Secrets Of A Gay Marine Porn Star (51 page)

He stared at the ocean, and the fog bank that was slowly rolling back toward the shore. “I guess I don’t,” he said softly. “Maybe you’re right.”

You’d think by now I would have learned a lesson or two but guess what? I decided to go to the White Party in Palm Springs the next day anyway. The Sunday tea dance. Nothing was going to stop me. I had gotten more Ecstasy. A friend and I headed out like Thelma and Louise across the desert.

We didn’t even get out of Laguna before the battery died in my car.
God is telling us to stay in Laguna.
We didn’t care. We went back and got my friend’s car and headed across the desert once again. Well, because I had taken the Ecstasy on Thursday, I had used my brain’s supply of serotonin and it just wasn’t working today. I couldn’t get high enough. I had been so looking forward to being back in the scene, back in the action, back at the party. I wanted to show everyone that I was
back! Better than ever!

But none of my friends wanted to see me there. Some of them had visited me in the hospital after my suicide attempt and now they were in shock and disbelief to see me at something like this, doing drugs, knowing better than I the effect it would have on me. They were, like, “Rich, what are you doing here?”

That made me angry. “YOU’RE HERE!
I
have every right to be here! You’re high. You can use drugs! Who the fuck are you to tell me not to be here?”

I asked a friend for a hit of Ketamine. He looked at me and said no. That brought me crashing down. I was in a cold fury. After the tea dance, I went to the late party. I looked across the room and I saw Brandon with some guy, deep-kissing on the dance floor. Of course, I grabbed the nearest guy who had been paying attention to me and I spent the next four hours making out with him. Seeing Brandon had been painful and I didn’t want to feel any pain. My drugs weren’t working well enough to stop the pain, so I figured I’d use the next best thing…sex.

But I was spent. The party hadn’t even ended and I felt over it and left. I said good night to the guy I had been dancing with and I went back to the hotel room. My friend was there and I suggested we go back to Laguna. It was about five in the morning.

I had hit bottom and I knew it. When I got out of the mental hospital, I attributed that to clinical depression and felt that, someday soon, I would get better and I could return to my life of fun—which in my mind included drinking and parties. What this weekend had finally shown me was that the drugs and the parties and getting drunk might be fine for some people, but not for me. Drinking and drugging for me meant doing it to excess and doing it to excess was only going to lead me to kill myself. I had to find a better way to live.

What was exciting about this moment that had been missing before, though, was that, somewhere inside me, despite the pain of knowing how badly I had fucked up this weekend, was the will. I could really feel it now. The will to live, no matter what it took. Not to prove anything to anyone, not out of spite to the fundamentalists at Bob Jones, not to spare my parents from pain.

I had the will to live, simply because I wanted to. True free will—my choice.

“M
y name is Mary, and I am an alcoholic.”

What the fuck am I doing here?
I thought.
This room is full of losers who can’t fix their own problems.

Didn’t your own best reasoning land you in the mental hospital?

Don’t look for differences between them and you; look for similarities.

I heard the voices of wise people I’d spoken to that week. Looking around the room, about all I could tell that seemed similar was that we were all gay or lesbian or something. It wasn’t a very pretty crowd. Not like the hunks at the circuit parties and the clubs and Hollywood Spa who made looking good into an art and a science.

That’s not what I’m here for
, I reminded myself.
I’m through with that chase for validation that I and so many gay men fall into. At least I hope I am.

A big difference I noticed between me and the people in the crowded room around me was that they all—or most of them—seemed genuinely happy. It was almost eight thirty on a Friday night and this was their happy hour, albeit a sober happy hour. But I wasn’t happy, I didn’t know anyone, and I wasn’t about to call myself an alcoholic or a drug addict. I’d much rather be at home, going through my usual Friday night ritual of watching back-to-back
Sex and the City
reruns on HBO.

The leader of the group, Mary, asked if there was anyone in the room with under thirty days of sobriety. A few hands went up on the other side of the room. Then she asked them to introduce themselves.

Hell, no!

The other newcomers introduced themselves. Without looking at my side of the room, Mary returned to her script.

“Wait a minute,” someone near me shouted. “I’m in my first thirty days.” A cute youngish-looking guy sitting near me, in an apparent fit of conscience, introduced himself. Everyone in the room clapped and cheered.

“Any second thoughts on introducing yourself, if you are in your first thirty days of sobriety…
consecutive
days that is.” Everyone laughed at her joke.

I could have sworn Mary was looking right at me. And she kept looking at me and waiting.
How the fuck did she know?
Of course she knows, I thought, I’m a stranger in a room full of friends and I look scared as hell.

“My name’s Rich and I’m an alcoholic.” I couldn’t quite bring myself to say “drug addict” as well, because I still wasn’t convinced of that.
Baby steps, Rich.

“Hi, Rich!” everyone said in unison as they clapped.

I wish I could say that I felt a hundred pounds lighter, but I can’t. I was uncomfortable and angry with myself for being here, or rather, for
having
to be here. Also, the people in the room were having a very good time, joking, talking, cutting up, and it wasn’t very serious at all, not like I’d expected. I didn’t fit in.

Suddenly, I noticed a drop of water fall from the ceiling. The meeting was held in the basement of a hospital. I looked up to see a leak forming overhead. The water starting dripping faster and faster and splashing up on me. I slid over a seat, but the drops turned into a virtual waterfall.

“Maybe it’s vodka!” screamed a queen sitting against the wall behind me, laughing at his own inappropriate humor. Several people jumped out of the way and the meeting broke down into a rambunctious mob.

“Let’s go on a fifteen-minute break, and somebody go call maintenance!” Mary shouted above the roar. Her announcement was unnecessary, however, as men and women were already headed for the door, some of them with their cigarettes and lighters, ready to go.

Fuck this
, I thought. I’d find a way to stay sober on my own. I didn’t need the stress of a crowd added to the pressures in my life. I looked at my watch. Nine fifteen. I’d already missed half of the first
Sex and the City
episode but, if I hurried home, I could still catch the second one at nine thirty.

I started to leave the room. Before I could get to the end of my row, a guy who had introduced himself to me just before the meeting said, “Hey Rich, there’s a meeting Monday night in this very same room at eight o’clock.” Without looking back, I nodded and darted out of the room, raced up the sidewalk, and hopped into the comfortable anonymity of my car.

Pacific Coast Highway was not very crowded and I made it to my apartment with time to spare. I popped some popcorn, put on some comfortable shorts, grabbed a blanket, and turned on the television just in time to hear the familiar theme music announcing that I had successfully made it just in time to catch my favorite television show in its entirety, at least the second episode.

There she was, my small-screen counterpart. Everyone said I was just like Carrie Bradshaw. Except she got to smoke. Hmmm, maybe I could take that up again. I had quit smoking years earlier, well, mostly, only because of Brandon, but hey, now that he was out of the picture…
Ouch
, a guy standing on the sidewalk threw a cigarette that hit Carrie! She recoils from the pain. He talks to her.

Wait a goddamned minute!
I thought.
I know this episode.

This was the episode where Carrie dates a guy who is recovering from alcohol abuse. I just laughed at the “coincidence,” looked up at the ceiling, and said, “Okay, God, I get your fucking point. I’ll
go
to the Monday night meeting, okay?”

Besides reaching out to others for help staying clean and sober, I decided to fill my time with social activities. Back in high school I had been in band, chorus, orchestra, men’s quartet, and a small vocal ensemble. I had taken piano lessons, had played the piano in church and, after I left Bob Jones University, I found I could make good money playing pop music in bars and at special events for people. Music had been a major part of my life and over the last ten years I had let that part of my soul dwindle.

Derrick was general counsel to the Orange County Gay Men’s Chorus that had just been founded a couple of years before. I joined as a second tenor and attended rehearsals in preparation for the summer concert. Like the people at the meeting, the men in the chorus were very different from the hot-bodied men I had partied with just a couple of years before. With the circuit boys, it was all about looking good and feeling good, but for me, that had become as much of an addiction as the chemicals I had been using. “Wearying and empty” was how I had disparagingly described it all to the
New York Times Magazine.
My judgment had turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy for me.

Immediately I felt relaxed around these guys. Many of them had similar backgrounds to my own. The director, accompanist, and financial director had all been “excommunicated” from fundamentalist churches. Rather than wallow in hopeless feelings of victimhood as I had done for too many years, they banded together and put their remarkable talents to work for good. In the most conservative Republican county in the United States, these men created a large and vibrant singing group made entirely of openly gay men.

I had a one-line solo and I was one of a few dancers to Madonna’s “Vogue.” It was definitely the gayest thing I’d ever done…with my clothes on. The last number was “It’s Raining Men” and six of us came out at the end under umbrellas wearing nothing but board shorts. Here I was, parading my body in front of a thousand people. But it was fun, and it felt so good to be having wholesome fun again!

Dante and his partner Jock sat in the front row. Afterward they approached me. Dante gave me a big hug and squeezed my biceps. “See? What’d I tell ya? It’s nice to have the old Rich back…not the fat Rich like you were last summer.”

Jock smirked at his husband of thirty-plus years. “Don’t listen to him. You do look great.”

In addition to the chorus, I started attending charitable events again, like the AIDS Walk and the fund raisers for the Service-members Legal Defense Network. I drove to San Diego to an event at a private home hosted by a major donor to the organization. It was good to see everyone again after being out of it for so long. These were good people, doing a wonderful thing for gays and lesbians…and everyone else in uniform. It was obvious to me now that it had been my wounded pride and huge ego that had made me feel abandoned by them when
The Advocate
article came out.

A guy I had been chatting with pointed to an elderly gentleman nearby. “Well. There’s Rick Ford…also known as Dirk Yates. Ever hear of him?”

“Who hasn’t?” I asked. I spun around. There he was, the man who had hired me to do porn eight years earlier. He looked the same.
Well, at least some of the money he’s made off my ass has gone to a worthy cause.
That was little consolation.

I spent the weekend in San Diego. Old friends introduced me to new friends.
I really do love this town
, I thought.
The only reason I didn’t move here after law school was because Brandon couldn’t get a job here. Maybe someday I’ll be able to live here.
I started visiting my new friends in San Diego almost every weekend.

I’d been in Laguna for seven months and, except for the trial, it had been mostly a time of peace. But six weeks after the trial ended, everything else did, too.

Derrick called Manuel and me in to the little conference room that doubled as his office.

“I’ve got some bad news,” he said. “We’re just not making it.”

It took a second or two for this to sink in.
Not making it
.
What does he mean?

“I’ve tried everything I can think of, even merging with a larger firm. But nothing’s worked out; I just can’t keep it going like it is now.”

Oh my God!
I thought,
I’m being fired!

“I could go a couple of months without pay,” I said, frantically trying to deny the news I was hearing. I was full of shit, too. I was living paycheck to paycheck right now.

Derrick shook his head. “No, I’d hate to have you hang on a couple more months and then not be able to pay you back. I just don’t see where the money’s going to come from right now.”

This should not have been a surprise. It really wasn’t. I had suspected it ever since the verdict in our trial but, just like most unpleasant things in my past, I was the supreme master of denying what I didn’t want to admit. Now denial was no longer an option.

“Rich, I feel so bad about luring you away from your firm in LA, considering what you were making up there.”

“Derrick, no, no,” I said, hoping to make him feel better. I knew this was as hard for Derrick as it was for Manuel and me. “I would never have left there except to come work here and getting me out of that place was the best thing anyone ever did for me. So don’t worry about that at all. I’ll be all right.”

I left the office feeling scared and angry. Oddly, I didn’t feel depressed. I put on my running shorts and shoes and drove to the Top of the World park overlooking all of Laguna. Before my run along the scenic ridge line, I sat in a secluded spot with a 360-degree view of mountains, city and coastline and cried. I cried and I just started talking to God, as I had not talked to her in years. Actually, at this moment, I wasn’t thinking of God as a man or a woman, but as the invisible source of the warm breeze that was bringing me so much comfort despite my fear.

“I got sober!” I said aloud, “And this is what happens?”

Aren’t you glad you’re sober?
said the wind.
Think how much more difficult it would be to find a new job if you were still partying. How easy it would be to fall into that abyss again.

“Good point,” I replied. “Thank you.”

I wiped my face and meditated for a few minutes, clearing my mind of any thought at all. A calmness washed over my soul and I knew the promise I had to make. I hadn’t been sober long enough to know a lot of the jargon yet, but I knew what I felt in my heart.

All I can do is the make the best choices.
Period. I knew there would be times that I would fail, but now I knew what my focus would be through the difficult days that lay just ahead of me. With a new surge of hope racing through me, I stood up and started off on my five-mile run.

“You’re moving to San Diego?” asked Brandon. “Where will you work?”

“I don’t know,” I replied into my cell phone. I was pissed that Brandon didn’t instantly share my enthusiasm. Halfway through my run, the realization of what I should do almost knocked me off the mountain.
I’ll move to San Diego!
I practically screamed it from the Top of the World.

Now Brandon was really pissing on my parade. “What if you can’t find a job?”

Motherfuck! He was always so…practical
.

As soon as I had moved out, Brandon and I had been successful in establishing a meaningful and close friendship. I couldn’t imagine not being friends with him. He knew me too well and we had shared too much. But now we were falling right back into our old roles. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and just had faith that the plan would follow. Brandon, on the other hand, ever the scientist, didn’t take a step without a well-thought-out blueprint.

“I’ll find a job,” I practically shouted into the phone. “I think the important thing is that I finally move to the city I’ve always wanted to live in, where I know I’ll be happy, and find a job once I get there.” It made perfect sense to me. I was already packing boxes.

“Well, what’s wrong with Laguna?”

Why did he have to be so difficult?
“Noth…nothing’s wrong with Laguna, Brandon, it’s just…it’s just…”

“Well?”

“It’s not San Diego!”

“Three years of law school…and that’s the best argument you can make?”

“Okay, Laguna’s, well, it’s kind of slow. And there aren’t any jobs here, and it’s expensive. How about those arguments?”

We were both laughing at this point, having realized how easily we had slipped into our old roles. And we also knew it didn’t matter. I was going to do what I wanted, and would find a way to make it happen. I had always been envious of how much Brandon had it all together. But now I liked my own brand of spontaneity…and faith.