Four Feet Tall and Rising (16 page)

The only good part about being in L.A. was going out dancing. I still loved to dance, so Heather, Lena, and I went out a lot, and everywhere we went, we were the center of attention. My dancing caught the eye of one of Lena’s friends, Chris, a young woman who worked for Universal Studios. She approached me and said, “No pun intended, but we are short on Little People. I wanna give you a dancing job at Universal.” I’d been out about a month, and the transfer to San Francisco was looking less likely by the day. I said, “I’m not taking off my clothes!” She laughed at me. “No, no. It’s in the theme park. That’s the catch.” As long as I could keep my clothes on, I was game. “What do you mean, catch?” Chris kind of blushed with shame. “It’s Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks.” I didn’t even have to think. “Hell no! I’m not into that fucking crap.” But then she said, “It’s good money.” That stopped me in my tracks. I needed money desperately. “How much?” She had me now, and she knew it. “It’s a hundred and fifty dollars a day. You can make over a grand a week.” It was like … Houston, we have landed. I shook Chris’s hand. “Where do I sign up?”

Chris sent me straight to Human Resources. She’d already seen me dancing, so I didn’t have to audition again. I was terrified to fill out the paperwork. I knew if they found out about my criminal history, I wouldn’t get the job. They were a huge corporation catering to families and kids. When it came to the question “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?” I checked the “No” box.

I wanted to work. I didn’t wanna be on welfare for the rest of my life. I’d been sitting in front of Heather’s computer every day, trying to track down paralegal work. I knew there was no chance in hell anyone would let an ex-con become a lawyer, but I thought maybe, just maybe they’d let me use my paralegal skills to get a foot in the door. I found out nice and quick that any work in law enforcement or the judicial system was a total pipe dream for me. Universal seemed like my only option. That night, at home, I waited by the phone, expecting a call telling me, “We’re sorry, sir. You have a criminal record a mile high.” That call never came. A week later, I was onstage shaking my furry ass in front of a thousand screaming kids, five shows a day, six days a week.

I loved it. I loved standing in front of a crowd and hearing all those kids laughing and clapping and singing along. I loved the lights and the crowds and the spectacle of the show. I loved hanging with the other performers, all of us a bunch of characters whether we were in or out of costume. I loved that nobody was trying to live a “regular” life. All these artists were their own bosses. They worked as extras on TV shows or stand-ins for the movies. Some were in commercials or touring the country with live shows. Everyone had a dream, and they were chasing it. They had great stories, and I admit, I got some stars in my eyes. It was strenuous work, but I loved it.

Heather did not. She didn’t like that I was starting a new life. She didn’t like that I was happier than I’d been in a long, long time. Jealousy reared its ugly head, and then jealousy turned to rage. The “Bride of Chucky” was now in residence,
and she was showing her true colors. I didn’t know it before, but I found out quickly that Heather was addicted to crystal meth. She’d blown through three inheritances like they were nothing. When I moved in with her, she had nothing, even though I knew she’d inherited seventy-five grand from one death, and another hundred grand from another family member’s death. Where all that money had gone, I had no idea. She had nothing to show for it but a lot of emotional baggage. Her mom, her dad, and her sister had all passed away. The whole family was wiped out. I thought they were cursed. I didn’t know that all her relatives were dying ’cause of drugs.

Maybe that’s why Heather was on a mission to have a baby. It was her one and only goal, to start a family. She lied and told me she was on the pill, but when the pregnancy test came back positive, I knew I’d been played. I also knew I wasn’t ready for a kid. I didn’t panic, and it turned out I didn’t need to. Her body, like most Little women, couldn’t hold the pregnancy. She had a miscarriage. I hated that she had to suffer, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was relieved.

After she lost the baby, Heather became suspicious of my every move, and started hounding me with questions, going through my things looking for proof of some imagined affair. She’d accuse me of “using her” for her money, of taking advantage of her, but she didn’t have nothing to use! One night, we were watching TV, when out of the blue she said, “You know, if you ever cheat on me, I will run my head through the TV, then call your parole officer and tell him that you threw me into it.” I kept my eyes on the screen and tried to remain very calm.
I managed a “Really?” She glared at me. “I’ll make sure you violate your parole so you get sent back to jail. Then I’ll know where you are and I can control you.” Turns out, the Bride of Chucky had done this before. She wasn’t just the roommate of a convict’s girlfriend. She was also a convict’s ex-girlfriend. In fact, she’d successfully controlled him for years, sending him back behind bars over and over again. The only reason she was fooling with me is that he was locked up and gone. And that idiot kept coming back to her.

After that threat, in the back of my head, I was screaming to myself, “Run, Shorty, run!” I saved up some money, and a few weeks later, when the Bride of Chucky left for work, I grabbed a friend to help me clear out. I made sure the apartment manager oversaw my move ’cause the crazy bitch had told me plainly that if I ever left her, she would take a sledgehammer to the walls and blame me for it. The apartment manager shook my hand and wished me luck. I was gonna need it.

Working as Alvin
, I met several other Little People making their living onstage. There was one guy, Dave Myers, who’d known me since I was a kid. I’d met him back in third grade, when my parents had forced me to mingle with Little People. He was an okay guy, a friend of the family, and even though he knew all about my past criminal record, he started hooking me up with outside jobs. I could make a one-day appearance as Mini-Me or as a leprechaun and walk away with three hundred bucks. It was easy money, compared to the five or
six shows a day I was doing at Universal. The Alvin show was hard work. I always played Alvin, and Alvin had the most dancing to do. Every once in a while, I’d have to stand in for Theodore, but the supervisors hated it ’cause I was an arrogant Theodore, and that character was supposed to be shy, calm, and quiet. Either way, I sweated my balls off in those costumes, under a hot blazing sun, covered from head to toe. What had seemed like a fortune, $150 a day to dance, in reality broke down to less than thirty bucks a show. Any extra I could make to supplement my income was welcomed.

After every show, we’d go out into the audience to shake hands, hug the kids, and take photos. We weren’t allowed to speak to the kids, just make gestures and hop around. For the most part, I liked the audience participation, but every so often, you’d get a kid who would pop you in the head. It took everything I had inside me not to pop them right back! Backstage, Dave would tease me, “I wonder if Mommy knows her kids are hugging an ex-con.” We’d crack up. Nobody but Dave knew. But he’d always been a great guy, so I trusted him, and when I escaped from the Bride of Chucky, he let me stay at his apartment for a few weeks until I could find a place to live.

I found an apartment in Long Beach, and my old cellie from Folsom, Ray, moved in with me. He was back out of prison again and needed a place to stay so he could get some distance between him and his old ways in San Francisco. Living together was just like old times. Only this time, we had our own rooms. We fell into our usual dynamic. Ignore each
other if we weren’t feeling social, hang out when we were. It was good to have Ray back in my life.

The gigs with Dave were few and far between, so I took a second job to try to get ahead. I applied to be a personal banker at Bank of America. I took the class they offered, and passed their test with a score of 100 percent. They hired me for their Glendale office, to work the night shift. I’d work at Universal all day, take the bus to my Bank of America job, get back on the bus, fall asleep until I’d reach my apartment in Long Beach, sleep for an hour or two, get back on the bus, and head to Universal. It was a vicious cycle.

That went on for four months, until one evening at Bank of America, my supervisor called me into his office. He put me on the phone with the corporate office. They said, “We just pulled up your criminal record. Is this you?” I must have muttered under my breath, “I’m through.” My supervisor laid it out for me: “You’ve got a choice. You can resign, or we can terminate you.” I chose to resign.

The next day, I called Janet and told her what happened. She must have told Linda, ’cause a few days later, Dad called to chew me out. He thought it was a travesty that I’d lost such an important job, asking, “What are you gonna do with your life?” I’d defend myself. “I’m dancing onstage! I’m enjoying myself. I don’t have to report to fucking nobody.” It was true. Despite the grueling schedule, the sweaty costumes, and the kicking kids, I enjoyed performing. My dad thought I needed to settle down. “But why? I missed ten years of my fucking life. Let me catch up!” He pushed. “You’ve gotta be like everyone
else. With the home and a car and a wife and some kids.” It made no sense to me. “Hello! Why? So I can be fucking miserable like you? No, thanks!”

I wasn’t worried. I knew I’d find something else. The only place that would hire me was a phone sex operation. I processed the credit card information as the girls sat beside me, filing their nails and picking their teeth, yelling, “Yeah, daddy, do me, do me!” Learned my lesson with that job. Never call a phone sex line. There’s nothing sexy about it.

I didn’t have a car and I was getting about four hours of sleep a night. I’d head home on the Blue Line, fall asleep, make it all the way to Long Beach, and be halfway back to Los Angeles before I’d wake up. I was so used to the structured life in prison. In Folsom, I sat around and watched the same TV shows every single day. The same newscast in the morning. The same news in the afternoon.
Mr. Belvedere. Frasier. The Golden Girls
. My life outside was a complete disaster. I loved my job at Universal, but nothing was consistent. Did I wanna go back? Hell no. But the structure was comforting and in some weird way, I missed it. Real life was chaos.

It didn’t help that the Bride of Chucky was stalking me. Eventually, I had to petition the court for a restraining order. She was infuriated that I had had the nerve to abandon her, and I wasn’t sure what she would do. I made sure the restraining order had explicit language saying she wasn’t allowed to be inside the Universal theme park. It didn’t matter; she snuck in.

I was up onstage, shaking and shimmying and playing with the audience, when I felt a cold chill go up the white of
my chipmunk stripe. There she was, glaring at me with those crazy eyes. The Bride of Chucky surrounded by sweet, innocent kids. I almost fell off the stage when I saw her. I felt my mouth go dry, and I panicked. Then I remembered, I had a few minutes backstage between scenes. As soon as the lights went down, I ran backstage and ripped off my Alvin head. I grabbed an assistant stage manager and terrified her with a frantic “Call security! Now!” There was no time to explain. My music cue came up and I had to run back out onstage. As I danced and tumbled, I caught a glimpse of Heather house right. She was closer and I swear to God, the veins in her neck were throbbing. Thank God, there was another short break between scenes, and I ran off as fast as I could. Once again, I ripped off the Alvin head. By this time, security had mobilized. I gave them the super-abbreviated version, which sounded wacked-out and breathless: “Restraining order. Crazy bitch. Audience. She might try to kill me!” To be honest, I was more afraid of the Bride of Chucky than I’d ever been of any Neo-Nazi. Neo-Nazis at least followed gang law. This bitch was off the reservation.

But it was my cue again, so I suited back up and ran out for the finale. Through the eye holes, I could see the security guards in the audience trying to find her. There were kids everywhere, and Heather was their same height. They couldn’t really tell where she was, so I started dancing and trying to point at her with my tail, nod my chubby chipmunk cheeks in her direction. Finally, one of the guards caught on, and a swarm of seven security officers circled her. I just
kept dancing my heart out as they lifted her up and carried her past the terrified parents pulling their kids closer. She was screaming like a banshee, “I AM NOT LEAVING HERE UNTIL I GET TO SEE HIM! I WILL CUT HIS FUCKING DICK OFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!”