American on Purpose Read online

  “I love you, but I won’t watch you kill yourself. I have to leave you.”

  I totally understood. I would have left me if I could.

  After she had gone, I went for a walk on the lonely Walberswick marshes outside the village. Out there I did something I hadn’t done since I was a farty wee schoolboy in the miserable damp town church. I prayed. I asked the God I still don’t really understand and have trouble believing in to help me—either to kill me or change me.

  I had become something I despised, and I couldn’t break free of whatever spell had been cast. I was an inmate in a prison of my own construction. I told Him I was willing to go to any length to get out.

  I don’t know if my prayers were answered, I’m not an Evangelical, or even a very religious person.

  But things sure started moving quickly after that.

  27

  The End of Daze

  After a few days alone curled inside a whiskey bottle in the big empty country house, it occurred to me that as I was no longer with Helen I could return to America. Helen would never have left Britain—she loved it there—and I had wanted to be wherever she was, but all of that was over now.

  It was time for the States. A fresh start.

  Unfortunately, I was flat broke and couldn’t conceivably make the trip without at least some money. Borrowing it from the bank was not an option—I’d already had the last of my credit cards cut up in front of me by an embarrassed liquor-store clerk who had called Amex to see why I’d been declined.

  I got a few gigs and made some money, but I couldn’t hang on to it, because with Helen gone, the brakes were off and I was getting fucked up all the time, which wasn’t cheap.

  Finally I caught a break when the BBC cast me in a movie to be filmed in Glasgow called The Bogie Man. It starred Robbie Coltrane (he plays Hagrid in the Harry Potter movies) as a nutter convinced he is Humphrey Bogart who winds up solving a real murder. The stunning English actress Fiona Fullerton, already internationally famous for playing a Bond girl in A View to a Kill—she takes a Jacuzzi with Roger Moore and is murdered while wearing a sexy scuba outfit—was cast as an investigative journalist who has an affair with my character, a detective. I didn’t know why they cast me, unless it was because all Glasgow cops are senseless drunks. Actually, now that I think about it I know exactly why they cast me.

  After the first day of rehearsal, Fiona and I went out for dinner, got drunk, and ended up in bed together, beginning an affair that became a fascination for the British tabloid press. No one could understand what this beautiful famous English rose was doing with the little-known, overweight, drunken vaudevillian. I didn’t really understand it, either. Fiona is a kind, intelligent woman who really should have known better. I suppose she fell for whatever baloney I was spouting then and, like many women who found themselves with men like I was at the time, she hoped that she could change me, that whatever good she saw in me could be nurtured with affection, sex, and home cooking. But I was too far gone for that. I was well out to sea.

  After the film wrapped I returned to London, essentially homeless. I still had the little place in Dunwich but could never bear to go there, it was a mausoleum for an old dream. The money I made on the movie was spent before I earned it.

  I stayed with Fiona a lot of the time in her Chelsea flat, and when I was too full of the wildness I’d lie on the floor of someone’s house or spend the night in one of the rooms available for rent above the Groucho Club.

  At Christmas, Fiona asked me to her parents’ place in the country but I declined, saying that I really should get to Scotland and see my own family. That’s what I meant to do, but first I went for a wee drink.

  During my year of performing in The Rocky Horror Show I had naturally become friendly with the staff of the Grouch Club, the bar right next to the theater. I would get our half-hour calls there and would dash in for a quick refresher during intermission, after throwing a large overcoat over my costume.

  The landlord, Tommy, was an Irish fella and a terrific storyteller. We would often jaw for hours after closing time. Tommy had since changed pubs and was now running the White Horse, in London’s Soho, and I thought I’d go see him in his new place and have a pint before heading home on the last flight to Glasgow on Christmas Eve. I needed a drink to get on the plane—I had developed a terrible fear of flying, which I tried to combat with alcohol. It didn’t work, it would only render me both drunk and terrified.

  I got to the bar around four p.m. and shared a pint with Tommy, and another with an actor I knew, and one thing led to another blah blah and I woke up on a mattress in the storage room above the bar at seven the following morning covered in vomit and pee. I hoped at least it was my own vomit and pee.

  I felt worse than I ever had. Worse than when I first blacked out on the sickly sweet Eldorado. Worse than when I felt the first stab of chronic alcoholism and panic in Mrs. Henderson’s car. Worse than when I fled the ferocious and partially imaginary killer ducks of Kelvingrove Park. Worse than I hope I will ever feel again.

  Worse than when Helen left.

  But there were no tears this time. I was done with that.

  I was a drunk, a loser, and a disaster of a human being. I was almost thirty, divorced, and broke. I’d lost the only woman I ever loved, and I couldn’t even make it to Scotland to be with my parents at Christmas.

  The shame was immense. It pushed down on me like a terrible weight. And the pressure of that weight began to forge an idea as hard and as clear as any diamond.

  It was time for me to die.

  There would be no grandstanding; this was a rational, sensible thought, not a cry for help. I was checking out, and that would be the end of it. Goodbye, cruel world, and fuck you. The suicide idea felt good. It felt great. I meant it; this time I would not mess up.

  I felt sober and encouraged. I knew what I would do: walk down to Tower Bridge and swan-dive into the dark and murky Thames. The river would take me out to sea with all the other garbage that London had produced. And that would show them. Even though I had no idea who they were.

  With the decision made, I got up and shook off my dizziness. At the little sink in the storeroom I washed off my face and clothes as best I could, trying to make myself presentable for the Reaper, and headed downstairs. I could escape it all without ever having to face Tommy or any of his family, who lived in the same building.

  Except I hadn’t figured on one thing. Tommy loved to drink nearly as much as I did, and, after all, it was Christmas.

  Tommy had actually slept in the bar. He was already awake and messing about with bottles and crates when I was trying to exit the building, and my life.

  “Mornin’,” he croaked.

  Clearly I wasn’t the only one who was suffering.

  “Aye, Tommy,” I said. “Sorry about last night.”

  “Hey, I don’t remember anything after about ten. You’re good with me.”

  He really was a decent sort.

  “I’m away, then. See you soon,” I told him, heading for the door.

  “Where you goin’?” he said.

  I didn’t want to tell him about my suicide plan. It was private. Plus, I knew that if I mentioned it to anyone the spell would be broken, and I didn’t want that. I wanted to die. So I said, “I’m going to Scotland.”

  “How?” he asked. “All the planes and trains and buses are stopped for Christmas, and I know for sure your car will be at the feckin’ mechanic’s again.”

  He was right, of course.

  “I’ll figure something out.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said, “but surely you’ll have a glass of sherry for Our Savior’s birthday.”

  I turned and saw that he had poured us both glasses of sherry and was holding them out. Not little glasses, either. These were half-pints.

  I didn’t want to be rude; Tommy was a nice guy. Anyway, I could have a sherry and still be dead by nine o’clock.

  I walked back to the bar and he handed me a gl
ass. I raised it, clinking mine against his.

  “The Baby Jesus!” I said.

  “The Infant Christ!” he said.

  And we both took long draughts.

  God help me but I can still taste how wondrous that sherry felt going down. Bitter and sweet and harsh and smooth all at the same time. The heavenly tonic soothed the palpitations of my erratic and troubled heart and restored my breath from shallow panic to even calm, as though the Lord himself had taken his cool hand to my furrowed brow. As the warmth spread through me as if from a thousand loving suns, I completely forgot about killing myself.

  And I don’t even like sherry.

  Like many before me, I found salvation in liquor and Jesus.

  People who have never gotten drunk in the morning have no idea just how therapeutic it can be for alcoholics.

  In fact, it saved my life.

  28

  Rehab

  Throughout all of my drinking and all of my failures, all the disappointing performances and no-shows, Jimmy Mulville had always thrown me little pieces of work. As he became something of a force as a producer, he’d get me a part in a sitcom here or a stand-up appearance there, although we no longer socialized. I never saw him out and about and had heard dark rumors swirling that he’d been in rehab.

  In 1991, Jimmy threw me another bone and gave me a spot on his highly successful Saturday-night panel show Have I Got News for You. I repaid him by being terrible. The show was basically a few smug guys cracking wise about that week’s news stories, and I was too uncomfortable to speak. Afterward, I saw Jimmy in the green room. He seemed all shiny and religious or something, so I knew the rumors must be true, although I didn’t dare ask. He saved me the trouble and told me. He said he’d gone to some place in the country and sobered up, and, inexplicably, I felt sorry for him. I got the hell away from him as soon as I could because he scared me.

  Meanwhile, I kept getting worse. On New Year’s Eve 1991, Fiona and I joined the other drunken revelers in Parliament Square in London to watch the hands of Big Ben chime at midnight. As the crowd counted down the last few seconds of the year, I felt a wind spring up and I turned to Fiona.

  “Can you feel it?” I asked.

  “What?” she said.

  “I don’t know.” But I think I did. I knew that I had been partially right in the storeroom above the bar on Christmas Day.

  Whoever I had become had to die.

  I drank until February. Then I called Jimmy from another room above another pub.

  “I give up,” I said. “I can’t drink and I can’t not drink. I’m too sick to live and too chickenshit to die.”

  “Oh that’s great, Craig,” he said with genuine warmth, which made me even more uncomfortable. Jimmy doesn’t normally do warmth; he does sarcastic, glib, or cranky. Sometimes, impressively, he does all three at the same time.

  “I’ve been waiting for this call,” he said, which didn’t make me feel any better, either, but he calmed me down and just, well, took over and rescued me as if I’d been drowning and he’d pulled me ashore. He flat out saved my life. He hates it when I say this, and reading about it will make him squirm, but I don’t care. I know it’s true, and so does he.

  Jimmy used his new influence in the alcoholic rehab world and finagled me a bed in Farm Place, one of the finest rehab centers for addiction in the U.K., if not the world. It was terribly expensive and I couldn’t afford it, as my personal debt, including the money I owed on the house in Dunwich, approached a quarter of a million dollars and I had no health insurance, but Farm Place took me on credit, something they rarely do. Apparently Jimmy put in a word and told them that if I made it, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself without paying them back. That I’d sooner die than owe anyone money for helping me.

  Apparently Jimmy knew more about me at that point than I knew about myself.

  On the bleak and bland daybreak of February 18th, 1992, I had a glass of warm white wine poured by my younger sister, Lynn, who had since moved to London and lived near the flat I’d once shared with Helen. The wine was to steady my nerves before I went for the cure. At nine a.m., Jimmy picked me up in his big, warm, expensive car.

  And that is how my drinking ended. A tepid liebfraumilch on a Tuesday morning.

  Farm Place is in Surrey, about an hour outside London. On the way there I told Jimmy that not only was I going to stop drinking and get myself right, I was going to quit smoking and lose weight, too.

  He pulled into a gas station and bought me a carton of Marlboro lights and some candy.

  “In case you change your mind,” he said as he tossed them to me.

  Farm Place is a gorgeous old English country house, all wooden beams and brick and slate and ivy, reached by a long winding tree-lined drive that runs from the gates to the front door. When Jimmy stopped the car there, a portly, cheerful-looking middle-aged woman stood waiting. She had gray hair and kind eyes and was wearing a plaid dress.

  “You must be Craig,” she said as I got out of the car. “Welcome to Farm Place. I’m Kirsty.”

  I felt a lump in my throat like I was five years old and in Mrs. Sherman’s office. I wanted to run, just take off across the green fields and never stop.

  Jimmy saw the terror on my face.

  “Don’t worry, buddy,” he said. “The war’s over.”

  I nodded.

  “And you lost,” he added reassuringly.

  He smiled and got back in his car and drove off, waving through the sunroof.

  Kirsty checked me in. She got me to fill in the requisite forms, and explained the medical and blood tests they would do once the doctor arrived. Then she showed me around the old building. It looked more like a country hotel than a mental hospital, and I suppose it was a combination of the two.

  Kirsty told me that there were both male and female patients here who were treated for all forms of addiction; alcohol, drugs, sex, food, gambling, whatever. Meals were served at set times every day and no one could skip them. (I think this was more for the benefit of the anorexics than for the alkies, since we very rarely skip a meal). Therapy sessions were held every weekday, group and individual two-hour sessions in the morning and another in the afternoon. I would be assigned a counselor later. No visitors or phone calls in or out were allowed for the first ten days. All patients slept on the premises and had at least one roommate. Absolutely NO fraternizing with (as in fucking) the other patients. And no drugs, ever.

  Patients were expected to help with maintenance chores, and anyone the counselors believed was adversely affecting the health or treatment of other patients or disrespected the staff could and probably would be asked to leave.

  I told her I understood, and then she introduced me to a nurse named Rachel. She was another kind-looking middle-aged lady, with brown eyes and brown hair and pale skin. She had the air of a supportive Labrador, benign and solid.

  Rachel ushered me into her office and took some blood. She also checked my blood pressure and pulse and poked around at my liver and lymph nodes.

  “Seen worse,” she said, softly.

  “You’re overweight but you are malnourished. Your blood pressure is high and your liver is enlarged. Your pulse is racing a little, but everybody is like that when they get here. When did you have your last drink?”

  I told her about my glass of wine with my sister and she nodded. She asked about my drinking for the previous few weeks.

  “Yeah, you’re the real deal,” she said after I told her. “Take these.”

  She handed me a few pills in a little plastic container.

  “What are they?” I asked.

  “One is an anticonvulsant. Guys who drink as much as you did will often go into fits when they stop abruptly. The other is hemineverin. It’s a mild tranc, it’ll stop you going into delirium tremens. You had them yet?”

  I had lived in fear of the fabled terrifying visions that assail chronic drinkers, but which had not yet attacked me. I told her that, too.

  “L
ucky. Days away, I’d say. That’s how a lot of alkies die. Heart failure during the DTs. Hallucinations just scare the poor bastards to death.”

  I told her that I didn’t want to take any drugs. That I had come here not to take drugs.

  “Listen,” she said, not unkindly, “up until now I would say that ninety-nine percent of all the narcotics you have taken in your life you bought from guys you didn’t know, in bathrooms or on street corners, something like that. Correct?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, these guys could have been selling you salt or strychnine. They didn’t care. They wanted your money. I don’t care about your money, and, unlike your previous suppliers, I went to college to study just the right drugs to give to people like you in order to help you get better. So, bearing all that in mind…take the fucking drugs!”

  I took the drugs.

  A little later, I sat alone in the TV room, waiting for the other patients to come out of therapy. My nose was itching terribly from the hemineverin. I turned on the TV but kept the sound very low, not wanting to cause trouble. There was a commercial for Gillette razors on the screen; lots of square-jawed guys playing sports and hugging their dads or kids or wives, all of them with the healthy sheen and perfect teeth I identified with Americans. The advertising jingle trilled enthusiastically:

  “Gillette—the best a man can get.”

  I stared at the screen. What had happened to me? I was meant to be one of those guys, vigorous and athletic and successful and, most of all, American. I was going to walk on the moon, be a movie star or a rock god or a comedian. I was going to have an amazing life and kids with Helen and die like Chaplin a thousand years from now in my Beverly Hills mansion surrounded by my adoring family, with the grieving world media standing by. Instead, I was just another show-business mediocrity. A drunk who shat his pants and ran for help.