04/16/2024
Sample from "Call Me Madam" - MEETING MARILYN
I’ve just smoked crack in a South Central Los Angeles crack house for the last couple of days straight. I don’t even know how many days or men I’ve gone through this time. It’s a blur of s*x for money, money for drugs, drugs to get high, then wash and rinse to start over. Some of these gang members/drug dealers have never even seen a white girl, so there’s literally a line at times to spend five minutes with me in the back room of this crack house.
Somehow I come to my senses long enough to realize its Monday and I have to either report to school or risk having my probation violated. Sure no cop is going to bother me while I’m in this crack house but the minute I want to go home to get some sleep I know the cops would be dragging me off to jail loving they got me on a probation violation. More than anything, I want to make sure these bastards don’t get the satisfaction of putting me behind bars. That’s how it works – jack up phony charges and that’s okay because they know they’ll get you on a technicality down the road.
This run was even stranger than usual for what would be actually the last time I went through this drive through fast food version of crack by going to this area to do a crack binge. I say that because I called my mom to come pick me up and I knew she’d because she’d do it because it was our “deal” where she’d come get me anywhere, anytime, without any yelling at me or confrontations, just as long as I called her to come home.
I’m waiting for her to drive the two hours it takes to get from Sherman Oaks to Rick’s crack house, and I’m just spent in every way imaginable. Spent and ashamed because Rick is a 16 year old gang member who lives with his 95 year old blind grandmother. Her medical bed is in the living room. She blares Christian radio 24/7 next to her bed and is oblivious it seems to the fact Rick is selling crack out of the back door of the house. I think to myself I’d be terrified to be old, disabled, and having to live this way as she is, or for that matter how Rick is even living as a teenager. Some teens work at a fast food joint and Rick works at the crack house. This way he can watch over his grandmother at the same time.
It’s early morning when all the addicts are now in bed so it’s finally quiet. Giving me a break long enough to actually wait for my mom to come bring me home. I have no idea if what I saw as she pulled up to the house was a hallucination or something “real” on a spiritual level, but as I walked out of the house and towards her car I look up. I see the forms of three or four spirits of some kind just staring at me from above. One turned to the other and said, “She’s done.” The male figure next to him nods as if to agree. I had no idea what that meant at the time either as I’d thought I was “done” many times, only to wind up right back at Rick’s crack house for days. Writing it off as a hallucination brought on by lack of sleep and all those drugs, I just get into my mom’s car without saying a word.
But I’ve not eaten anything or slept in days so I wonder how in the hell am I going to sit through a computer class in this condition? A flash runs through my mind of my friend Gayle. She was my best friend when I was in community college. She was also Jewish, but had just married a man and joined this group “Jews for Jesus”. After her marriage and related conversion, she’d invited me to her prayer groups many times so I knew it was happening right about the time we’d make it back to the valley. I thought my mom wouldn’t mind me asking to stop off at a prayer group considering what I’ve just survived, and knowing I now have to find the strength to get to school or I’ll violate the terms of my probation.
We pulled up to Gayle’s apartment just as everyone is arriving for her group. Anyone can see I’ve just been through some kind of wringer. I’ve just had s*x with hundred’s of men, and dressed the part of a w***e, so I don’t want to think about what I smelled like that morning. I just asked Gayle if the offer was still open to have her friends pray for me because here I am ready and willing to try anything to get off this merry go round. Of course they agreed and next thing I know there’s 30 people making a circle around me by holding hands with me kneeling in the middle of the floor of Gayle’s apartment. When they were done, I couldn’t feel anything but embarrassed really. No lightening or thunder. But my life was about to change forever so I think back to how the prayer worked that morning.
But for now I had to get to my computer school so I made my exit. Mom continued to drive me there without saying anything for fear I’ll run off again I think. The only thing going through my mind is how am I going to stay awake for the next five hours to attend school when I can barely stay awake now. For all I know, I’d just hallucinated a short time ago.
Coffee. Must have coffee and sweets out of a vending machine. A junkie’s support system is sugar and caffeine. The first thing I do upon arriving at the school is to head to the break room. Sugar and coffee give me enough of a buzz to get through a few more hours. I slug down these approved chemicals and try to get up the nerve to face the classroom when I see two men sitting across from me talking.
They’re both older men who look like the many veterans who are in this school along with those on probation like me. One of them looks just like W.C. Fields – with the alcoholic bulbous red nose, the pock marked skin, hair wild, belly hanging over the loose jeans. I am struck by how ugly this man is physically, but at the same time I see a white glow coming off of him I call a “God light”.
He’s telling his friend a story. A story about a group of people who are sitting around the campfire slitting each other wrists while laughing about how much fun they’re having and making bets as to who is going to die faster. I’m totally struck by this analogy and how it perfectly seems to fit the culture that I find myself in where we’re all speeding towards death while laughing and joking about how “cool” we are and how much fun this life is. While he’s talking I can see this light getting stronger emanating off of him. I have no idea who he is but I know God is touching this man. I also want to know how he knows right where I am at this moment in life.
As he and his friend get up to go back to their class, I hear my God voice say to me “Follow him. This man is going to save your life.” I feel completely awkward then as he’s already gone back into his class room. Not being known for being timid, I barge into his class room, walk up to him at his desk and ask “Can I talk to you?”
Not batting an eye he replies simply “sure” like he’d been expecting me. He suggests we go talk in his car where we can speak “privately”. I roll my eyes thinking great, this guy thinks I”m hitting on him. But there’s just something about him that tells me I need to follow him.
He introduces himself as Paul and takes me to this very beat up old car that looks like it’s held together with duct tape and wires. It also has his laundry in it like he’s living in it which I find out later he is actually living in his car. He opens up his glove compartment and hands me a Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text. I’ve never heard of NA in my whole life. All those people who would come to the crack house came straight from AA meetings, I’d honestly never met anyone from NA or even knew it existed until that moment. That’s what gave me hope – if I hadn’t seen anyone at the crack house from an NA meeting, maybe oh maybe this program might work for me to stop this demonic possession from over taking me whenever it feels like it anymore. He also pulls a medallion out of his back pocket for five years of clean time in NA. Then he asks me if I want to go to a meeting with him after class.
I think I would have agreed to go anywhere than back to my grandmother’s apartment that day. I’d agreed to live with her also as part of probation as had my mother so her, my grandmother and I are sharing a one bedroom apartment. I’m sleeping on a futon on the floor while my mom sleeps on the sofa. Three crazy ladies under one roof. No wonder I”m losing my mind. So I agree to turn myself over to him partly because of not wanting to go home, but also because something in my gut is telling me I need to follow this man.
After class he takes me to get some coffee and tells me these horror stories about him during Vietnam, as well as his journey through 50 drug treatment programs that didn’t work for him until he surrendered to NA. He was the first person who I felt understood the horrors I’ve just seen and the things I’ve just survived, so I start opening up to tell him everything going on with me. I wait for his shock and he’s not batting an eye so I feel I can tell this man everything for once. No matter what I say he just nods with understanding and patience. That alone is something I’ve never encountered before.
The meeting he takes me to was in Venice, California at a big church. Mind you, I’m basically a valley girl. I have this long blond hair and I’m dressed pretty much like you’d expect an es**rt to dressed. I have on my black stiletto heels, tight black leather pants and a red silk blouse. As we pull into the meeting, I see all these halfway house vans, Harley’s, and other old tin can cars like his littering up the parking lot. I immediately make some sigh of disgust about how this parking lot is “full of losers”.
Without missing a beat, he just says to me “Tell me where everyone you know with a Mercedes or Rolls Royce is today”. As I start going down the mental list in my head, I realize this one is dead, that one is in prison, while this one is strung out on drugs, etc. I click in my head that maybe I need to look at something other than what car someone is driving as to who I think is a success at this moment. I nod sheepishly in acknowledgment to his point and we proceed to go inside this meeting.
Which is full of men of color covered in tattoos who are sizing me up like a pit bull looks at a pork chop. I do appear to be the only woman in the joint after all when I first walked in. Sensing how suddenly all the men’s heads are turning to see who the fresh meat is walking in the door, Paul suddenly starts putting his arm around me like I”m his girlfriend. Any other time or person I would have objected, but I can see what he’s doing is declaring I’m “hands off” to these men who respond no differently than the animal world would.
They see his declarations of ownership over me and their eyes turn away. He went to get me some coffee and then proceeded to throw his leg up over me physically putting even more protection over me I felt in that meeting. I turn to see this line of pimps at the door waiting it seems for any single females to enter the space. As I’m scanning the room, I see very few females other than a few who are dressed in the typical cholo style who appear to be gang wives along with a few biker chicks. I’m feeling VERY out of my element like I’m dressed for a masquerade ball and it’s not such a party after all.
As the meeting opens, they start giving out chips. I can’t believe my eyes as Marilyn Chambers (the p**n star from such films as “Behind the Green Door”), walks in to take her newcomer chip on the same night in the same room as I am. Her presence told me I was in the right room after all. I knew without any shadow of a doubt then that despite not feeling I looked anything like any of these people on the outside, or had anything in common with them, I was right where I needed to be at this moment in time.
I feel like I’m finally at home.
THE FIRST STEP
After the NA meeting where I was blown away seeing Marilyn Chambers and I were hitting bottom as they say at the very same day/time, of course Paul wanted to meet the lady. He acted like he was meeting his hero or something as he was fawning all over her recalling his favorite parts of all of her adult films.
So I could see I had a real pervert on my hands, but at this point anyone so called “normal” wasn’t exactly coming to my rescue with the mess I’m in right now. After he got her autograph (literally), he then took me to another coffee shop. I was talking, or dumping, my life story in this guy’s lap at 100 miles an hour nonstop. Every time I thought I’d shock him, he just nodded in understanding. So we sat in that coffee shop until at least midnight I think just getting to know each other. I was also waiting for the “trick” in him to come out - but instead he became more and more of my peer and new mentor.
When he got me back home to my grandmother’s apartment, I was so exhausted I just plopped down on my futon and crashed. At 7:00 am the next morning, I’m hearing banging on the front door. It’s him. How he could have possibly dropped me off probably about 2:00 am and come back only a few hours later was beyond my understanding. I later learned it was because he was sleeping in his car. But my brain wasn’t even working that early. I grunted at my grandmother to send him away to let me sleep, but instead he just started handing me my clothes and working me towards the door.
Of course I had to explain to my mother and grandmother who this strange man was in their living room dragging me out the door again. They knew I didn’t make friends easily, and even fewer people I knew I ever introduced to them, so they may not have known what to think but knew enough to hope that what I said was true - this man was my new sponsor in Narcotics Anonymous who was going to help me stay clean.
Mom especially knew I had no other hope than this as she was the one who spent weeks calling and calling anywhere and everywhere she could trying to find some kind of “program” for someone like me. I remember her making 1000’s of phone calls trying to find some kind of treatment or program for me, and how either she’d only find something for an alcoholic or a man. The few programs that did exist at the time for the female addict were residential programs like the Mary Magdalene Program created by the Lutheran Church, or the Salvation Army. I didn’t have health insurance to go to some place like the Betty Ford Center, and even if I did I didn’t identify as an alcoholic. Mom called and called and reported back to me no existing program she could find either accepted women, addicts, and sure as hell not both who also had a history in prostitution. So when this strange man is introduced to her as someone who is going to sponsor me, drive me to NA meetings, and help me get clean - she’s going to wish me well as she sends me off with him.
I don’t even think I combed my hair that morning I was so exhausted, but by 8:00 am he had us in a meeting. My life overnight became him picking me up about 7:00 am daily to go hit a meeting. Then we both went to computer school for a few hours - he in his programming class and me in my office technology class to learn how to operate a computer in an office setting. After class, we’d grab some lunch nearby at a diner, and then head off to meeting after meeting after meeting. We’d go to meetings until the late evening, with him dropping me back at the house about midnight.
Every day he’d take me to a brand new meeting so it was like a big adventure. Sometimes it would be an AA meeting or an NA meeting. Sometimes it was in the valley, or Hollywood or Venice, just anywhere within an hour of the house. Book studies, candle light meetings, meditations, yoga on the beach - it was just a constant parade of new meetings. So many meetings and so many new people it really was just a blur to me. Since we were in his car from the time he’d pick me up to the time he’d drop me back home, not like I’d leave him or anything.
By the second week though I do know I was just so exhausted I was napping in his car inbetween the meetings. I was also getting very grumpy by this time and let him know it. One morning he showed up like was our routine, and I just had enough. I told him I needed my sleep and I was not going anywhere with him. Next thing I know I’m in my bathrobe and house shoes and he’s literally flung me over his shoulder and thrown me into his car. He’s now slammed the door and going to the drivers’ side of the car while I’m still in my PJ’s with having uncombed hair. I screamed at him I couldn’t be caught dead like this in a meeting. He countered I would be dead if I didn’t go to the meetings “no matter what”.
As we got into our heated argument over my needing sleep, he just looked at me and asked simply “When’s the last time you felt like using?” I was stumped because in scanning my memory banks, I honestly hadn’t even thought of drugs the whole time he was dragging me from pillar to post to sample all these meetings.
“Why are you taking me to all these different meetings anyway?” I asked.
“For one thing, it’s called exhaustion therapy. You’re so tired you’re not thinking about even using are you?” Which I had to admit he had a point.
“Plus it’s to help you find a meeting where YOU’RE comfortable. People go to one or two meetings and then complain the program doesn’t work. AA and NA have meetings all over the world, so if there’s a meeting that doesn’t work for you, if you check out other meetings, you WILL find a meeting that clicks for you” he explained. He then went on to teach me if I found I didn’t like the meeting I was in, I could just change up to another one. The important thing was to keep going to meetings.
“How do I know which meeting is the meeting for me then?” I asked.
“Simple - results count. If you stay clean, then that’s a meeting for you. If you hear anyone talking about drugs longer than five minutes into the meeting, then it’s not for you. If you hear everyone talking about recovery from the disease, then that’s the meeting you need to be in. Plus as long as you stay clean, the meeting is working. If you don’t stay clean, it’s not working. It’s really that simple - stick with what keeps you clean and teaches you about the program. Now I have plenty of time to help you find the right meetings for you, and I want to keep you so busy you don’t even think of using, and the more I help you the more it helps me, so frankly I’m doing this for me and not you.”
I think he could tell he had kind of lost me at that point, so he told me he wanted to take me to a meeting at a treatment program he’d gone to while using that didn’t work for him. This was to give me an idea of the many many programs he’d tried before finding NA that hadn’t worked for him, so that maybe I’d get an idea what did work for him finally. We drove off to some mountain to attend a meeting at this hospital which was pretty scary, and then he took me to a sort of look out point. The kind of place where lovers go to make out. Only instead of making a pass at me, he sat on the hood of his car and invited me to join him. As we’re looking out over the San Fernando Valley at night, he tells me his story.
I hear how he got sent to Vietnam as a young man. Then how many of the men got injured and the doctors patched them up with morphine. Soon the army discovers he’s very good at “recovery operations”. Which means if a plane is shot down, he’s sent to go get the parts back so the technology doesn’t fall into the enemy’s hands. Sometimes the enemy has already retrieved the parts and they’re back at their camps already. Meaning he needs to wait until everyone is asleep to go in ninja style, murder everyone, and take back the recovered parts of the American planes, cars, whatever they had recovered.
He discovers he’s now become just as addicted, if not more, to the murdering part of his assignments than the morphine he’s now also getting high off of. So much so they keep giving him harder and harder assignments that add more notches on his belt as to how many people he’s murdered. Then just as he’s become quite a professional on these missions, they bring him back to the states, set him free back in hometown USA, tell him he can’t murder anyone anymore, but instead he now has to learn a trade and become a “good boy”. The culture shock he said was too much for him and he disappeared into the bottle and the needle. His family sends him to every program there is, probably spent over a million on his treatment, but yet he can’t give it up. Not just the drugs, but his desire to go back to the rush of the mission in the jungles of Vietnam.
THAT’S when I realize why we clicked so well together - I’m identical to him in my exposure and addiction to the s*x industry and that criminal underground world. The army brings him back from Vietnam and tells him simply he can’t do these things anymore and the LAPD has basically done the same thing to me. Both of us are trying to give up a lifestyle where we feel we finally found our place, but it’s a world that we now can’t be a part of anymore if we want to keep on living. His “rush” upon a mission well done is no different than the “rush” I would get at pulling off a job or a slick hustle. It’s THAT we need to find a way to give up, not the drugs.
He told me that until he realized none of these programs were going to make him clean because he in fact was “powerless” to stop or change his whole lifestyle, and the way his brain worked, he couldn’t get clean either. Then he tells me there’s a whole group of men just like him who have the same addiction as him, and because these things they do are so “socially unacceptable” and illegal, they meet at an off grid meeting. A meeting where in fact many murderers also attend, as well as men who are on a hit list with others trying to murder them. I’m now curious as hell of course so we embark on this crazy journey where he’s going down all these tiny mountain roads to get us to this “underground meeting”
It was in a building without any signs so you wouldn’t know it was an NA meeting we’d now pulled up in front of. We’re scanned carefully as we go in, so I can tell strangers aren’t exactly welcomed here. While waiting for the meeting to start, he tells me the stories of why some of the addicts there are at this underground meeting. Like the woman who is hiding from her ex-husband who has threatened to murder her if she left him. He’d already found her at one NA meeting, drug her out by her hair and tried to murder her in the parking lot. So now she’s literally risking her life to be at this meeting.
There’s a guy who has escaped prison and is on a fugitive list at this meeting because he knows if he doesn’t stay clean, he’ll go back. The real Boston Strangler is now out of prison and has just made the coffee at this meeting. As long as he stays clean, he’s realized he isn’t in danger of murdering anymore. We’ve got a pilot for the drug cartel who dumped a load and now has a contract on his head there. I’m being told the soap opera behind why all of these ordinary looking people are there at this underground meeting simply trying to stay clean just for today. I’m only there because he knows other guys like him also trying to fit back into society who attend - just like I’m trying to do.
In fact, he’s going to introduce me to some of these other friends of his, also veterans, who all share in common that staying clean is easy but fitting back into American society is also very hard for them as it is for us. These men have stared down machine guns without so much as a blink, but a job interview is terrifying to all of us. By banding together, we can help each other not just fit back into society, but to find a way to like it. That’s the key focus here because I know how to “look” like I’m just a normal person, but that doesn’t mean I’m enjoying myself. In fact, I HATE “straight” clothing, shoes, hair, you name it. I want my sports car, my easy money, and a life without clocks back. What he didn’t tell me until later on was that he had noticed we were being followed as we did our daily routine. To double check his hunch, and in case he was right in that we were being followed, he wanted us to start going to this underground meeting.
Paul then told me to think of what we were going through like a bowel movement. While one may be able to “hold onto it” for a long time, eventually it will “blow”! Just as the muscles in our bowels will give way and the result will be a flow of f***s, so too will we not be able to hold onto this “good girl” and “good boy” persona for very long. That without a “spiritual awakening”, we are doomed like a cat wanting to chase the canary to want to be chasing birds as cats enjoy doing. It’s instintual for them just as this destructive lifestyle is instinctual for us. He and his friends in this meeting explain to me why just not using drugs or not turning a trick isn’t the point - how I need a “spiritual awakening as a result of these steps” to change myself into a person who can not just live a different life, but also enjoy it.
I of course argued I had no intention of “changing” to adapt to life outside of the s*x industry. My probation was only going to last another year, and once I got the state off my back, I was going to go back. So I only needed to “hold onto my bowels” for a time, and then I could release them and get back to my life.
Paul told me that we needed to get me a makeover. Being about the only female in the meetings, I could tell he wanted to try and tone down the attention I was getting from all the men. Especially the pimps who would just stare at me the whole meeting. Most important, would I agree to do as he suggested I do for this next year I was on probation. Then after a year, once my probation was up, if I decided I wanted to go back to my old profession, he told me I could go back and no harm no foul. Since I had to be on probation for a year anyway, I figured why not try to do things his way for this next year. He then asked me if I’d give him a year to do everything he told me to. Since I wanted to get through this next year without being busted again by LAPD, I agreed to give him the year. I wasn’t ready to give up the life for life, but I did want to get through the next year.
The next morning instead of picking me up to go to a meeting, he invites himself into the apartment. Then he asks to see my closet. Without asking for my permission, he starts grabbing things my clothes and inspecting them. Anything that looks like it belongs to Mary Poppins wears it, he puts back onto the hanger. Anything that looks like a ho**er might wear it - he’s throwing into a pile. He even opens my underwear drawer. Granny panties I use for my period - stays. Anything like a thong or lacy, he’s throwing into the pile that’s now a mountain on the apartment floor. I look up and realize he’s left me one outfit I wear for job interviews and a few panties I wear for my period. Everything else he’s now stuffing into a trash bag.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“For one thing, you have people looking for you. We need to make you look like someone else first of all. Second, you’re now retired and that means you need to get rid of any of your old work clothes. From now on, you can’t take so much as a match book from a man, and you can’t wear any “working” clothes. Your shop is now closed. So we’re going to get you some new clothes today and hair to match the new you.”
He then takes my old clothes and throws them into the dumpster. Next thing I know, he’s lit them on fire. He wanted to make VERY sure I didn’t dive in an take anything back. Then he takes me to the Salvation Army. He’s now picked me out blue jeans and t-shirts and the ugliest clothes I’ve ever seen in my life. I certainly now look like many other women who are housewives and secretaries, and certainly not in s*x work as their chosen career. Not one item costs more than $5 - so all my designer stuff is off the table now. I feel like I’m now dressed as the ugliest woman in the world.
Next thing I know, I’m in a hair stylist’s chair. Why? He said I “shouldn’t advertise what I’m not selling”. What does that mean? I need to stop dressing like a pr******te if I’m going to stay out of this profession for a year. Like a father, he tells the stylist he wants all my hair cut off to my ears, and the bleach blond hair dyed back to my natural color. He also handed me a wipe to clear off all my make-up. So I can get my hair cut, he reaches out for my earrings. Then he motions he wants all my jewelry removed. Once I have no jewelry or make-up on anywhere, he signals the stylist to start whacking on my hair. He pockets my jewelry and says I can have it back after I take a cake for a year clean if I want to see them again. He later gave the jewelry to my mom when he got me back home.
I felt butchered - like someone is cutting off my legs. Watching my beautiful blond hair falling at my feet, I’m like a shorn sheep. I’m now balling my eyes out because it’s almost physically painful to see my hair shorn. Once my hair is cut and dyed back to it’s natural brown color, I look in the mirror and feel I”m the plainest woman in the world. Then I break down into tears. I imagine this must be how guys feel when they’re put in boot camp and all their hair is shaved off. I also feel just like the masses of plain, ordinary women - something I NEVER wanted to be.
As I’m crying, Paul asks me what I’m feeling. “I feel so ordinary.”
“You know what’s ordinary? Hookers who die of overdoses alone and unloved in some cheap motel - that’s common. That’s cheap. That’s a dime a dozen. You know what’s REALLY special? What’s REALLY unique?”
I’m now in total disbelief because he’s certainly not comforting me this way as I expected he’d do. The tears are just gushing as he tells me “If you want to be so special - then you get clean and stay clean. Better year, you find a way to make REAL money because ho**ers aren’t controlling the REAL wealth in this company”.
He wheels my chair around and hands me a mirror. Instead of seeing the b***s, the hair, the makeup, or any of this whole costume I’ve been living in now for years - I see me in the mirror. Just me.
“Now tell me what the richest and most powerful men in the world look like. Better yet, tell me what the WIVES of the most powerful and wealthy men in the world look like. I guarantee you those women look more like you right now than they did this morning. For the first time, I’m seeing YOU - not a costume. There’s only ONE YOU - and THAT’S special. Hookers on drugs turning tricks and going to jail, they’re a dime a dozen. THAT’S ordinary. What you’re doing right now I promise you is making you one in a million now. You changing your life this way - now THAT is making you special. In fact, unpredictable. Right now LAPD and all those people gunning for you think you’re “just like everyone else” and thinking they can predict your every move. I bet the LAST thing they’d expect of you is to be doing this today.”
He then smiles at what he sees in my reflection in the mirror. I feel like an ugly brown wren. But he’s got a point - NO ONE would be predicting I’d be in this chair right now having all my hair whacked off like this! I then laugh because I realize also he’s right - there’s no way I could show up on a call looking like this! I certainly wouldn’t be recognized by anyone this way either.
Yes, I’ve now entered boot camp for real.
