Unsafe

When the Fame started to fade, I felt physically unsafe. Sounds weird, I know. I didn’t feel physically unsafe when I was too famous, when everyone recognized me, but I did later, when only half of them did. Fear of my physical safety. Weird, yeah. No one was threatening me. Had no threats upon my life or stalkers. Not like that stalker when I was 23 or so, who traveled up to Berkeley where I was doing a play. Who had been sniffing around Family Ties before, with all of us, trying to cozy up to Mike Fox and Tina, mostly, and a little bit me. This guy followed me up to Berkeley, I guess. Sent letters I didn’t read, but then had to. The ones that got your attention, if you were famous, the ones where they talked about “being together on the other side” and “finally being together forever.” Those were the ones, you were warned by Gavin DeBecker, the security advisor to us all. Those were the ones you had to send to Gavin, the ones from people who could descend upon you like the fan who killed Rebecca Schaeffer. That. Had some mutual friends there. “No way. Someone just came to her house and stabbed her to death? Jesus. Wow.”

Home addresses deleted from utility bills, you had to. No Internet yet, to find out every bit of information about where you live (fucking dangerous collection of publicly accessed information, online now), but people who worked at the utilities had friends, those who might like you, who might like you too much. Maybe they’d pass on your info. Your electric bill, your phone bill, land line, your cable bill, your property tax bill, everything. Your address is on everything. Delete your home address. First thing Gavin told us. Get your home address off everything. Do not have your name and your address on the same document. Not deliveries from your talent agency, not your driver’s license, not the birthday cards from your aunt. PO box for all of it. Get it off. Cameras for the front gate. Don’t open the door. Packages, leave them there. Right there. I remember one of Mike Fox’s assistants, she would take a Polaroid of every person who came to the house. A guest, a delivery person, the talent agency courier. She had to document them all.

So, this guy. Sniffing around Paramount Studios. How did he get on the lot? How did he get into our dressing room area? Shit, I don’t know. Knew someone? I don’t know. Follows me up to Berkeley. I’m doing a play. It’s good. It’s fine. Then some letters to the theater, from him. Photos of puppet shows. Do I know this guy? I mean, have I seen letters from him before? Have I ever sent letters from him to Gavin before? I don’t know. I can’t remember. I’m doing this play, I’m researching and learning my lines. Another envelope. Similar photos. Maybe a note. Shit. Is this problematic? I’m still recognized a lot. Is this concerning? These photos, this puppet show, some fucking metaphor? Shit. Move on from it. Then in town, I’m walking around in the town right there, near the theater.

“Justine!”

I almost never turn. Never turn to see who it is. Fans would call to me all the time.

“Justine!”

“Mallory!” One night, before, in LA. I’m 19, 20. In my house I bought so young. In there, by myself.

“MALLORY!” from a car passing by outside, the house close enough, against the street, to hear everything.

“MALLORY!” from a passing car, men. Maybe a truck. Maybe four of them piled into the back of a pickup truck like townies in a film. Townies with baseball bats who barrel down the street in the back of a pickup truck and knock down all the neighbors’ mailboxes, especially the university professors’, off their posts.

“MALLORY!” yelled as they passed my house. Oh fuck. Scared, because they know where I live. That thing. That one thing you did not want, that you tried to avoid, at all costs. Changed your address to the PO box for everywhere. Everything. You missed something, didn’t change it somewhere, or someone saw you in the street, before, when you were walking in. The word is out. What if they tell others? What if they come back? When I’m outside, in my car, in my driveway. What if they come back. Me now, at the top of my stairs inside, by my bedroom door. Sitting, at the top. Sitting, listening, eyes looking. For what? I can’t see out front from there, to the road. I don’t know if they’re coming back. They will try to look in, they’ll try to break in, try to come in? Listening with my eyes, looking back and forth. Shit. I called my mom. I called the alarm company? Don’t remember.

Can’t call the cops. “They drove by, these guys. I guess there was more than one. They drove by my house and they screamed my character’s name.” No. What cop is going to listen to that shit. But I’m scared. I called my mom. Scared. What if they come back? I have no way to . . . They know my house.

So, in Berkeley, walking in the town near the theater and I hear my name. Never, almost never turn. UNLESS it sounded familiar. Unless it had that quality, that little tone that you use when you really know someone.

“Justine!”

For a split-second, I thought I heard that tone, I turn. Fatal—not fatal, but bad mistake. I turn and look, thinking it’s someone who knows me. I turn and look for too long, for two whole seconds. I realize I don’t know him and I realize right there, at the end of those two seconds, IT’S THAT GUY FROM PARAMOUNT. THE ONE WHO HAD BEEN SNIFFING AROUND MICHAEL AND TINA AND ME. THE ONE WHO CAROL HIMES, OUR LINE PRODUCER, BANNED FROM THE LOT. THAT GUY. Oh fuck.

I felt at that moment as if some cut had been made in reality and that there was no one who could help me. No cop—especially no cop—no person, no one around, no one. As if all of us, in that area, in the world, had been standing on a big piece of paper and in that instant, where I fatally—OK, not fatally, just bad—turned around to him, turned and looked for FAR too long. TWO WHOLE SECONDS. As if at that moment, because I looked, I let the paper be cut between us, between him and me. A cut in the paper, creating this slim canyon, where we could both fall. If he made a move toward me, he’d fall in and I would tumble after. If I didn’t—OH MY FUCKING GOD, GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE. HE COULD HAVE A GUN, A KNIFE, A—GET AWAY, RUN, GET OUT. The feeling that if I were to have looked and not turned back around, but looked for one more fraction of a second, I would have fallen into that cut-paper chasm and he would have jumped in there too, with me. And I don’t know what would have happened after that. It’s just black and endless, no bottom, down in that dark place.

I don’t remember what I did after that. Just got out, away from that situation. Got his information from Gavin, what Carol Himes had given Gavin, and gave pictures of him, the description, everything I then had, to the theater. OK. On the lookout for him. A precaution. No gun, no knife, we didn’t see. He didn’t say in his notes. Rehearse the play. Rehearse the play. Tech run-throughs. Rehearse.

Then, on the day of the opening. “Don’t come to the theater. Not now.”

The streets around the theater had been closed. Snipers were on the theater roof, and the roofs of neighboring buildings. What’s going on? What happened? I’m not there. We’re not there yet. It’s early on the day of opening night. He has a gun. (Yes, he had a gun.) He had pulled it on himself. Was going to end it, take himself out. Was going to kill himself in the courtyard of the theater, because—or unless, I don’t know—unless he and I “rekindled our relationship from when we were in Texas ten years ago.” Me, at 23, trying to think if I met him when I worked in Texas before. (But that job was five years ago . . .) Me, trying to reason if I was somehow complicit here. WHAT THE FUCK. I was 23 or so. Ten years ago I was 13. I did not have a romantic relationship with this fucker when I was 13. He gets hauled off. The play opens. Fine.

I keep thinking when I’m standing onstage though, when I move down the aisle in that one scene, how easy it would be to shoot me right now, to take me so “we can be together forever.” And who would be able to stop that? I get off-duty cops to follow me to and from the theater for the rest of the play’s run. That’s all I can do. The guy is put in jail. There could be copycats . . . I don’t know. I just keep going, assuming, pretending I’ll be OK.

Gavin had me talk to tennis champion Monica Seles after she was stabbed by that fan during a tennis match. I remember telling her that when I had my experience, I never felt more unprotected in my life. Not before then and not since. It’s a fucked feeling. Someone, not rational, not reasonable, not sane, is after you. Will harm you in the name of “being together forever.” They’re signaling that you’re going to die together. That’s why it’s the Gavin Alert, why you send him the letters that say that. It means they want to pull you down into that cut-paper canyon with them and fall forever into the darkness with no bottom. Gavin takes that seriously. You take that seriously, but others don’t. That’s right. Others do not. Because, you know, you’re not-a-person. You’re not real.

“They’re just fans, relax, you signed up for this. C’mon, you’re imagining things. You’re famous. Your bundle of stuff makes everything all right. You’re OK. You’re overreacting. You’re OK, famous person. They’re your fans, they just love you. RELAX.” Rebecca Schaeffer, John Lennon, Selena. It’s real. They will kill you. If that’s what’s on their agenda, they will kill you.

* * *

But that was a specific instance, of feeling physically unsafe, of feeling the horror of that cut-paper fall into blackness. That wasn’t at all how I felt most of the time when I was very famous. So, realizing I now felt physically unsafe as the Fame receded . . . I couldn’t understand how or why I would feel that way. I was less of a target at this point. Less people recognized me, no stalker wanted me (that I knew of); they’d all moved on to people with more Fame. But no, I felt physically unsafe. Then I realized that being famous, being recognized, had given me immunity from harm. OK, forget the cut-paper-canyon-stalker thing; that was a specific instance. I mean that being recognized gave me a general immunity from harm. That I could step into any dangerous, or potentially dangerous, situation and know that at least one person, one face in that group, was going to wash over with recognition. One of those faces, dead set against admitting you to the group, is going to suddenly awaken in recognition of you. Their face is going to come alive and they are going to turn to the others in that group and vouch for you. They are going to turn to the others and say, “HEY! This is Justine Bateman! It’s that girl! From Family Ties! That girl!” And the rest of the group will take you in. No questions asked, no needing to know anything about you, the real you. Just take you in. Accept you. TRUST YOU. Acceptance, protection, revealing of information, even.

Once I was on the corner of Gower and Santa Monica, not a great part of town, getting my car washed, getting gas, I don’t know. A group of teenagers, young—13, 14, 15. They were tagging the bus as it approached the bus stop there. Tagging it, graffiti on it. I’m curious. Always.

“Hey, what are you guys writing?”

They turn away, not going to talk to me. I’m suspicious. Not just curious; bad, suspicious. White girl, early 20s. Only bad here. Turn away. Not going to talk with me. But, I see one guy, just one guy, it only takes one guy. A wash of recognition over his face.

“She’s that girl! Hey, you know, Family Ties!” They all turn toward me. All speak now, all answer my questions now, give me information. All IN.

Even recently. A few years ago, doing research for a series I’m writing, about the orange-vested people cleaning the sides of the freeways in LA. What’s that about? What are the details? Caltrans gives me permission to clean the side of the road with the rest of them, the ones who have to be there. I take someone’s spot. Felt bad to take the spot of someone who has to work off these court-ordered hours. Stood in line in a dark parking lot at four in the morning, because you can’t get a spot if you show up later. Only 15 spots per day, per lot. Have to get there early. Stood in line; was just going to observe, maybe ask a couple of questions. But recognition; they recognized me. I explain what I’m doing there. And everybody, recognition, and being vouched for. Everyone opened up to me, told me. Confessed? Told me their stories, every single one of them. Am I a brilliant writer? They talk to me because of that? It was the Fame, not the writing, the Fame made them tell me everything.

This trust, this “We will never hurt you because you treasure-trailed right into that nice time I had, right now or years ago, that I had when I watched your show/film/play performance. You are in. We hold you in a place we have for Santa and leprechauns and Easter bunnies. You will never hurt me, you make me smile. We will let you in, you will never hurt me. You have delivered to me the lightness I needed. I will never hurt you.” You are in.

They are not the lunatic break-into-Letterman’s-house-kill-Rebecca-Schaeffer-send-puppet-show-photos-and-pull-a-gun-on-yourself-at-Justine-Bateman’s-theater fans. They just recognize you, and you are IN.

Protected. You see what I’m talking about. Had it at 16. Strong Fame from 16 to 28, say. Over ten years strong, bright, can’t-go-anywhere Fame. Then slightly faded, the Fame, for ten more years; still feeling that protection and not knowing it. Unusual. An unusually long time with a great deal of Fame. But, at the end there, where the Fame started to slide down uncontrollably. Sand-through-the-fingers Fame fade, slip. There, I started to feel afraid. Physical-safety fear and I couldn’t understand why. It was that. That absence of the wash of recognition over people’s faces where they’d vouch for you to everyone. That was going, gone. That was going, fading. Soon, I would be recognized by not even half of the people. Someday it would only be some, just a few. I would be on my own, physically. Would have to defend myself. Never learned that, didn’t develop that. Never needed to, until now. No one to help, no one to recognize, no one to vouch for me, to tell everyone, “She’s OK! She’s that girl!” No embrace, no protection. So, I realized I was accustomed, didn’t know any different. Had not known much else. For most of my life, I’d just known that protection feeling that flows from being recognized in potentially bad situations and being vouched for. And now that was going, soon to be gone. And it took me by surprise, this surprise feeling of being physically unsafe.