House of Nails

by Lenny Dykstra

  I responded by asking, “Are people living afterward?” I immediately followed up that question with another: “Does it work?”

  Dr. Berman took a deep breath and said, “People are not dying as a result of the procedure. However, I think it’s too early to tell if it works long-term.” He went on to explain, “The procedure is called Rapid Opiate Detox. It is a process where you are under anesthesia for six to ten hours and they administer opiate-blocking medications. In essence, you go through intense withdrawal during that time, but you are under anesthesia; therefore, you are unaware of what your body is going through. You wake up opiate-free, but it’s very risky. It places tremendous stress on the body.”

  “Where’s this doctor?” I asked.

  “That’s the problem. He’s not in this country; he’s in Israel.”

  “Israel?” I fired back, hoping I misheard.

  Even I knew what was going on in Israel at that time. I went on to say, “Isn’t that where people are getting blown up and dying from these crazy suicide bombers?” Before he could answer, I fired another question at him: “How much does he want for the procedure?”

  “Lenny, it’s going to be very expensive. When it’s all said and done, with travel, hotel, and the procedure, you are probably looking at six figures. Also, don’t forget that if you choose to do this, you will be part of an ongoing experiment by having this procedure performed on you.”

  “Let me think about this for a minute.” Then I said to Dr. Berman, “First, I would have to fly to Israel, where innocent people are getting blown up and killed. Second, I would have to pay some doctor I know nothing about six figures to put me asleep for ten hours, in a country that’s on the other side of the world. And third, to top it off, you’re saying that I would be part of an experiment this doctor is conducting. Is this correct?”

  Dr. Berman nodded, confirming that I was indeed correct. He then said, “I wouldn’t do it. It’s too risky.”

  “Fuck it, I’m going. I want off these fucking pills. I am doing this thing, and I want to do it immediately! I can’t live like this any longer. I can’t let a pill continue to control my life anymore.”

  I appreciated Dr. Berman’s caution, but I had to take the chance.

  My mind was made up. Israel, here I come.

  If I was going to fly to Israel by myself, I knew I had to hire two twenty-four-hour armed security guards who would be waiting for me at the airport to drive me around and protect me while I was there. When I landed in Tel Aviv, there were two very serious-looking men waiting for me. I had been drinking on the plane the whole flight; I was hammered, completely annihilated. I remember when they approached me, we shook hands and I looked into their eyes and I saw something different. It was a look I didn’t recognize, and it didn’t matter how much I’d had to drink. These two men, who were both trained in the Israeli Special Forces, were not fucking around; they were trained killers. They helped me get through customs at Ben Gurion Airport. They took me to what I could only assume was the VIP area, as they obviously were friends with the big swinging dicks who were in charge of security at the airport. Still hammered, I stumbled into the bulletproof van my two hired guns had waiting for me.

  “Take me to the doctor, man,” I told them.

  For the first time in my life, I was really scared. It’s hard to explain because it wasn’t anything I’d ever experienced before. I was alone. I wasn’t going to be in an American hospital, and I didn’t understand what anyone was saying. On top of that, I was in a foreign country where innocent people were getting killed, and I was submitting myself to a new, very risky procedure with a doctor I knew nothing about. Essentially, my fear was at an all-time high. I can honestly say that I didn’t know if I was going to live or die.

  They drove me to the doctor’s office, which was in a very simple one-story building, nothing like the medical complexes we have here in America. When I walked into the office, there was no receptionist, no staff, no patients, only a dark-haired man sitting behind a desk, smoking a cigarette, staring out the window. As I got closer, I noticed his face was scarred. It was as if he had been severely burned and had also incurred gunshot wounds. His arms and hands were torn up as well. There were scars that looked like he had been in a war, or tortured, or worse. I thought to myself, Holy shit, this is my doctor? What in the fuck happened to him?

  I found out later from the two Israeli hit squad members I had hired for private security that the doctor was very famous and considered a hero by all of the Jewish people. It turns out that he was a real legend in the Israeli army. He would work on wounded soldiers who had been injured on the front line. He put his life on the line by doing whatever he had to in order to save them. My doctor was not only a genius—he was the fucking man.

  “You’re scared, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m scared,” I managed to say. I became emotional; it was beginning to hit me. I broke down and started to cry; I couldn’t stop, it was a feeling I had never experienced before. I was hours away from an extremely risky, unknown medical procedure that I didn’t know if I would ever wake up from.

  The only time before this that I can remember crying was when I was playing Little League baseball and had a high fever, and my mom wouldn’t let me play. I might have been about eight. Now as an adult, in a situation where I felt I might be on the brink of death, yeah, I cried.

  I was embarrassed, as I never had cried in front of a grown man before.

  Cigarette in hand, the Israeli doctor got up from behind his desk, pulled me up by my collar, pinned me up against the wall, looked me in the eye, and said, “Listen to me, I’m not going to let you die!”

  I’ll never forget the way he said it or the look he had in his eyes. There was something special about this man. While in his presence, I felt safe. It was almost as if I was with a higher power.

  I nicknamed him Dr. God.

  The next thing I remember, I was in an operating room. I could hear the nurses and doctors talking, but I didn’t understand Hebrew. It seemed like everything and everybody in that operating room were all moving in fast-forward. Then one of the nurses stuck a needle in my arm, attaching an IV, and everything went dark.

  When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was, but I could see Dr. God hovering over me. “Everything went fine,” he said.

  To me, it felt like I had just gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. I have never felt so bad in my life. It was like my body didn’t know what was going on. There was a feeling of emptiness, a lot of body aches. But I remember I didn’t crave the drug like I did when I’d attempted to get off the pills before. I was so weak and depleted, I did not have the strength to even sit up. I still experienced all the side effects as before: insomnia, muscular pain and achiness, watery eyes, and a runny nose, but I didn’t want to take a Vicodin. I just remember saying to myself, I need to remember what I am feeling now—the agony, the pain, the suffering—so I don’t ever have to feel this way again.

  There is now evidence that proves that while Rapid Detox decreases symptoms, it doesn’t necessarily affect the amount of time spent in withdrawal. The reality of the situation is simple: there are no shortcuts in life, no free rides, and everything comes with a price.

  With that said, as bad as I felt physically, I was proud of myself. I wasn’t a slave to a pill anymore. For the first time in years, I was opiate-free.

  My two security guards drove me from the hospital back to my hotel in Tel Aviv. The place was tits and ass, completely renovated from top to bottom. Everything was state-of-the-art. I remember saying to myself, If I am going to suffer, at least it will be in style.

  After a long, torturous, sleepless night, the next morning I told my security to take me outside. I needed some air; I needed to see and hear people living life.

  After a few more days of recovering by the pool, I told my security that I wanted to see Jerusalem. The next day they set me up with a tour guide, and we all drove from Tel Aviv to the Old City in Jeru
salem. I did the whole deal. It was an amazing place!

  I finished off my day in Jerusalem by stopping at the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall. My tour guide told me that it’s a centuries-old tradition to write a note with a prayer or request, and then place it in a crack in the wall. So I put a yarmulke on my head and walked up to the Wailing Wall, but instead of just scribbling a quick note on a piece of paper and jamming it in the wall, I stopped and took it all in. I remember writing down, I’m alive, I am still in the game, I can still be a factor, and then I respectfully placed it in the wall.

  22

  WHEELS UP

  If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.

  —SHERYL SANDBERG

  I have always believed that pussy was the most powerful thing in the world; after all, it has taken countries down. That all changed when I bought my own private jet. Not just any jet, a Gulfstream, the big swinging dick of private aviation.

  With money, one has the ability to have more options, to make more choices, than a person without money. That doesn’t mean one person is better than the other if he or she has more money; it just means they have the luxury to experience things most people can’t.

  I chartered my first private jet in 1990. That was the first year I realized that I was definitely in a different tax bracket. It was the off-season, I had just come off a huge year, and I was in LA partying. There were a couple buddies and a few chicks hanging out in my suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel, when one of the girls said to me, “We should go to Las Vegas. That would be so much fun.”

  I thought about it and said, “Yeah, but it’s too fucking far to drive.”

  She came back with, “Just charter a private jet. We’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

  I had never even thought about that before; up until that point, it wasn’t even an option. Then I fired back, “Yeah, fuck yeah, I will hunt one down for us.”

  I called the concierge and told him what I wanted. Minutes later, I received a call from some dude who asked me how many people were with me and where we wanted to go. After I answered, he said, “I recommend you charter a Lear 35. It’s fast and not as expensive as the other options.”

  That was it; I had the hotel arrange for a limo to take us to Van Nuys Airport, the busiest private airport in the country. I remember when the limo pulled right up to the jet, I thought to myself, This is fucking cool as shit. The pilot, along with a beautiful young flight attendant, with a rig from hell, were waiting by the stairs for us to board the plane, and he said, “Drinks are in the back. We’ll be wheels up in ten minutes and on the ground in Las Vegas in about thirty. Enjoy the flight.”

  I would continue to charter private planes for a number of years after that. But I would always stay with the smaller equipment, meaning the Lear Jets and the Citations, all of which are classified as small to midsize private jets. At that time, it wasn’t so much about the type of aircraft, it was more about the process, the way I could seamlessly get from point A to point B without going through an airport.

  It wasn’t until later, as you will read, that I got serious about private aviation. And if you have learned anything about Lenny Dykstra from reading this book, you know when I say, “I got serious,” then, I got serious. Real fucking serious.

  Let’s fast-forward to the year 2006. I was spending so much money chartering jets, shitty ones I might add, that I finally called my buddy Pete Maestrales, who owns Airstream Jets based in Boca Raton.

  “Bro, it’s time to take it to the next level. I’m buying my own fucking jet!”

  This guy, who was the best in the business when it came to finding me the best possible equipment for the best price, responded by saying, “Oh, no. I already know what you’re going to buy.”

  He knew me so well, he was confident that if I was buying a jet, it was going to be the big swinging dick of private aviation—a Gulfstream.

  One of the most frustrating and confusing things to me when I would charter a jet was how outdated the interiors were on these airplanes. To make matters worse, the audiovisual system on these planes was so ancient, it was a fucking joke. I didn’t get it. The standard answer I would get from the pilots and people in the private aviation business was that the FAA was too strict and had too many rules. I called bullshit on that. Why would the FAA not want an airplane to have the newest, most up-to-date equipment? Regardless, I had a game plan that I had been masterminding for quite a while.

  My plan was to design the interior to look exactly like the car I owned, which was a Maybach. There weren’t many on the road, probably a direct result of the price tag, a cool $400K. But that’s why I chose to customize my first Gulfstream to look like a Maybach. Fortunately for me, I was dialed in with the person who was in charge of Maybach North America. After I told him my idea, he called the powers that be in Germany and got the green light from Ulrich Maybach. Then it was fucking on!

  On December 24, 2007, I bought my first Gulfstream jet. I have to admit it was a very powerful feeling to know that I owned a real fucking jet. It made me feel proud. In fact, it was kind of like a drug, but way fucking better! The power and freedom I felt when flying around the world on my own airplane was intoxicating.

  Imagine that you’re bored one day, and you don’t know what to do with yourself. Of course, boredom is a relative term. Many people are content to sit around doing nothing. I think they call that relaxing. Well, that’s not me; I’m wired for action. So when action was lacking, I would mobilize my jet and make a call to my pilots to get the flight plans for whatever country I decided to drop anchor in on that particular journey. I would simply say, “Let’s be wheels up in one hour.” And in one hour my airplane would be in the air bound for my destination.

  I flew all over the world, with some of my favorite stops being Italy, the Caribbean, the Virgin Islands, England, Spain, and Paris. Despite the undeniable magnificence and history of Paris, they treated Americans like shit. In fact, I had to remind them that if it weren’t for us those motherfuckers would be speaking German!

  In December 2008, I flew to Nice, France, where I met Bernard Vuitton, of the famous Louis Vuitton brand. Bernard and I hit it off from the start. Despite the fact that I had bought some expensive threads back in my time, I was certainly not a fashion mogul, by any means. So imagine how I felt hanging with Bernard, who represented perhaps the most celebrated luxury brand in the world.

  To my surprise, this guy was fucking cool and incredibly down to earth. Bernard and I communicated with each other numerous times. Among the invitations I received from Bernard, one was to a charitable affair for the Maybach Foundation, on behalf of himself and Ulrich Maybach. The following is the invitation I received.

  Dear Lenny,

  Hopefully you are doing well since we met at the Martinez in Cannes.

  In case you will [be] around, we both, Ulrich Maybach and myself, take a great pleasure in inviting you and your selected guest to join us for the Private Luncheon of the Maybach Foundation on Monday May 18th, 2009, between 12.30 p.m. and 3.30 p.m. at the Hotel du Cap–Eden Roc, Cap d’Antibes. The date being very close to the Monaco Grand Prix and the Film Festival, I thought, Lenny, that you could be around or not too far. If so, please pass by. Being in the host committee of this Event, it would be also a pleasure for me to welcome you and to see you again. The Foundation will again honor a legend of the entertainment industry whose work demonstrates a commitment to giving back to society through mentoring. In previous years the Maybach Foundation gave this tribute to Quincy Jones and Dennis Hopper.

  Enjoy sample culinary delights (open buffet), drinks from the premium open bar, and spend a wonderful afternoon on the water front terrace.

  Hoping to see you soon. (If you’re not around please give me a call so we can get together either in NY or LA sometime next month as there are interesting projects in the tube.)

  Best regards,

  Bernard Vuitton Juhen

  Vuitton Fa
mily & Partners

  These are merely a few examples of the places my Gulfstream made accessible to me on a moment’s notice. I could go virtually anywhere, whenever I wanted, with whomever I chose, by making a phone call and giving the word: “Fire up the jet.”

  I should mention, that my two flight attendants, one brunette, one blonde, both canned heat, traveled with me wherever I went. I know what you’re thinking—He had to have fucked both of them—but I never went there. Furthermore, my jet was always stocked with the finest liquor in the world, and I never drank when I was on board my plane. Clearly, the incredible feeling I experienced while in my Gulfstream completely curbed my usually insatiable appetite for other pleasures. I literally experienced what it was like to be higher than the clouds.

  Later, after prison, long after I lost my Gulfstream among other prized possessions, I learned that there are a few other powerful things in this world that you cannot put a price tag on. Meeting Eric Petersen allowed me to appreciate this concept.

  About seven months after I was released from prison, I received a call from Mark Slotkin, a friend of mine whom I had met six years prior. He asked if I wanted to meet him for dinner, so we could catch up, and I accepted. When I arrived at his house, he greeted me at the door, and we shared a courtesy hug. I started walking toward his car when Mark said, “No, this way, I invited one of my friends to join us.”

  Mark and I had an agreement from the past that he would never Pearl Harbor me like this, as it was invariably some old rich dude who wanted to know what it was like to play in the World Series and talk baseball with me. Mark knew I’d be fucking pissed, but I hadn’t seen him for years so I didn’t say anything.

  We got into a vintage Mercedes, which I could tell was very well cared for and clearly expensive. The dude driving had glasses on and was a walking advertisement for a tattoo parlor, with tats everywhere. But they were not pedestrian or stereotypical tattoos. I could tell that he paid a lot of money for the artwork and put plenty of thought into them.