Or rather twelve - that’s when this story begins.
By then the abuse was frequent, and involved multiple people - not just with the agency. And you know what traffickers do sometimes, don’t you? They brand you. Which is exactly what happened. I still have the tattoo on my arm - a barcode, which you’ll see - and the branding mark, which you won’t (because of where it is). The latter one hurt like hell for days. I wore a bandage to cover up the tattoo.
In their paranoia, the agency sent this one kid my age to live in my hometown with his parents - they had turned him. He was the one who told my 7th grade classmates about what had been happening to me, and to prove it once pantsed me in front of the entire school at lunch. (This is how confident they were of getting away with it, or at least how confident they wanted to seem to me. And it did seem that way…for a long time.)
But he was only sent to check up on me because their first attempt had failed. This is my friend T.
T and I were the same age too, and repped by the same people then. (His parents - who you’ll know in a moment - got him out of there by high school. I never asked why, but I think I know.) We were introduced by our respective agents because we were about to be in a production together - it was just a local/regional thing but kinda fun (largely because T) - and we would soon be starting at the same school.
When his mother dropped him off at my house the first time to rehearse (which we didn’t actually do much of), she was quite pregnant…with a daughter. She would be named A. And yes: this is someone you all know. (Remember: this was the mid 80s; she would be a big star in a decade or so. Her twin diagnoses - the latter one she only just spoke to the media about late last year - are the same as mine.) Their last name? B.
At one point that afternoon T closed my bedroom door and with his back to me said: they’re trying to check up on you you know.
I figured that, I said.
I wouldn’t do it for them, he said.
Thank you, I told him.
That night, like practically every one, would be pure hell. I barely slept anymore because I was afraid of waking up with a man at the edge of my bed, or in it. I was afraid of not waking up at all. See: they get you in your sleep, in your dreams. Nightmare on Elm Street is almost…a true story.
And when I was able to sleep I’d started to wet the bed - something I hadn’t done since early in grade school. I’d rode my bike to the mall and bought several sets of identical sheets because I was so afraid of being found out. I rarely went to sleepovers then.
To make myself feel better, I’d started stealing booze and pills - first from my father’s liquor cabinet, and my parents’ medicine cabinet, and then from the parents of my friends, including T.
One day after school, when T and I were playing basketball at his house, I went inside to use the bathroom, but instead went into his parents’ and stole a handful of Xanax from his mother’s medicine cabinet. (His dad kept a shoebox full of weed under the bed too, which we smoked on occasion.)
Of course, I was deathly afraid of his mother calling mine - my mother never believed my version of events, and they were good friends by then - but the call never came. What happened was worse.
One morning a week or two later I woke up to my mother in the doorway, shouting at me.
Why the hell are you not up and dressed for school? The carpool will be here in five minutes.
I’m sorry mom - my alarm didn’t go off (I lied; in truth I’d taken two Xanax a few hours earlier and was still very much under the influence.)
She came into my room, still visibly angry. What is that smell? She ripped the covers off my bed. Did you wet the bed? You’re twelve years old. What is going on with you? (To this day I can’t watch that scene in the Sixth Sense where Cole’s mom confronts him about stealing her mother’s pendant or whatever, because it reminds me of that morning.)
That’s when I blurted it out - or at least, some of it. I didn’t name names, but I did say it was someone at the agency.
I’m calling them right now, she said.
My agent told her that this was a very serious allegation, and that he was required by law to report it to the police immediately. Was that what she wanted?
I remember hearing the pause at her end. No, she said, I think I should take him to be evaluated by a child psychiatrist first. And guess who recommended one - supposedly the best in LA.
I don’t remember her actual name, but I called her Lady Freud to myself. She was this older woman who spoke with a German accent.
I was made to undress, and subjected to an hours-long physical and psychological evaluation, which included bending over an exam table with my underpants around my knees and her peering up my backside with what I think was a flashlight.
After all that, Lady Freud concluded I had issues around authority figures - I don’t remember the exact diagnosis/nonsense - and was envious of some of the other kids getting more work than I did. Also, she told my mother, these fell out of your son’s coat pocket when he was undressing. They were the Xanax.
I’ve seen my mother angry many times, but never like that day. It lasted the whole way home: 45 minutes or an hour.
I was made to apologize to T’s mother and would have to mow their lawn every weekend for like two months. Just not immediately though. The adults had…other plans.
The next day - I knew something was wrong when I wasn’t sent to school - my father took me to my favorite pizza/sandwich place (which sadly closed during the pandemic), and gave me a…pep talk. Your career is still on track, he said - the agency is willing to overlook what happened - but you’re going to need to spend a little at this place where kids like you can get the help they need. It’s a setback, he said, not an end (as if that’s at all what was on my mind).
And he was right…about one thing: the place, which had bars on the windows and locked doors 24/7 - was full of other actor kids. (I have never violated the confidentiality of any of them, but yes there were several you would know - all older, because with one fleeting exception, who was too crazy even for there, I was the youngest. It was up in the San Bernardino mountains, near Big Bear. At least I think it was - I slept most of the ride there. They came and picked you up in what was basically a police car, with doors you couldn’t open and a metal screen between the front and back seats. The man dangled a pair of handcuffs at me as I was getting in the car and said: don’t act up son, okay? Like the shrink, this place was recommended by…the agency. I believe this was the same place they sent the one young female actor, also aged 12, a couple years later. I'm only saying this because it's public knowledge.) At first, I wasn’t even allowed to go to the bathroom without someone watching. And they made me wear a freakin diaper at night.
I didn’t talk at first in group - this was an act of quiet defiance - but then they punished me by not letting me out of my room during “free time.” Knowing that the truth wasn’t going to be believed, I started dropping regular loads of bs into everyone’s ears. I was stressed about having to work and also go to school. I didn’t like all the attention (this part was actually/partly true, because as I said you know who sends actor kids letters and gifts, and in some cases it isn’t other kids; one of these men had called my house persistently when I was 10 and 11). And yes: I was very, very jealous of all the other kids getting more and better work than I did.
Also: could I please go home now? (This was the worst part about it: not knowing if/when you were ever going to be able to leave. By the time they did finally let me go - there was a courtyard in back but it had a high wall with bars at the top (this was the only way you could be outdoors) - it was a completely different group of kids. I was there about eight weeks.)
And for the next year there would be weekly, random drug tests and breathalyzers (I had to go to the school nurse for this), I had to see Lady Freud every week, and I was on “probation” with the agency (whatever the hell that meant). But hey in the meantime they (the agency, I mean) sent some of the kids (including T and I) to Disneyworld with their families.
When the year was finally over - I was thirteen by now, you understand - I was called into my agent’s office. He gave me a watch - which I have until this day - for staying clean the whole time. (That part wouldn’t last.)
I’m so proud of you, he said, but you know you did cause us a whole world of trouble.
I’m sorry, I said, looking away.
When I told you a few years ago that you might one day get the lead role in a studio production, I wasn’t kidding. Do you know what’s happening with that now?
I shook my head no.
The script is in final rewrites, and they’re planning on shooting it in the next year or so. And you know who they want to star in it? He held up a picture of my headshot. That’s right, he said: you.
But I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask a little favor of you. You see: the agency is a bit on the outs with this one executive (something about another one of the boys making trouble and costing a fortune for a recent production), and we’d like you (and this other boy) to spend an evening entertaining him at his home.
Do I have to? I said.
You don’t have to do anything, he said. But I was under the impression you wanted to be a star, and make a fortune, and maybe just maybe be America’s next teen idol.
Thinking it would be just more of the same - what had already happened, I mean - I agreed. And was I ever wrong.
(To be continued.)
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