believed that overhead fluorescent lighting was a health-enhancing design decision.

Hospital decor
—can there actually be a professional job description with these words in it? I’ve never met anyone who was thrilled about their time in a hospital or rehab experience, so why not do something about the dreary vibe? Beige and mud almost everywhere you look. No music, no color. No, wait, there is color: a pink hospital-issue blanket. Or a faded blue one. At the rates these places charge, you’d think they’d cozy it up a little to encourage you to stay longer.

Detox lasted a week; a few days in, I met with a drug counselor, but I didn’t go to any twelve-step meetings. I can get better on my own, I thought—all I need is a place to rest. I was told that my next move would be to Impact, a rehab center in Pasadena. While I was waiting to be scheduled on the “druggy buggy”—the van that would take me there—a girlfriend, someone who was doing well in her sobriety, came to visit. “This is a good place to start, Mary,” she said. “I know a lot of people who came through here. They know what
they’re doing. Oh, and by the way, there’s news about Scott. He’s back at rehab, too—at Impact.”

My brain lit up like the Fourth of July. I hadn’t seen him in months, and now he was going to be in the same place I was going? Great. I’m there. I couldn’t wait for her to leave so I could start packing.

Before she left, my girlfriend (wisely) told one of the counselors about me and Scott. Exodus called Impact (it occurs to me that this sounds like a CIA operation), and Scott was questioned about his relationship with someone named Mary Forsberg, a potential candidate for transfer from Exodus. He didn’t shrug it off with a casual, “Oh, yeah, we dated for a while” response—he told them that what had gone on between us was serious. That did it. Impact was out and Cri-Help, in North Hollywood, was in.

One of the first barriers I hit at Cri-Help (after another round of questions about drug consumption, family history, and a litany of all the terrible things I’d ever done) was an assignment of chores. Mine was to clean the bathrooms. No, no, there must be some mistake, I don’t do bathrooms anymore. “Everyone here has a job to do,” I was told. “Your commitment to doing yours is a symbol of your commitment to sobriety.”

“Well, then, I guess I’m just not that committed,” I said. Five days later, I walked out the door, heading back to Charlize’s big, empty house. I can do this myself, I thought. Besides, I knew where Scott was now, and I knew what I was going to do about it. His birthday was coming up, and after hitting a dozen card stores, I couldn’t find a single one that said what I was feeling. So I made one: plain white, with a little sticker of a birthday cake on it. Inside I wrote “Happy Birthday, Baby,” signed it, sent it, and waited.

A few days later, I was climbing the walls, wanting to use. As if on cue, a letter came from Scott, followed by a phone call. He said that he was in a sober living facility, and that he was ready to get clean and stay clean. He loved me and was so glad I was getting help as well. “They give me passes to go to AA meetings away from here,” he said. “I’ve been going, and I want you to come with me.”

Yes, I thought, this will be good—for
him
. If I go, it will help
him
. I don’t know why I believed that dates at a twelve-step meeting (dates that often involved his sponsor or a sober companion) were romantic or formed a good basis for some kind of actual relationship. Whatever happened to dinner and a movie? But I’ll take it, I thought. I’ll take anything.

Scott’s short-term passes from sober living (for meetings) became three-day passes, and no need for the constant escort anymore. One sunny day, we decided to drive up to Santa Barbara, to a seafood restaurant he liked. When we walked in the door, it seemed as though there were icy bottles of Corona on every single table. Just as we sat down, one of the busboys trundled in some cases of Corona on a hand truck and stacked them behind the bar. Each case had the word on the side of it, in big block letters:
CORONA CORONA CORONA
. “I’d really love to have a cold beer,” I said.

Scott’s eyebrows went up. “I don’t think it’s a very good idea,” he said.

“Oh, come on, how bad could it be?” I asked. “It’s not heroin, it’s not cocaine. It’s just beer! You can’t get into trouble with beer.”

Two hours later, we’d moved on to double Jacks and Coke. Three hours later, we’d hit every bar in Santa Barbara and closed the last one. Then we drove around looking for the inevitable dark city park or parking lot in search of the inevitable dealer. Like something
out of a movie, a transvestite hooker magically appeared and sold us her coke stash. We grabbed it and checked into the first hotel we found.

When morning came, it was a contest as to which of us looked more repulsive. I buried my head under the pillows. “Jesus, I can’t believe we did this,” Scott said. “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here. I have to go back and check in and hope nobody finds out.” I felt physically bad and only wanted to go back to sleep. Scott, who was becoming a rehab veteran, felt guilty and ashamed at having blown it again. His status with STP was increasingly uncertain—a lot of tour dates for their third album,
Tiny Music…Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop
, were canceled. He was going in and out of his little rented studio to work on a solo album,
12 Bar Blues
, but he was sick, and getting sicker.

When I reread
my journal entries now—most of them powered by cocaine or guilt or grief—I am both humbled and horrified by the false starts and wipeouts, the short-term bursts of optimism, and the fractured ego that asserts, over and over again, that pure will and “self” is enough to get the job done. I had modeling jobs, but my best self was not the Mary who was showing up. That girl had disappeared. I didn’t much like the one who’d taken her place.

Scott and I flew
into New York for Fashion Week in the spring of 1999 to see the fall shows and shoot for a few random magazines. It would be good publicity for both of us, his managers and my agency agreed. As usual, the road to hell began with the best intentions.

It was the first time either of us had ever experienced that mass of photographers in our faces, blinding us with flashing cameras. After the first show, on the way to the next one, we exchanged The Look and detoured back to the hotel, where
for the first time we enacted a little road show that would replay itself many times before we finally closed it down.

Looking as adult as we could, while also trying to give the appearance of two people in need of medical attention, we went to the front desk and asked if they could call us a mobile doctor. Then we went back to our room and waited. It was too much, that waiting; we literally started jumping up and down with excitement. You’d have thought we were five years old and it was Christmas morning. Quickly, we put together the plan, because working doctors is not easy. You need to have a script for how you’re going to squeeze drugs out of them, and it helps to have a wingman in on it with you; it’s the you-lie-and-I’ll-swear-to-it school of scoring.

After what seemed like the longest hour, the knock at the door finally came. As is usually the case, an older gentleman carrying an old-fashioned black doctor’s bag walked in and introduced himself. “So, which one of you will be my patient today?” he asked. In a ridiculously hoarse voice, Scott introduced himself as the patient.

“Problems with your throat?” the doctor asked, and Scott began the script we’d worked out. He’s a singer, he says; we’ve been on the road for a long time, he’s nearly blown out his vocal cords.

Then I chimed in. “I also think he’s coming down with something—everyone else in the band has been sick. We’re the only two left that haven’t gotten it.”

Every time, the doctor does the same thing—opens up his Mary Poppins bag and pulls out the little flashlight and a thermometer, shines the little light down Scott’s throat, comments about his glands, then scolds him about smoking.

Next scene: time to take the patient’s temperature. During the exam, I always made myself busy, returning to the conversation just
as the thermometer’s going in. Mary makes small talk, a naive and innocent girl in the big city. Where’s the nice doctor from? How long has he lived in the city? Did he raise his family here as well? Oh, my goodness. “Can you believe this weather?” All during this charade, Scott was working to kick up his temperature. Sipping a hot beverage helps.

Eventually, the doctor broke out the long-awaited prescription pad. Every time, they’ll write you something that’s just not gonna do it. Knowing that, I usually said something like, “Scott, don’t forget to tell him about your allergy.” That’s Scott’s cue to sidestep generic cough syrup and request hydrocodone instead—a muscular cousin of my childhood codeine cough medicine, guaranteed to provide that warm, everything’s-gonna-be-fine glow. Watching the doctor write out the prescription always fueled the manic feelings we were trying so hard to keep a lid on. It’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.

You’d think one bottle of liquid codeine would be enough for us, but no, here comes the second act: Scott directing the doctor’s attention toward me. “My girlfriend hasn’t been feeling well either,” he said, concern oozing from his voice. “Would you mind taking a look at her since you’re already here?”

Just like that, our roles are reversed: Scott’s making pleasant small talk, I’m warming the thermometer in my hands.

Once the prescriptions were written, we couldn’t get the doc out of the room fast enough. Humming like high-voltage wires, we sat through a ten-minute wait until we were certain he’d left the building. A quick call to the front desk locates the nearest pharmacy—we have been known to run there and walk in circles while they’re filling the scrip. “No, no, we’ll wait right here for it, thanks.”

Rushing back to the hotel, I was always close to vomiting, knowing the fix was that close. I remember sitting on the edge of our bed, each of us with a bottle in hand—a quick “cheers!” and half a bottle goes down the hatch. Lying on the bed holding hands, we’d spend the next few minutes dreamily staring at the ceiling. You always want to save a bit for later, for when you can feel your limbs coming back to life and you don’t want that to happen.

When you think you can get up without throwing up, it’s time to move in the direction of more trouble. We were staying within walking distance of Bowery Bar. A designer had invited us to a party there after his show, and the place was crowded with models and celebrities. But we did not come to mingle or exchange air kisses with famous people we didn’t know; we came to see who might be holding. It was a good crowd for shenanigan hunting. I’d spent a large chunk of my modeling career in New York, and although I’d never used drugs there when I was working (except for the occasional joint), I’d always kept company with the shady crowd. I had a pretty good idea of any number of people who would steer me in the right direction. In minutes, I bumped into an old friend whose career was very hot at that time; in fact, he was the main attraction of this particular party. Scott was never shy about asking around for a drug connection, but we were both surprised when this guy turned out not just to be the information source, but also the supplier.

We took off for the men’s room and hid in a stall. They gave me a small bump of coke, which combined with the codeine cough medicine put me into an immediate state of happiness. Paying no attention to what the guys were saying or doing, I was very busy having my own conversation in the fast lane of my head. When the guy broke
out another bag of white powder, I waited for my turn—but then he put it away. “Hellooo?” I protested. “I didn’t get a second go!”

“It’s okay,” said Scott. “I’ll find you something else, Mary.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. Getting shut out, waiting for another connect, was not acceptable. I lost my temper—spectacularly.

Taking my arm, Scott steered me and the disagreement out to the street, explaining that the white powder was a mixture of coke and China white heroin. “That’s too much for you. It’s too dangerous,” he said. Under most circumstances, a reasonable person would’ve been grateful to the lifeguard. Me, I felt cheated. I threw a right cross at Scott’s jaw. “You’re a fucking drug hog!” I shouted.

I think this may have been the first time I really scared the shit out of him. This sweet little girl, whom he’d shared a front seat with in his beat-up old Chrysler boat for so many months who barely ever spoke a word the entire time, had just punched him in the face. We were both learning that mania and drug use was not a smart combination for me. I look back on that moment with horror—what had made me so angry? The thought of coming down? Deep outrage that my soul mate was putting himself between me and another round?

Moments later, we were back inside Bowery Bar. We found our friend again and we all decided to leave together; he brought a young Slavic model with him, very tall and beautiful. I have no clue what they’re feeding those girls in the Eastern Bloc, but they are astonishing freaks of nature. Poor thing, she had no clue what was about to go down. Outracing the sober companion, we bolted into a cab, headed for the Four Seasons, and the four of us checked in. Then we raced to the room.

To this day, I believe those two guys shorted me on my share. I
felt another wave of being high, but nothing like I’d expected, nothing like I’d wanted. The four of us stayed up all night, talking and talking until the evil sun came up. In an instant, it was clear that the day before us was going to be ruined and torturous. We knew Scott’s people were frantically looking for him, and he was going to be in a shitload of trouble for ditching his sober guy. The cell phones were ringing like crazy; turns out that the minder had already headed back to L.A. on our original flight (the one that we’d already missed). Time for Bonnie and Clyde to head home.

I tried to take the blame by having Scott tell everyone that I’d gotten really sick that night; reluctantly, they bought it—or they didn’t want to deal with the truth. Nobody wanted to admit what they knew. Nobody ever does. A car service came to get us, and we pulled away from the Four Seasons with shame and regret. Not quite enough shame and regret, however; after check-in at the airport, when we were told that our flight was to be delayed a few hours, we went straight to the American first-class bar and started in with Jack Daniel’s. When the announcement for boarding finally came, we literally stumbled to the gate.

While getting settled, I recognized Patrick Demarchelier, one of the most celebrated photographers in the world, sitting a few seats in front of us. He was craggy and handsome, a legendary French master of bringing beautiful images to the printed page. I was standing (barely) a few feet away from a man who, under normal circumstances in my business, was almost impossible to meet—if you did, it meant you were at the top of your game. I may have been drunk, but I wasn’t stupid. It wasn’t likely that I was going to introduce myself to him that day. How did I get to be this girl?

My solution was to order champagne. Unfortunately, I promptly
spilled it all over Scott, soaking his pants. The flight attendant brought him a blanket, and he stood up, dropped his drawers, and wrapped the blanket around him like a skirt. A few moments later, the pilot announced that due to mechanical reasons, this flight was canceled. Everyone gathered their belongings and headed for the exit. I watched as Patrick Demarchelier walked off the plane and away. I knew that I would never find myself in front of his camera. It was the death of a dream—not the dream of becoming a famous model, but the dream of any success at all.

Even now, every time I fly American, I can’t quite shake the images from that day—a half-naked, blanket-clad Scott and me getting off the plane, calling for our car, impatiently waiting for it to come. We drove into the city, back to the Four Seasons, and started all over again.

After we got back
from the catastrophic trip to New York, I was tired and ashamed. I went to the gym, I went to AA meetings, Scott and I went to meetings together, we finally moved in together. It didn’t matter—the roll had started.

I came back to the house one afternoon and there was Scott with Ashley Hamilton. They did a kind of slow-motion “uh-oh” move when I came through the door. I glanced at Scott’s face, then moved close enough to actually look into his eyes—pinned pupils and a look of dim, enviable bliss. I was tired of being shut out of what he was feeling. Within hours, we were sharing the same belt, tightening up the veins in our arms, and slamming back against our chairs like kids in the first car on a roller coaster. The Chaos Tour was on.

It happened almost the same way every time. We would leave
the gym and go for coffee. On the drive home, without fail, one of us would comment on the weather. “Why does the sun feel so good today?” The sunroof was open and Guns N’ Roses’
Appetite for Destruction
played over and over in the background, just loud enough to work its way into our subconscious and hit the switch that got us going. Especially “It’s So Easy”: “So come with me / Don’t ask me where ’cause I don’t know.” But I did know, and so did he. One of us would break the silence and casually suggest El Coyote for lunch. It’s not like we can get into that much trouble over lunch, right? An outdoor patio. Sunshine. Maybe a margarita. Or two. The music got louder, the car went faster, and somewhere along the way, we had magically changed direction—downtown, to score. After that came the race to get home. Every light on the way turned red, every street was a detour. It took forfuckingever. Once we got there, we ran as though the hammers of hell were behind us, when in fact they were straight ahead.

Flying through the door and diving onto the big green couch was step one of the ritual; the couch was velvet, the color of grass, and it was so big that two people could lie on it and there would still be plenty of room. Step two was dumping everything out of the brown paper bag onto the wooden coffee table. Step three: Scott would bring me a framed Neil Zlozower photograph of Keith Richards; I’d lay out the goods right on top of Keith. I have one vein on my left arm that was made to make love to a syringe. It almost never failed (and the few times it did, I was generally on my way to rehab anyway). Wrapping my skinny little black belt around my skinny little arm was the final step before countdown.

I’ve labeled myself a Type A addict: everything had to be perfect. I’ve used with other addicts, users I’d classify under Type D for disaster. They are messy in prep, plunge, and enjoyment. Next to get
ting high, prep was my favorite part. After Scott taught me how to cook, it was my designated job, and I did it well. The apt pupil was now the obsessive-compulsive manager—how to use, what was a safe way to use, how to get into trouble without getting into trouble. I know now that OCD was involved in how exacting I was about the step-by-step, but looking back, I think I felt safer being the one in charge. At one point, I even wore a heart rate monitor when we were shooting speedballs, and I insisted that we stay hydrated with Gatorade and put down a Power Bar every day. Or every other day. Sometimes, a day would pass without my knowing it, and then I’d insist we try to eat two. As if that would’ve made any difference to whether we ultimately wound up dead or not.

The little house we lived in (near Melrose and La Brea) was filled with odd artifacts. Scott called them accessories; I called them crap. The minute the drugs hit, it all came to life. Lying together wrapped in green velvet, we watched the house and its contents morph into some kind of dream. There was a cow’s skull—after the initial rush, when we were able to open our eyes again, we would both look at the skull. I don’t know why we ever bothered to ask each other “Do you see them yet?” because they would appear at exactly the same time for each of us—beautiful white doves, flying out of the skull and into the living room. Lying there with my arms wrapped around Scott watching the doves dance brought me peace; until my children came, this was the calmest I had ever been.