Running with Monsters

by Bob Forrest

  I lived a sweet life. How many people could say that? But the more my friends talked, the more I became convinced I had a problem. I may have been an alcoholic and a drug addict, but it was still hard for me to really believe it. I thought I had solid control over my habits. When I was at home with Marin, I only smoked heroin. It was my little concession to the domestic life. How many hard-core junkies could stay off the needle like that?

  “Please, Bob, just go,” Marin said. It made sense. She came from Hollywood royalty: her dad was actor Dennis Hopper, and her mother was actress Brooke Hayward. Her grandmother was Margaret Sullavan. Her mother’s great-grandfather was Monroe Hayward, a former United States senator from Nebraska. Marin grew up on the East Coast and attended prep schools with the Fonda kids. She had gone to Ivy League Brown University. Life with me was something she wasn’t exactly prepared for.

  They wore me down. By the time the check arrived, I had agreed to go to rehab. Two days later, on February 2, 1989, I found myself at LAX and wondered if I had made a mistake. I’ve had better mornings, for fucking sure, I thought. It was one of those shatteringly clear Southern California winter mornings that happen when the dry Santa Anas—the hot, seasonal winds that blow in from the desert—scrub the skies clean and all the happy, normal people of Los Angeles give hosannas and praises in thanks that they don’t live in some barren, ice-bound part of the country. They walked around with a particular look on their faces, a frozen rictus that seems to barely disguise an inner scream. Or maybe they really are happy. It’s always hard to gauge people here in L.A. It’s plastic and fantastic, just like you’ve heard. At the moment, I hated the sunshine and the blank-faced happiness it inspired, and it filled me with disgust.

  I was on a Northwest Airlines flight bound for the heart of the snowy Midwest. I was a little bit dope-sick and a whole lot hungover. I made my way to the center of business class and found my seat. I wanted to bolt as soon as I sat down. I fought the overwhelming urge to run back to the gate and catch the first taxi home. I’m not a good flier. I’m not a good passenger. I don’t like to wear my seat belt. I don’t like to keep my tray in its upright and locked position, and I don’t like to stow my gear in the overhead bin. The whole machine of air travel is made of rules and regulations and even under the best of circumstances, I have difficulty with it. There was one thing about air travel that I did like, though, and that was vodka and orange juice. I needed mine right now.

  I tried to hold it together while the pretty, plasticized attendant gave her practiced rundown of what we were supposed to do in the event of an emergency. Whether over land or water, it didn’t seem to me to matter. If something happened, we all knew we were completely fucked. Going down might have been the kindest nudge that fate could have given this bird. The whole thing was out of my hands anyway. No sense in being gloomy and doom-struck. I just wanted my drink.

  Before I left for the airport, I had stood alone in the bathroom in front of the mirror and smoked a generous quantity of black-tar heroin. I put a blob of the dark, sticky resin onto a piece of creased foil and held a disposable Bic lighter under it to slightly melt the dose. With a McDonald’s plastic straw clenched between my teeth and a flame under the foil, I caught the thick, almost oily smoke that slowly boiled up along the crease like a pyroclastic flow in reverse and pulled it deep into my lungs. I was well rehearsed in the technique and never wasted any of my stash. Even now, with my shaking hands and distracted mind, I could have pulled it off while wearing a blindfold. There were a lot of unknowns in my immediate future, but this wasn’t one of them. I knew exactly what came next, the warm embrace of an old chemical friend and a sense that everything would be just fine. Of course, I was on dope, so, really, what the fuck did I know?

  I watched my reflection in the cold depth of the mirror and saw my pupils contract to pinpoints while a rush hit me deep down in the viscera and spread to the outskirts of Forrest County, USA. The mirror bit was a little ritual I had. It allowed me to see what happened to me. It assured me that the stuff was working. In a nod to choreographer Bob Fosse and the movie All That Jazz, I fanned the fingers of both hands in front of my face and whispered, “Showtime!” at the gaunt and chalky visage in the mirror.

  My adventure had begun.

  I sat in my seat aboard the Northwest 737 and I could feel my anxiety start to build. When would this peppy attendant stop with the flight safety rundown and get on to the important things, like serving me my booze? She droned on and I sensed movement as the plane taxied down the runway. There was a brief pause before the hum of the engines turned into a banshee’s feral howl and the awesome force generated by those screaming turbines pressed me back into my seat like I was a piece of putty. Good. Maybe I could just disappear. I felt conspicuous in the foam recess of my little nest. Something inside of me churned and bubbled and it was a bad feeling.

  That was forgotten when I heard the announcement, “Your attendant will now take your drink orders.” Relief was just an order away. When the attendant stopped next to my row, I put on my best face and worked the charm angle: “Two double vodkas with orange juice, please!” It was important to keep up my vitamin C intake. It was also important to keep up my hustle. Dreadlocked musicians like me weren’t seen as rock stars by the general public back then. We were freaks, and freaks were dangerous and under scrutiny. The attendant was a lovely young woman. She looked almost military in her uniform, but she was nice. She had a sense of humor and exhibited the kind of mercy usually possessed only by those who nursed the terminally ill. “We’ll just pretend one of those drinks is for whoever is sitting here,” she said, nodding toward the empty seat beside me. I liked her. So this is what they meant by “the friendly skies.”

  “We’ll serve them one at a time,” she joked.

  “Make sure you remember me,” I shot back as she gave me my plastic cup filled with ice, my orange juice, and four tiny bottles of airline vodka. I declined her offer of free peanuts.

  I don’t think I ever enjoyed a drink so much. The cold bite of the ice that rattled hollowly in the plastic cup, the sweet tang of the orange juice, and the tasteless after-burn of the vodka was beautiful. As the mixture absorbed the surrounding light it took on the appearance of some strange, unnamed gem. As I drank, I could feel myself stutter-start to rough, shambling life. The medicine was doing its work, I thought, and I felt my strength and confidence return as I leaned back and made myself comfortable. Now I was starting to feel good. I felt even better when I finished my second double … and I ordered two more.

  I mean, seriously, what the fuck was I doing here? My mind snapped back to the present. I was on my way to Hazelden, a rehabilitation center planted squarely in a bucolic and serene setting in the generic-sounding town of Center City, Minnesota, where alcoholics, pill heads, junkies, blow monkeys, and every other type of drug funneler, drinker, miscreant, and fuckup known to man or beast could start that long, unsteady walk toward sobriety and what I had been told was a better life. I wasn’t half convinced. I felt I had been conned. Now, up here in the clear blue sky, above the clouds, it all seemed like such a ridiculous situation. I was on a two-and-a-half-hour flight by myself, so it gave me some time to think, but I really only needed five minutes to formulate my plan: Forget Hazelden, forget rehab, and forget any half-assed reformation. I would connect at the airport in Minnesota and go on to New York City. Sure, everyone I knew would be mad at me, but it was my life and no one pressured me into anything I didn’t want to do or didn’t believe in. This whole flight had been a mistake and I needed to move forward. I’d go to New York, where things were cool and where I could be myself and avoid people who wanted to hassle me about how I chose to live my life. They’d get over it.

  I was still working out my plan when the plane swooped out of the sky and touched down in Saint Paul. All airports are the same: You leave the placental safety of the plane and get squeezed out into an explosion of sound, light, and shiny surfaces. I felt like my feet were moving thro
ugh heavy syrup. I really needed to find a connecting flight and get to New York … now.

  But as I craned my neck and ran down my options, out of place in this Midwest bustle where people said “Excuse me” and “Pardon me, sir,” I saw an odd little gnome of an old dude who was holding up a sign that read BOB FORREST. I had so much on my mind that it took me a second to realize that he was there for me. He was such an unusual sight, standing there in his shirtsleeves and suspenders when outside the cocoon of the terminal it was well below freezing. He intrigued me. I walked up and introduced myself. “Hi. I’m Bob.”

  “Are you ready to begin the greatest adventure of your life, young man?” he said through a completely sincere and friendly grin. Had I just stepped into a cartoon? I felt like I was on acid.

  I thought to myself, What the fuck is this? but I had to admit, I felt comfortable around this little guy and walked out with him to the official Hazelden patient delivery mobile in the parking lot. It was absolutely nondescript, like something an undercover cop would drive. I got in and the little guy, Sonny, was a ball of positive energy. He had done this enough that he knew the minds of the clients almost better than they knew them themselves.

  “So, before you saw me, you were planning to run, weren’t you?”

  “New York,” I answered. “I was going to go to New York.”

  “You need money to be bad,” he told me.

  We drove on through the countryside for a number of silent, wintry miles. It was peaceful. I enjoyed studying Sonny and his calm demeanor. He was a unique specimen. We drove through a gate at the edge of the property and I felt like I had been delivered to a college campus. Hazelden was far from the type of grimy prison my worst nightmares had conjured. It was pleasant and nonthreatening, even though I still had no idea what to expect. Sonny parked and brought me to the detox unit, which was also the check-in area. They were expecting me. I took one look around and thought, This is how things are supposed to be done. Presentation is everything, and the spotlessly clean lobby and my orderly room put me at ease. There were a nurse and a doctor who were friendly, kind, and professional. They knew what they were doing. They took my vitals, checked me out, and got my medical history.

  “Surgeries?” asked the nurse.

  “I lost part of my finger,” I said, and held up the stump so she could see. I had been on a bike when I was eight years old and a parked car’s door suddenly opened. I slammed into it at thirty miles per hour and my finger was caught in the hand brake. It was damaged beyond repair, never to return. She winced when she saw it.

  “History of mental illness?” she read off the sheet attached to her clipboard.

  “Is drug addiction a mental illness?” I joked. She smiled. At least they’ve got a sense of humor around here, I thought.

  “Any allergies to medication?” the nurse asked.

  “Not so far,” I answered. She gave me a quizzical look. “No,” I said, clarifying.

  “Okay, then. We’re ready to get started,” she said, and stood to leave. “A nurse will be in shortly. Just sit tight.”

  I had barely shifted in my chair when another nurse brought in some medications. “Bob, this is Librium. It will help with any alcohol withdrawals you may experience.” I swallowed the pill with some water she handed me.

  She had a another pill. “Now, this one is chloral hydrate,” she said. “It will help a little with the heroin withdrawal.” I swallowed that one too.

  Finally, she handed me something I recognized. “This,” she said, “is Valium. It’ll just keep you calm. You may experience some agitation and this will help with that.” I could feel the Valium kicking in and I was taken to my room, where I went to bed. Someone on staff came in and monitored me at regular intervals.

  I stayed there for the next three days and alternated between periods of chills and hot sweats. I didn’t sleep much, but the Valium helped a little. Mainly, I just let my body and mind adjust to this new state of existence. Toxins, bit by bit, left my system, and though I’d definitely felt better, I’d also felt a lot worse. And it wasn’t like I was confined to my bed. I was free to get up and go outside, but it was winter in the upper Midwest. That meant cold. The kind of cold somebody from Southern California never gets used to. It meant that when you did venture out, you did it in increments of five or ten minutes before you made a quick scuttle back inside where it was warm. It was on these journeys into the world that I started to meet the other patients who had already completed their detox periods. I could see that, at twenty-eight, I was one of the youngest clients. I thought to myself, You have to know you have a problem before you start to do nothing about it. And, yet, here I was, doing something about mine. I felt good about that.

  Those three days passed as quickly as any other physically unpleasant event might run its course, and when they were over and I was sufficiently detoxed, I was moved to the rehab unit. I felt sure that the worst of my process was over and I was filled with a sort of cocky bravado that came from my belief that everybody on the staff knew exactly what to do and knew explicitly what worked for people like me. It was simple, really. The staff and the program were designed to instill the clients with confidence and a sense of security that I don’t think is available through programs you find these days. This second stage was also where I was supposed to learn strategies to stay off alcohol and drugs. Here, in a controlled environment, it would be easy, but back home it might be different. And difficult. It didn’t really matter because I didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself.

  The unit was set up military style. There were three of us to a room. Here I was, a young rocker, housed with middle-aged professional men. They immediately made me feel welcomed and they were a friendly crew. There was John, a high-powered Chicago attorney who had checked in after badly blowing one of his cases thanks to a long-term cocaine-and-booze habit. Moon was a back-slapping good-ol’-boy airline pilot whose binge drinking threatened to rob him of his livelihood. And, of course, there I was with my dreadlocks. John was the head of our unit and assigned us various homemaking tasks. I was shown my bed before we all went off, single-file, to the cafeteria for a lecture about addiction.

  There, in the lunchroom, like a punch in the guts, it slammed me. Maybe it was because I had been in such a fog during my initial detox that I just didn’t notice it. Certainly, it hadn’t been mentioned in the Hazelden brochures and nobody had brought it up since I had arrived, but there on the wall were the sacred “twelve steps,” and one word in particular stood out—God. I thought to myself, There is no fucking way … All of a sudden the tone in my head shifted and I felt like I had walked myself straight into the nest of some creepy mind-control cult. I thought of Jonestown and how a domineering, crazed reverend convinced more than nine hundred of his followers to drink cyanide-spiked purple-drink in an act of mass suicide. That’s what religion will get you, I thought. It didn’t help when I turned my head and saw another poster with the Ten Commandments rewritten and translated into recovery-speak. I was an atheist. My mom was, at best, an agnostic. This was alien territory for me. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered under my breath. The lecture ended with a period of meditation, which, to me, was just another word for prayer. I meditated, all right. I meditated about how I had paid $14,000 up front to take part in the rituals of organized superstition. I was completely switched off. I had to get out.

  Now, this is how the mind of an addict and alcoholic works: It jumps to hasty conclusions. At lunch, convinced that I was trapped in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of religious freaks, I found a phone and called for a car. I went back to the unit and started to pack. John saw me and asked me what I was doing.

  “I’m leaving,” I said.

  “What are you talking about? You just got here,” he said with surprise.

  “I’m leaving,” I repeated. “I don’t belong here with … you people.”

  “Hey, man, everything’s cool,” John answered.

  “No,” I shot ba
ck, “everything is not cool! This is some dogmatic bullshit right here!”

  “Could you maybe be a little more specific?” John asked without guile.

  “All that God stuff,” I said. “I can’t do it. I’m not religious.”

  John started laughing. It wasn’t a mocking laugh. It wasn’t cruel. It was a big, friendly laugh. He was genuinely amused by my outburst. “Bob, all these programs are like that. Just don’t do the God stuff. I don’t. Neither does Moon.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

  “You can try the first step and just admit you don’t have any control over the drugs and the booze. I mean, is making something happen worth putting in at least a little effort?”

  I guessed it was and I took the leap and took the first step. I admitted that I had no control over the pills, potions, and powders. God didn’t enter into the equation. It was just me and the bottle … and I could never stay away from it for long.

  John also suggested I try the fourth step and “take a searching and fearless moral inventory” of myself. I hated the language in which it was put, but I liked the idea. I didn’t need God to do that either, although the rigors of that particular step absolutely terrified me. I was twenty-eight, a full-grown man with a career and a name, but I feared the things I might find.

  SUPER-SECRET SOCIETIES

  Change was around every corner when I finished my stay at Hazelden. “Bob, you’re going to want to stay in what’s called a sober house when you get back home or you won’t make it,” they told me, but I was hardheaded. “Fuck that,” I said. “I have my own house!”

  I left Hazelden the same way I had come in—piled into a staff car driven by gnomish little Sonny. He was just as positive as he had been when he had picked me up upon my arrival. “Well, you look like a whole new person!” he said, chuckling. I wasn’t so sure about his assessment, but the ride to the airport lacked the dope-sick anxiety I had felt when we made the drive to the facility thirty days earlier. Now there was just a general nervousness. I stayed quiet while Sonny chattered and occupied myself with the scenery that flashed past the window of the car. My head was filled with questions. For the first time since I was a kid, I was sober. Could I keep it going? Could I be in the air for hours and not drink? What about when I got back to L.A.? What if I slipped into old habits? I didn’t have the answers to any of it, and this worry didn’t help matters, so I tried to shut it out. “Whatever happens, happens,” I told myself. When we reached the airport, Sonny walked me to the gate. He may have sensed my uncertainty because as I left to board my flight he clapped a friendly hand on my shoulder and said, “Take it easy, kid.” I nodded my agreement and got on the plane that would take me back home. In my seat, I settled back and shut my eyes. Sleep would be the best way to pass the miles. I slipped into Slumber Land before the plane taxied down the runway and I didn’t wake up until I felt the bump of the wheels when they touched down in Los Angeles. I grabbed my bag and deplaned, thrilled to be back home. Outside the terminal, I breathed in the smog-scented air and listened to the hum and bustle of heavy airport traffic. This was home—noisy, gritty Los Angeles—and I was glad to be back. I hailed a cab and told the driver, “Get me home as quick as you can!”