Chapter 16

 

The Last Straw

You are only as strong as your weakest link. Vanity was my strength, yet it became my weakness. Vanity caused me to leave Danny and propel my life into orbit.

“Are you ready Sydney?” Robert yelled from his room. “We have only a few minutes to get across town and the 610 loop near the Galleria is a disaster. “Come on Sydney, hurry!

I could not stand another minute living a lie with Robert, but I didn’t say a word. I lived in a state of siege. He blackmailed me to keep me.

Robert worked for an oil company in Houston, and he amassed a fortune. You could see by what he collected in a short period, paintings, jewelry, and houses in the riches areas along the Gulf coast. Sean and I were a part of his collection.

He set me on a shelf and dusted me off when company came. Here is my wife and son he proudly announced, but I was not his wife and Sean was not his son. Robert walked around like a man possessed. He acted as if he was a robot that had programmed itself to accept whatever his mind convinced his body.

Houston was a big town that thought it was a city. Numerous cities and towns border Houston. Robert’s company recruited him from one of those neighboring towns. He liked the money and the lifestyle it afforded, so he moved to Houston.

We moved into a gated community in the Woodlands, shortly after Danny found us on Bammel lane.

Robert and I insulated ourselves from the crime of the big city, but not the crime we perpetrated on Sean and Danny. I could forgive Danny, but I would never forgive Robert. Robert never tried to prevent me from coming and going where ever and whenever I wanted, but I was a prisoner of the mind and spirit. He was trying to break my spirit; many men better than he has tried, with no success.

Sean was now a year old and he had never seen his father since Danny showed up at Robert’s door. Robert taught Sean to call him daddy, but you could see the distance Robert put between him and Sean. He despised Danny and now he was using Danny’s son to hurt Danny and me.

“I am putting on my makeup, I’ll be right out.” I said in a hapless voice.

“You don’t need makeup, you look beautiful.”

I was pleasing to look at, but not beautiful, then who is? Men thought I was, and perception is reality some say. I gave the illusion of beauty. A masquerade.

Robert paraded me around his friends and told everyone I was his wife and he had a son.

His friends would tell him how lucky he was to have a beautiful woman and handsome son. He was only concerned about the picture. In the movie, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian was only concerned about his outer appearance, while he rotted inside from his horrible deeds.

Robert and I arrived at the party that was for the oil executives at Galaxy Oil. The company had dealings with a well-known company that was now bankrupt. The entire evening Robert was nowhere to be found. I saw him whispering and walking in circles with a few of the executives. He walked insanely when he was nervous and worried.

As we drove home after the dinner, I ventured to ask Robert, “What is wrong? You look pensive, you are in deep thought.” I was long past concerning myself with Robert; I was asking to find out whether he was vulnerable enough to allow me to take Sean to Italy. I had to ask permission to take my son out of the state and country. I was on the verge of screaming into the night.

“Robert I have never been to Europe, and I would like to take Sean with me to Italy,” I glanced over at Robert.

“I’m not going to let you take Sean anywhere.”

“Please Robert let me take him. I don’t want to be away from him so long.”

“I can rent a place in the country and bring the housekeeper to take care of him while I write for my magazine.”

“No! No, and don’t ask again.”

“Who are you going with, that bastard? You think I don’t know what you have been up to?”

“You don’t know anything.”

“You think I don’t? I know that he is in to drugs, so he will never get Sean. I read and I keep up with him and you. I know where you are every minute,” he said raising his head with an air of confidence.

“I knew when you flew to Los Angeles and he decked an actor over you. I knew when you went to that club in New York and you slapped him. It’s in the papers, and now they say he is a druggy. Do you think I’m going to allow you to bring Sean around that drug addict?”

“Sean is Danny’s son not yours!” I screamed.

I despised Robert more each day as he began telling me about Danny. I wasn’t about to let him control my life. I made up my mind to bring an end to this horrible nightmare.

We arrived at Robert’s home only to hear the phone ring. Robert answered the phone.

“Who is this?”

“Who do you want to speak to?”

After a pause: “I want to speak to my son.”

“Listen here Danny, I’m not going to let you talk to him, ever, but you can talk to Sydney.” Robert said with a wide grin dancing all over his face. He handed the phone to me.

Danny was high and wanted to talk to Sean. Robert wouldn’t let him speak to Sean, but he could speak to me, Robert enjoyed the power he had over Danny, and Danny sank deeper into despair.

“Sydney, I miss you and I want to see my son.” He said, slurring his words. I knew he was drunk or high.”

“Danny you are high, don’t you know what you are doing to yourself.”

“The only thing I’m doing is trying to

make it through the night…Sydney I love you.” I heard a voice in the background drown out his plea. “Danny, come to bed.”

“Danny go to bed! You are screwing around with your life and my son’s life,” I yelled. I was so jealous I could die.

“What about my life with you?” he said sounding like a little boy.

“As long as you take drugs it is over.”

“It is not over Sydney until I say it’s over and it will never be over!”

“You are drunk Danny, leave me alone.”

“Sydney I can’t leave you alone don’t you know you are my life, and if I don’t have you and Sean I have nothing. I’m dead. Sydney if you come back to me I will go into rehab, and I will never drink or do drugs again. I need you.”

I could have cried, but I wouldn’t enable him.

“You need to do this for yourself and our baby.”

“How is my baby? Who is he calling daddy?” His voice saddens and then he became angry. “I hate you so much I feel like dying,” he screamed into the phone.

I was so upset that night that I couldn’t sleep. I was losing my mind and I couldn’t retrieve any remnants of it. I couldn’t figure a way out of this hell.

The next day Danny called again, despair drove him and he cursed me; then he informed me of whom I was living with. It seems he was monitoring Robert also. Robert was under investigation for fraud, he stated; the puzzle pieces began to fit, that is why he was acting so strange.

I was busy with Sean, Danny, Steven, and my job that I didn’t see the signs. The signs were everywhere; I had been blind. The signs reminded me that I was living with a time bomb, which could go off at any moment, and Sean and I would be collateral damage.

I heard from Steven who called to inform me of Danny’s problems. It appeared everyone knew. I felt as if I was in a half-dream world and I couldn’t wake from it.

“Girl have you heard, well, it’s all over town that Danny lost a part because he was too high to go on the shoot. And when he did he was a mess.”

I didn’t want to hear anymore. I could not help from blaming myself. “I can’t stand this Steven.”

“All you say is you can’t stand it, your man is going to hell in a hand basket and you sit around crying and blaming yourself. Do something!”

“What can I do? He doesn’t want any help. He has a woman.”

“You call that a woman. She’s a child, and from what I hear she and her boyfriend are using Danny to finance their drugs. He’ll be broke soon.”

“Danny is a man. He can take care of himself. He wants that woman; otherwise, he wouldn’t be with her.”

“She is a step from being ostracized from the fashion world. She is into serious drugs, and everyone is discussing it in my salon. You know how gossip is. It starts with the maids and before you know it, it’s as if the paparazzi is sitting in your living room. If you don’t believe me Sydney look at the papers. The paparazzi are following them around and you can see that boyfriend in the background. You know that Anthony character you met at his club. You had better do something before Danny loses everything. You forgot you have a son. That’s his inheritance Page is taking.”

“I need to make some calls, maybe I can get him into a treatment center in Arizona,” Sydney said feeling despondent.

“You will need to do more than that; you may have to take him to the treatment center yourself.”

“How in the hell am I going to do that?”

“Lie to him, you do remember that.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Hello, remember, that is what got you into this mess, lying, it might get you out. Are you going to let those vultures destroy him?”

I didn’t see the logic in Steven’s thinking, but I was willing to try anything.

“Ok, Steven lets go to Los Angeles. You are coming too!”

“I wouldn’t miss this for all the male model orgies in the world,” Steven said as he anticipated a little excitement in his life.

Steven and I spent more time on planes than working. There was always someone’s life that needed straightening out, including our own. It was Steven and my life that was caught on a treadmill and going around and around like a carousel. I lied to Robert, left my son again, and flew to L. A.

* * * *

Los Angeles

Danny’s Intervention

We checked into our favorite hotel in Beverly Hills, ready to save the world. We just had too much money and too much time on our hands. Steven and I were like a couple of super heroes always available when someone was in need. We should have been volunteering at the homeless shelters or Habitat for Humanity, but instead we were saving people with all kind of resources. I guess they needed a little help too, maybe more.

“Girl, it seems as if we have played this movie somewhere before, but with the same actors.”

“Steven, you convinced me to come here, what is the plan?”

“The only plan I have is to get him out of that house and get him sober.”

“Steven, what was that about that little model and a boyfriend?”

“Well the way I hear it, she is doing serious drugs, because her boyfriend sells it on both coasts. He got her hooked, then she turns on the rich guys, and she buys the drugs from Anthony.”

“Are you sure? That doesn’t sound like Danny; he would never be with a woman he thought would have another man.”

“He doesn’t know, and besides, he wants you back and he’s not thinking straight.”

After we unpacked and ate, we made plans to kidnap Danny. Here we go again into another threshold of life, hoping for happy endings.

* * * *

Steven and I were going to play—This Is Your Life with Danny. After arguing with Steven, I left the hotel alone and drove straight to Danny’s house in a rented car. I still had the entry card and key. He gave them back to me after we made love on his floor, and after I said I was bringing Sean back. I did not care what it took; I was going into that house and bring Danny out.

I remember the last time Danny and I made love and I made all sorts of promises to him. Promises I couldn’t keep. I didn’t know that I was controlling lives when I made decisions that had implications that were far reaching for Danny and me.

I walked into the house, the smell was nauseating, garbage was everywhere, and you could see it was a party house. Bottles lined along the floor in that once beautiful home. People walking around drunk and having sex in any room they could find. Drugs were everywhere, and there was enough cocaine and pills to fill a ten-pound bag of sugar.

I looked everywhere for Danny. Then I found him. In a room with two women and a man; I recognized the little model and the other one was an up and coming actress. Now I know what it is meant by “It’s not who you know it’s who you blow.” Danny’s little companion was blowing everything she could find. I didn’t recognize the young man right away. On a second look he was her pimp boyfriend Anthony. He must have been in disguise, or I did not know him without clothes.

The young man about twenty three or twenty four, lay wasted on the bed enjoying a blowjob and giving head to another woman. My first thought was to get a whip and lashed them with it, but they might enjoy the attempt. I searched the room and there he was. Didn’t he know his young paramour was blowing someone, or did he care?

Danny was on the floor in a corner sleeping. No one noticed me or cared that I was witnessing their depravity. It was as if I was watching a sex video.

There in that corner was my beautiful young man who was ruining his life. I walked to him, shook him and he immediately looked up and recognized me. He was dirty, and it looked as if he had on the same clothes for days. This could not be the same man, I thought. Nevertheless, it was. It was my Danny, because when he looked up at me, I saw the green eyes that set my heart on fire and made my heart stop its rhythm.

“Sydney I was just dreaming about you, are you real?”

“I’m real Danny.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to get you.”

I had to help Danny to his feet; he was drunk, then he tottered over to the table to indulge in more cocaine. He never looked at the bed. He just looked at me.

“Danny you have to stop this if you are going to see Sean.”

His face lit up and he became more responsive.

“You have to take a shower and a shave.”

“I’m not going into the shower unless you are coming too.” He still didn’t notice what was going on in the room. Maybe he was too far-gone to notice are too blind, whatever it was, he shut out the whole world when I was around.

I took off my clothes and I did as Danny wanted. We looked at each other the way we were before the craziness and the drugs. His body was amazing; he had been lifting weights for the movie he was fired from. This was going to be his break out movie and he lost it to Phillip Cross, his nemesis. It appears that no matter what I do, I doom Danny to hell. I thought that he could forget me, which was something I could never live with, so how could I expect it of him.

“Sydney I haven’t had another women since I last saw you. I always took precautions… Sydney, I dreamed I held you in my arms once more; I felt and caressed your beautiful breast,” he mused with sexual hunger chasing his thoughts; then he put his lips on my nipples and I was in heaven. He was high from the coke, but I did not stop him from making love to me in that shower and on the bathroom floor for over an hour. I hungered for the touch of his warm body and his love. He still knew what to do to me to make me feel lost in time and space.

There was no time to clear the house of all the derelicts that were hanging around our home. I sneaked Danny out of it with a lie and Steven’s help. Steven met me at our home and physically carried Danny in his arms when he could not walk to the car. Danny slept as I dropped Steven at the hotel. It was a five-hour trip into the desert. Reluctantly, I began driving.

My first stop was a gas and restroom break. Danny woke to ask where we were going. I told him that we were going to Arizona to get Sean; he took that in stride. He lamented about how he wished he had some drugs. I told him that he couldn’t see Sean with drugs in his system, which he agreed. I gave him liquor, and he slept through the trip.

After driving for hours in the mountains and through the desert, I came to what looked like a spa, it was Cold Mountain Ranch. Danny finally woke and was agitated and asked: “Where are we?”

“We are at a spa in the desert,” I lied.

“Where is Sean?’

“Sean is not coming tonight, he will be here tomorrow. You need to be sober for him.” He agreed.

I told myself that I would never lie to Danny again and here I was. I told myself that it was Ok because I was saving his life. He appeared more tired than I did, but he kept asking for something to keep him high. He had a bad habit.

On the outside of the ranch, it did not appear to be anything more than an expensive ranch and spa. Danny was oblivious to what was going to happen next. I checked into the room and made him get out of the car.

“I want something to drink,” he shouted.

“I can’t get you anything,” I shouted back.

“Why did you bring me to this fucking place if Sean isn’t here?”

“I brought you here to help you.”

“I remembered the last time you wanted to help me, remember,” he said. His voice and eyes deepened and he appeared to be a stranger.

Danny made me feel guilty, but I would not take the blame this time. I was trying to get him help. He fell across the bed exhausted. He drank all the liquor in the bottle that I carried with us from his house. He had to have been up for days, because he didn’t wake up as I sneaked out the door, praying that he did not see me.

My life was changing all around me, and all I could wonder was why life is so cruel. Alone, driving and crying, I answered myself. “Life is letting us know we are alive.” I once again left the desert and took a plane out of Arizona to fly back to Texas.

I have been on more flights with too much time to think. I began to plan my get away from Robert. I felt like a criminal planning a robbery. I was in a sense a thief; I robbed Danny of his heart, robbed myself of a life, robbed my son of a loving father, and now I am stealing from Robert what he stole from me.

The plane set down on the runway without crashing. Life changing events never happen when you expect them, they happen in their own time. I had to play out the cards of life, because there would be no divine interventions to stop the madness.

I arrived at Robert’s home to see him standing at the window looking pale and distant. He did not hear me when I told him I was taking Sean to the park. He did not hear me when I told him I would be late. He did not hear me when I said I might not be back. He nodded his head and I slipped away. I was going to leave that day but Sean forgot his Teddy.

He had this special Teddy that he made in the bear store in the Galleria that he named Danny. I had to drive back to Robert’s home to get Danny the bear. Sean named the bear after I told him who his father was and showed him a picture of his real father. Sean said he would never forget how much he loved his father and much he wanted to see him. He would keep the bear however long it took his father to find him. Then he would let it go.

Because Robert was preoccupied with his problems, I was able to arrange a flight out of Houston and into Newark, New Jersey with a stop in London then on to Italy. I knew Robert would not suspect that I had taken Sean out of the country. He thought he understood my nature and personality. He thought I was a woman that would take the easy way out. He did not know me, because he would have learned that nothing I’ve done in life has been easy. I was now fighting for control of my life.