Going Down in La-La Land (36 page)

“
Oh, babe, please. Do you need any help?”

“
It’s not about money!” I yelled out in the produce section as everyone around me turned to look.

“
I know it’s not, Adam. I just feel so bad I can’t be with you like that, all the time. I want to show you I care,” his voice broke.

“
Look I have to go,” I said. I just couldn’t go on.

“
Please, babe. Please come by and see me,” John begged.

“
I can’t, John. I need more than that,” I insisted. I couldn’t believe myself. I was so weak when it came to temptation. Usually I gave in so easily. “But I love you,” I added.

“
I love you too,” John sobbed.

I hung up the phone. Refusing to meet that man was without a doubt one of the hardest things I did in my life. Even a few years later, I yearn for him every once in a while.

By the way, I still have my Cartier watch. Despite being a broke student, I have resisted the urge to sell it. It’s in a safety deposit box.

I never did find out who sold our story to the tabloids. My money was on Brian; he might have even been in on the deal with Ron. Zinnia would have been too scared of becoming the ultimate social pariah and going to the clinker. Truthfully, it didn’t matter. If it hadn’t had been them it would have been someone else. What mattered was that a life with John and an open relationship would never be possible until he came to terms publicly with his sexuality. Until that day I wish him happiness, but even with a rewarding career I’m sure John spends much of his time being miserable.

As far as the porn companies were concerned, they quit calling after it finally became apparent to them that I wasn’t going back to an X-rated life.

Instead I got a job working front desk at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, a job that kept me content and paid the bills while I prepared to return to graduate school to earn my masters in journalism. If I’d gained anything by coming to LA besides short-lived notoriety, it was plenty of insight and stories to share.

Occasional bouts of anxiety struck when I worried about getting accepted to graduate school. I’d fared better than I expected on my GREs, taking them at a testing center in El Segundo, not far from the airport. It felt like I spent all day there. Surprisingly, the quantitative or math portion came easier than expected. The analytical part was a bitch. Trying to figure out whether Betty was sitting next to Tom or if Tom was sitting next to Bernard around a goddamned conference table had me dizzy.

Eventually the exams were taken, essays written, recommendations secured, and applications filled out and sent off. Now it was in God’s hands or up to the universe where I’d end up. Of course I’d land somewhere. I just hoped to heaven it was one of the schools I’d applied to.

I set my standards high, figuring if I was making the commitment to go back to school, I might as well reach for the top. All the kicks in the ass I’d taken the past few years must have made me more brazen and sure of myself. This time around school was going to be the single focal point of my life, the number one priority.

No drifting off and thinking up ways to become famous, like before. No fucking around or screwing off like my first go at a higher education, literally and figuratively. Especially with all the student loans I’d be paying back for years to come. My choices were narrowed down to Syracuse, Columbia, Berkeley, and Northwestern. Reading my acceptance letter to Columbia, I ran up and down the halls of the apartment building screaming with joy. Orly came out of her apartment with phone in hand, prepared to call the police as she did the night I fell of the balcony.

For six months between leaving LA and coming back to New York I lived with my parents but didn’t see them that often. My time was spent busting my ass waiting tables at Planet Hollywood in Caesar’s Palace, saving up as much cash as I could in addition to the small fortune in student loans I’d have to take out. Remarkably, my mother and I got along pretty well. We had both grown in the past year, and she was happy about having one of her children attend an Ivy League school. In fact, only on a few occasions did she lose it over toothpaste residue in the sink or drips on the counter.

Saying good-bye to Candy was the hardest thing about leaving LA. How odd it was that my soulmate for the past few years had turned out to be a larger-than-life blonde bombshell, more close to me than any man I’d ever met. Our relationship was completely unconditional. Two people on similar missions of self-discovery, the hard way. Two people supporting each other through the crap life hands you, or in this case the Hollywood machine. A straight woman and a gay man, different bodies, yet such similar minds. Two people willing to put themselves through hell for what they thought was love, adoration, success, and validation of being worthy.

She had been bummed about my leaving for weeks.

“
I feel when you leave I’ll have nobody to talk to,” she cried more than once.

“
I’m only a phone call away,” I kept telling her.

“
Not the same thing,” she’d reply.

Before leaving California a slip with an envelope was attached to my windshield wiper. This was on my third to last day in town. Just like my arrival in LA, a parking ticket marked my departure.

I took this as an affirmation from the universe that I was making the right decision.

I cringe whenever I see or hear anything about Wayne Hanley, which is quite often. Whether it’s a business article, a biography in a bookstore shelf, or a tidbit in page six, the man is all over the media. He recently gave the biggest single donation of money to a university or educational institution on record, a cool few hundred million. Too bad he isn’t donating money to help pay off my student loans. I’ll still be a charity case myself for a few more years.

But I’m not as fresh and young as I was a few years ago, so I’m sure he’d have no desire to impale my throat with his monster schlong. Especially when he can find dozens of prettier boys right off the bus to satisfy his sexual desires.

I stopped speaking with Ron, Brian, and the rest of the porn crowd months before leaving LA. One night at the Abbey I spotted Brian in the crowd. When it looked as if he was coming my way I darted in the other direction.

I keep in touch with Candy through regular e-mails and occasional phone calls. She’s moved on as well. The gold digger mentality she had when it came to men has been spent. No more ads in
LA Weekly
seeking out sugar daddies, no more getting involved with men for weekly shopping sprees at Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana. Instead she has channeled her fashion obsession in a more healthy way, by becoming a personal shopper and stylist, a gig she does with expertise and aplomb, talking away with clients over everything from ink to pink.

Occasionally I wonder if my brief porn past will ever come back to haunt me. On the rare occasion that I frequent a gay bar a guy will approach me here or there and ask if I was in videos. But for the most part, it seems like forgotten history, a bygone era. Then again, I don’t think too many of my colleagues at Columbia have the time or the desire to rent triple-X-rated gay flicks. And realistically, it’s not as if I was Jeff Stryker or anything. My fifteen minutes of fame in the porn scene were brief, though eventful.

Besides, there is so much X-rated crap pasted and posted all over the place. The countless faces on sleazy Internet sites are a dime a dozen. If I ever go onto anything of importance in the public eye and it does catch up with me, I already have my sob story down pat. Actually it’s not really a sob story; it’s just the unfortunate truth. I was a misguided and poor son of a bitch who needed to eat, pay rent, and buy gas. End of the story.

In the post–Clinton-Lewinsky/reality television era, it probably wouldn’t be as big of a deal if my past did present itself. Not when porn stars like Jenna Jameson are being featured on TV alongside Julia Roberts. Everyone knows the saying about skeletons in the closet. Well, one could say I not only have skeletons in my closet, but bones and skulls falling out of my cabinets and drawers as well. Digging up the dirt on me would be an easier task than finding the checkout aisle at your local supermarket. But I’ve come to terms with it, and try not to look back with regret. My past is part of who I am now and there’s no changing it.

Otherwise LA seems like distant smog in my mind, and a world away from where I’m at now. I don’t go into too much detail about my time out there when it comes up in conversation. Usually I’ll tell people I tried pursuing a career in entertainment, making it sound as if I was working for a studio or something. Then I’ll quickly change the subject.

I seldom, if ever, mention the aspirations I once had to become an actor. Not out of bitterness. It’s just something that I prefer to put to rest. For the first time in my life I feel that I’m at the right place at the right time, which until now had been a completely unknown feeling. And boy, do I ever enjoy the peace of mind that comes with it.

My heart goes out to all the drifters out there chasing a dream. But my old dreams have been put out to pasture for more appropriate ones. Maybe someday I’ll bring the recollections of my time in the city of angels and dust them off. As an aspiring journalist I’ll save what I could have contributed to episodes of
E! True Hollywood Story
and
Biography
for a project of my own.

And who knows? Maybe it will prove to be inspiration for things to come, and I’ll be able to make better sense of my time in La-La Land.