“There’s all this emphasis on us as a team, but I’ve finally learned how to be happy with myself, and I’m just starting to respect myself,” says Haim. “I want to enjoy that. Friendship is a two-way road. I’m not sure if [Feldman] knows that.”
As for the accusations made in the Enquirer, Haim categorically denies them and lets on that he is a more than a little bit hurt that a rumor would go that far. It’s unclear as to who the rumor came from. Feldman’s manager, Scott Carlson, sides with Haim, denying that the event ever happened.
Lunchtime is another opportunity for this strangely functional family to reconvene. Judy Haim meets us at a corner bistro uptown, where we sit and attempt to order. The waiter, who is clearly flabbergasted when he realizes who he is about to wait on, fumbles a little. Lunch is ordered and everyone stands up to make phone calls and smoke cigarettes. I’m left at the table with Judy, who tells me she just came from Barnes & Noble and pulls out a magazine, showing me an advertisement for her son’s A&E show (which, by the way, just earned Haim a nomination for a Gemini Award—Canada’s version of the Emmys). The ad has Feldman, dressed in cool black, strangling his pal, her son, dressed in jeans and Converse sneakers. The waiter, still visibly shaken, returns and tells Daniel and Judy that he is a huge fan of Haim’s and “can’t believe” he’s waiting on him.
“It’s so strange to me that people get so excited over my son. He’s a person, just like everyone else,” says Haim’s pretty, blonde, blue-eyed mother.
Before the lunch is over, Haim gobbles a few bites of his fruit salad and takes a picture with Matt, our thrilled-to-death waiter.
Despite the salacious tabloids and sometimes nasty websites, not one person I’ve witnessed has shown any ill will toward Haim or any of his crew, which, oddly, included me today.
Is it that New Yorkers are that nice, or is what Haim and Gelernt banking on actually true? Do people want the underdog to win?
“I really think the public is forgiving. They want to see a comeback,” says Gelernt.
Come hell or high water, Haim is set on that comeback.
Much of the current buzz surrounding Haim has come from the reality series and from talk that he and fellow Corey are about to begin filming the 20-years-coming sequel to their breakout movie The Lost Boys, which will be released directly to DVD. But at this time, Haim is unsure if he will be taking his part in the movie.
Determined to live by the mantra that he is “here for something,” even if it has not yet been revealed to him, it seems to this reporter that Haim knows better than anyone that when one door closes, another opens. He’s ready to walk through it, wherever it leads.
Comeback Kid
A few more stops to talk to neighbors, strangers and doormen, plus a Houston radio station phone interview later in the day, and it is finally my turn for some alone time with Haim. I’ve listened to him answer more than a dozen questions, some repeats, some outright silly, and I decide that we’ve all heard all the generic answers to the generic questions. I want to know who Corey Haim really is.
Like everything else with Haim, the self-proclaimed perfectionist, the scene needs to be set appropriately. We’re back in the elevator, downstairs, in the lush garden patio of the apartment complex. Haim sits us on the red brick ground under two enormous elephant plant leaves, and prepares to bare his soul.
He takes a deep breath and lights a cigarette.
“I used to think God hated me, but he’s kept me around for something. I’m not sure yet what it is. I hope it’s to be an actor,” he smiles. “Maybe it’s to be a racquetball player or a garbage man, but I am here for something.”
Haim intensely recounts his transformation in the past four years since he’s been clean. His weight topped out at 285 pounds, and he is currently at 155 pounds. He even shares his diet regimen that includes watermelon (which he offered up wholeheartedly to me, refusing to take no for an answer), cayenne pepper, lemon, maple syrup and a lot of “cawfee.” His exercise regimen: walking the streets of New York and playing Frisbee in Atlantic Beach. He jokes about being a health freak, as he takes another drag from his cigarette, and is resigned to the fact that it is indeed his last vice, which he swears he’s quitting soon.
Changing subjects easily, Haim takes on a serious expression and tells me that if it weren’t for the people who cared about him—the ones he says who don’t care whether he’s “fat or skinny, rich or poor”—he would most definitely not be right here right now. And with that, he jumps to his feet to breathe the air of the slowly blanketing dusk.
The Haim that most of America expects—and that tabloids exploit—is not the gentle and well-spoken man who sits in front of me. It’s not that someone has got it wrong—he once was that guy. But he’s trying his damnedest to not be that guy any longer.
“Everyone thinks that I was just out having a good time,” he says, “but I’m an intuitive person, and I knew I’d have to come back. Being sober is like erasing a blackboard, I don’t have those memories I did when I was using—and that’s scary. But I’m making new memories and they are great, the right kind of memories.”
The last drop of sunlight disappears and ushers in evening, and as if the foggy nighttime sky jogs a thought, Haim swears that he has picked up exactly where he was before he started using drugs—as though he’s been asleep for those years—and that it has motivated him to enjoy life the right way this time around.
“I want to be the guy they talk about when they talk about comebacks. I want people to learn from me, see I’m human, and understand that I make mistakes just like they do, but it doesn’t have to consume you. You’ve got to walk through the raindrops, and that’s totally what I am trying to do.”
