The Dirt (62 page)

W
hen I woke up, everything had totally changed. The face of a man in white with glasses was hovering inches away from mine, and the first words out of his mouth were, “You’re lucky to be alive, sonny. Real, real lucky.”

I figured I was in some kind of junked-out dream, and I blinked my eyes and tried to figure out what was going on. “Where am I?”

No one answered me. The dude was gone. I wasn’t sure if he was a dream, a madman, or guardian spirit trying to give me a message. I was in a white room, kind of like heaven but also institutional-looking. It was … a hospital. And not only was I in complete pain, but my skin had turned a shade of blue. The events of hours before came flooding back to me: That motherfucker Sedge had almost killed me.

Later that night, Sedge and a friend of mine named Doug came to visit. Sedge threw a bagful of clothes on the bed and said, “T, we’re getting you the fuck out of here.”

“Why, dude?”

“Because if you stay here any longer, the fucking media are going to find out and have a fucking field day. So shut up and follow me. Trust me.”

In my half-conscious state, I knew I’d heard those words before, but I couldn’t remember where. Sedge and Doug tore the tubes out of my arms and pulled off the wires attaching me to various machines whose function I was completely oblivious to. I was worried that one of those tubes or wires was keeping me alive, and if they pulled one out, dude, I’d die. But then I realized if I was lucid enough to worry about it, I was probably okay. They helped me put on my pants, boots, and T-shirt, then we ran down the corridor and out of the hospital as fast as we could. No one stopped us, no one said a word, and no one ever found out about it, including Bobbie.

The next time Bobbie and I saw each other was on New Year’s Eve, two days later. I went out with some of my best bros to a club called Sanctuary, and Bobbie met us there. We all sat in a booth popping E, drinking champagne, and being fucking maniacs. In an hour it would be 1995, and we’d probably be too fucked up to even know what day it was. Suddenly, a waitress came over and said, “Tommy, here’s a shot of Goldschläger. It’s for you, from Pamela Anderson.”

“Pamela Anderson?”

“Yes, she’s one of the owners of the club.”

“Is she here!?”

“She’s right there.” The waitress pointed to a table in the corner, where Pamela was sitting surrounded by friends. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed her before. She was wearing all white, her hair was the most perfect shade of blond I had ever seen, her teeth practically glowed through her lips when she laughed, and she stood out so radiantly from everyone around her that it seemed like a beam of black light was shining on her from above. I lifted the shot, did something corny like winked or smiled, and slammed it. Then I grabbed the whole bottle of Cristal and guzzled it like a happy pig. I put it down, walked over to her table, and blew up the area.

“Hey, Pamela, I’m Tommy,” I said suavely. “But I guess you know that since you sent me a shot,” I continued not so suavely. “Thanks.”

I needed to recover from such a stupid line. So I pushed my way into the booth, slid over her girlfriends’ laps, and forced myself a space right next to her. Then I grabbed her face and just licked the side of it, from chin to temple. Maybe if I had done that when I was sober, I would have seemed like some kind of invasive asshole. But I was on Ecstasy, so it was all good and anything I did was not rude, it was innocent and full of love and a yearning to bond with all of humanity. She fucking laughed and, without missing a beat, turned away and licked the face of the girl next to her. Then fucking everyone started passing licks around the table.

On Ecstasy, Joan Rivers looks like Pamela Anderson, so imagine what Pamela Anderson looked like. She was so beautiful I couldn’t even bring myself to think of defiling her with thoughts of lust. I just stared at her all night, and she just stared back. We probably talked about something for those hours, but I can’t remember what. I didn’t even realize midnight had passed until ten minutes later, when Bobbie walked by the table and said, with all the bitchy attitude she could muster, “Happy New Year.”

She tried to shoot all the fucking negative vibes she could from her eyes, but my Ecstasy defense system was too strong. I wished Bobbie a happy new year too, then turned back to Pamela. I didn’t want to give Pamela the impression that Bobbie and I were dating, especially since our relationship had degenerated to nothing but overdoses and late-night phone calls to the police (little did I know what was in store for me). I was ready for a change and, God, how I hoped Pamela would be that change.

At one-thirty, with Bobbie firing dirty looks from the bar all night, Pamela said she had to leave. Her friends were tired and wanted to go home. In all my years of experience, I have yet to devise a way of separating a woman I want from her fucking friends who are bored because they aren’t getting any attention. I walked Pamela to her girlfriend Melanie’s car, asked for her digits for the tenth time that night (and finally got them), and laid a huge fucking sloppy kiss on her. I was cocky on Ecstasy and Cristal. I later found out that when Pamela closed the car door, the first thing Melanie did was look at her and say, “Don’t even think about it.”

“What do you mean?” Pamela tried to ask innocently.

“Listen to me: That guy is a fucking maniac.”

Pamela smiled guiltily. Melanie looked over at her and said, one more time to make sure it sank in, “No!”

The problem with meeting someone you like in Los Angeles is that everybody is always too busy to get together. Their first priority is their career: Making a friend or going on a fucking date is like sixth on the list. So when I called Pamela and she couldn’t seem to settle on a day to hang out, I figured this would be another one of those fucking L.A. hookups that start out with so much promise but never get off the ground. Instead, they just sort of dwindle away as, with each phone call and promise to try to get together next week, each person grows more distant and the spark that ignited at their meeting fizzles out.

After six weeks of this telephonic fucking cock-teasing, I finally got the message I’d been waiting for. “Tommy. Damn, you’re not there. It’s Pamela. I’ve got twenty-four hours to play, and I want to play with you. Call me at the Hotel Nikko at six
P.M.
and we’ll rendezvous.”

I was so fucking psyched, dude. My experiences with Heather had taught me that clean-cut actress chicks want a bad boy, so instead of buying new clothes and shaving and trying to look all fresh like Pamela, I put on my dirtiest fucking leather pants, slipped into an old T-shirt that stank of b.o., and didn’t bother to shave or shower. I did, however, brush my teeth.

I drove to the Pleasure Chest and picked up four hundred dollars’ worth of sex toys and outfits. I had my overnight duffel in one hand and a shopping bag full of lubricants and vibrating clitoral stimulators and ben-wa balls in the other. I was ready to rock her fucking world. I called her hotel at 4:59
P.M.
I couldn’t wait. The receptionist said she hadn’t arrived yet.

I drove around, killed some time, and called back five minutes later. She still wasn’t there. I grabbed some food and called back. No answer. I finished my meal, called again, and she still hadn’t shown up. Now it was 6
P.M.
I drove to the hotel and I waited in the lobby for another hour; then I headed back to my house, calling the hotel every five minutes until they began to pity me. “Sorry, she’s still not here,” the receptionist said. “You’ll be okay. I’m sure she’ll be here any minute. If you want to give me your number, maybe I could call you when she shows up.”

“Aaaaarrrgggghhh!!!”

“Excuse me?”

I left messages at her pad, at her friends’ houses, everywhere. I was just hunting her down like a little fucking stalker, the exact same way I had chased after the first girl I ever kissed with the red berry. Finally, just before 10
P.M.
, Pamela picked up the phone. She wasn’t even at the fucking hotel; she was at home.

“Hey, what’s up?” she asked, as if she were surprised I was calling.

“Dude, what are you doing right now?” I was exploding. I needed to see her.

“I’m walking out the door.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m taking a plane to Cancún tonight. I have to be there for a photo shoot tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, really. What about me?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “We were supposed to get together tonight, right?”

“I think so.”

“I’m so sorry. Listen. When I get back. I promise.”

“We could get together before then,” I hinted.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Don’t even think about it.”

“What do you mean?” I protested innocently.

“Don’t even think about coming. I have a lot of work to do. They’ve got me booked for eighteen-hour days, and there’s no time to play.”

“Okay, it’s cool,” I relented. “Have fun. I’ll talk to you when you get back.”

I hung up the phone, called two of my friends, and said, “Pack your bags. We are going to Cancún.”

I dialed American Airlines, booked a flight, and called her home from the plane the next day. “I’m on an airplane right now having cocktails,” I said to her machine. “And I’m coming to find your ass.” I bet she wished she’d never given me her home number.

Half an hour later, I checked my answering machine and there was a message from her. “You are out of your mind!” she yelled. “Don’t come down here. This is not a vacation. This is a work trip. Do not come down here!”

But it was too late. When I arrived, I called every hotel on the strip searching for her. The sixth hotel on my list was the Ritz-Carlton, and when they said there was a Pamela Anderson staying there, I practically wet myself with excitement. She wasn’t in the room, of course, so I left her a message or six asking if she wanted to meet for a drink that night.

Evidently, she wasn’t even going to return my call, she was so pissed. But her friends were on my side this time: They saw how hard I was working, and begged her: “Just go out with him for one drink. It couldn’t hurt.” Well, it did hurt, because four days later we were married.

I showed up in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton in a tank top, ripped jeans, and tats hanging out everywhere. They refused to let me anywhere near the bar or the restaurant, so we decided to fuck that piece-of-shit hotel and go elsewhere. As I was letting her into the cab, I paused to look at her. And I never stopped looking.

We found a place called Señor Frog’s, which reeked of spilled beer and margarita vomit. We were both shy and embarrassed, especially after all the buildup leading to this first date, but as the night progressed Señor Frog’s turned into the Sanctuary, the magic returned without the Ecstasy, and the outside world melted away. She had that one drink she promised me, and that drink led to another drink, and that other drink led to some other drinks, and all those drinks combined led to her hotel bed. When we finally fell asleep, that was the first time the entire night that we stopped looking into each other’s eyes.

We hung out every fucking night after that. We went to clubs, to restaurants, to bars, to the beach, and all we did was stare at each other and kiss each other all night. Then we went home and made golden love. She was in the penthouse suite and the elevator opened directly into her room, where there was a pool and a waterfall, both of which we took advantage of.

I couldn’t believe that it was possible to feel so happy. It was stronger than any Ecstasy I had ever had: I was literally incapable of thinking a bad thought—about myself, about Mötley Crüe, about Vince. For a so-called bad boy, I was turning into a pansy. It felt like our hearts had been hotglued together. When she was working, I’d just sit in my hotel room like a dead man and wait for her to call so I could come back to life again. I even phoned my parents and thanked them for raising such a spoiled little brat who couldn’t handle not having something he wanted, because otherwise I never would have had the confidence to stalk Pamela like I did.

When her shoot ended, we decided to stay in Cancún two more days. That night at a disco called La Boom, I took off my pinky ring, put it on her finger, and asked her to marry me. She said yes, hugged me, and stuck her tongue down my throat. The next morning, we decided that we had been serious and asked the hotel to find someone to perform a marriage ceremony. We gave blood, sniffed out a marriage license, and were on the beach in our swim trunks getting married before the day was over. Instead of wedding bands, we went for something more permanent: Tattoos of each other’s names around our fingers.

The next morning, we boarded the plane to fly back to Los Angeles. The closer we came, the harder reality began to hit us. This was real. We were married.

“Um,” she asked me. “Where are we going? Do you want to go to your house or mine?”

“I’ve got a place in Malibu, right on the beach…”

“Okay, then we’re going to your house.”

The moment we walked off the plane at LAX, the shitstorm hit. The airport was swarming with fucking photographers. We fought our way to my car and drove to my place. I glanced up at the hill overlooking the house, and dudes with cameras were camped out everywhere. It was like we had gone from the total-freedom paradise of Cancún to this hellish prison of Hollywood Babylon. We hired a twenty-four-hour security guard, but we still couldn’t do shit without this lynch mob following us everywhere.