After we rehearsed, she suggested that we take a walk to the set, where they had already begun filming ninja stunts. The soundstage was cold and we sorta huddled together to keep warm. Already we felt attached to each other.
• • •
Walking back together, we took our time. We lingered. She laughed at my little jokes and I laughed at hers.
Before she disappeared into her room, Teri said to me, “Can you believe that our beds are back-to-back and separated only by a wall?”
Because the question made me uneasy, my answer was stupid.
“That’s weird,” was all I could say.
“Maybe you’ll dream about me.”
She went to her suite and I went to mine. I lit a cigarette, and before I could take a puff, the phone rang. My heart started beating: Could it be Teri?
It wasn’t. It was Trini.
“Just checking in,” she said. “I was just wondering if Teri Hatcher got in yet.”
Women’s intuition is something you never wanna underestimate.
“She’s here,” I said.
“You sound tired, Andrew.”
“I’m bushed, baby. Early call tomorrow. Gotta sleep.”
“Okay. Hope it all goes well.”
• • •
Next day the filming began. Except for the nonstop flirting, crazy-intense eye contact, eating together alone in her trailer, taking walks between scenes, teasing, taunting, and toying with each other—on set, in the gym, and in my suite—we had nothing to do with each other. Yet I was guilty as hell because, any way you look at it, I was pursuing. With Trini and little three-year-old Max back in Jersey, I felt like garbage.
Fortunately, in between filming I had some concert commitments that got me and my entourage out of Portland. I needed a break from my obsession. To make the dates they rented me an eight-person private plane, a huge perk that I absolutely loved until it nearly killed me and my boys.
We were hopping around the country in this sports car of a jet, having a ball and doing terrific until Iowa. I have a thing about Iowa ’cause that’s where Dollface comes from. But what the hell—we had two Iowa dates, Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, with Kansas City and Detroit in between. No big deal.
It was all good until the flight out of Des Moines. We flew into storm clouds and then got hit by a thunderstorm. The little jet started rocking and rolling. Out the window we saw bolts of lightning. It was raining and hailing, and the way we were dipping and diving all of us were scared shitless except Club Soda Kenny, who, with his feet propped on the seat in front of him, stayed cool as a cucumber. I held on until the descent, when, about five hundred feet from the ground, we hit these unbelievably fierce winds. That’s when the plane literally turned on its side—and it’s also when I was certain it was curtains. I knew I was done, and started seeing my whole stupid unimportant life flash in front of me. I thought about how the asshole media would poke fun at me and say I had it coming. Except for Stern. Stern would say some nice things about me. But maybe Stern wouldn’t be nice; maybe he’d also goof on my crazy death, because Stern will goof on anything—which is why I love him. As we were plummeting to the ground, I had quick conversations in my head with Mom and Dad and Natalie and Trini and Max. I’d never see them again. But the worst thing—and the clearest and strongest thought—was imagining my boy growing up without his dad. The one thing I needed to do right in this world was to raise my son. With the plane still doing flips, I crawled to the cabin and told the pilots to fly wherever they needed to fly—fuck the gig—which was when they told me that they were gonna approach the airport from a different direction and to get my ass back in my seat and strap on the belt. Seconds later, we dove into another shit storm of hail and rain and lightning until somehow the genius pilots got the plane on the ground with all of us intact.
I don’t gotta tell you we were fucked-up by it. Nonetheless, the show must go on, and we drove over to the gig, where a big crowd was waiting. I was with Club Soda Kenny, Hot Tub Johnny, and a new comic opening for me—Eric Edwards. Like Ollie Joe and Wheels, Eric had a big weight problem—at five foot four, he might have been four hundred pounds—but he was funny as hell. He was a young man in his early twenties with a great personality. I took a liking to the guy and wanted to see if I could help him, not only professionally but health-wise as well. Ollie Joe had died of a stroke only two years before—still a young man—and I didn’t want that to happen to Eric. He became my protégé. At the Des Moines show Eric had risen to the occasion. I was taking him virtually overnight from playing a room of fifty people to a venue of five thousand. I was proud to see that he could do it.
Backstage, Eric was in the dressing room, where he couldn’t stop sobbing. I felt like shit myself, but I went over and put my arms around him.
“Crying like this,” he said, “I feel like a pussy.”
“Pussies can’t cry. Pussies just get wet.”
The little joke made him feel better. “Look,” I said, “these people have paid their hard-earned money to have a good time. We got this gift to make people laugh, and that’s we gotta do.”
As I watched, I was proud to see that Eric put away his fears and made ’em laugh. When I got out there, I did the same. The crowd loved us. But after the show was over and our job was done, I realized how much emotion I had suppressed. The near-crash had shaken me up worse than anything I could remember.
Rather than get back on that jet and fly to Detroit, I had Club Soda Kenny rent us a bus. I also called Dad, told him what happened the night before, and asked him to cancel the second gig in Iowa. I’d had enough of Iowa. Turned out there were a lot of reports about our near-fatal landing in the newspapers. Even Stern was talking about it.
Next day Hot Tub Johnny came into my room and said, “Dice, you know how I respect your dad, but I gotta tell you, he just ripped me a new asshole.”
“About what?”
“Canceling Iowa. He said, ‘Fuck the private plane. Fly commercially. I don’t wanna have to give money back to the promoters.’ ”
“And what did you say?”
“I told him what you had already told him—how we’d almost died in a wreck and were in no mood to fly in any kind of plane.”
“And then what did he say?”
“He said, ‘Cut out the bullshit and just get the job done.’ ”
I thought about this for a while. My dad loved me, and I loved him. We were as close as close could be. He always had my back. He also had to make an adjustment from heading a process-serving agency to dealing with big shots like Sandy Gallin and Barry Diller. He’d done a great job. But like everyone else who gets a taste of show business, he could get greedy—not for himself, but for me. After haggling with promoters to get me top dollar, he couldn’t stand the idea of giving back any of the money.
At this point, though, I didn’t give a shit. I needed my peace of mind. So not only did I cancel Detroit, I canceled the eleven gigs that were booked after Detroit. The cost to me was over a quarter of a million dollars. My dad thought I was crazy. I thought I was finally sane. The pressure of these tours was making me crazy. If I went back to Portland and concentrated on the movie, I might be able to calm down and keep from going nuts. Besides, my mind was back on Teri.
Filming resumed in Portland. Everyone had been reading about the near-fatal crash and was asking all sorts of questions, especially Teri. We talked for a long time my first night back. I described the whole incident to her. I also poured out my heart about how I had canceled the tour and infuriated my father, something that did not sit well with me. Teri was a sympathetic listener. She knew that I was torn up with conflicts and let me rattle on as long as I wanted. And still, at the end of the day, when we returned to our hotel, she went to her suite and I went to mine.
In bed, with one thin wall separating us, I couldn’t get her out of my mind.
Unable to sleep, I got out of bed and reached for a cigarette.
Andrew, I said to myself, don’
t get involved with Teri. It’s wrong. Fix your problems at home. Make it right with Trini.
And then the phone rang. This time it was Teri.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Was gonna ask you the same thing,” I said.
From there we went into the whole what-are-you-wearing, what-are-you-thinking, what-are-you-wanting routine. She was both playful and nervous. When I suggested we have phone sex, she went for it. I led it off with a long, long monologue that had her excited out of her mind. But before she came, I asked a simple question: “Do you want me to come over?”
She got quiet. She didn’t know what to say or do. That’s when I knew she was mine. If I sound bold, I’m sorry, but that’s me. I know what I can do to a woman. Doesn’t matter if it’s on the phone, in the bedroom, in the bedroom closet, the bathroom, tub, shower, while she looks in the mirror putting on her makeup, in an office building stairwell, a hotel lobby men’s room, a parking lot, a dressing room in a department store, a baseball field, the front of a car, the back of a car, a bus, a plane, in the kitchen while her mom is sleeping in the living room, in the guest room while her husband or boyfriend is sleeping in their bedroom, in the basement, in the ballroom, even in the back room during her kid’s birthday party.
I was now sitting on the couch across from her bed and smoking a cigarette. I stared into her gorgeous eyes. I knew this was wrong. I knew I was fucking up big-time. And I also knew that, way beyond sex, I was developing feelings for Teri. My heart was flipping as I leaned back and took her in. She was wearing nothing but a tank top and panties. We didn’t have full-blown sex, but her moans were delicious and deep and by the time it was over she was completely and absolutely satisfied.
I left and went back to my room, where I was up all night, smoking, pacing, thinking. What do I do now? What’s gonna happen? The only thing I knew for sure was no matter what happened, I was fucked.
Next morning I got to the shuttle van, which was made for twenty people. It was empty except for Teri. I took a seat next to her. For the first few minutes it was awkward.
Finally I asked, “Did you sleep good?”
She turned to me, put her arm through mine and said, “I slept great.”
Over the next couple days, we grew even closer together. We stole kisses whenever we could. During one sweet kiss, I saw that there were tears in her eyes.
“I can’t do this,” she said. “I want to, but I can’t.”
“I understand.”
I tried to stay away. I went to the gym with Club Soda Kenny and Hot Tub Johnny. I didn’t call her room at night. Come Sunday the boys and I planned to have dinner at an Italian restaurant. Then, by chance, Teri got on the elevator with us and Kenny invited her along. At first she said she had planned on eating alone in her room, but Kenny persisted and she changed her mind. After all, we were going out as a group.
It was a great restaurant, more Brooklyn than Portland, and I felt right at home. It rained that night, making everything that much cozier. The only problem was my neck. All the touring and stress had given me chronic neck pain. Teri saw something was wrong.
“You look like you’re hurting, Andrew,” she said.
“It’s my neck. My neck’s killing me tonight.”
Without my asking, she got up, walked behind me and began rubbing and digging her fingers into my shoulders and neck. At one point I put my hand on hers. It was very tender and very touching and I was getting real emotional. This woman was doing everything she could to relieve my pain. But my pain was still there. Not just my neck pain, but my heart pain, ’cause I was falling for a woman who wasn’t mine while trying unsuccessfully to forget about the woman who was. I was thinking that I always wanted to look at Trini the way Rocky looked at Adrian. Adrian was always there for Rocky. He might have been getting the physical punches, but she felt the pain as much as he did. No matter how beaten he was, he could get up and keep fighting ’cause he knew his woman was by his side. I no longer was sure I knew that about Trini. I didn’t know that she’d always be in my corner. And now I also didn’t know if I could trust myself. I never saw myself as a married guy with a chick on the side. After meeting Trini, I’d passed up hundreds of hot groupies. Yet here I was, staying behind at the restaurant with Teri as the other guys went back to the hotel.
“Your neck feel better?” she asked.
“Much better. Let’s just have a cup of coffee and talk.”
We talked about the movies, her life, my life. We talked about everything. I liked her humor. She liked my humor. I liked her smile. She liked my dumb way of talking. I liked everything about her.
When we left the restaurant, the rain had stopped. Hand in hand, we walked back to the hotel. We rode up in the elevator together. When we got to my suite, I said, “I wanna do this so bad, but I’m all torn up.”
“I know,” she said. “I can feel what you’re feeling.”
She just stood there, running her hands through her hair. I walked over, put one hand around her waist and kissed her deeply. She responded by holding my face with both her hands. Lust was there, but love was in the middle of the thing. The lovemaking was out of this world.
The day before Thanksgiving was the final day of filming. It was rough. The next day I’d be flying home to Trini and Max in Jersey. This was the end of the affair we’d been having in the movie as well as in real life. Both of us knew it couldn’t go on. I was still too attached to my family to ever leave them. Teri knew that from the beginning.
What was weird was that the director saved the last scene in the story for the last day of shooting. That’s unusual, because films are shot out of sequence. But somehow things had worked out so that the climactic scene—in which we both finally say “I love you”—was being shot the day we parted.
To make the scene even more romantic and personal, I’d rewritten it. Everyone on the set knew what Teri and I knew—that these two adventures, the ninja killers/bouncer/model story and the real-life Andrew-Teri story, had come together.
On camera, I confessed my love and she confessed hers.
The make-believe story was over, and the next day I was on a plane to Jersey, my heart torn into a million pieces.
TWO WORDS
THE HOLIDAYS WEREN’T easy. I’d vowed to give up Teri, and Teri had vowed to give up me. We kept our vows, no contact, no more nothing. But my mind was cloudy and my heart was heavy with guilt, and even though I did my best to bring my attention back to Trini—I even bought her super-expensive lingerie to rekindle our romance—Trini wasn’t all that interested. The fact that she had made friends with a woman who I respectfully call the Fat Ox didn’t help matters. Why do so many fuckin’ wives have fat ox girlfriends whispering bullshit in their ear and turning them against their husbands? This particular fat ox was the worst. Her whole thing was being the best friend of Andrew Dice Clay’s wife. She had her nose in her everyone’s business—especially Trini’s—and she had the sensitivity of, well, a fuckin’ ox. She came to our New Year’s party, which was fine, but at four thirty in the morning the Ox was still there, drinking my booze and bullshitting with my wife. This was when I wanted private time with Trini. We needed to be alone. We needed to get rid of the Fat Ox, but the Fat Ox wouldn’t move her fat ass off the couch, and Trini wouldn’t kick her out. I ended the year in a state of deep fuckin’ depression.
As 1994 began, I was positive that my marriage couldn’t survive another week. But then in less than a second, my attitude went from dark and negative to bright and positive. It took only two words from Trini to renew my hope and warm my heart.
“I’m pregnant.”
BOCA
SOMETIME AFTER TRINI told me I was going to be a dad again I was down in Florida visiting my parents.
“Diceman, baby,” said Dennis Arfa, “you don’t sound good.”
“I don’t feel good.”
“The bookings are still strong,” said Dennis.
“I’m not worried about the bo
okings. I’m worried about my family.”
“Why? What’s with the family? I thought you said Trini’s having a good pregnancy. Aren’t the two of you getting along?”
“No. We’re always at each other’s throats, but that ain’t the problem. The problem is my mother and father.”
“What? Jackie and Fred Silverstein? They’re your rock.”
“They are. I love ’em to death. But they’re so fuckin’ involved in my career that it’s driving me crazy. My dad has become so over-the-top hard-core about me making more and more money that I don’t even wanna discuss business with him. And my mom—well, it’s like she’s the one who became one of the biggest entertainers in the country, not me. I think my success is making them both nuts.”
“I thought the whole idea was that buying them a condo in Boca Raton was your way of being closer to them.”
“I bought it because they wouldn’t move out to California.”
“But then you bought your own condo in Boca only a few blocks away.”
“Maybe that was a mistake. I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything now.”
“Something just hit me like a ton of bricks,” said Dennis. “I just remembered a friend of mine in Boca who can help you out.”
“Who?”
“His name is Frank.”
“How can he help?”
“He’s a psychiatrist.”
“You gotta be fuckin’ kidding. Can you see me going to a shrink?”
“Yeah. You’ll like Frank. He’s a regular guy. I can see you talking to him. You’re a smart guy. He’s a smart guy. You’ve got problems. He’s a guy who helps solve problems. That’s all there is to it.”
“So you’re saying that you think I’m crazy.”
“No, I’m saying that I think you don’t wanna go crazy. Which is why I think you’ll call Frank.”
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