I wanted to say something to the Duchess, to tell her that this whole AA thing wasn’t for me, but I knew she’d be devastated. Our relationship was growing stronger by the day. There was no more fighting or cursing or hitting or stabbing or slapping or water-throwing—nothing. We were just two normal individuals, living a normal life with Chandler and Carter and twenty-two in domestic help. We had decided to stay out in Southampton for the summer. Better to keep me isolated from the madness, we figured, at least until my sobriety took hold. The Duchess had issued warnings to all my old friends: They were no longer welcome in our house unless they were sober. Alan Chemical-tob received a personal warning from Bo, and I never heard from him again.
And my business? Well, without Quaaludes and cocaine, I no longer had the stomach for it, or at least not yet. As a sober man, problems like Steve Madden Shoes seemed easy to deal with. I’d had my lawyers file a lawsuit, while I was still in rehab, and the escrow agreement was now public. So far, I hadn’t gotten myself arrested over it, and I suspected I never would. After all, on the face of it, the agreement wasn’t illegal; it was more an issue of Steve having not disclosed it to the public—which made it his liability more than mine. Besides, Agent Coleman had faded off into the sunset long ago, hopefully never to be heard from again. Eventually, I would have to settle with the Cobbler. I had already resigned myself to that fact, and I no longer gave a shit. Even in my most depraved emotional state—just before I’d entered rehab—it wasn’t the money that had been driving me crazy but the idea of the Cobbler trying to snatch my stock and keep it for himself. And that was no longer a possibility. As part of a settlement he would be forced to sell my stock to pay me off, and that would be that. I would let my lawyers deal with it.
I had been home for a little over a week when I came home one evening from an AA meeting and found the Duchess sitting in the TV room—the very room where I had lost my twenty-gram rock six weeks ago, which the Duchess had now admitted to having flushed down the toilet.
With a great smile on my face, I said, “Hey, sweetie! What’s—”
The Duchess looked up, and I froze in horror. She was visibly shaken. Tears streamed down her face, and her nose was running. With a sinking heart, I said, “Jesus, baby! What’s wrong? What happened?” I hugged her gently.
Her body was trembling in my arms when she pointed to the TV screen and said through tears, “It’s Scott Schneiderman. He killed a police officer a few hours ago. He was trying to rob his father for coke money and he shot a policeman.” She broke down hysterically.
I felt tears streaming down my cheeks as I said, “Jesus, Nae, he was here just a month ago. I…I don’t…” I searched for something to say but quickly realized that no words could describe the magnitude of this tragedy.
So I said nothing.
A week later, on a Friday evening, the seven-thirty meeting at Our Lady of Poland Church had just begun. It was Memorial Day weekend, and I was expecting the usual sixty minutes of torture. Then, to my shock, the opening words from the meeting’s chairperson came in the form of a directive—stating that there would be no drug-drizzling allowed, not under his watch. He was creating a Drizzle-Free Zone, he explained, because the purpose of AA was to create hope and faith, not to complain about the length of the checkout line at Grand Union. Then he held up an egg timer for public inspection, and he said, “There’s nothing that you can’t say in less than two and a half minutes that I have any interest in hearing. So keep it short and sweet.” He nodded once.
I was sitting toward the back, next to a middle-aged woman who looked reasonably well kept, for an ex-drunk. She had reddish hair and a ruddy complexion. I leaned over to her and whispered, “Who is that guy?”
“That’s George. He’s sort of the unofficial leader here.”
“Really?” I said. “Of this meeting?”
“No, no,” she whispered, in a tone implying that I was seriously out of the loop, “not just here, all over the Hamptons.” She looked around conspiratorially, as if she were about to pass on a piece of top-secret information. Then, sotto voce, she said, “He owns Seafield, the drug rehab. You’ve never seen him on TV?”
I shook my head no. “I don’t watch much TV, although he does look somewhat familiar. He— ohmygod!”I was speechless. It was Fred Flintstone, the man with the enormous head who’d popped on my TV screen at three in the morning, inspiring me to throw my Remington sculpture at his face!
After the meeting ended, I waited until the crowd died down and then went up to George and said, “Hi, my name is Jordan. I just wanted you to know that I really enjoyed the meeting. It was terrific.”
He extended his hand, which was the size of a catcher’s mitt. I shook it dutifully, praying he wouldn’t rip my arm out of its socket.
“Thanks,” he said. “Are you a newcomer?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m forty-three days sober.”
“Congratulations. That’s no small accomplishment. You should be proud.” He paused and cocked his head to the side, taking a good hard look at me. “You know, you look familiar. What’d you say your name was again?”
Here we go! Those bastards in the press—there was no escaping them! Fred Flintstone had seen my picture in the paper, and now he was going to judge me. It was time for a strategic subject change. “My name’s Jordan, and I gotta tell you a funny story, George: I was in my house up the Island, in Old Brookville, and it was three in the morning…” and I proceeded to tell him how I threw my Remington sculpture at his face, to which he smiled and replied, “You and a thousand other people. Sony should pay me a dollar for every TV they sold to a drug addict who smashed their TV after my commercial.” He let out a chuckle, then added skeptically, “You live in Old Brookville? That’s a helluva nice neighborhood. You live with your parents?”
“No,” I said, smiling. “I’m married with children, but that commercial was too—”
He cut me off. “You out here for Memorial Day?”
Jesus! This wasn’t going according to plan. He had me on the defensive. “No, I have a house out here.”
Sounding surprised: “Oh, really, where?”
I took a deep breath and said, “Meadow Lane.”
He pulled his head back a few inches and narrowed his eyes. “You live on Meadow Lane? Really?”
I nodded slowly.
Fred Flintstone smirked. Apparently, the picture was growing clearer. He smiled and said, “And what did you say your last name was?”
“I didn’t. But it’s Belfort. Ring a bell?”
“Yeah,” he said, chuckling. “A couple a hundred million of them. You’re that kid who started…uh…what’s it called…Strathman something or other.”
“Stratton Oakmont,” I said tonelessly.
“Yeah! That’s it. Stratton Oakmont! Holy Christ! You look like a fucking teenager! How could you have caused so much commotion?”
I shrugged. “The power of drugs, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah, well, you bastards took me for a hundred large in some crazy fucking stock. I can’t even remember the name of it.”
Oh, shit!This was bad. George might take a swing at me with those catcher’s mitts of his! I would offer to pay him back right now. I would run home and get the money out of my safe. “I haven’t been involved with Stratton for a long time, but I’d still be more than happy to—”
He cut me off again. “Listen, I’m really enjoying this conversation, but I gotta get home. I’m expecting a call.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hold you up. I’ll come back next week; maybe we can talk then.”