Just like in a book, Maddy was from a screwy strict Catholic family. And after spending enough time with her, my best guess is she also had a genius level IQ. She once mentioned in passing that she had been accepted to Harvard, but went to a state school because of a boy she followed… and this boy eventually broke her heart. She wasn’t street meat off the sidewalk grill… Maddy was well read, well educated and even played the piano like Beethoven. I mean it was creepy to see this punk chick in a hoodie go at it like a concert pianist. Bit by bit, piece by piece… some of her story surfaced.
Her state school sweetheart dumped her sophomore year, and after a long battle with depression, Maddy dropped out. She was in so much distress, she couldn’t really focus on her studies. So like all great alcoholics and addicts in training, she said “fuck it.”
—to her strict family
—to her formal education
—to religion, which she never bought into anyway.
Her parents stopped communicating with her and she started using now and again. A few pills, some weed, a little blow. All in the name of a good time and passing the time. And I empathize. If you get under the covers with booze and dope, they will eventually turn on you, but unlike a boyfriend or an unforgiving family, a substance will never turn it’s back on you. And that my friends is the drug rub. So Maddy started playing around… but more of an opportunist than an addict - at this point - she began selling to pay her way, and to afford the bad habits she enjoyed. Everyone loves a pretty girl… and one who’s HOLDING trumps a bitch on the runway any day of the week.
In order to sell more, she became tight with some very bad people and started bringing in real money. She had contacts in Texas, Arizona, and across the border. I know what you’re thinking— is this girl for real? Is Max Barrie full of shit? And who the hell is Max Barrie? Honestly, I can’t effectively answer any of those questions. I’m telling you my version of things and what Maddy conveyed to me during the time that I knew her. But she could’ve been taking me for a ride, entertaining me, spinning stories that never were. According to her, she started selling heroin. She lived alone in an apartment with 3 handguns, 1 shotgun, and a safe full of drugs, just like in the movies. She even had a pit bull. And for a few years her life was moving, but never moving forward. Money kept coming in… but eventually she had to pay the fiddler.
Any possible tall tales aside, I knew for a fact that Maddy would meet with a team of attorneys regularly, and I also listened to a few threatening voicemails she got from old “co-workers” back home. She finally changed her number.
Both in different sober livings, I picked her up one night and took her out to a birthday party in Hollywood. The bouncer wouldn’t let us in at first because I was wearing sweatpants. Never mind that they were seven-hundred dollar sweatpants from Maxfield. So I did the unthinkable… I told the gatekeeper who I was and who was celebrating their birthday that night. A few minutes later we got in. After the party, Maddy and I went to see some awful horror movie in Century City. Like we were in 7th grade, I took her hand during a spooky Scooby-Doo moment. We kissed. I finally understood what Conner had been talking about. Her mouth was the Batcave and her tongue nearly took me down. I didn’t mention anything that night, but I would eventually call her on it. Still, she would always refuse to display her big pink taster. I asked to see it many times.
Like Conner, I gradually started to become infatuated with Maddy. Part of it was that she soon became hard to reach, which is always exciting. Speaking of Conner, he found out I was fooling around with Maddy. He asked me why I would do something like that? He thought we were friends. I felt bad, we were friends… sort of, but isn’t this how friends treat each other? It was how most “friends” had always treated me… as an afterthought. Conner soon flew back to New York. I heard he relapsed, but I can’t be sure. He changed his number and wasn’t on Facebook. Anyway, fuck him. No, fuck you, Max. I’m sorry I hurt you, Connie. Women have always been so few and far between that when one gave the go-ahead, I didn’t think about anything or anyone else.
I had some funds at the time… maybe my sweatpants gave it away? I had been working before I landed in treatment, and had recently inherited six figures. So I was spending a lot, acting like a big shot. I used to think that ready money made a man, and I wanted to stick out my green prick whenever and wherever possible. In Hell-A, if you have cash, people smile when they see you. But they’re disingenuous little devils. A man is made in the storm of life, once he stops doing childish things and starts helping others. If you’re lucky enough to strike gold, like I did at birth, be very careful, but be generous. If you’re blowing money left and right to feed your fickle beasts, you’re missing the point.
I took Maddy to Nobu for dinner, as well a handful of other pricey establishments. I bought her a birthday necklace at Chrome Hearts. She even got a little emotional, saying she couldn’t remember the last time anyone bought her anything. We both lived in sober livings, so I wasn’t allowed to play with her ass indoors. There was a lot of making-out in my car. Up front in a donut shop parking lot… in the backseat, parked along PCH. I kept trying to toss it in, but she would never get undressed. I still hadn’t slept with her yet. Now don’t I look silly? Thats my specialty. A lot of embracing one another and intense drama and even a couple mediocre blow-jobs. But that about summed it up.
I eventually got us a suite at The Beverly Hills Hotel and we ordered room service and crawled under the covers to watch a movie. Surely, this would be a thigh opening experience for her. But she refused to get undressed… and sometimes when I touched her, she would tremble. Because I’m an asshole, I cracked jokes about her having a cock that she didn’t want me to find… that’s when she told me a horror story.
Last year she was robbed, beat-up and BRUTALLY SEXUALLY ASSAULTED by two guys she knew back home. I can still hear her say those three words to me— “Brutally Sexually Assaulted.” And even though I didn’t have CSI evidence, I believed her. Talking about it, Maddy looked like her insides had been kicked out through her stomach. She wouldn’t say much more… other than she knew the two guys who robbed and raped her, and she didn’t call the police because of the line of work she was in. She also mentioned that since it happened she couldn’t get undressed without having a panic attack. So showers were quick, mirrors were covered, and sex was difficult to say the least.
After the attack, Madison’s addiction really took hold. “Casual” became “tragical.” She started regularly smoking meth, didn’t sleep for days, even got sloppy with work… eventually she started shooting the drugs. All pookie and no cliche makes Jack a dull boy. This went on for months. Maddy was originally only trying to cope, but eventually it became a kamikaze mission. She canceled her insurance, stopped paying bills, gave away belongings… like when Nick Cage’s character went to Vegas. But before her credits could roll, the DEA knocked on her door with a number of charges. Possession, distribution, trafficking, you name it. However, the authorities told her it could all be a bad dream if she helped them. That’s when Maddy lawyered up, flew out to Cali, and landed in rehab with me.
I started to have nightmares and daymares about the guys who attacked Madison. I replayed a brutal assault in my mind that I knew nothing about, over and over… I pictured horrible evil Pulp Fictiony things. Whatever images you conjure up while you’re reading this are sufficient, as mine certainly were for me.
I started to lose myself, and only think and breathe about Madison… rescuing her and avenging her horrible attack, then the two of us running away together. I soon told her I loved her and she told me the same. And in some warped and twisted reality, we probably did love each other. It just wasn’t the kind of love that came with a white picket fence or stood the test of time. And then she’d disappear more often, or not return my messages… so I’d break things off… and then she’d come back crying and give me head… and we’d start over just as soon as I finished. When Maddy was around I would only think about her leaving, and when she wasn’t around I would wonder where she was. During the worst of it, nothing helped. I was stone cold sober and emotionally invested in the wind. It was a lot like being on drugs.
Anger, shame and selfishness gripped me in it’s tiny claw. I was furious with those two guys who raped Maddy. I also was angry at her for “letting it happen???” I was upset that I couldn’t fuck her because what did that say about me? And then I piled on the shame for thinking such selfish disgusting thoughts… and what did THAT say about me?! If I could have shot fireballs out of my eyes, this would’ve been the time. Also, fuck the DEA for arresting her. Fuck the lawyers who were billing her. Fuck the recovery community for making us sneak around. Fuck Conner for being a butt pirate and relapsing.
Wherever I pointed my finger, it didn’t really matter. There were always three pointing back. Oh, ok, maybe this is why the recovery community frowns on newly sober people dating?
When the new year arrived, Maddy and I had officially stopped getting together. And that’s when I melted into a pile of clothes and slime. I thought about suicide and I even thought about homicide… however anything I thunk was in bed. I could barely get up to take a leak. My version of a Porta-Potty was some of those red plastic keg cups on my dresser. I rarely left my sober living, but when I did come up for air, I’d get horribly paranoid. I would think I saw Madison nearby or that her car was following me, or that my friends were fucking her… or not fucking her? I’m not sure what’s worse.
You go to rehab to stop drinking and using drugs… at least I did. Pretty much everything else is none of anybody’s business as long as I’m not hurting myself or someone else. You could certainly make the argument that Maddy and I were hurting one another. Because even though we grew into each other, we were the last thing each other needed. But whether the sobriety scene put their guns in the ground or not, this relationshit happened… and so will others.
The best advice I got in the middle of all this was from a certain compassionate witness who always wore a hat. He had seen it all and been through it all. And he didn’t talk at me, he sat and listened to what I had to say. And when I finished, he paused… then spoke, “I’m not Nostradamus and can’t predict the future, buddy. Any Rehab and Juliet romance will either work or it won’t… this may be a good thing OR it may not.” And that was all. There was no judgement… so I could hear him… and because I could hear him, I could digest. He then explained how common rape and trauma were… he threw out frightening statistics and said that many female victims knew the men who assaulted them.
My very first girlfriend I met in a drug rehab. She’s the one who took my virginity at 19. We were together for nearly three years.
The only difference between rape and murder is— with rape, the victim bleeds out over a lifetime. Madison went back to Arizona and I never saw her or spoke to her again. At some point we texted… maybe a year later… and I learned she had a legitimate day job and had relapsed again on meth. Don’t know what happened with her legal problems. She wouldn’t say.
I burned a kid who looked up to me and soon after I became a caricature of him. With time, I snapped out of my love sick craziness and it morphed into something else… I also started fucking Alexis— a tiny tattooed grunge girl who lived in my sober living. She granted me vagina access, and was great at sucking cock and even better at swallowing, if that’s possible? The antidote really is the poison.