“Put your hands behind your back!”
Shit, no no no no. I put my hands behind my back, and he snapped the handcuffs over my Rolex Tridor Special Edition Masterpiece watch with a diamond dial. I’d started one obsessive collection since the money started coming in, and that was watches. This Rolex Tridor Special Edition Masterpiece with a diamond dial happened to be my favorite. So I requested, as politely as possible: “Sir, can you please be careful of my watch with those handcuffs?”
He tightened the handcuffs two more clicks—directly over the dial of the watch.
I thought maybe he hadn’t heard me, or he didn’t understand how important this piece was to me. “Sir, could you be a little more careful with the handcuffs? That’s a Rolex Tridor Special Edition Masterpiece with a diamond dial.”
He twisted a key in the handcuffs and loosened them. Just as I was thanking him, he clicked them down tight again, directly over my Rolex Tridor Special Edition Masterpiece. Right away I knew he’d scratched the diamond dial.
Eniko saw the look on my face. “Babe, don’t say nothing,” she begged.
I said something. “Dude, I just asked you not to do that!”
“Stop resisting arrest!” The cop shoved me hard against his car.
“Please, Officer, just let him go.” Eniko half-begged, half-cried. Then, to me: “Baby, just do what he wants.”
In my tequila-soaked mind, the guy was a bully and I wasn’t going to get pushed around by a cop abusing his power. But the truth was, if I were in his position, and there was a rich, drunk asshole who cared more about his Rolex Tridor Special Edition Masterpiece and its diamond dial than about the lives he was endangering on the freeway, I’d probably do the same or worse.
“Oh, so you’re that guy?” I went on with my dumb self. “Going out every night to take out your shitty life on everyone you pull over? I’m coming along peacefully, so don’t hate on me just because you don’t have my life.”
“Nobody’s worried about your life. I just don’t like assholes.”
“So I’m an asshole now, because I tell you to be careful of my watch? No, what makes me an asshole is when you run this registration and see this car ain’t leased, it’s owned.”
I was already a stupid asshole for driving intoxicated, but now I was a Hollywood asshole for bragging intoxicated. Eniko was hysterical: “Stop! Shut up! Just do what he wants!”
The cop looked ready to beat my ass right on the side of the highway. “Go ahead, take me to jail,” I went on with my stupid Hollywood-asshole mouth. “I’ll be out in a couple hours.”
His partner brought over a breathalyzer and interrupted my tirade. “We need you to blow.”
“Fuck no, I’m not blowing! I know the law. Why would I blow? I ain’t blowing. Take me to jail!” I turned to Eniko. “Babe, just drive the car home. I’ll see you later.”
“She’s been drinking too. Unless she wants to join you in jail, she better find another way home.”
“You’re gonna make me leave my lady out here? I would suggest you figure out a way to get her home safely!”
He pushed me into the squad car and it quickly became apparent that he wasn’t going to be taking my suggestion. “Babe, call somebody!” I yelled pathetically after Eniko.
They took the keys and left Eniko standing on the curb near the freeway exit ramp, shouting, “Babe, I’ll come get you!”
At the precinct, some of the officers recognized me. “Have you been drinking, Mr. Hart?” one of them asked.
“Yes. I’m not gonna blow, though.”
“Okay, why don’t you sleep a little and figure out what you wanna do.”
I slept for a few hours, and then blew. I was past the legal limit, which is .08 percent, but it was better than what would have happened if I’d blown the first time. That shit would have come in at goddamn .8 or something.
When they released me from jail the next morning, I still wasn’t sober. Eniko, who’d ended up calling Wayne to drive her and the Mercedes home, came to the station to meet me. As I walked with her to the car and felt the sun on my face, a TMZ cameraman came running up: “Hey, what exactly happened, dude?” He said that the police report claimed I was driving over ninety miles an hour and almost hit a gas tanker. I couldn’t remember a gas tanker, so either the cop made it up or I’m an idiot. Actually, either way I’m an idiot.
If I’d had any chance of hiring a good lawyer to get the charges dismissed, I lost it with my response: “I was actually drunk, so there’s no arguing that.”
I never attempted to fight the charge or make it into a racist-cop incident. It was a dickhead incident: Two guys on the side of the 101 freeway competing to see who could be the biggest dick. I won. It ended up costing me a lot of work, including a Bud Light deal worth ten million dollars. But I look back on the arrest today and think, I’m a better, smarter man because this happened.
If it hadn’t happened, I might have kept drinking and driving until I killed someone. Sometimes it takes experiencing consequences to your actions for you to learn that they’re wrong. And by then, it’s often too late.
Because of that night in jail, I learned my lesson and quit altogether: I stopped driving.
I still drank, but I hired a driver to get me home afterward.
He quit when I pissed in his hat.
94
* * *
FROM THE HART
After getting that DUI, my commitment to health and fitness truly began. I wanted to be a better person for Eniko and for my children, and that meant taking better care of myself.
I started rising earlier in the morning, eating healthier, putting myself on a stricter schedule, and working out more regularly and systematically.
As my body became stronger and healthier, my mind became stronger and healthier as well. I began to clearly see all the ways I was at fault for the destruction of my relationship with Torrei: The constant infidelity, dishonesty, and negative talk—and, as the man in the situation, no matter what she was doing to me physically, it was never okay for me to put hands on her. That’s a shame I’ll have to bear for the rest of my life. These were the actions of a weak man—morally weak, emotionally weak, physically weak, everything weak.