The Beaufort Diaries

by T Cooper

  I did finally get cast in a play at a small theater in Silverlake. It was a post-colonial musical revival of the 70’s TV show The Jeffersons; the director thought it would be an interesting twist to cast me as the Jeffersons’ British next door neighbor Harry Bently. I mastered the accent and enjoyed the simple quotidian routine of rehearsals and nightly performances, but even with a few positive, well-placed reviews, the production lasted just half of its intended six-week run.

  XVIII

  My money ran out sooner than anticipated. The landlord was sending weekly eviction notices. I couldn’t pay the pool guy or grounds man anymore. Worse, I wasn’t allowed to participate in as many, or really any, auditing sessions at the Church. I was told that I could return to the center as soon as my finances were back in order, which would be a more appropriate and conducive time for continuing my journey to becoming a Clear anyway.

  Things fell apart after that.

  The new agent dropped me. “You’re not a closer, Beaufort,” he said.

  This was after he’d begged a friend of a friend to give me one last chance at a corporate gig in San Diego. I was hired to be the talent and color for the Southwest Regional Applebee’s Managerial Conference, being held at the Airport Holiday Inn one spring weekend. On the first night I was asked to host their awards ceremony, and the rest of the time I was supposed to enliven the cocktail parties and dinners, chat with spouses poolside, and just generally make people feel positively about their careers with Applebee’s.

  I didn’t last through the first night. I guess I had a little too much to drink at happy hour, so by the time I got up on stage and handed out the first award of the evening (“Most Welcoming Front End,” which went to the guy at the helm of the Reno/Sparks franchise), I was a little tipsy and mostly unable to follow the script they’d given me for the evening’s festivities. At some point I guess I started ad-libbing and might’ve called the vice president of the company’s wife a “twadge,” but I don’t really remember.

  Friends stopped coming around, too—well, at least the kind of friends you’d want hanging out at all hours of the day. Leo would check in from time to time, but mostly left me to my own devices, and in the vacuum some opportunistic, bad-news seals I knew peripherally from my early days in Hollywood moved into my house and took up residence by the pool. Now I knew what Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys must’ve felt when the Manson family roached up on his Sunset Boulevard estate, smoked or snorted all of his drugs, and ripped off his gold records. But what could I do? If not for the seals, I would’ve been completely alone in this world.

  It was the seals in fact who gave me the idea to start a blog. At first it was designed to offer an inside look at the Hollywood lifestyle, from the perspective of an up and coming talent like myself. But the only interviews I could secure were with Tara Reid and Dina Lohan. Bigfoot said No, Ashton too, even Kathy Griffin declined—and none of my old “buddies” ever showed up or answered their phones at the agreed-upon times for our interviews.

  So the blog skewed negative. I posted parts of my contract for Bear with my old studio, going line-byline to delineate precisely all the ways they fucked me. I also posted the letter I received from CAA when they axed me. And some unflattering photos of certain individuals in, well, compromising positions. Svava was by then appearing in Maxim—#18 on the “50 Hot Chicks We’d Like to have Sit on our Faces” list. So when a topless photo of her from my blog earned a link and some subsequent buzz from PerezHilton.com, my old producer made sure to send me a cease-and-desist letter on behalf of the entire studio. Like it mattered.

  But fuck him, and fuck everybody; I posted that letter, too, and for a short time I was getting thousands of hits a day. Letters from people thanking me for exposing the underbelly of Hollywood. Even some new old fans. But that all changed after an exposé I did on supposedly “green” celebrities, (Jake Gyllenhaal and Salma Hayek each took an indigenous Inuit housekeeper—they’re so quiet—back home with them from a recent trip to Nunavut, Canada, where they had been bringing awareness to the consequences of shrinking polar ice caps; and Robert Redford, I learned, disposes of all his old vehicles in the Great Salt Lake when he’s finished with them).

  But I guess messing with the Sundance Kid is almost as much of a no-no as messing with Oprah. My hits diminished to less than a couple dozen or so a day; even Star Jones wrote a comment accusing me of “over sharing.” I did have one rather persistent stalker with a plushie fetish, but he wasn’t enough of an audience to inspire me to keep the blog going. And further, my electricity and internet service got shut off at the house; I couldn’t even afford Val-Paks of Nyquil anymore.

  XIX

  On one of my last binges before completely running out of cash, I’d scribbled a hate-letter to my mother and sent it via U.S. Mail. And here it was again, down at the end of my driveway, marked RECIPIENT UNKNOWN / RETURN TO SENDER, and sitting in the mailbox atop a stack of eviction notices and recent bill collectors’ efforts. I crumpled up the envelope and tossed it in the gutter, then trudged back up the driveway to plop down beside my pungent pool for the rest of the day.

  “My mom’s a twadge,” one of the seals snarled.

  “Mine touched me,” added another. “On my hole.”

  “Yeah, well my mother sold me to the Bronx Zoo,” said the third, stubbing out his blunt in a cup of ghetto cough syrup.

  And then it hit me: I should be in New York City! Hollywood had chewed me up and spit me out like rancid blubber. It was a terrible place filled with even more terrible people, 99% of whom are phonies. New York is where it’s at. Real people with real problems. Authentic, struggling artists and musicians, and serious actors working with weighty material at bona fide theaters.

  Start spreadin’ the news. I’m leaving today.

  I want to be a part of it: New York, New York.

  If I can make it there …

  I collected on my final life-line with Leo and called him from a payphone down on Sunset. I’m sure he only answered because he didn’t recognize the number. Leo sounded immediately exasperated, but he claimed he was happy to hear from me, and that he’d always love and care about me, but that he didn’t want to enable my downward spiral any longer. That said, he offered to wire a couple grand to help me get out to New York and secure a place to stay. But it would be the last time. I couldn’t have been more grateful.

  So I bought a ticket on the Greyhound, packed my original duffel from Alaska, and hitched a ride downtown from one of the Inuit maids who worked at a house down the street. I nabbed a window seat, then completely numbed out as the California desert flew by my weary eyes. I thought back to my last bus trip, the ride I took south through the Pacific Northwest down to L.A.. How much optimism pulsed through me as I peered out that window into the proud downtowns of those grey cities. How certain I was about my future, even though I had no logical reason to believe in it.

  And now? All that optimism, good will, random kindness, and just plain blind luck I’d been blessed with in Hollywood? Squandered, all of it just squandered, as though everybody in the world actually gets a chance like that to soar. Hollywood and Bust. What an asshole I was.

  Through Arizona and New Mexico I thought about getting completely clean and sober once in New York. Texas, however, found me bargaining that I could perhaps have a drink or two from time to time, just since I’d be making new friends, and I wouldn’t want them to think I was weird. But by the time we blew through Arkansas and landed in Memphis for an hour layover at the bus station, I was making myself promises again to get completely dry and focus on nurturing my creative self again. My true creative self—not one tied to any profit-centered industry run by unimaginative sheep.

  From Tennessee we cut up north through Illinois and Michigan, then crossed over into Canada from Detroit. I chuckled when I saw the slate-blue cylinders of the GM building looming over the downtrodden downtown, and realized I was listening to the soundtrack from 8-Mile on my iPod.

  You
only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow.

  This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, Yo.

  I feared that I’d indeed pussied out and let my one shot slip. So I shut my eyes in hopes of tamping down the tears, and ended up sleeping all the way through Ontario and into upstate New York; after three and a half days in the same tiny seat, my limbs were cramped, my fur was matted, and I was cranky as hell. But boy, when I woke up with my jowl pressed against the window and looked across the water from New Jersey, I caught a shimmering glimpse of the Empire State Building pointing to the sky amidst a jagged mess of buildings in Manhattan.

  Holy shit. I was completely surprised to feel something in my chest—yep, there it was, a tiny ping where there’d been only hollow for so long before. The sensation was a mere fraction of the excitement I’d felt rolling into Hollywood all those years back, but at least it was something. I couldn’t wait to hit the concrete.

  XX

  On Craigslist I found a small, cheap room to rent from a few college kids in an Alphabet City sixth-floor walk-up tenement between Avenues C and D. The guys said they went to NYU, but it didn’t seem like they attended classes very regularly. One of them had a trust fund, the other two were part-time pot dealers, and they all seemed nice enough, if a little overzealous about ordering in pizza and beer and having Wii Tennis tournaments. One of the dealers, Mike, was a film student and had actually seen and liked Bear. He was excited to have me live with him, and even asked me to visit his screenwriting class sometime.

  Finding a job, however, proved more difficult than finding a pad. I trolled up and down the avenues below 14th Street and put in applications anywhere that seemed cool—piercing places, the sock shop on St. Marks, a few nail salons, and Toys in Babeland. Most people looked at me incredulously; some suggested I was over-qualified for sales work given my history in the film industry, while others thought me under-qualified and lacking any “real-life” experience. One suspicious old broad with crazy red hair who ran a vintage store on 7th Street even growled, “I don’t know; something’s off about you.”

  Desperate, I called Nobu in L.A. in hopes of getting a letter of reference speaking to my skills as a busbear, but it never arrived at the Kinko’s where I had asked the manager to send the fax. After a couple weeks with no bites, I was decidedly deflated. And broke. Plus getting hungry. I knew there were always dog cookies inside a tin outside Mud coffee shop, so on the way home with no reference letter and no prospects, I surreptitiously grabbed a few treats and popped them in my mouth when I thought nobody was looking.

  “Dude, what are you doing?” a scruffy barista in a plaid vintage shirt asked. He looked a little like Leo circa What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.

  “Uh, I’m sorry. It’s for my dog.”

  “But you just ate those.”

  “Oh. I don’t know where my dog went,” I said, scanning the sidewalk. “He’s brown.”

  “I’ve seen you around,” he said, not buying it. “I know who you are. You hurting, man?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “We need a dishwasher … You want me to hook you up?”

  I started feeling settled at Mud and was bringing in some regular cash. One day I noticed a flyer in the shop for an upcoming mixer sponsored by Bearhunt.com. It ignited that old, familiar itch for companionship, the need for a new posse. I borrowed my roommate Mike’s computer and RSVPed for the mixer, and a couple days later I heard back from somebody called PolarHole212. He asked to be my “buddy” on Bearhunt, and told me more about the party, which was going to be at a place called The Cock on 2nd Avenue. I was psyched about the prospect of meeting another actual bear in the city, and I found myself wondering what part of the Arctic this guy was from.

  As it turned out, PolarHole212 was not a bear at all, but rather a heavily bearded guy named Rick from the Upper East Side, who liked to wear leather, studs and piercings, and worked for the Manhattan Transit Authority. He thought the Beaufort Sea was somewhere off southern France, but no matter: Rick was a blast, and he introduced me to a bunch of his friends, and they loved to dance (I love to dance), and play rough (I love to play rough), and the drinks were always cheap and fruity and flowing (I figured a couple wouldn’t hurt), and I ended up partying at different bars and clubs around the city with the guys every night I possibly could.

  XXI

  In time, Rick and his buddies introduced me to a little friend they liked to call “Tina.” At first I just hung with her a couple nights a week at the clubs, but soon I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and I’d be bumping a little in the morning before work in order to get me through each day. I wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t eating, and as a result losing fat reserves rapidly. I spent practically every minute in nervous anticipation of whatever festivities were planned with the boys at night, because I couldn’t afford my own supply of Tina, but they always had plenty and were happy to share.

  The more I used her, the more I wanted her. Because when I wasn’t with my girl Tina, I found myself teetering on the edge of a pit of despair filled with shards and remnants of the mortifying disaster I’d made of life and myself. And only she could make those shameful feelings disappear, at least for a day or so at a time. Top of the world, I could dance for six hours straight and not even take a pee break or have a sip of water. With Tina I felt red-hot again, like my star was back on the rise—even if the highest it could reach was the second-floor balcony overlooking the flashing lights of the dance floor. But still, everybody downtown knew me, and I was becoming a force to be reckoned with. Indomitable.

  “Beau, I think you’ve got a problem,” Rick said to me one night when I kept bogarting all the powder and got a little too rough with some guys on the dance floor.

  “Bite me—”

  “No, seriously dude, we’ve been meaning to talk to you.” He clamped a hand around my elbow, and I don’t know what came over me, but at that moment I just freaked out and grabbed his wrist with my free paw and twisted it up until he was contorted underneath me, crying out in pain, “What are you doing?”

  When I released him Rick dropped to the floor, rubbing his arm and grimacing like he was going to cry like a little bitch. A couple of the guys came over to check on him, all concerned looks on their furry faces. I could tell they were talking about me and scheming to come after me like some fucking vigilantes with torches and wooden stakes. But I split before they got a chance, and since I was nursing a nice high, I decided to stop by a different bar for a little while before heading back to the apartment.

  I don’t remember much after that—that is until waking up on a bathroom floor in an apartment I didn’t recognize, with a man I didn’t recognize in the other room, putting on a crisp white shirt and striped yellow tie in front of the mirror and calling into the bathroom, “You were a fucking animal. Genius. Don’t forget to leave your number on the kitchen table before you take off. But feel free to stay as long as you want.”

  My mouth was parched, eyes watering and goopy, head pounding, and beneath it all, churning like an invisible riptide, my heart was out of control, and I couldn’t breathe properly. I heard a sing-songy “Bye,” and the front door to the apartment slammed shut, and for a moment the air was completely still and quiet. But not my chest. I tried to inhale slowly and steadily, like I’d learned on set with the on-call Yoga instructor before shooting particularly challenging and potentially emotionally draining scenes. But nothing worked.

  Darkness started to creep in on all sides, but before it did I noticed there were pills scattered all around me and stuck in my fur—black ones, red ones, yellow ones—so I grabbed a couple of the closest and gulped them down with water from the spigot, then sat back and waited. Soon I was gone. My nose pressed against the cool tile floor. I closed my eyes and wondered if my heart would ever beat regularly again. Or at all. It was an amusing thought, whether I died or lived, it was so simple. And honestly I could not care less either way.

  XXII

  I woke up la
ter that evening when I heard the front door fling open and a optimistic “Anybody here?” from the guy whose apartment it was. I could scarcely pry my eyes open, but there he was blurrily hovering over me with a knowing, lascivious grin across his greasy face. “I’m so glad you stayed.”

  Flashes from the night before flooded me, and it took everything I had to bolt up and push past this guy, who was already loosening his tie in some sort of sick anticipation—of what, I’m still afraid to wonder, but I know it wasn’t pretty.

  “Where are you going?” he pleaded as he tailed me, but I was out the door, down the stairs, and on the sidewalk in mere seconds.

  Stumbling across Tompkins Square Park I stepped up to the Temperance fountain and braced myself over it, splashing some cool water on my face. I watched the beads trickle off my fur into the stone basin. After a while a pack of rowdy, smelly gutter punks came up behind me and poked a bottle of malt liquor into my back. I turned around and took it, gulping half the liquid in the bottle before I realized it didn’t taste right. I’m pretty certain it was urine from the way they laughed and coughed their TB coughs at me. I smashed the bottle on the ground by their feet, and the punks turned to go, still howling. But one of them hung back; he must’ve felt sorry for me and offered one of his clove cigarettes. And I wasn’t too proud to take it.

  I sat on a bench in the park smoking in the night breeze. It occurred to me vaguely like deja vu that I’d missed work again that day. My boss was probably going to give me my walking papers this time, because I’d already been given a couple stern warnings.

  Another thing that suddenly occurred to me there on that bench: that I was a colossal failure and nothing more than blight on the face of the planet, a gaping hole in the ozone layer only making it worse for everybody else. In other words: rock bottom.