“Big deal. If I want to take a drink I will.”

“Exactly, if you want to get shit faced like you did last night, you will. That is how drunks look at drinking. I’ll do what I want to do, everyone else be damned. Let me put it another way. Right now only one studio in town will hire you and they are not happy with you. Your agent even tried to get you into a “B” porn and they wouldn’t take you. That takes T&A you don’t have. When they hired you at Fritz several actors who had worked with you complained they didn’t want to ever work with you again. Studios listen to that if it gets bad enough. Donald actually had to smooth some feathers. He sees something in you. And we have been doing surveys at every stop. Susan is the expert on the computer. She entered the surveys into the computer last night. Do you want to know what they show?”

“What?”

“It isn’t all bad. At least not all of it.”

“I still appeal to the kids.”

“Yes. But the parents are afraid of your drinking in real life being a bad example. Your appearances on talk shows have been bad because you make alcohol too attractive. They are trying to not have you influence their kids. If they get that bad taste when you start making movies for the older crowd they will not sell as good.”

“So the oldies don’t like me.”

“Let us put it a different way. If the twenty fives don’t like you now, the fifteen year olds that adore you now will not like you in ten years.”

“That’s a long time from now.”

“Do you want to quit working in five years and try to live on what you have made up till now? You have very little of it left now.”

“No.”

“Then we have to rehabilitate your image and part of that is your private life and your demeanor with your peers. Only you can change some of that. Fritz isn’t going to spend money on you if you aren’t a long term winner.

“How can I change that?”

“Well, you are generally a pretty decent person when you are not drunk or hung over.”

“There you are, blaming it on the booze. It’s always the booze.”

“It is at the core of your problem.”

“But when I get stressed I like a drink. Actually when I get stressed I need a drink.”

Susan chimed in. “And one drink would be fine to relax you. But you didn’t stop till you drank the whole bottle. And we know you have driven while drunk. You could have caused someone to loose a leg or a life.”

Denise was quiet for a while.

She turned to Debbie. “You lost your leg to a drunk driver too?”

“All three of us.”

“Do you all hate all drunk drivers?”

“No. I just don’t want them driving drunk.”

“You too?” She turned to Susan.

“Yes.  But I was the drunk driver.”

“What?”

“I was drunk, riding a motorcycle. I lost it and crashed. The leg caught on a loose piece on a guard post. It pulled the foot off and shredded the lower part of my leg. I look the drunk that took my leg in the face every morning.”

“I was the drunk too. I was riding a dirt bike in the woods and I was stoned. I crashed the bike into a tree. I lost my leg. I too look the drunk in the face every morning and realize without that alcohol, I might never really know what living without a leg is like.” Debbie added.

Denise Chapter 01: Success in Hollywood

Denise Chapter 19: The Nasty Drunk

Denise Chapter 21: A Public Appearance in a Wheel Chair