Paris: The Memoir(45)
Love me, love me, say that you love me
Fool me, fool me . . .
I created a character named Amber Taylor—because Amber Valletta and Niki Taylor. Supermodel vibes. I scrounged thrift stores for an appropriate look and bought five-dollar pieces on the street in downtown LA in the fashion district. Amber wore black, mostly. Baggy skater clothes. Hot Topic style: long red wig, fake nose ring, a full sleeve of press-on tattoos. Amber was more than a disguise; Amber was a totally different person. A little vacation from myself. Amber had never been roofied or strip-searched or slapped around. She was sassy and smart, and I loved being her.
My money didn’t last long, and I was afraid to stay in one place, so I called a friend of mine in New York—let’s call him Biff—and he bought me a plane ticket to Connecticut, where he lived with his parents.
The only problem was Mouse.
“I’ll fly you out,” Biff said, “but you can’t bring this little girl with you. It would be like kidnapping. She’s a minor. I could seriously go to jail.”
I put it off as long as I could, keeping my plan secret. The morning before I was to leave, I took Mouse to Denny’s for breakfast. When the bill came, I gave her all my money and said, “Hang on to this. I need to use the restroom.”
Without looking back, I went down a short hallway and, instead of going into the bathroom, I pushed through a door that said EMPLOYEES ONLY. I hurried through a back area full of boxes and produce pallets, slipped out a back door by a dumpster, and ran as fast as I could down La Cienega Boulevard until I saw a city bus pull up to a stop. You could usually sneak onto a bus if the back door was open and a lot of people were getting off.
I crouched between the seats, fighting tears, forcing myself to focus on my strategy for getting through the airport. But guilt clawed at me.
It’s clawing at me now. After all these years.
Over the decades, I’ve tried not to think about that skinny little girl in the huge, unforgiving city. When I think about the most likely fate of a kid like her, it makes me want to throw up. I was trying to save her, and I ended up throwing her to the wolves. I pray that she found someone who was better able to help her than I was. I hope she grew up okay and that she was able to forgive me.
Mouse, if you’re out there, I just want to say I’m sorry I abandoned you. I was desperate and didn’t know what else to do.
I didn’t eat or sleep until I got to Connecticut. Sparing the details: It was a terrifying journey.
Biff’s parents were cool with me staying at their house for a while, which I thought was amazingly nice of them. Biff’s mom seemed a little bit put off by the Amber Taylor of it all, but she was very sweet to me. I stayed in their guest room for ten days, probably. Maybe two weeks. Long enough to catch up on sleep and watch a lot of television: X-Files, ER, South Park, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
One day, Biff said we should go into the city and have lunch. I was reluctant, thinking about the paparazzi who used to spot me coming out of the clubs late at night. I wasn’t totally sure Amber Taylor would fool those guys, but Biff convinced me I was being silly. He took me to a diner on the Upper East Side. I was sitting there thinking how much I loved New York when my dad walked in, followed by a couple of transport goons.
Fuck.
I didn’t say anything. Didn’t move. Biff stared down at the table.
“Don’t hate me,” he whispered.
“I don’t,” I said. I figured it was karma for the way I dumped Mouse.
Another lesson learned: No matter what happened from here, I’d be better off alone. Always.
My dad stood next to the booth, blocking me from getting out. I breathed in the smell of his dry-cleaned suit, and I wanted to put my arms around him and tell him how much I missed him and Mom and Nicky and the boys. More than I’d ever wanted anything, I just wanted my dad to put his arms around me and take me home.
“Let’s go, Paris.” He said it quietly, not wanting to make a scene.
My throat felt hot and tight. I said, “My name is Amber. You must have me confused with someone else.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I know it’s you.”
“No. I’m not who you think I am.”
It’s sad to think now how true that was.
“You don’t know me,” I said. “I don’t know you.”
I gripped the edge of the seat, but the transporter grabbed my arm and hauled me out of the booth. I started kicking and screaming. The goons stepped in with that “easy way/hard way” line, and I couldn’t go the easy way, because I knew they were taking me to Provo. I went crazy on them, clawing and struggling. I didn’t really expect to get away; I just wanted to make those dickheads work for it.
Hey—off topic, but not really—have you ever seen Repo! The Genetic Opera?
In 2006, I was looking to do something completely different. The producer Mark Burg, of Twisted Pictures, came to me with the weirdest idea I’d ever heard: an epic, gory, grand rock opera in the tradition of Tommy, The Black Parade, or Quadrophenia. Think Saw meets Moulin Rouge.
Repo! The Genetic Opera takes place in a dystopian world where the human race is plagued by genetic organ failure, so people have to buy transplant organs, and if they can’t pay, the organs get repossessed by the fiendish slasher Repo Man, who’s actually just a dad trying to protect his daughter Shilo. Meanwhile, Rottissimo, the heartless megarich titan who rules this nightmare world, finds out that he’s dying, and he has to figure out which of his twisted children will inherit all his money and power: sadistic Luigi, insane Pavi, or beauty-obsessed Amber Sweet.