Beauty, Disrupted

by Carre Otis

  “Where the fuck have you been, Mick? What the fuck’s going on?” I was so enraged that I flicked my lit cigarette at him. It bounced harmlessly off his shoulder. Mickey grabbed my hand, twisting it roughly, his fingers digging into my flesh. I winced in pain.

  “Otis, listen. You gotta bear with me. I told you there are loose ends to tie up.”

  “So that’s all you’re doing? Tying them up? The loose ends?” I looked hard into his eyes, willing him to tell me the truth. I was still young enough to believe I had that power.

  Mickey promised that was all he was doing. He pleaded with me, telling me that he couldn’t wait to be with me. “Come on, baby,” he said, pressing his forehead against mine. My body ached from jet lag, from anger, and from the conflict between wanting him so badly and not trusting anything he said.

  “I don’t need this, Mick. We can be on hold for a while if that’s what we need to do. Why don’t you work your shit out and then we can see if we can be together. Maybe in a few months?” I was calling his bluff, scared that he would walk away, more afraid of being kept waiting, hidden on this hill.

  Something flashed in Mickey’s eyes the moment he heard the words “on hold.” I’d come to call it “his crazy,” because there was no other term for what seemed to happen to him when he felt he was about to lose me.

  For some reason, since the day we’d first met, I could be no one else’s. I was his, and that was that.

  “Give me a day, Otis. That’s all. And I will be back.” He tried to kiss me, but I pulled away. I knew I needed to play the cards I had, and play them well. Mickey’s neediness was my ace, the one thing I could rely on from this otherwise unpredictable man.

  I gave him a little shove, tinged with both affection and aggression. “So go do your thing, my friend. Tie it up. And I’ll see you when it’s done.” Mickey turned to go, heading back to Joey and Bruce, who sat on their Harleys at the bottom of the driveway, watching everything. The trio roared off down the hill, leaving me alone at the top of Los Angeles with no car, no friends to call, and nowhere to go. I’d been home from Brazil for three days, and already I was trapped.

  Walking back into the house, I remembered Mickey telling me when we first met that he was still “entangled in a situation.” I hadn’t wanted to know the details, and he’d sworn that that would soon be over. But as I reflected on all the things I’d seen—things such as Mickey hanging up the phone too quickly when I entered the room—I wasn’t so sure. There were other signs, too. It seemed that I’d come home to a part-time relationship with a man who was far more entangled than he’d admitted or I had known. I thought hard about leaving, about calling someone to get me off that hill and away from Mickey. But I wanted to believe what he said to me. I wanted to believe that soon, very soon, he would be all mine.

  Mickey did come back, assuring me that the entanglements were broken and that he was free to be with me, just me. I wanted to believe him. For a while—for too long—I did.

  PLAYING HOUSE

  I was playing house. I knew that something was very wrong with this new life of mine. By everyone else’s standards, I had everything I could possibly want: a big, beautiful home, a relationship with a famous actor. But I had to stop counting there. That was all there was. Something was wrong. Very wrong. As bad as things had gotten for me before, I’d always been in command of my misery. I’d always felt like I was the one in control, able to come or go as necessary, able to create and destroy opportunities and relationships at will. But while living “with” Mickey, I felt a disconcerting sense of paralysis. I was in need to a degree I hadn’t ever allowed myself to be before. And I felt my power and strength slipping away.

  I spent too much of my time waiting for him. Long, lonely nights were passed listening to the winds whipping through the canyons and the coyotes howling in the distance. I would lie awake wondering if or when Mickey would show up. Had I known that this was going to be my fate, I would never have moved here. I wasn’t good at waiting. (I’m still not.) I’m a doer, a manifester. I like to make things happen, to initiate change, to move forward. I think a part of me just withered during that time. I was perpetually waiting for Mickey. Waiting for the verdict on Wild Orchid. Waiting for a new modeling job. I was also waiting for a new agent. When I came back from Brazil, I’d taken Mickey’s advice and let some of his managing crew run the show for me. Later I began to suspect that Mickey was much more comfortable when there was no show of mine to run.

  But just about every time I thought I couldn’t take the isolation anymore, Mickey would show up and pull a rabbit out of a hat, surprising me with his generosity and momentarily reassuring me of our love.

  On September 28, 1989, I turned twenty-one. I had met Mickey earlier that year and spent the spring and much of the summer filming Wild Orchid. My life wasn’t what I thought it would be by this time. There were successes on some levels and failure on others. The movie we’d made together was due to be released in the U.S. in the spring of 1990. Press hadn’t yet begun. I was in a lull.

  Mickey was supposed to pick me up that day for a birthday lunch, but the hours passed and soon the sun was setting. I was furious. What’s more, I was stranded. I hadn’t made any other plans, because I assumed we were going to spend the day together. All I could do was pace.

  I sat on the front stoop smoking cigarette after cigarette. I wanted to call my mother. My father. My sister or brother. But I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the phone. We had been out of touch for so long. . . . Just then I heard the big metal gate at the end of the drive creak open. I hadn’t heard Mick’s Harley, so I stood to see who was driving up to the house.

  There was Mickey, behind the wheel of a souped-up black Mustang convertible. A red bow was tied to the front bumper. He pulled in with a screech and stood on the seat of the car, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Happy birthday, Otis!” he yelled my way.

  I was stunned. I wanted to ask him where he’d been, why I was kept waiting on my birthday. But I knew it would seem ungrateful in light of his expensive birthday gift. At the same time, I didn’t care about things like cars. I rarely felt worthy enough to receive gifts. There was a discomfort I felt being the recipient of such generosity. I was an odd bird.

  I slowly walked over toward Mickey, touched the car with my finger, then circled it, tracing its chrome detail. I didn’t know what to say. I had never had a car. Especially not a new one.

  “Otis, don’t you like it?” Mickey was puzzled. So was I.

  “I . . . I love it, Mickey. It’s amazing. The best birthday present I could ever imagine,” I lied. Actually, the best birthday present would have been him showing up when he’d said he would. The best birthday present would be getting the fuck out of this house, I thought. But I bit my tongue.

  “Let’s take it for a ride. . . . What do you say?” he coaxed.

  “Sure.” And with that, I grabbed my purse, jumped into my new ride, and we were off tearing down the drive, back up to Mulholland, and on to Sunset Boulevard.

  It was September and fall was in the air in L.A. I bundled up in my leather coat and looked over at Mickey, who had taken the wheel. Why did my heart palpitate when he was near? Why did I need him so? It was actually a terrible feeling to know how desperate I was for him.

  “Otis, you’re gonna have to drop me off down at Caffé Roma. I have a meeting.”

  I was shocked. “What? What about my birthday? Dinner?” I shook my head in confusion.

  “Hey, Peanut, come on. I love you. You know that. Hey . . . don’t you love the car?”

  That wasn’t the point. But what could I say? I didn’t want my love to be bought. Gifts couldn’t make up for neglect. But I couldn’t articulate those feelings. I didn’t know where to start. So I reflected back on the obvious and the factual; at least I now had my own car. My escape vehicle. My way out.

  I pulled up to the alley behind Caffé Roma. It was a small motorcycle café run by Mickey and his brother, Joey. I nev
er knew what went on inside and didn’t trust it. For some reason I was still being kept inexplicably in hiding; Mickey still wanted our relationship to remain under wraps.

  As Mick jumped out of the car, Joey stepped toward me. “Happy birthday, Otis. What’s in store for ya tonight?” Mickey’s brother leaned forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Joey had been in so many motorcycle accidents that his face had been sewn up and reconstructed a number of times. He had the look of a wounded lion. But a sweet one.

  “Thanks, Joe.” I shrugged. “Nothing, I guess. Mick’s got a meeting.” I looked past Joey and could see that inside the store Mickey was talking and standing very close to another long-legged, brown-haired girl.

  “Jesus . . . bro . . .” Joey looked at me with empathy. He had seen it all. He shook his head toward his brother, sharing my obvious disappointment. “Later, Otis. You take good care of yourself, you hear?”

  And just like that, I turned twenty-one. Not nearly as sweet as I had thought it would be.

  CALVIN KLEIN

  Wild Orchid opened to horrible reviews. I should have known what was coming, especially after the producers sold the footage of the famed sex scene to Playboy without my consent. There was nothing I could do about it, of course. My ass was owned by the studio. Or at least my ass as it appeared in Wild Orchid.

  But I wasn’t the only one receiving bad reviews. Mickey’s “chipmunk cheeks” were in serious question. It was the first of many surgeries Mickey would have to alter his physical appearance. And not the last that would be noticed by the media.

  Mickey’s way of dealing with negative press was to act out in his usual ways—and to secure another film. He could move on. It wasn’t so easy for me. My big break was actually turning into my breaking point. I wasn’t sure which way to go. Mickey and I both endured embarrassment and scrutiny, but he was more accustomed to that kind of attention than I was.

  The thought of anyone I knew going to see Wild Orchid was beyond disturbing. Until I saw it, I hadn’t a clue how it would look on film. I sat through it only once. I’ve never seen it since, and I have no plans ever to see it again. For me it represented abuse, darkness, exploitation, and the beginning of my long walk of shame. I was so gun-shy afterward that the thought of doing another film was the furthest thing from my mind. (Much to Mickey’s relief, I think.) I just wanted to get back to modeling. Thankfully, I scored a major campaign for Calvin Klein at just the right moment. It would be shot in my hometown, San Francisco.

  Mickey assigned Joey and Bruce to stick by my side during the shoot. If I was going to work, Mickey was going to have me watched. I argued about it with him endlessly. “Mickey, no one has a watcher. Why me? That’s so silly.”

  I was more embarrassed than anything. Modeling was my world, not Mickey’s. It was what I did. He didn’t know a thing about how it worked. I was also concerned that having handlers would be problematic in my industry. No photographer wanted to be told what to do or feel as if someone was looking over his shoulder.

  “Just think of them as your bodyguards,” Mickey said.

  “I don’t need bodyguards,” I argued.

  “Then think of them as your assistants, damn it. They are going, Otis. That’s that.”

  I was furious. But more than that, I felt belittled. Not trusted. I mean, shit, who went and watched Mickey when he was away from me? The double standard drove me nuts. Yet I felt as though the only way I could do anything that interested me was to do it Mickey’s way. My freedom was slipping away. My voice was falling silent. I was becoming Mickey’s bitch.

  Not long before I left for the Calvin Klein campaign, Mickey had me meet him in the parking lot of the high school below my house. He wanted to show me something. Joe had picked me up on the back of his bike and driven me there.

  “This is for you, Peanut.” Mickey grinned. Another gift? I wondered. He was standing next to a purple Harley-Davidson Springer. A damned heavy bike.

  “What? Serious?” I was beside myself. A motorcycle was definitely up my alley. But I figured that Mickey would forever keep me on the back of his. I knew in that moment that he was sending me a message. He was having me watched and handled, but he was also the one offering me my freedom. My fate was in his hands. We both knew it. And the motorcycle was a clever peace offering.

  I walked over to it. Etched into the chrome was a feather and the nickname I’d gone by ever since the movie, “Wyoming Outlaw” (as in W.O. for Wild Orchid). The bike was awesome and impressive. There was just one problem: I didn’t know how to ride.

  “Show me, Mickey!” I begged. I swung a leg over and straddled the bike.

  Mickey patiently showed me how to start the ignition and work the brakes and clutch. And when I took a spill almost immediately after tearing off for a test ride, he forced me to pull the bike up on my own.

  “Help!” I pleaded under the weight of it. I was struggling with all my might.

  “No, baby. You gotta be able to lift this on your own. No woman of mine is gonna let any man help her out if she goes down.”

  Somehow I found the strength to stand the bike upright. It was incentive enough to never go down again. Every time I rode, I remembered Wyoming Outlaw’s tremendous mass.

  Mickey had done me an unexpected favor by teaching me to ride a Harley, as I found out while shooting the Calvin Klein campaign in San Francisco. My entourage was there at every turn. Although I was getting used to them, the embarrassment never ceased. At least one of them was always present, overseeing my every move. They’d disguise their reason for being there by delivering cups of coffee to the set, but you couldn’t mistake the reproachful looks I’d get from either Joey or Bruce whenever I shot with a male model who looked too steamy. The photographer was the legendary Bruce Weber, who had certainly photographed his fair share of celebrities before. Fortunately, he tolerated the entourage’s presence. Maybe even more than I did.

  Every single thing that happened was reported back to Mickey. When I’d talk to him on the phone at the end of the day, it was apparent that he knew every last detail, right down to the color of the clothes and who was in them. But the shoot produced one photograph that was groundbreaking and iconic and, in part, influenced by Mickey: the image was of me riding a Harley. It felt great to be that strong, free woman—if only in a photograph.

  In another scenario for the campaign, we created a replica of a concert and I was supposed to be a rocker along with the great Marcus Schenkenberg, the world’s top male model at the time. There were photos of us onstage, pretending to rock out before a packed theater of fans. It was all ridiculous and fun, and Marcus and I became good friends in the midst of the madness.

  The crew took over an entire floor of one hotel, including a block of rooms for the talent, for the hair, makeup, and wardrobe ­people, and yes, Joey Rourke. I was getting tired of it. Tired of answering questions. Tired of feeling like I was being spied on. I just wanted to be like any other young model on a shoot, having a blast. One day I was told there was going to be a party in Marcus’s room. There’d be a few models and a bottle of tequila. . . . I desperately wanted to let my hair down and just have fun. I asked Marcus to keep it quiet, promising that I would be there after I said my good-nights to the “boys.”

  When dinner was over, I told Joey I was going to bed.

  “Otis, do me a favor and call Mick to say good night, okay?”

  “Sure, Joe. Got it covered,” I answered, giving him a peck on the cheek. I felt like a kid getting ready to sneak out of my bedroom, thinking ahead about all the things I needed to do to cover my tracks.

  I couldn’t reach Mickey, but I left him a message. “Babe, I’m tired. Talk in the morning. Love ya!” I said, maybe a bit too cheerily. And with that, I snuck out of my room and down the hall to meet my friends. I hadn’t had friends my own age in so long. The only ­people I ever hung out with now were Mickey and his group. Most of them were twenty years my senior. It just wasn’t the same level of escape and enjoyment I crav
ed.

  Marcus’s room was a whirlwind of activity, filled with folks from the shoot. Jimi Hendrix was playing on the stereo, and we were all chasing tequila shots with bites of lime. I was laughing like crazy, watching Marcus stand on the bed playing air guitar. We were kids gone wild. And then there was a loud bang on the door.

  “Shit!” I yelled. I dove between the beds, my hair falling into my face. “Please! Don’t say I’m in here!” I begged. I knew who was at the door—and who had sent him to look for me. Even worse, I knew that someone, one of the guys I was with, would get his ass kicked if I were discovered.

  Marcus looked at me, confused. I put a finger to my lips. “Shhhh . . .” I pleaded in silence for him to cover me. He nodded carefully, turned down the music, and opened the door.

  “Hey, Joey, what’s up?” he asked innocently. There was another model on the bed. She crossed her legs seductively and looked Marcus up and down. Thankfully, she had my back, too.

  Joey was both apologetic and suspicious. “Hate to bother you, bro, but . . . uh . . . I can’t find Carré. Mickey is freaking out, been calling her room, my room. It’s my ass if I can’t find her. And someone else’s ass if I find her with them.” I could hear him pause, inhaling and exhaling smoke from his cigarette. He was waiting.

  “Sorry, man,” Marcus responded nonchalantly. “Um, as you can see, I have some company.” He nodded toward the blonde on the bed.

  “Okay. My bad. Just had to check. Umm . . . if you hear from her . . . tell her Mick’s looking for her. She’s up shit creek.” With that, Joey left and Marcus closed the door behind him.

  I started laughing from my place under the bed.

  “Shit, Carré. Shut up! What are you doing?” Marcus said. He was serious. The blonde just looked at us both, stood up, and said, “I’m out of here, guys.”

  I lay down on the bed next to Marcus and sighed. I was so tired of this.