There Goes My Social Life

by Stacey Dash

  My career was beginning to shape up nicely, now that I’d been honored to work with legends such as Cosby and Pryor. Though Cosby at the time seemed like the type of person one would aspire to be, I identified with Richard. He never told me about his life, but I got to hear bits and pieces from his bodyguard–spiritual advisor–physical coach Rashan as we hung out on the set.

  Richard was raised in Peoria, Illinois. His mom, a prostitute, left him when he was ten years old, and he was raised by his grandmother, an abusive woman who owned several brothels. As a child, he was sexually molested by a priest; he was expelled from school at the age of fourteen. Somehow he made it in Hollywood, masking the pain of his life with jokes about his life, race, and seven marriages. Rumors abounded about his on-set temper flairs. Just a few years before I met him, he’d set himself on fire while freebasing cocaine. Six years later, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a disease that attacked his central nervous system. To make it worse, he had multiple heart attacks. In other words, he battled his demons just as my parents were fighting theirs—with varying degrees of success.

  I was battling, too.

  After every day I spent on the set of Moving, I’d go home to Axel. I was starring in a huge movie, but our relationship was a mess. I’d leave the set, go back home, and get the shit kicked out of me. He’d push me, grab me, and hit me . . . but my face was always camera-ready. A broken nose, after all, would’ve affected my ability to make a living.

  “What happened here?” my makeup artist asked me one morning, looking at a gigantic bruise on my arm.

  “I fell,” I said.

  “Off your bike again?”

  I paused, trying to remember the string of lies I’d told. I didn’t even have a bike. “No, this time, it was in the shower.”

  She frowned, grabbing a silver container of concealer. “Well, be careful. We’re going to have to cover this one up too.”

  With deception and makeup, I hid my abuse from most everyone, but Rashan instinctively knew something was up. When Axel came around the set, Rashan suddenly got very protective of me. He’d make Axel feel so uncomfortable that he’d leave, but I had problems a protective friend couldn’t solve. Even though my boyfriend beat me, I’d go straight back to him in the evenings, where the abuse would start again. Well, it might or it might not. He hit me just enough for me to understand that he could if I made him angry enough.

  The set became a solace for me, a place where I was able to get away from the turmoil at home and become a different person. Plus, the movie turned out well. I loved getting to know Richard Pryor—his spirit, his gentleness, his kindness on set. But my favorite and most memorable times with him were when we’d go off to see the thoroughbred races during the afternoons and try to win—against all the odds.

  After Moving wrapped, I finally realized that Axel was not going to stop beating me. I needed to get out of there as soon as possible but how could I put bread on the table if I left him? With a laser-like focus, I started trying to get more work so I could afford to live on my own.

  In 1988, I was cast for a regular role on a show called TV 101, about a divorced photojournalist who goes back to his high school to produce a television news program with the journalism class. I played one of his students (Monique), as did Matt LeBlanc—later famous for his role as Joey on Friends.

  The role was my first in a television series, and the regular paycheck got me one step closer to leaving Axel. I’d tried before and just hadn’t been able to do it, but this time would be different. So I made plans. And I waited. The next time he went out of town, I secretly went and got my own apartment. He’d be furious if he knew what I was up to, so I patiently waited for the right moment, kept everything under wraps, and slipped out while he was gone.

  I hadn’t planned on someone telling him. But one night when I pulled up in front of my building—a location I thought was secret—he was standing at the entrance.

  “I thought you were out of town!” I said.

  “I thought we lived together,” he said.

  He ran toward me, grabbed me, and forced me into his car. When we got to his house, he tossed me into the bedroom.

  “That’s the last time you try to leave me,” he snarled as he threw me on the bed. He opened the chest of drawers, and I scanned the room. It was no use. I knew the place intimately. It was not an apartment, it was a duplex. There was one other occupant of the building, but I could tell from the driveway that the neighbor wasn’t home. There was no way out except the door, and no one could hear me no matter what I did.

  “You’re not going anywhere.” He had socks in his hands—just normal, everyday athletic socks—and he wrapped them around my wrists. He tightened them, and I inhaled deeply. “What the fuck are you doing?” I asked as he lifted my arms, shoved me to the top of the bed, and tied my wrists behind my head to the bedpost. I pulled down on my arms, which only tightened the socks around me.

  “You can’t keep me here!” I screamed.

  “You’re free to leave,” he laughed. “If you can.”

  I strained against the bed post and felt the full hopelessness of my situation. Axel stood over me, pulled back his fist, and punched me in the stomach. I instinctively tried to block it, but there was no use. There was no slack in the socks, none at all. My wrists stayed tied to the bed, and his fist took my breath right out of me. Now I could barely breathe. I lifted my legs toward my stomach into as much of a fetal position as I could manage. Tears rolled down my face, and—between gasps—I managed to say, “You fucking bastard.”

  “Here’s what you don’t understand,” he said, a vein on the right side of his face bulging out. “You belong to me.” I still couldn’t breathe, but there was nothing to say. “If you try and leave me, I’ll kill you.” His voice rose in fury.

  “What the hell is going on in there?” I heard a voice outside the door. For a moment, I had a wave of hope. I had thought not one soul could hear me. But when the door opened, I saw Axel’s friend Antonio. My heart sank. Antonio was always hanging around, and seemed like a larger Puerto Rican version of Axel. But even though he was much larger and more imposing, I knew he always was subservient, doing absolutely everything that Axel told him to do. No questions asked.

  “I didn’t know she was here,” he mumbled before leaving the room.

  Axel turned back to me, unbuckled his belt, and moved over to the side of the bed. “I’ll take exactly what I want.” And then, to my horror, he proceeded to do just that. It didn’t take him long to yank off my boots and jeans. I gasped when he forced himself into me, but I tried not to give him the pleasure of hearing me scream. I looked at the ceiling. The light fixture had two bulbs. One had gone out. A crack in the plaster snaked from the corner. I tried to ignore the tearing I felt as he thrust into me.

  When Axel left, he called Antonio into the room to watch me. I convinced him to untie me when I needed to go to the bathroom, and he did let me eat. So I guess it could’ve been worse, but I saw pure evil in his face.

  Nighttime came and went. Then came and went again. I couldn’t call in to the set to tell them I wasn’t able to come in. If I was ever going to have even the slightest hope of leaving Axel, I had to do well at work. Acting was the only thing I could rely on to get myself out of his grasp. As I lay there, day after day, I imagined what was going on at the set, wondering if people were calling me a diva. Wondering if they assumed I was sleeping off a hangover and simply couldn’t be bothered to come to work or even call.

  Axel would come and go. When he arrived, I knew what to expect and braced myself for the assault. I went through various stages during this time—fury, defiance, and depression. After a couple of days of being tied, I tried a different approach. My face softened when I saw him and I managed a smile. It was all I could do, and I figured he could see straight through it. But this was my moment. I was an actress, after all, and this was the most important role of my life: the remorseful, repentant lover.

  “
Come on, Axel,” I said to him when he walked in. “I’ve been here long enough.”

  “That’s for me to decide.”

  “You know I won’t leave you again,” I said, trying not to choke on the words. “I’ve learned my lesson. I’m sorry.”

  After a few hours on the third day, I had begged, cajoled, cried, and sobbed enough that he believed me. By the time it was over, I’d almost convinced myself. At least for a moment. When he let me go, I kept up the ruse for a while. I went back to the set and made up an excuse for why I hadn’t shown up. My mode of operation had never changed since childhood. Don’t complain, don’t tell, just handle it. But this time he’d gone too far. I was going to leave, I just had to figure out when.

  It wasn’t fast enough. Within a few days, I was at the house when he got so mad—I can’t remember why—that he threw me up against the wall. A photo fell off the wall and glass shattered everywhere. I screamed, and he threw me back into the wall to shut me up.

  “What the hell is going on in there?” A loud knocking on the door brought Axel out of the spell of his fury. It was the downstairs neighbor, who’d heard the commotion and come up to check on us.

  Axel opened the door, and the neighbor peered in at me, bruised and crying. “I’m going to call the cops if I hear any more of this!”

  After smoothing over the situation with the neighbor, assuring him that all was fine, Axel grabbed me and pulled me all the way into his Jeep. I kicked and screamed, hoping to draw attention. “Shut the fuck up,” he yelled at me as he stomped on the gas to speed away from his apartment.

  I had no idea where we were going. At a stop sign, I looked up at the road signs, trying to get my bearings, when I noticed a police car was at the intersection. With one fast motion, I lunged in front of Axel and slammed my hand on the horn. Thankfully, it wasn’t one of those “Road Runner” horns. It was robust and loud. For one moment, it announced to the world, “Help! There’s something wrong here!” But just as quickly as it had begun, it stopped. Axel pushed me away with the back of his right arm. I screamed and banged on the window, hoping to get the attention of the cops.

  Just then, I felt a sharp pain in the back of my skull, then another blow that landed with such force that I was pushed into the window of the passenger side of the car. I shut my eyes and started kicking the door and flailing my arms. Another punch landed on my head, and I wondered if I was bleeding. I took off my seatbelt and opened up the car door. We were right in the middle of traffic, so people in other cars started honking at the flung-open door. They couldn’t get around us.

  Thankfully, the police saw what was going on. When I opened my eyes, I saw flashing blue lights reflected in the Jeep’s windows. An officer stood outside Axel’s window and shined a light into the car just as Axel’s fist hit my head. The cop drew his gun and threw him on the grass. I was so disoriented by the jabs in the head that I felt like I was about to pass out. I was bruised and crying hysterically.

  “Put your hands on your head,” the officer barked at Axel.

  “Do you want to press charges?” he asked me.

  “Yes,” I said between sobs. I couldn’t stop crying.

  “Do you have anywhere to go?”

  I shook my head.

  “We’re taking him to jail,” the officer said to me quietly, away from Axel’s hearing. “Make sure you’re gone by the time he’s out, because we can’t hold him.”

  I called Garner, one of my fellow cast members, and asked him to come get me. Instead of taking me home, he took me to his home, which was in the middle of nowhere. He let me stay the night, and—for the first time in a long time—I felt safe.

  The next morning, my heart raced as I repeatedly looked out from Garner’s vehicle for Axel’s Jeep. It was a Sahara, so it was brown and green and totally tricked out. But as much as I scanned, I didn’t see him. When I finally reached the set, I realized I’d been holding my breath. I exhaled, thanked Garner, and went into my trailer. I knew I’d be safe at work, because that’s one thing about Hollywood—they keep television sets as secure as Fort Knox. The set of TV 101 gave me a safe space to operate and time to think.

  As long as my personal drama didn’t interfere with my occupational life, I’d have a better chance of getting away from Axel for good. The more jobs I got, the more financially secure I’d be and the less I’d need him. After a few hours of working, I’d sunk myself into my character so much that I’d almost forgotten about my turmoil. The horrendous experiences I had felt, the abuse, the damn socks. It just felt like it was a totally different world—a nightmare, almost, from which I’d awakened.

  Garner let me stay at his home for a while, as I looked for my own apartment. If I could just get my own place to stay, I could have my life back. The next day, when I was back at work, I thought I had pulled off an escape. That’s when I looked up and saw him. Axel was coming at me, his eyes bloodshot and his teeth clenched.

  I had no idea how he got on the lot.

  “Don’t cause a scene,” I said as calmly as I could. I didn’t want him to embarrass me, or to earn me a reputation as an actress with too much personal drama. I smiled at my fellow cast mates who were standing around pretending not to watch, but they could tell something was up. When Axel stormed up and grabbed me by my arm, I said. “Let’s talk in your Jeep.”

  I know I shouldn’t have gotten in, but I couldn’t let him ruin my career by making a huge scene on the set. My work would be what saved me. If I let him ruin that for me, I’d be stuck with him forever. As soon as I got in, he punched me, locked the doors, and drove off . . . leaving about a dozen of my cast mates standing there, stunned.

  “You said you’d stay!” he growled.

  “I just needed some time to think,” I said, already trying to appease him. At one point in my life, I was a person. A woman. An actress. Someone who happened to fall in love with a man who was charming and romantic, who told me he loved me and couldn’t live without me. When he hit me, he changed me. Through no actions of my own, I had become a “battered woman.” That’s what they called it back then. It sounded so fucking pathetic. I didn’t want his actions to define me. And yet, there I was.

  It was so hard for me to stop giving him the benefit of the doubt. Surely he wasn’t a monster. There was one way out: things had to get better. If things improved, we’d look back on this stage of our lives and say, “We were under a lot of pressure back then,” and it would seem like a blur, something vague which we overcame. He made it really easy to fall into this trance. He’d put his arm around me and take me places, proud to have me on his arm. At night, he’d talk gently and tell me I was beautiful. My mother had never—not even once—told me that.

  But there was a line, and he had crossed it.

  We drove up the Pacific Coast Highway, and I could tell he had no idea where he was going.

  “Take me back to work, you can’t do this,” I said. “People saw you take me. If I don’t come back, they’re going to call the police.”

  To my surprise, he listened and took me back to work. Not without a warning. “I’ll deal with you later.”

  When I came back to the set, one of the writers for the show pulled me aside and said, “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you have to get away from that guy,” he said. “Or he’s going to wind up killing you.”

  The words stung. Not only was I embarrassed, I knew he was right. I’d learned my lesson and knew how to cover my tracks. When I got my own apartment this time, I told no one. It was a studio apartment on the fifth floor of an old 1920s building located on Rossmore in Los Angeles. All I had in it was a large white brass bed. I’d always wanted floral linens, but my mom never let me have them. So I went out, bought the prettiest Laura Ashley linen, and created a lovely place to rest. That’s all I needed in my apartment, since life was basically night after night of partying. I had a new set of friends . . . people from the show . . . people who didn’t know Axel. I even branched out and started dating one
of my co-stars. On my twenty-first birthday, I got a butterfly tattoo on my shoulder symbolizing that I—finally and mercifully—was free.

  I’d found a place where he couldn’t find me.

  TV 101 was a big part of my plan. It was a good show while it lasted, but it was on opposite Matlock, Roseanne, and Who’s the Boss? It only lasted thirteen episodes. When the show didn’t get picked up, I had no money and no other jobs. But I did have a pretty vibrant social life. It had been almost a year since I’d left Axel, and I had been dating other people—it was intoxicating to be with men who were really happy to be with me. I felt happy that I’d established myself in Los Angeles without any help from him. Well, I didn’t have any money, but I had managed so far.

  One day, I ran into a mutual friend.

  “So how is he?” I asked. I still loved Axel, if I have to admit it. Sick, I know. I missed that feeling of being taken care of. I never wanted for anything when he was around.

  “Do you want to talk to him?” she asked.

  Had I been thinking clearly, I would’ve responded with an emphatic, “Hell no!” But when she offered to connect us, part of me leapt. I had spent so much of my life with him. He knew me. He knew my family. He’d gone with me to help my mom, he’d been there with me when I was in my darkest moments. Sure, he’d caused some of my darkest moments, but that was beside the point. What harm could a conversation do?

  We chatted on the phone, and I told him the truth about my situation—that I was struggling to make ends meet.

  “Listen,” he said. “I don’t want it to be that way. I’ve made some money, and I don’t want to know you’re struggling. Meet me and I’ll take care of it.”

  I didn’t even have enough money to pay my rent the next month. I bit my lip and weighed the consequences. Should I accept anything from that guy? Within the day, I was standing with him at his apartment. He handed me a wad of cash and talked gently to me. I’m not sure what words he said, but being with him reminded me of the good times in New York.