Out of Bondage Read Online Free

than a week later, I trusted him enough to ask whether he would come out to California and take charge of my business affairs. That must’ve sounded slightly more attractive than the job he held—that day he had been carrying toilets into condominiums under construction. He agreed to join me.
    Why did I need someone else? Why couldn’t I handle my own affairs? For nearly three years I had someone doing crazy things to me. You don’t, after that time, suddenly start making your own decisions. I had fallen into a pattern of letting someone else decide everything about my life.
    I had to get in touch with me. And at the time I didn’t feel too badly off. My life was a real improvement over what it had been. Okay, I could never turn back the clock to my days at Maria Regina High School, but I could try and get in touch with what I really felt about things.
    And what I really felt from the beginning was a certainty about Larry Marchiano’s character and strength. He, however, could only be confused about me. And that made two of us.
    During my brief stay in Florida, I managed to add to that confusion. Sammy Davis, Jr., happened to be there, starring in a nightclub revue. Readers of Ordeal will remember that Sammy Davis, Jr., had been very much a part of my life when I was Chuck Traynor’s slave.
    In Chuck’s eyes, it had been a simple mathematical equation: Sammy Davis, Jr., was a big Hollywood celebrity; therefore, Sammy Davis, Jr., was to be cultivated; therefore, I was to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it.
    Why would I take Larry and my family to see Sammy Davis, Jr., perform? Why would I then invite them to Sammy’s hotel suite for a post-performance party? I think it shows just how confused I was-how much I wanted someone to care about me-thinking they’d be impressed by my famous show-business friends. But—and I shouldn’t be surprised by this—just the opposite happened.
    In the first place, Larry Marchiano has never been the kind of person who is impressed by superficial things. He had come to see Sammy Davis, Jr., perform-but he was not particularly happy with the crowd that gathered later for drinks in the entertainer’s suite.
    Larry and I were seated together at a table and he went to get some food from the buffet. No sooner was he gone than a stranger sat down beside me and started making conversation. Larry returned with my plate and saw the stranger talking to me.
    “Hey, you,” he said, “you’re sitting in my seat.”
    “Pardon me?” the man said.
    “You’re sitting in my seat,” Larry repeated.
    The new arrival looked at Larry for a long moment and then slowly got to his feet. The room became quiet. It was a heavy silence, an electric silence, the kind of silence they feature in those E.F. Hutton television commercials. A few minutes later, that silence was explained to us.
    “Didn’t you know who you were talking to?” someone asked.
    “Nope,” Larry said.
    “That was Joe Colombo.”
    “Whoa,” I said to Larry, “maybe you should’ve said, ‘excuse me’ first.”
    That was the first time I observed the part of Larry’s personality that can be abrasive. It also translates as an absolute unwillingness to be intimidated. I still don’t know whether it was foolishness or bravery, but he just didn’t seem all that impressed by Colombo’s gangster ties.
    How did Larry Marchiano react to what he saw? Later he would tell me that he knew I was an adult and he didn’t feel he was there to sit in judgment on me. I wish it never happened at all, and the only reason I mention it here is to show how confused I was at the time.
    While I’m making confessions, I have to admit to one other thing—again as a way of showing my state of mind at the time. This is something I really hate to admit. At that time I was using cocaine. Cocaine wasn’t just a sometime thing either.
    I understand why people get hooked on it. Some people say they use it for sexual reasons, but I found it