Beauty, Disrupted

by Carre Otis

  In rushed Stevie, her nurse. “What the hell is going on, Aileen?” he demanded. His hand quickly grasped my wrist and found my pulse. “Jesus Christ . . . You must get her to walk, Aileen. Come on, baby,” I could hear him say. “Come on. Let’s just walk around the block, Carré. Get a breath of fresh air.”

  One of my arms was slung over Stevie’s shoulders and one over the very petite Aileen. Although I was taller than her by almost a foot, we were at that point equally light on our feet. Featherweights—a bit over a hundred pounds each.

  Concerned faces turned to look at me as Stevie and Aileen got me out the front door. By this point the drool had turned to foam, and it felt as if my tongue was swelling and obstructing my breathing. Out in the fresh air, painfully slowly, I felt my breath return, my heart quiet, and a welcome exhaustion flow through me.

  “Damn, Carré. That was fucked up. I mean really scary. You okay?” Aileen looked hard into my eyes.

  “No. I’m not. What the hell happened?” I asked.

  “It was crack. It wasn’t coke. I thought . . . you’d like it,” she whispered apologetically.

  “I didn’t like it, A. I hate it. Why would someone want to get high on that shit?” I demanded. I was frightened. That was way too close a call for me. Our partying was getting out of hand. We both knew it.

  I was never entirely sure how Aileen managed to ravish drugs the way she did in light of her diagnosis. When questioned, all she would say was that sometimes that was the only thing that got her through the day, through the fatigue, through the endless medications she had to take to stay alive. It occurred to me at that moment that we were not a good influence on each other.

  But Aileen and I were more than partners in crime. We were lovers who guarded each other’s secrets. We held each other’s lies as tightly as we held each other’s hand. Together we were able to soothe the profound abandonment we felt from our families and from the long line of boys and men who had come and gone in our lives. We were both misfits, misfits who held court together and kept each other company.

  I had suspected that Mickey might be tapping the phones. Even when he was away, he always seemed to know too much. His questions were pointed and demanding, his interrogations endless. One evening, standing in the kitchen drinking my soup, I was on the phone with my sister.

  “Chrisse,” I confided, “I think I’m in love.”

  “Of course you are, silly!” she said, assuming I was talking about Mickey.

  “No, I mean I think I’m in love . . . with a woman.”

  Silence hung in the air. Her shock was disguised in her desire to be open, but I knew she was concerned.

  “With who?” she asked quietly.

  “Aileen. Aileen Getty,” I answered. And that was that. The damage was done.

  The very next day, Mickey arrived at Benedict Canyon. His return home was unexpected, and he was cold and curt. He grabbed my hand and led me into the office, sat me down on the couch, and walked over to the stereo system. I had a hunch there was a problem, but I was still shocked when he pressed “play” and I heard my conversation with my sister repeated. The cat was out of the bag.

  Mickey paced back and forth. “How could you, Otis?” he screamed. He was furious. And no doubt confused. How could a woman have won my love? Was I a dyke? Was I stupid? His rant went on and on, and in my humiliation and despair I could only sit and weep.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!” I wailed. “I don’t know how this happened. You’re gone! Always gone!” I cried. “I’m alone! Always alone!” I tried to make my case, I pleaded, and I agonized. I was desperate.

  “Do you love her? Do you really love her? Did you fuck her? Does she kiss your pussy?” Mickey was seething.

  I sat silent for a moment, then tried to gather up all my will and all my strength.

  “No. She does none of that. We have never . . . fucked,” I said simply.

  “Then what? What the fuck is it? What does she have that I don’t? What does she give you that I don’t?”

  “Love. Friendship.” My answer was that simple, but it was still beyond him, the macho hetero male that he was.

  His hand came down across my face. Hard. An open palm, then a backhand. I went flying across the room. Blood trickled from my nose. I must deserve this, I thought.

  “Oh, Otis. What have you done? What have you made me do?” He wiped a tear from his face. He was crushed. And so was I.

  I made a move to hold him. But he pushed me back again. I could see in that moment he despised me. I was everything he thought I might turn out to be.

  “Don’t you see? That’s why I have to tap the fucking phones. That’s why I have to keep my bros with you always.”

  I couldn’t be trusted. I never could. And never would be again.

  “So these are the new rules, you little cunt,” he hissed at me. “You are never, ever, ever to see Aileen again. You will obey me. You will be here. You will do as I say.”

  “But . . . but,” I stammered. I wasn’t sure I wanted this. Any of this, any more of his rules. I was at a breaking point. I couldn’t stay. But I couldn’t go either. I was in hell.

  “My way or the highway, Carré. You got it?”

  He stood to leave. And as I heard his Harley revving up outside, I realized I was being left again. Alone in that big fucking house. Quietly, I walked up the stairs to our bathroom and retrieved a bottle of sleeping pills. The blood from my nose had dried on my cheeks. My eye was swelling from the force of his fist. “I can’t stay, and I can’t go,” I said out loud. But maybe there was another way.

  Grabbing a bottle of beer from the night table, I counted out the small white pills: One, two, three, four . . . swallow. Five, six, seven, eight . . . swallow. I cried as I counted. I cried as I swallowed. I just wanted it all to be gone. I wanted to be home. I wanted to call Aileen. But instead I swallowed every pill in the bottle, finished the beer, and lay down on the bed.

  I guess I’m taking the highway, Mick, I thought. And with that, I closed my eyes.

  ON THE PSYCH WARD

  I awoke at the Cedars-Sinai emergency room in Beverly Hills as a tube was being pulled out of my throat. In the distance I could hear nurses whispering in excited tones. As I strained to regain consciousness, I still couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying. I lifted my hand to wipe my face but was stopped by the IV that was in my arm. Panic set in as I looked around, realizing that I wasn’t at home, I wasn’t alone, and I wasn’t dead either. My head pounded, my body ached. I was terrified.

  “That’s Carré Otis,” one nurse said behind the thin curtain that had been drawn for privacy. “Mickey Rourke’s wife.”

  “Why the hell would she be so stupid?” another voice chimed in. “These young models . . . Christ, they’ve got no idea what they have!”

  Even as sedated as I was, I could feel my blood begin to boil.

  “I know! Can you imagine? Married to an actor . . .” the first voice continued. “She has it all. Stupid, stupid girl.”

  I was fuming. How could these bitches possibly know what I had? What I felt? What my life was like? I stood up, planted my bare feet on the cold linoleum floor, and staggered toward the curtain, steadying myself on the metal pole from which a bag of fluid hung. Throwing the curtain open, I shrieked, “Fuck you! Say it to my face if you think I’m a stupid bitch!”

  I knew I was going too far, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was at my most desperate point, I was totally vulnerable, and complete strangers were judging me. I’d been silenced for too long. A primal scream was building in my diaphragm.

  “Get the doctors!” one of them yelled. “We need to sedate her! Another crazy . . .”

  The nurse’s look made it clear how pathetic she thought I was. If I’d had the strength, I would have lunged at her. But I was weak beyond words. And defeated in more ways than one. I didn’t have any fight left in me.

  As a fresh syringe of medication was pushed into my IV, I collapsed back onto the hospital bed
. I was cold, so very cold.

  Just then Mickey and his manager walked in. I thought I would never see him again. Mickey pulled up a chair and sat next to me, gingerly picking up my hand, curling his fingers around mine. “Otis, what have you done?” He was as confused as I was. It was a fucked-up situation. We were both living in our own dark movies. And we were both in total despair.

  The nurses hovered. The monitors beeped. We waited under the harsh fluorescent lights, both of us wanting to say so much but neither of us finding the words.

  A gray-haired woman with a clipboard entered and in a nasal voice began to ask me questions: “For purposes of last rites in case of possible death, what is your religion, ma’am?”

  Mickey, a devout Catholic, quickly responded, “Catholic.”

  Enraged, I challenged him. “Buddhist,” I replied.

  He swallowed hard, shaking his head at me. But I had had it. Since we met, I’d been separated from everything that made me me. The very essence of me, what had attracted Mickey to me in the first place—my strength and spirituality—had all been torn away. He was forever in competition with that power: It felt as if I was like a bird to him. A free bird that needed to be caught and tamed. But as it was turning out, I would rather be dead than tamed.

  “The doctor will be with you in a moment,” the woman said, nodding sympathetically toward Mickey. Then, after scribbling some notes, she pushed her pen behind her ear and left the partitioned room we were in.

  Mickey’s disappointment in me was palpable. I realized that he was ashamed. He wanted to keep this out of the papers for several reasons, not the least of which was that he had a movie opening. This would certainly put a damper on things.

  A young doctor arrived. Clearly smitten with Mickey, he stumbled for a moment before regaining his composure and sense of protocol. “Well, Ms. Otis. We’re concerned about you.” He spoke in a grave tone.

  I nodded, beginning to sense the seriousness of my actions. “I know. Umm . . . it’s just been a really hard time. But I’m sure . . . sure I’ll be fine. I just need to rest.” Tears started to roll down my cheeks. I was scared. And I actually wasn’t so sure I was going to be okay.

  “We want to keep you for observation. I’m going to place a mandatory seventy-two-hour hold on you.”

  “What? No. I mean I am fine. I just want to go home. I’m going to be fine,” I declared, doing my best to gather my wits and try to convince him. Mickey looked on quietly. I had the distinct feeling it would be a relief for him if they didn’t let me go.

  The doctor switched to my first name. “Carré, excuse me, but you just swallowed an entire prescription of sleeping pills. You have had your stomach pumped. You are in an emergency room. And right now I believe that the best place for you to recover is in our mental ward. It will give you the time you need to quiet down and rest and us the time we need to monitor you while your body tries to rid itself of the excess of drugs in your system.”

  The decision was final. It would be useless to try to talk him out of it.

  I looked at Mickey, staring into his eyes, pleading with him to help, but he also recognized that the deal was done. I was devastated. Terrified. Washed up and unsure of what would come next.

  Mickey gave me a look, a tear welling in his eye, but just like that it was gone. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, let himself feel this one. It was too fucked up. Too big. Too off the charts for him to even attempt to deal with. It felt a lot like the dismissal I’d received from my parents every time I tried to get their attention. My actions were not appropriate. I was not appropriate. And again I was left.

  Mickey excused himself to go have a smoke, and I was wheeled upstairs to Thalians Mental Health Center.

  The elevator doors parted on the third floor, and it was as if I had entered another world. I was mesmerized by the patients and awed by the sheer fact that I was now one of them. Is this where I really belong? I wondered. And for that moment in time, I knew the answer. Yes. It is.

  All I could do was lie in that small bed, curled up in a fetal position under the covers. Shivering and weeping, in and out of sweats and nausea, I relived those last moments at home when the despair was so heavy and I thought all I wanted was to die. Or did I? Perhaps I just didn’t have the tools to live or die. I was sad for myself. Sad for the little girl in me who was still so fucking wounded. I wanted my mom. I wanted my dad. I wanted to call someone, but there was no one I could call. I moved in and out of dreams and nightmares during that long, restless sleep.

  Around 2:00 A.M. my hospital roommate, Grace, was delivered back into the room. She was the sweetest little old lady. She hadn’t said much before they wheeled her away. I wasn’t sure where they were taking her. Everything was kept covert on the ward. But when she returned, she was left on the bed in a slump. She didn’t move. She just cried softly for the daughter who she said had passed away. She, too, was utterly alone.

  Together Grace and I wept through the night, strangers in the dark, back to back, just feet from one another, hearing each other’s cries. Sadness and sorrow all around. When I asked the nurse what had happened, she quietly answered that Grace had had another round of shock treatments.

  By day two I was beginning to emerge from my fog. My eyes were seeing again. My nose smelling. My hands working. My heart feeling. It was clear to me that I did not belong in the mental ward. I knew I needed to do whatever it took to get through the seventy-two-hour hold so I could move on. I didn’t want to live my life like this.

  As I looked around from my perch on a couch in the sunroom, I saw a woman about forty years old who called herself Butch. She walked back and forth talking to herself, farting loudly and frequently into the diaper she wore. Butch was a stone lesbian and had an eye for me. I kept my distance.

  Just like Grace and Butch, every patient had a story, a fascinating and disturbing story. To be part of their reality, if only for a moment, was a profound and painful lesson. There was no special treatment for me. Diva behavior was not allowed. I had to be part of the group’s activities: the random story times, the meals, the mandatory arts-and-crafts hour. Deviating from the rules was seen as a sign of disobedience. I did my best to check my attitude at the door and behave. I had incentive. And I was lucid enough to have a plan.

  I came to know the stiff, shambling movement of the patients on the ward as the “Thorazine shuffle.” Thorazine was the standard medication administered to patients in an effort to keep the unit quiet and tame.

  During those seventy-two hours, I had time to think about the mentors and teachers who had so far touched my life. For all my misfortune, I had also been very lucky. There were several women who stood out as powerhouses, great archetypal mothers. Nan was one. Tsultrim was another. They had imparted their teachings to me, and they had shared lessons I’d needed to learn.

  The passion to live was in my heart. To thrive—not to die, here, now, like this. I consciously breathed that in and out, trying to fill myself with that intention. I had come this far, I thought. I can do this, I repeated to myself. And somewhere inside me a conviction ripened. I knew with certainty I would survive.

  That night I sat by my window looking down onto the traffic below. I knew that Mickey’s premiere party was being held just across the street at Chaya Brasserie on Alden Drive. As luck would have it, I could see the photographers and the snaps of light exploding as Mickey entered his party. It was both devastating and telling to be a prisoner by my own hand, unable to be part of that unfolding scene. And in that stark contrast between the grimness of the locked ward and the celebration going on just a few stories down, I gained a profound perspective on my life. It is a moment I will never forget, a feeling I will hold with me always.

  As bad as things would get in the future, I would never be back in a place like this. Somewhere in that hospital ward, the warrior woman in me began her resurrection. I would never attempt suicide again. But having the courage to live didn’t necessarily mean that I had the courage to leave my
husband. I still had years to go with Mickey.

  THE SIMPSON SUMMER, CASES OF SPOUSAL ABUSE

  On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson was brutally murdered. The news shocked the world. A few days later, millions of us stayed glued to the TV, watching her ex-husband, O. J. Simpson, flee down the 405 freeway with what seemed like every cop in L.A. trailing behind. As the truth came out about O.J.’s long history of violence toward his ex-wife, the extraordinary events of that week marked a moment when we learned that domestic abuse can happen to anyone, anywhere. Often where we least expected it.

  By this time my world was upside down. Not even I could keep up with the twists and turns in our on-again, off-again relationship. It had all become such a chore. Every time I thought it was over, there would be another round to endure. I was exhausted. Our marriage was fueled by fire and lies, passion and dependence. We were both acting out, alone with each other as well as publicly. As the days and months passed, our addictive behavior grew even worse. I wasn’t suicidal. But I wasn’t really living either.

  Just weeks after the Simpson murders, we reached another moment we thought would surely be our final breaking point. At least I did.

  Mickey and I were “off.” Again. I was living in a little place of my own on Orlando Avenue, but we were still in contact. Even in those moments of separation, I was not free from him. I was addicted to him, obsessed with reports of who he was with and where he was going. It was painful to be married yet estranged. Painful to try putting my career back together again while teetering on the brink of obscurity. I had become, in my illness, as unreliable as my husband had forced me to be.

  One night in the summer, after I’d returned from dinner and a few margaritas at a local Tex-Mex place, I received a call from him.

  “Otis . . . Let’s talk. We gotta try and work this out. . . . We gotta figure this out. You’re my wife,” he pleaded into the phone.

  I agreed. We were both in trouble—heartbroken and unable to repair ourselves. We were under the influence and not yet willing to take a look at that huge piece of our puzzle. Most troublesome of all was that we were unable to see the repeat pattern we’d fallen into. We would meet to talk; passion would take over; we’d give in to our hope; then we would reawaken to all that was wrong in the first place and the fights would ensue. It was how it always went. As regular as clockwork.