In My Own Words

“El Supremo” by Nadia Bruce Rawlings

We met when I was 3 months along in rehab. The house took us to a meeting in Silverlake. I was the only straight woman in a group of 15 women. I fancied myself better than them all, not because of my sexual preference, but simply because before I became a crack-head I had gotten a good education and a glamorous job in the film biz.

Nadia Bruce Rawlings

The fact that we were all recovering addicts and alcoholics and that I had spent more cumulative time in jail than most of the other women didn’t cross my mind then. I was better and different and refined and cosmopolitan. I had traveled the world and dated a millionaire and attended film festivals and worn designer clothes and read the classics. When I was in jail I re-read “The Grapes of Wrath,” not the Harlequin romances the other girls preferred. Really, didn’t all that matter far more than the fact that I had once gone to a motel room with my hooker friend because she had a client that needed to be diapered and he would pay us both good money and furnish lots of crack?

And so when we went to this AA meeting in the Silverlake hills in a pretty old house that was ram-shackle and faded, I saw the hummingbirds and the gay men in a sort of Breakfast at Tiffany’s-light. He approached me immediately. My red-hair was long, and before rehab I had already finished 4 months in jail and was starting to gain weight and look good again. He spoke with that exact enunciation perfected by old movie stars in the 50’s. His “r”s rolled beautifully, and he took my arm and charmed with beautiful manners and the words of a well-educated man. He called me beautiful and brought me tea and quoted lovely poetry and classic literature. We spoke at length, and when he discovered I had lived and travelled in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, he spoke knowingly of Islam and Buddhism and breathed lovely French verses in my eager ear. I had been a part from knowledge and refinery for so long, entrenched in the street and the underground of Echo Park. To me he was a delightful fresh breath. He said he was a conductor and taught violin and took young kids from the street to play in a Symphony.

Oh but I was charmed. I would call him from the payphone in the gritty hall of the rehab, and he would play me Bach and Mozart on his violin and recite Kahlil Gibran and Buddha and Jesus as well. He said he would take me to see a symphony downtown, and when I reminded him I had no clothes (having lost everything I owned to crack…), he said he would buy me whatever I wanted. The counselors at the center said absolutely not, and I cried. They asked why I thought an old man would do this for me, and I naively and quite sincerely replied that he was just a sweet gay old man who had no interest in women, particularly ones as young as I.

When I graduated from the program, he came with one of his young male “sponsees”, and he spoke during the ceremony. I thought that his perfect timbre and enunciation and charm bewildered the women in the home. Many were from the streets of East LA, and I was sure they didn’t know what to make of him. My friend Lorraine said I should be careful but wouldn’t explain and retreated when I defended him. He helped me to move to the small sober-living house. I had no car, and he would drive me to and fro so that I wouldn’t have to take the bus.

When I finally saw where he lived, the weekend after my graduation, I was surprised. It was near my old neighborhood where I’d squatted in an abandoned building and smoked crack, but a bit further east and, I rationalized, in the “hills”. Well, the foothills. It was a small single apartment, crammed with artifacts and rugs and tapestries from the Middle East and Mexico and Europe. His kitchen was dirty but the walls were covered in photos of Peter at various ages, next to famous people, next to beautiful women, next to beautiful men. Violins hung everywhere, a speaker blared classical music, there were Buddhas and Marys and large blue Evil Eyes and small writing in Hebrew, and, a picture of him – a picture of Peter with the words “El Supremo” carefully lettered in calligraphy underneath.

We had tea and some sweet breads and fresh tamales from the bakery down the street. I finally asked his last name, as I had no concept at all of where he might be from. And, to my surprise, out rolled a very Spanish last name. He told me bits and pieces of his life, growing up in East Los Angeles. He spoke of two wives and his children who no longer contacted him. How he had almost 20 years sober. When it was time for me to go home, he drove me back, forever calling me “mi amore” and holding my hand. I found it just a sweet charming mannerism for an eccentric man, and left it at that. He would kiss my cheeks and end with a lingering kiss on my lips.

When he asked me to marry him, I thought certain that he was teasing. I laughed and moved on to another topic. I had found I was pregnant and the father wanted nothing to do with me. Peter asked if I would live with him, marry him, I was his true love and reminded him so of his first wife. He told me tales of them running through America and Mexico and Europe; his life seemed like a Hemingway novel. I asked him why his children still wouldn’t talk to him, but he always changed the subject.

At times Peter would phone me twenty times a day. I would be napping – the pregnancy was hard both emotionally and physically. His messages were those of a petulant young lover, combined with years of practice at manipulation. He brought me soup and crackers and drove me to AA meetings. He brought sweet blankets for the baby when she arrived. He spoke of his young male “sponsees” who needed a place to stay and so he let them stay on his couch in exchange, as he put it, for a little help around the house. He took them to the park for meditation, he gave them bits of money, and he said they took advantage. These youngsters never stayed sober for long. They would move out in a huff and stop calling him. He would find a new one, and then his calls to me would cease for a week or so. At AA meetings he would share eloquently – to me, finally, his words went from sounding so wise and sincere and filled with compassion to trite and pompous and so hypocritical.

And yet still he was there – he helped me care for my daughter at times, he brought food, he brought medicine when I was sick. He thanked me for brightening the world of a foolish old man and despite myself there were times I couldn’t resist the charm. We drove through Griffith Park and waved madly at hikers and picnickers and laughed and cheered and then as the sun darkened listened quietly to the concerto on the radio, and I let him hold my hand while my daughter slept in the back seat.

But then months or more would pass without me being able to face his calls. He’d send letters in strong yet delicate calligraphy, always signed “El Supremo”. Sometimes he’d enclose tickets to the Hollywood Bowl or the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. I’d go, often alone, and sit with him while he basked in the music. His tears would slide through closed lids.

One day he called me to meet him on Olvera Street – I must meet Paloma. And there, in a small restaurant with loud mariachis, was a beautiful young 20-something, exotic girl. She had long lush wavy hair and such red lips and a smile that touched heaven. He gushed over her, called her name with pride, and we shook hands and hugged and his eyes were so alive. The violinist came to the table and Peter and Paloma sang loudly and beautifully in Spanish. For months after, his calls and letters were filled with stories of Paloma. And then she disappeared, as so many young people did from his world. Again, he was at my door with bits of food and the phone rang too often and the messages left were sad and manipulative and set me off in a fury.

Others at AA meetings would mention him, some deriding his “sponsee-ship” of the young men, others speaking only with love and kindness. He wanted to teach my daughter violin, but after a couple of afternoons at his apartment with her young tiny hands in his and his arms around her, I grew nervous with thoughts of his children who still wouldn’t contact him, and so I faded away again.

It had been almost two years since I’d seen him. The phone rang and an unknown number appeared and for once I took a chance and answered. Peter was on the other end, his voice soft and raspy, and he said he had to move and he was sick with cancer and he’d been at the VA all week for chemo and he would love to see me and my little one. And somehow this time it didn’t sound quite so manipulative and there was fear in his voice, and so we went.

His “sponsee” was supposed to be helping him pack, along with another young man to whom he taught violin. The apartment was a wreck – dirty and dusty and chaotic with boxes, none in any semblance of order. There was little food in the fridge and the sink was filthy. Peter struggled out of his chair and I saw that the rotund bear of a man had become a whisper of flesh. His false teeth made his smile too big, but still the twinkle was in his eyes. My name rolled off his tongue as he hugged me to him, and I felt only bones beneath the layers of clothes. My daughter stood wide-eyed; I’d explained in the car that this man she had known for 8 years was now dying and that was why we had to go visit. He hugged her tight and for once I felt no fear as I watched. He talked and talked, an old vulnerable man clinging to shreds of his old life. He showed me magazines and violins and an old cello and told the stories behind them. The people helping him pack were useless and kept asking for food and money. Peter would not let me help, but after a time I stood and started in the kitchen. My daughter was good and didn’t complain and finally fell asleep on his old stained couch, where I knew many a young “sponsee” had stayed. Peter walked the small apartment, picking up bits of his life, moving them to a box or a bag. Various people came by, mostly for money, none to help. I asked after Paloma, and he said she called now and then. His plan was to have his son move out and care for him in an assisted living home…but the paperwork was taking a long time and so for now he was putting his life in storage and would find some place to stay. I was surprised and happy to hear that his son was talking to him finally after so many years…apparently he’d met his grandson and indeed even his great-grandson.

Just weeks later on the anniversary of his 29th year sober, I picked him up from a small boarding house in East Hollywood. He used a cane and had a small oxygen tank. I took him to his favorite AA meeting, where he proudly and eloquently accepted a cake. He spoke to the crowd, said he planned to be around in 3 months to give me a cake to celebrate my 10 years of sobriety. He said it would keep him alive, and I was quietly moved to tears.

A week before my 10 year anniversary, Peter called me with a weak and faded voice. He was moving to Arizona – his family would care for him while he died. He’d spent the last few weeks living in cheap hotels on Hollywood Blvd…his latest “sponsee” had taken his money and left; the VA had failed to cure his cancer and the government paperwork proved too complicated and arduous a process to find him a decent place to die in dignity. In contradiction to his earlier stories about his son caring for him, he told me that an old friend in Palm Desert had seen him and secretly called his family. They finally had agreed to bring him home. He would not be in town to give me a 10-year AA cake. Prideful, I wondered how he would stay alive.

A month after he left Los Angeles, 3 weeks after I turned 10 years sober, the phone rang. El Supremo’s frail and faded voice, leaving a raspy, manipulative and sad message…

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“Jesus in her Head” by Nadia Bruce Rawlings

She talks to Jesus in her head all day.  He holds her hand through the hard days, but for a while she couldn’t feel him with her.  She was one of those lost sheep they talk about, for a long time.

Nadia Bruce Rawlings

She’s tried NA but they wouldn’t let her talk about Jesus and that made her sad.  Sometimes she still goes for the colorful tags they give at 30, 60 and 90 days, and she has her speech all planned out for her one year anniversary.  She’ll mention Jesus then – what’re they gonna do, tear her away from the podium?  At church on Fridays and Sundays she’s always right in front, near the band. She gets on her knees right on the floor, her dress rising up just a bit too high, but she tries to pull it down, and she raises her arms up to Jesus for him to hold.  He holds her tight while she sings and prays and cries, and she remembers how the heroin used to drown those feelings away.  When she smoked it with speed and all her problems went away, and she forgot about her family and she forgot about Jesus and she let the Enemy into her heart.  She was smoking pot by 10, and when her daddy touched her then she started with whiskey, but that didn’t work because the grownups could smell it.  The social worker knew the first time he came to interview her that she’d been drinking and he blamed her and told her daddy and that started another round of pain and sorrow and so she found something that didn’t smell.  Oxy was first but it was too expensive after a while and black tar and speed was exactly what she needed to keep the sharp pain of her daddy between her legs from entering her heart.  He had a smell of cheap scotch and scratchy whiskers and it all made her shudder to think of it so she chased her medicine down the foil and felt the waves of pain disappear.  School wasn’t even an option after a while – who the hell goes to school when the Enemy’s in your soul?  She stayed at the lake during the day, disappearing now and then for more oxy or more tar and scamming some change from the tourists.  They’d pay for worms, so stupid.  One day her daddy saw she wasn’t really in school and that was it.  She ran and ran but he caught her, and at the age of 15 she knew hell like no one should.  That night she went into town with all she could carry, snuck out after he passed out from too much scotch.  After a few days and her first trick, things got blurry but the heroin held her hand like Jesus used to.

She doesn’t like to remember that now, and she knows that she’s not an addict forever like they say in NA.  She just had to let Jesus back into her heart.  She was sick, so sick for days, and the people at the church took care of her and held her and bathed her when she thought she would die.  They fed her and listened to her scream and cry and finally she was healed and the Enemy was gone and the door opened enough to let Jesus back in and now, he holds her hand while she sings.

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In My Own Words – “Different Places, Same Death” – By Nadia Bruce Rawlings

He had white hair and grey skin and no top teeth and bits of lung came up when he coughed.  He paid the old hooker in crack to give him blow jobs when no one was around.

Walter would pound his back when he couldn’t breathe.  He shoplifted better than anyone I’d ever seen…taillight sets down his pants and ten videos at a time.  Back then it was videos, and sensor razor blades.  Those were our big earners.  And toothbrushes were easy and sold for a dollar a pop.  Eyeliner too, the fancy stuff was more and I’d distract while he shoved thousands of dollars in cosmetics down his pants.  Eventually prison won.

She was a pregnant hooker named Kiki who beat her father for his welfare check.  He sat in the corner and prayed while she smoked crack and yelled.  She’d stolen half a kilo from her ex-boyfriend who then got his leg broken.  She lived to tell about it for a bit; he didn’t.  She had a baby.  I saw her in jail.  Then she was gone.

Dawn was another hooker, with six inch abscesses on her legs.  She covered them strategically.  She stole my tv.  She wouldn’t take her antibiotics and wouldn’t let them amputate.

I went to rehab with J.  She had a harder life than most I knew, wrote beautifully and hurt achingly.  She married T and they didn’t live happily ever after because J just couldn’t find her way out for long enough.

I barely knew S., but he represented hope to me.  His spine hurt worse than mine, which seemed impossible but I saw it in his eyes. I thought he had won.

different places, same death.

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