Slowly, carefully, I let my hands drop and unclenched my fists. Then I began to cry.
“Okay . . . okay,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “I am leaving.”
As I turned to walk out, Connor went into one of the bedrooms, grabbed my clothes, and threw everything outside.
I was beaten. There is no other way to put it. With tears running down my face, I went into my bedroom and picked up my laptop computer. Then I went outside, scooped up my clothes and put them in my car. Everything else—my bed, couch, and television—I left behind.
I had less than $50 in my bank account, so it wasn’t like I could go find a hotel room. Instead, I drove to a McDonald’s in a commercial area not far from Jordan Clarkson’s house. I hung out in the parking lot for a couple hours, crying and feeling sorry for myself. Eventually I went inside, ordered a chicken sandwich and a cup of water, and sat down at a table. I stayed there for quite some time, nibbling on my sandwich and using the free Wi-Fi to scour the Internet for jobs. When darkness fell, as people were beginning to wonder whether I’d ever leave, I went out to my car. I cradled my phone in my hand for several minutes before opening my list of contacts. I scrolled down to Jordan’s name and began writing a message.
Brother, I am homeless. I have no place to go. I am sleeping in my car tonight outside a McDonald’s. It would be nice if you could remember where we came from, and what we went through together. I just need a roof over my head for a little while. I promise it won’t be long. Please . . .
I took a deep breath and hit “send.” Instantly, the word “delivered” appeared below the message. Not long afterward, so did the word “read.” But there was no response. Not that night. Not the next day. Nor the day after that.
For the next two weeks, I slept in my car at night, moving from parking lot to parking lot around L.A., and killed time during the day by hanging out at fast food restaurants. I would order a chicken sandwich and fries, and make it last all afternoon, and sometimes into the evening. I was always hungry, always scared and depressed. I managed to land a job as a delivery person for a restaurant, but the job paid only a small salary.
“You’ll do well with tips,” the owner explained. “Just smile a lot. That’s how you make the real money.”
He was wrong. There was no real money. Most people either didn’t tip at all, or such a meager amount that it seemed like a joke. Drivers were expected to pay for their own gas as well, which is why most of them owned compact cars or hybrids. Great gas mileage, more money in the pocket. I must have been the only delivery man in L.A. driving a Cadillac. After expenses, I hardly made anything at all.
Sometimes I would tap away on my laptop, working on the screenplay of my life story, but the very act of putting it in words just made me sad. I couldn’t envision a happy ending.
Around this time I got a call from Laurie Blitz. She and Terry had been checking in on me periodically, but I did not want to burden them with my problems. They had done enough for me, so I kept telling them everything was fine. I was going out on auditions, working a part-time job. All good.
“Do you need any money?” Laurie asked.
I swallowed hard. I could feel the tears coming again.
“Maybe a little,” I said. “It’s very expensive out here.”
“Are you okay, Blondy?”
“Yes, Mom. I will be all right.”
They wired me $300, which helped enormously for a couple more weeks. Then another friend from Oklahoma helped arrange for a place where I could stay for a few days. Her sister was married to a Los Angeles plastic surgeon, and she had told me before I left Oklahoma to look them up if I ever got in trouble. Well, much as I hated to admit it, I was in trouble. I needed help and reached out to them, and they offered to put me up for a while, which was a godsend. But it’s strange how the worst things can arise from even the most considerate of deeds.
One night as I was leaving their place for the last time, I stopped to get gas at a Chevron station near the UCLA campus. As I stood by the car, wearing a hoodie, I noticed a police cruiser parked across the street, not more than fifty feet away. Behind the wheel, staring at me, was a white officer for the campus police department. I tried to ignore him and go about my business, but something about the way he was looking at me felt wrong. I finished pumping the gas, got back in my car, and pulled slowly out onto the street. As soon I pulled away, the police cruiser pulled out behind me. I drove very slowly and cautiously, no more than fifteen to twenty miles an hour. The officer shadowed me for maybe half a mile before hitting his lights. Suddenly, my heart began pounding.
Oh, this is not good. Why is he pulling me over?
I pulled slowly to the edge of the street and put the car in park. I had seen enough of the racial unrest in America, and was familiar enough with the escalating tensions between black Americans and white police officers to know that I was in a potentially life-threatening situation. I kept my hands on the steering wheel and my eyes facing straight ahead. I did not want to do anything that would give the officer the mistaken impression that I was some sort of threat. But as I looked in the rearview mirror, I could see him approaching from behind. His gun was already drawn.
“Out of the car!” the officer shouted.
Frozen with fear, I did not move a muscle. I envisioned the officer’s reaction as a 6-foot-8 black man emerged from a Cadillac in the dark of night. Was it even safe to get to get out of the car?
“I said get out of the car! Now!”
Still, I did not move, did not say a word. As the officer kept his distance, another police cruiser arrived on the scene, lights flashing. And then a third. Suddenly the entire block was afire with strobelike red and white lights. Predictably, the spectacle attracted attention, and pretty soon a crowd of onlookers had gathered at the scene. The presence of so many potential witnesses gave me a small sense of security. I slowly opened the door and got out of the car. As I stood to full height, I could see the officers stiffen with apprehension. With guns drawn, they remained several feet away. I noticed that the crowd was comprised mostly of young people, probably UCLA students since we were basically on the campus. Many of them had taken out their cell phones and were now recording the incident. I wanted to believe that this was an insurance policy, but I also knew that more than one black person had been killed by police officers in the preceding months, and each time the incident had been captured on video by onlookers. There were no guarantees.
“Officer, may I ask what I did wrong?” I said through a voice rattling with fear.
The first officer stepped forward. “Shut the fuck up and get on your knees!”
“Why?” I began. “What did I do?”
“On the ground!” the officer shouted. “Right now!”
I fell to my knees, with my hands above my head. Instantly the officer was on me, driving my face into the asphalt. I felt a foot pressing against my back as they handcuffed me and told me to keep my mouth shut. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the barrel of a gun just a few inches away. I began to pray.
“Please God . . . forgive all my sins . . .”
As this was happening, I could hear some of the students yelling.
“Leave him alone!”
“He didn’t do anything!”
I worried that the crowd was adding fuel to the fire. The situation was unstable enough without the officers worrying about a riot.
“I need your license,” one of the officers finally said.
I told him it was in my wallet, in my back pocket, and that I could not retrieve it while handcuffed. He removed it, took out the license, and walked back to his car while another officer helped me sit up on the curb. I was scared and shaken.
After a few minutes, the officer returned.
“Sir, did you know you’re driving with a suspended license?”
“What? No, sir. I mean . . . why?”
“You have an outstanding violation.”
And then it hit me. When I had f
irst moved to L.A., I had gotten a ticket for running a red light near the intersection of Hollywood and Vine. The officer had told me that I was to appear in court at a particular time, and that I would have to pay a rather steep fine. I did not appear in court. I did not pay the fine because I did not have much money and I did not understand the seriousness of the infraction. I realize this was a rather huge and inexcusable mistake on my part, and I have no way to rationalize it except to say that I was scared and lacked financial resources. And once the date passed, and I heard nothing, I simply put it out of my mind.
Now, months later, the penalty was much greater. The police had no reason to pull me over, aside from the fact that I was a physically imposing black male wearing a hooded sweatshirt while driving in an affluent, mostly white community. That they lacked probable cause was irrelevant now. I was, in fact, driving with a suspended license, and nothing else mattered.
As the officer removed my handcuffs, I felt a sense of relief. At least I wasn’t getting arrested. Then he asked me a question.
“Do you have someone to drive your car for you?”
“No, sir. It’s just me. I am alone.”
The officer shrugged. “Well, then, we’re going to have the car impounded.”
I was shocked. I was so ignorant of American laws that I did not realize the cascading series of events that would arise from my failure to pay a traffic ticket. By not appearing in court and paying a fine, I had lost my license. And since my license was suspended, I could not legally drive a car. As a result, I was about to lose my car. As the reality of the situation sank in, I began pleading with the officer.
“Sir, you don’t understand,” I said, trying to stifle my sobs. “That car is my home. I live in that car.”
The officer seemed unmoved, so I pressed on.
“Look inside,” I pleaded. “My whole life is in that car. All my clothes, my computer. Everything.”
The officer walked to the car, peered inside, and then looked at me.
“Do you have anyone to drive the car or not?”
“No, officer,” I repeated. “I am alone.”
The officer opened the door and began tossing my belongings out into the street.
“Sir,” I pleaded. “Please don’t do that.”
He told me to shut up and continued to clear out the vehicle. Eventually, everything I owned was on the ground. A few minutes later a tow truck arrived and my car was hauled away.
Desperate, I called a friend of mine named Damien White. Damien and I had met when I first moved to L.A.; he had installed cable service in my apartment. It was a huge imposition for me to ask him for help, but he was generous to offer me a ride and a place to crash. I stayed with Damien for a few days, but I realized pretty quickly that couch surfing was no way to live, especially when I had no car, no job, and no plan for a better future. I decided to reach out to the Blitzes and tell them the truth. It was time to admit defeat.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I haven’t been honest with you.”
I proceeded to tell Terry all about my Hollywood adventure, and just how horribly wrong everything had gone, almost from the moment I arrived. I told him I had been unable to find a job, that I was completely broke, and that I had been living in my car for the better part of a month, until my car was towed. And I told him that I now needed money to get my car back. Terry listened patiently and quietly, just as he always did when I came to him for help. When he finally spoke, it was mostly to express sadness and concern.
“I just wish you had told us sooner,” he said.
“I know. I let you down.”
“No, you didn’t,” he said. “You gave it your best shot, and we’re proud of you.” There was a long pause. “Blondy, sometimes in life you have to take one step backward before you can take two steps forward.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, maybe L.A. isn’t the best place for you right now. You’re welcome to come home. You know that. There’s no shame in it. We’re always here for you.”
CHAPTER 23
* * *
As usual, Terry was right. It was impractical for me to continue living in L.A., one of the most expensive cities in the world, when I had no income and no prospects for furthering my acting career. While the dream was not completely out of reach, I realized I had to pursue it in a different way.
I appreciated the Blitzes’ generosity, but I simply couldn’t imagine moving back into my old bedroom in Mesa. Terry and Laurie understood this so they did not pressure me to return to Arizona. Rather, they paid to get my car out of impoundment (I left it with a friend in LA; the tickets would take some time to clear up), and offered to pay my airfare to Oklahoma City, which had come to feel like home, and where I still had quite a few friends. So in mid-December, I returned to Oklahoma—just seven months after I left for my big Hollywood adventure. It would not be inaccurate to say that I came home with my tail between my legs. After all, I had told everyone about my plans to make it as an actor in Hollywood. Now I was home, penniless and jobless.
And quite embarrassed.
The Egan family, whom I had gotten to know before leaving, welcomed me home with open arms and even offered me space in a spare bedroom, which I gratefully accepted. I spent my days working on my résumé and looking for work, while also continuing to write my life story. At night, I prayed.
“Please, God, help me find a way back to Los Angeles. I do not want to be a failure. Tell me what do, and I will do it.”
If this sounds like a self-serving attitude toward prayer, well, it wasn’t; it was merely a cry of desperation. Even though I had many friends in Oklahoma City, I rarely left the house. It would have been easy to call Serge and tell him I was back in town and immediately become part of his posse. But I did not want to do that, for I knew that the comfort and security it provided would have sucked the ambition from my heart. I had to find my own place in the world.
Eventually, Marissa Brownlee and her husband found me a job working the front desk at a hotel in Oklahoma City. I wanted to learn how to do the job well, so that when I moved back to L.A., I would have some practical work experience and the potential to earn a living while looking for acting jobs. I spent roughly a month on the job before a strange turn of events prompted my departure.
Marissa and Kyle played no small role in all of this. It was through them that I had been introduced to a woman named Becky Switzer, who was the wife of Barry Switzer, the legendary former football coach at the University of Oklahoma. Becky ran a small talent agency out of Oklahoma. Becky and I met before my first trip to L.A., and she put me in touch with a man named Erik Logan, who worked for Oprah Winfrey’s production company. Becky felt that if Erik could hear my story, he might be interested in making a movie about my life. We did in fact meet, but nothing came of it. Such is Hollywood.
As my life began to unravel in California, I neglected to reach out to Becky, which was probably a mistake in judgment caused primarily by shame. But I was not thinking clearly. Becky, as it turned out, was even more deeply connected than I had realized.
Roughly a month after I returned to Oklahoma, I got a text from her.
“Are you still in Los Angeles . . . or back in Oklahoma?”
I said that I was in Oklahoma, and I apologized for being so quiet.
“No problem. I think I might have something that would interest you. Let’s talk.”
As I dialed Becky’s number, my heart began to race. I did not want to get my hopes up. I also fretted that I had made a mistake by leaving California. Although I was a novice, I knew something about the employment process in Hollywood. It isn’t unusual to get a call about an audition with almost no time to prepare. This is why aspiring actors live as close to Hollywood as possible—so that they are free to interview or audition for a job on short notice. At that very moment, I was in Oklahoma City, more than a thousand miles away from the center of the entertainment universe. I might as well have been on another planet.
“I hope you aren’t too busy,” Becky said by way of introduction.
I laughed. “No, I have plenty of time. What’s going on?”
“There’s an audition for a lead role in a pilot for ABC. They’ve been trying to cast a specific part, and they can’t find anybody. They went to South Africa. They went to Kenya. They went to China.”
Becky had certainly piqued my interest. I mean, really, she had me at “ABC,” but the notion that there seemed to be an international component to the role was even more intriguing.
“What are they looking for?” I asked. “Who is the character?”
There was a long pause.
“Well . . . he’s a basketball player. And he’s from another country.”
Oh, my goodness.
“He’s supposed to be very tall and have an accent, too. Can you handle that?”
I laughed. “Yes, I think so.”
“Good,” she said. “I’ll send you the sides and you can look them over. Then we can talk again. We’re going to have to move fast. The audition will be in a few days.”
That night I looked over the material that Becky sent over from ABC. “Sides” usually refers to actual pages from a script or screenplay, but in this case the sides were accompanied by an overview of the show. As I read it, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was like I was reading my own life story!
Although it did not yet have an official title (this is not unusual for a pilot; our show was known simply as “Untitled NBA Project”), the arc of the series had been clearly drawn, and what I saw of the pilot was not only well written and funny, but so close to my own life that I felt as if I’d barely be acting. As originally written, the lead character was from Botswana. He was very tall, with seemingly limitless, if unrefined, talent for the sport of basketball. Based on potential and athletic ability, he is drafted by the Golden State Warriors (who were, at this time, just on the cusp of becoming the NBA’s best and most popular team).
The Incredible True Story of Blondy Baruti Page 24