Getting It Through My Thick Skull (13 page)

“What are you going to do if something happens to me?” I demanded of the police. “I’m already harassed daily when Joe is home. Now I’ll be all alone with two children, and I’m not in the best of shape!” My ear continued to give me trouble with constant infections, and the pain was ever-present. Imagine the worst toothache and migraine you’ve ever had—combined— all the time. I was taking heavy doses of painkillers, which rendered me pretty much a functioning vegetable. I was incapable of protecting myself should that need arise. Their solution was to park an empty Nassau County police car directly in front of our house as a deterrent to mischief-makers.

Record-breaking freezing temperatures and snowfall descended on Long Island that year, making for an endless, miserable winter. I did my best to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas for the kids, who missed their father badly. Joe was allowed three visits per week, and I tried to go as often as possible. Going to visit my husband in jail was a degrading, dehumanizing process. All the visitors stood in line outside for a couple of hours in the bitter cold and dirty, mushy snow, waiting to be processed for as long as it took. Inside, the officers took everything from me, even the rubber band holding my hair in a ponytail, so I soon learned to show up empty-handed. The staff at the jail couldn’t have cared less that I was Mary Jo Buttafuoco, the notorious woman they saw every single night on TV, or that my physical condition was still fragile. There was no special treatment for me, so I endured the finger-pointing, whispering, and downright rude questions and comments from all the other visitors every single time.

Not surprisingly, Joe did quite well in jail. He was housed in a special wing for high-profile cases, and he soon charmed the guards as he did everyone else. They even brought him special meals on the holidays. He was doing fine. Meanwhile, I was an absolute wreck at home. I was thrilled when he was released early in March for good behavior, and so was everybody else. If I thought I’d seen a party before, that was nothing compared to this.

Friends and lawyers insisted on throwing a huge, black-tie, invitation-only homecoming party at a restaurant the week Joe got released. I was ambivalent. I was simply relieved to have him back home to help me. I certainly didn’t need a party. My friends, however, made all the arrangements. They wanted some sort of official celebration, so I allowed them to talk me into it. One friend sent out invitations, another booked limousines, and a good friend of the family offered to host the party at his popular local restaurant Testarossa. The press turned out to cover his homecoming, the neighbors arrived in full force to show their support, and the night was one long, joyful gala. Jessica refused to leave her father’s side all night. In every single picture of Joe taken that night, our ten-year-old daughter was right there next to him, glued to his side, almost as if she was afraid to let him out of her sight.

At the time, I believed that nothing worse than what I’d already endured could ever conceivably happen. Amy was safely locked up in prison, and while Joe had foolishly talked himself into jail, he was safe, out, and back home with us. Spring had finally arrived after the worst winter I could ever remember. We were going to put all this behind us once and for all now. I was sure of it.

CHAPTER 7
GOOD-BYE L.I.,
HELLO L.A.

T
here was only one thing I wanted out of life: a return to a normal existence. I had been fighting to recover from my devastating injury with everything I had for two years. I was determined to be present for my kids, which sustained me through three separate operations. The first, which I jokingly referred to as my half-assed facelift, corrected the drooping skin hanging from the paralyzed side of my face. It definitely improved my appearance, but my face was still lopsided and would remain so forever. Much worse than how I looked were the ongoing inner ear infections. My injured ear canal continually oozed and dripped. When an infection was really raging, the pain became nearly unbearable. Doctors did their best to fix the damage deep inside my skull in two separate operations, but after the second operation, we all conceded that I would have to simply learn to live with recurring ear problems.

Sheer anger and determination had kept me going through the longest, darkest winter of my life. I’d enjoyed six charmed years in my beautiful home, and I meant to get back to that life, whatever it took. My ever-present rage—at Amy, the authorities who should have looked out for me as a crime victim, the loss of my anonymity, the irreparable damage done to my family—was now tempered by a feeling of overwhelming gratitude that the nightmare I’d been living might actually be over.

Joe and I made several trips to Los Angeles over the next year. Los Angeles was a place I enjoyed visiting. These trips meant a stay in a lovely hotel, sightseeing, and a quick appearance by Joe on a talk show. Amazingly enough, the media still wanted to rehash the story, and now Joe had a new angle: how he’d made a deal and served time in jail to ease the pain and suffering of his family and put an end to the nightmare. He, too, was a victim of Amy Fisher. Some of these appearances were paid, but this was Joe’s favorite topic—he was happy to expound on it for free. I looked at these jaunts as mini-vacations, though I would have preferred to never speak of any of these events ever again. But Joe continued to fan the flames. Without his constant presence on TV, the whole sordid story would have eventually died a natural death. Sure, it would have always been an interesting bit of news, a point of interest, but nothing like it was. But despite a term in jail, Joe refused to let it go!

A female talent agent approached Joe and told him, “I think we can parlay your name recognition into an entertainment career.” This woman, Sherri Spillane, was very credible. She and her partner Ruth Webb handled many of the old Hollywood stars like Mickey Rooney, and I liked her very much. She and her partner were just entering the reality field, a very novel idea back then. We were real, all right.

I was the wet blanket, as usual. I thought the whole idea was stupid. Once again, I felt lost in the shuffle. I had almost been murdered. Was that something to base an entertainment career on? I kept waiting and hoping for the day that Joey would say something like, “Are you crazy? My wife was almost killed in cold blood in front of her own house. I would never capitalize on that or try to parlay it into anything!” I waited in vain because he never said anything of the kind. The spotlight was just too intoxicating. He loved the idea of having an agent. “They’re doing this to us, Mary Jo,” was again his reasoning. “We haven’t caused this, but it all happened. We can’t change any of it, so we might as well make money from it!” I didn’t agree, but if it meant a few trips to the West Coast each year, then fine.

I had recovered enough to go about my regular life again— errands, carpooling, housework—and Joe was back at work, where life had finally returned to business as usual. Oh, Complete Auto Body got the occasional prank call or curious tourist, but for the most part they were going about the business of auto body repair again in blissful anonymity. Joey and I were in great shape financially—we’d received settlements from both Amy Fisher’s and Peter Guagenti’s parents’ homeowners’ policies, plus the Hollywood TV movie money.

Three years after the shooting, the window to a regular, normal life had cracked open. I had the feeling, not that I dared to put it into words, but for the first time I felt deep inside,
Maybe we are going to make it. Everything’s finally going to be all right.
The only cloud on the horizon was the health of my father-in-law. Cass, a nonsmoker all his life, was diagnosed with lung cancer. His doctors theorized that it was caused by working around asbestos on submarines during his service in World War II. Mesothelioma was a terrible disease, and it quickly weakened my vital, powerful father-in-law into a shadow of his former self. That, and the regular visits from Joe’s parole officer, who interviewed me periodically at our house, still fueled my rage. I was still very angry at the system. I hated being forced to answer their standard questions about whether or not Joe was doing drugs, hitting me, had a job—more unnecessary harassment, as far as I was concerned.

Cass’s doctors did their best to alleviate his pain, and he went through a number of unofficial drug trials as they searched for the right combination. Industrial-size pill bottles were all over his bedroom, including a container that held 120 Percocet. Cass took two, but they didn’t agree with him at all, and the doctors moved on to other drugs. I, meanwhile, kept a covetous eye on that huge bottle of pills. I had my own standing prescription for Percocet, but my doctors were giving me an increasingly hard time about my frequent refills. They kept telling me I was taking too much; I kept telling them I was in pain. When several days passed and no one touched Cass’s discarded bottle, I scooped it into my purse one afternoon. I should have been ashamed to steal medicine from my terminally ill father-in-law, whether or not he intended to take it, but I was elated at the prospect of 118 extra pills I wouldn’t have to fight to get.

In May 1995, Joey flew out to L.A. for an art show. Usually, I accompanied him on these trips. This time, however, I wanted to attend end-of-the-school-year meetings for the kids and a friend’s birthday lunch, so Joey went by himself. He was the L.A. attraction, anyway—not me. The night after he left, I was jolted out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night by a phone call from our new attorney, Dominic Barbara.

“Joey’s been arrested in Hollywood,” he said.

“What? For what . . . what are you talking about?” I said, still half-asleep.

“For soliciting a hooker,” Dominic said. He assured me that he was taking care of the matter. He would handle the legalities over the phone with Joe’s court-appointed lawyer first thing the next morning. He had called in the middle of the night to warn me because the arrest would hit the newswire any minute. And make no mistake about it, this would be big news.

Right there, at that moment, in my dark bedroom in the middle of the night, sitting all alone listening to the voice on the other end of the phone line, something inside of me died: a vital force that hadn’t been destroyed by the shooting, the trials, or by Joe going to jail. I had stayed strong throughout all that, my inner core fired by anger more than anything—it had been a great motivator. This was different. I wilted like a broken flower. I literally fell out of bed onto the floor and curled up into a ball.

Joey had served time for statutory rape. He swore up and down that he didn’t do it, and we all believed him. But to now get arrested for soliciting a hooker? It just had to be something sex-related, didn’t it? I saw myself sliding right back down into a cesspool after three years of everybody standing by my husband, trusting in his word and innocence, really believing he took that plea not because he’d done anything wrong, but because he was so railroaded that there was no other choice. This was how my family, our friends, all the wonderful people who’d stood by us would be paid back for our love and loyalty?

I couldn’t contain my anger and disappointment when Joey was eventually allowed to make a call home. What a surprise:
it wasn’t his fault
. He had a reasonable explanation and plenty of excuses, as usual. He had just been sitting in his car in a parking lot outside a convenience store in Hollywood, minding his own business, according to him. “I’m getting on a plane right now. I’ll be home tonight and explain everything . . . but I didn’t do anything!”

I slammed the phone down. It immediately rang again.

It was Howard Stern, live and on the air at 6:00 AM, already on top of the latest Buttafuoco scandal. He sure caught me at the wrong moment—I didn’t hold back. “That asshole! I can’t believe he did this!” I screamed to America over the airwaves. His whole crew was laughing, joking, egging me on. It was great entertainment for them and their audience, I’m sure. Fortunately, Paul and Jessie slept through the call and my tirade. When I hung up the phone, it hit me. I’ve got to call my parents and tell them. And Joe’s family—and his father is dying!

Of course, I still had to get the kids up and out the door to school and pretend everything was all right, that it was just another day, which I managed somehow. The three of us got ready for school, ate breakfast, and started the day. I didn’t say a word about the phone call, or that their father had been busted again, or anything else. Once they were safely on their way, I called a close friend, broke the news, and arranged for her to keep the kids overnight. Then I fell apart.

By the time Joe came home that night, the press was back in full force—camped out in the yard and in the street, with lights, cameras, and news crews. It was déjà vu in the worst way. I had never spoken to Joe like I did that night—because the kids were at my friend’s house. My words were bitter and terrible, and my behavior nothing I’m proud of. I called him every name in the book. It was no way for husbands or wives to ever speak to each other, but I had been driven beyond my level of tolerance. We had descended into madness.

His story was that a hooker had been leaning up against the outside wall of a convenience store where he had stopped. “Some woman came up to the car, and I rolled down the window. She asked me if I wanted company. I was just joking around and said, ‘You look like you’re worth about thirty dollars!’ We laughed, I drove away, and next thing I know a bunch of police cars surround me and arrest me for soliciting! She was an undercover cop! I didn’t do anything; I didn’t even leave the car!”

“Why did you roll down that window? Why say anything at all? Why can’t you ever shut the fuck up?! When are you going to understand that we are not normal people anymore? That we’re targets?” But I was wasting my breath.

At one point that night, I could not endure it any longer. I stood up right in the middle of something Joey was saying, left him and a couple of family members sitting in the living room, climbed the stairs, entered my bathroom, and looked at all the pills in my medicine cabinet. There were plenty of them. I held all the bottles in my hand and seriously contemplated swallowing every last pill in every last container. I literally did not want to be in this nightmare anymore. I knew I couldn’t live through it again. There is no doubt I would have checked out then and there—I truly wanted to die—but I couldn’t leave my children alone during this mess. So I swallowed a double dose of Xanax, crawled into my bed, and pulled the covers over my head.