The Wolf of Wall Street

CHAPTER 33

REPRIEVES

(Three Weeks Later)

Just when I actually woke from my back surgery I’m still not sure. It was on October 15, 1995, sometime in the early afternoon. I remember opening my eyes and muttering something like “Uhhhh, fuck! I feel like shit!” Then all of a sudden I started vomiting profusely, and each time I vomited I felt this terrible shooting pain ricocheting through every neural fiber of my body. I was in the recovery room in the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, and I was hooked up to a drip that released titrated doses of pure morphine into my bloodstream each time I pushed a button. I remember feeling deeply saddened that I had to go through a seven-hour operation to get this sort of cheap high without breaking the law.

The Duchess was hovering over me, and she said, “You did great, honey! Barth said everything’s gonna be fine!” I nodded and drifted off into a sublime state of morphine-induced narcosis.

Then I was home. It was perhaps a week later, although the days seemed to be melting into one another. Alan Chemical-tob was helpful—dropping off five hundred Quaaludes my first day home from the hospital. They were all gone by Thanksgiving. It was a feat of great manhood, and I was rather proud of it—to average eighteen Ludes a day, when a single Lude could knock out a two-hundred-pound Navy SEAL for up to eight hours.

The Cobbler came to visit and told me that he’d worked things out with the Drizzler, who had agreed to leave quietly with only a small fraction of his stock options. Then the Drizzler came over and told me that one day he would find the Cobbler in a dark alley and strangle him with his own ponytail. Danny visited, too, and told me that he was just about to cut a deal with the states, so there were definitely Twenty Years of Blue Skies ahead. Then Wigwam came over and told me that Danny had lost touch with reality—that there was no deal with the states—and that, he, Wigwam, was out hunting for a new brokerage firm, where he could set up shop just as soon as Stratton imploded.

As Stratton continued its downward spiral, Biltmore and Monroe Parker continued to thrive. By Christmas, they had completely cut ties with Stratton, although they continued to pay me a royalty of $1 million on each new issue. Meanwhile, the Chef stopped by every few weeks—giving me regular updates on the Patricia Mellor debacle, which was still in the process of winding down. Patricia’s heirs, Tiffany and Julie, were now dealing with the Inland Revenue Service, Britain’s equivalent of the IRS. There were some faint rumblings that the FBI was looking into the matter, but no subpoenas had been issued. The Chef assured me that everything would end up okay. He had been in touch with the Master Forger, who had been questioned by both the Swiss and United States governments, and he’d stuck to our cover story like glue. In consequence, Agent Coleman had hit a dead end.

And then there was the family: Carter had finally shaken off his rocky start and was thriving beautifully. He was absolutely gorgeous, with a terrific head of blond peach fuzz, perfectly even features, big blue eyes, and the longest eyelashes this side of anywhere. Chandler, the baby genius, was two and a half now, and she had fallen deeply in love with her brother. She liked to pretend she was the mommy—feeding him his bottle and supervising Gwynne and Erica as they changed his diaper. Chandler had been my best company, as I shuttled myself between the royal bedchamber and the basement’s wraparound couch, doing nothing but watching television and consuming massive quantities of Quaaludes. In consequence, Chandler had become a Jedi Master at understanding slurred speech, which would stand her in good stead, I figured, if she happened to end up working with stroke victims. Either way, she spent the greater part of her day asking me when I would be well enough to start carrying her around again. I told her it would be soon, although I strongly doubted that I would ever make a full recovery.

The Duchess had been wonderful too—in the beginning. But as Thanksgiving turned into Christmas and Christmas turned into New Year’s, she began to lose patience. I was wearing a full body cast and it was driving me up the wall, so I figured as her husband it was my obligation to drive her up the wall too. But the body cast was the least of my problems—the real nightmare was the pain, which was worse than before. In fact, not only was I still plagued with the original pain, there was a new pain now, which ran deeper, into the very marrow of my spine. Any sudden movement sent waves of fire washing through my very spinal canal. Dr. Green had told me that the pain would subside, but it seemed to be growing worse.

By early January I had sunk to new levels of hopelessness—and the Duchess put her foot down. She told me that I had to slow down with the drugs and at least try to resume some semblance of being a functioning human being. I responded with a complaint about how the New York winter was wreaking havoc on my thirty-three-year-old body. My bones, after all, had become very creaky in my old age. She recommended we spend the winter in Florida, but I told her Florida was for old people, and in spite of feeling old, I was still young at heart.

So the Duchess took matters into her own hands, and next thing I knew I was living in Beverly Hills, atop a great mountain that overlooked the city of Los Angeles. Of course, the menagerie had to come, too, to continue Lifestyles of the Rich and Dysfunctional—and for the bargain price of $25,000 a month I rented the mansion of Peter Morton, of Hard Rock Café fame, and settled in for the winter. The aspiring everything quickly reached into her bag of former aspirations, pulling out the one marked aspiring interior decorator, and by the time we moved in there was $1 million worth of brand-new furniture in the house, all arranged just so. The only problem was that the house was so enormous, perhaps 30,000 square feet, that I was considering buying one of those motorized scooters to get from one side of the house to the other.

On a separate note, I quickly realized that Los Angeles was merely a pseudonym for Hollywood, so I took a few million dollars and started making movies. It took about three weeks to realize that everyone in Hollywood (including me) was slightly batty, and one of their favorite things to do was: lunch. My partners in the movie business were a small family of bigoted South African Jews, who had been former investment-banking clients of Stratton. They were an interesting lot, with bodies like penguins and noses like needles.

In the third week of May my body cast came off. Fabulous! I thought. My pain was still excruciating, but it was time to start physical therapy. Maybe that would help. But during my second week of therapy I felt something pop, and a week later I was back in New York, walking with a cane. I spent a week in different hospitals, taking tests, and every last one of them came back negative. According to Barth I was suffering from a dysfunction of my body’s pain-management system; there was nothing mechanically wrong with my back, nothing that could be operated on.

Fair enough, I thought. No choice but to crawl up to the royal bedchamber and die. A Lude overdose would be the best way to go, I figured, or at least the most appropriate since they had always been my drug of choice. But there were other options too. My daily drug regimen included 90 milligrams of morphine, for pain; 40 milligrams of oxycodone, for good measure; a dozen Soma, to relax my muscles; 8 milligrams of Xanax, for anxiety; 20 milligrams of Klonopin, because it sounded strong; 30 milligrams of Ambien, for insomnia; twenty Quaaludes, because I liked Quaaludes; a gram or two of coke, for balancing purposes; 20 milligrams of Prozac, to ward off depression; 10 milligrams of Paxil, to ward off panic attacks; 8 milligrams of Zofran, for nausea; 200 milligrams of Fiorinal, for migraines; 80 milligrams of Valium, to relax my nerves; two heaping tablespoons of Senokot, to reduce constipation; 20 milligrams of Salagen, for dry mouth; and a pint of Macallan single-malt scotch, to wash it all down.

A month later, on the morning of June 20, I was lying in the royal bedchamber, in a semivegetative state, when Janet’s voice came over the intercom. “Barth Green is on line one,” said the voice.

“Take a message,” I muttered. “I’m in a meeting.”

“Very funny,” said the obnoxious voice. “He said he needs to speak to you now. Either you pick up the phone or I’m coming in there and picking it up for you. And put down the coke vial.”

I was taken aback. How had she known that? I looked around the room for a pinhole camera, but I didn’t see one. Were the Duchess and Janet surveilling me? Of all the intrusions! I let out a weary sigh and put down my coke vial and picked up the phone. “Hewoah,” I muttered, sounding like Elmer Fudd after a tough night out on the town.

A sympathetic tone: “Hi, Jordan, it’s Barth Green. How ya holding up?”

“Never better,” I croaked. “How about you?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” said the good doctor. “Listen, we haven’t spoken in a few weeks, but I’ve been speaking to Nadine every day and she’s very worried about you. She says you haven’t left the room in a week.”

“No, no,” I said. “I’m fine, Barth. I’m just catching my second wind.”

After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Barth said, “How are you, Jordan? How are you really?”

I let out another great sigh. “The truth is, Barth, that I give up. I’m fucking done. I can’t take the pain anymore; this is no way to live. I know it’s not your fault, so don’t think I hold it against you or anything. I know you tried your best. I guess it’s just the hand I was dealt, or maybe it’s payback. Either way, it doesn’t matter.”

Barth came right back with: “Maybe you’re willing to give up, but I’m not. I won’t give up until you’re healed. And you will be healed. Now, I want you to get your ass out of bed right now, and go into your children’s rooms and take a good hard look at them. Maybe you’re not willing to fight for yourself anymore, but how about fighting for them? In case you haven’t noticed, your children are growing up without a father. When’s the last time you played with them?”

I tried fighting back the tears, but it was impossible. “I can’t take it anymore,” I said, snuffling. “The pain is overwhelming. It cuts into my bones. It’s impossible to live this way. I miss Chandler so much, and I hardly even know Carter. But I’m in constant pain. The only time it doesn’t hurt is the first two minutes I wake up. Then the pain comes roaring back, and it consumes me. I’ve tried everything, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

“There’s a reason I called this morning,” said Barth. “There’s a new medication I want you to try. It’s not a narcotic, and it has no side effects to speak of. Some people are having amazing results with it—people like you, with nerve damage.” He paused, and I could hear him take a deep breath. “Listen to me, Jordan: There’s nothing structurally wrong with your back. Your fusion is fine. The problem is you have a damaged nerve, and it’s misfiring—or firing for no reason at all, to be more accurate. You see, in a healthy person, pain serves as a warning signal, to let the body know there’s something wrong. But sometimes the system gets short-circuited, usually after a severe trauma. And then even after the injury is healed, the nerves keep firing. I suspect that’s what’s happening with you.”

“What kind of medication is this one?” I asked skeptically.

“It’s an epilepsy drug, to treat seizures, but it works for chronic pain too. I’ll be honest with you, Jordan: It’s still somewhat of a long-shot. It’s not approved by the FDA for pain management, and all the evidence is anecdotal. You’ll be one of the first people in New York taking it for pain. I already called it in to your pharmacy. You should have it in an hour.”

“What’s it called?”

“Lamictal,” he replied. “And like I said, it has no side effects, so you won’t even know you’re on it. I want you to take two pills before you go to sleep tonight, and then we’ll see what we see.”

The following morning I woke up a little after 8:30 a.m., and, as usual, I was alone in bed. The Duchess was already at the stables, probably sneezing like a wild banshee. By noon, she would be back home, still sneezing. Then she would go downstairs to her maternity showroom and design some more clothes. One day, I figured, she might even try to sell them.

So here I was, staring up at the fabulously expensive white silk canopy, waiting for my pain to start. It’d been six years now of intractable agony at the very paws of that mangy mutt Rocky. But it wasn’t shooting down my left leg, and there was no burning sensation in the lower half of my body. I swung my feet off the side of the bed and stood up straight, stretching my arms to the sky. I still felt nothing. I did a few side bends—still nothing. It wasn’t that I felt less pain; I felt no pain whatsoever. It was as if someone had flipped off a switch and literally shut my pain off. It was gone.

So I just stood there in my boxer shorts for what seemed like a very long time. Then I closed my eyes and bit down on my lower lip and started to cry. I went over to the side of the bed, rested my forehead on the edge of the mattress, and continued to cry. I had given up six years of my life to this pain, the last three of which had been so severe that it’d literally sucked the life out of me. I had become a drug addict. I had become depressed. And I had done things while I was high that were unconscionable. Without the drugs I would have never let Stratton get so out of control.

How much had my drug addiction fueled my life on the dark side? As a sober man, would I have ever slept with all those prostitutes? Would I have ever smuggled all that money to Switzerland? Would I have ever allowed Stratton’s sales practices to spiral so far out of control? Admittedly, it was easy to blame everything on drugs, but, of course, I was still responsible for my own actions. My only consolation was that I was living a more honest life now—building Steve Madden Shoes.

Just then the door swung open, and it was Chandler. She said, “Good morning, Daddy! I came to kiss away your boo-boo again.” She leaned over and kissed my lower back, once on each side, and then she planted one kiss directly on my spine, just over my scar.

I turned around, tears still in my eyes, and took a moment to regard my daughter. She wasn’t a baby anymore. While I’d been lost in my pain she’d given up her diaper. Her face was more chiseled now, and in spite of being less than three, she no longer spoke like a baby. I smiled at her and said, “Guess what, thumbkin? You kissed away Daddy’s boo-boo! It’s all gone now.”

That got her attention. “It is?” she said, in a wondrous tone.

“Yeah, baby, it is.” I grabbed her under her arms and stood up straight, lifting her over my head. “You see, baby? Daddy’s pain is all gone now. Isn’t that great?”

Very excited: “Will you play with me outside today?”

“You bet I will!” And I swung her over my head in a great circle. “From now on I’ll play with you every day! But first I gotta go find Mommy and tell her the good news.”

In a knowing tone: “She’s riding Leapyear, Daddy.”

“Well, that’s where I’m going, then, but first let’s go see Carter and give him a big kiss, okay?” She nodded eagerly and off we went.

When the Duchess saw me, she fell off her horse. Literally.

The horse had gone one way and she had gone the other, and now she was lying on the ground, sneezing and wheezing. I told her of my miraculous recovery, and we kissed—sharing a wonderful, carefree moment together. Then I said something that would turn out to be very ironic, which was: “I think we should take a vacation on the yacht; it’ll be so relaxing.”