LARRY LAU

      It turned out not to be a normal Saturday. From upstairs we heard Dad call down to us, “Boys, we’re going on a drive today. Put on something decent. There’s a couple of people I want you to meet.” That was it, no discussion. He had used his Marine Sergeant voice, and when he did, which was not often, you complied. My brother, Bill, sixteen, and two years older than me, shot me a look that asked, “what’s going on?” With a shrug, I replied, “I don’t know.” Going on a family drive wasn’t in our playbook. Something must be up. We got dressed, and a few minutes later we were in the car heading to some unknown destination. Dad rolled his window down and lit a cigarette, resting his elbow on the sill, flicking the ash out the window from time to time. Several minutes went by, still without conversation or explanation. From the backseat, I could see dad’s eyes in the rearview mirror. They looked serious but gave no clue as to what this mystery journey was all about. Finally, my curiosity bursting at the seams, I leaned forward from the backseat and asked,
       “Dad, where are we going?” Crushing his cigarette butt in the ashtray, he said, 
       “You’ll know soon enough. Just hold your horses.”
        I looked over at Bill, sitting shotgun in the front seat, staring out his window. I could tell he was listening. Then dad went on,
       “Let’s get out of Portland first and across the bridge.” 
       “What bridge, the Sellwood Bridge, the Morrison?” I asked.
       “No. Just sit back and be quiet for a little while. Okay?” 
       “But, why…”
       “Can you do that?”
       “Okay.”
       It was a cloudless late summer morning in Northwest Oregon. Leaving Lake Oswego, we skirted through Portland, following the Willamette River north to the old bridge that connected Portland to Vancouver, Washington. I had always thought of Washington the way you’d think of a foreign country, distant and far away. But in fact, it was only across the river from Portland. Crossing the bridge, I was struck by how massive the Columbia River was. It seemed to take forever to get to the other side. Once in Washington, we stayed on the highway that shot us past Vancouver, and within a few minutes, we were out on the open road. The landscape was dry from the hot August summer but framed by Douglas Firs in the distance. Scattered farms with lonely mailboxes punctuated the countryside, lingering in solitary distance from the road on which we were traveling.
       There was hardly any traffic to speak of, just the occasional old pick-up truck rumbling from the other direction, or a slow-moving tractor creeping along the side of the road, but otherwise, the land outside felt forgotten. Dad lit another cigarette and rolled down his window again. We were on a long straightaway when he finally broke the silence.
       “Boys, I’m taking you to meet my parents.” There was a stunned second of silence, then Bill shifted around, looked at dad, and said,
       “What?”
       “I’m taking you to meet my parents.” 
       Pulling myself forward from the backseat again, I said, “Parents?”
        And dad said, “Yes, parents.” A few more seconds passed, then Bill asked,
       “They’re alive?
       “Yes, they’re alive,” dad said.  
        “How come we never knew that?” Bill asked again.
       “We always thought they were dead a long time ago,” I said.
       “Well, they’re not,” dad said. He flicked his cigarette butt out the window and slowed the car down to the speed limit. We were still on a long two-lane highway that looked like it would go on forever. Every now and then little miniature dust haboobs dotted the brown fields off in the distance, spinning briefly until they disappeared. 
       “How come we never met them?” Bill asked.
       “Because I ran away from home when I was seventeen, and never went back.” 
       “You ran away from home? I asked. “Why?”
        “Because when I was twelve years old I found out I was adopted, and I found out in a hard way.” 
       “You were adopted?” Bill asked. We both looked at Dad and then at each other in disbelief.
       “Yes.”
       “What happened to your real parents?” I asked, trying to comprehend what Dad was saying.
       “They couldn’t keep me. For their own reasons. And my mom and dad wanted a child, but couldn’t  have one of their own, so they adopted me when I was a baby.”
       “What was the hard way you found out?” Bill rarely asked any questions, but family history was uncharted territory for us.
        Dad took a moment before answering, then said, “We lived on a farm, a small farm. It’s where I’m taking you now. We should be there soon. We were poor, but all in all, a content family. One day I was playing in the backyard. It had rained a bit earlier, and for some reason, I can’t remember why, I came rushing into the kitchen from the back door, excited to tell my mother something. Maybe I’d caught a bullfrog, It doesn’t matter. But I had completely forgotten that I had muddy boots on, and before I could reverse myself, I slid to a stop in front of her, leaving two wet streaks of mud behind me. Standing there with mop in hand, mom looked at what I had just done to her floor and screamed, 
       “God dammit! Get out! Get out! You stupid boy! Look what you’ve done! You’re a stupid, stupid boy. You’re not even my real son! Now, get out!”
       It was quiet for a moment, except for the wind whipping through Dad’s open window. Then Bill asked, “What happened after that?”
        Dad said, “I stood there, looking at the rage on my mother’s face, not believing what I had just heard. I loved her so much and I couldn’t understand what she had just said. But she screamed again, even louder, “Get out!” jabbing at me with her mop. I ran out of the house as fast as I could and raced into the barn, hiding in the back where no one could find me. And I cried all the rest of the day. I kept hearing her words, “you’re not my real son,” over and over again.” By the time the sun was going down, I was all cried out. But I had made two decisions. First, I promised myself that I would never cry again. And second, that as soon as I could, I would leave the farm and never look back.”
       “How old were you when you ran away?” Bill asked.
       “Seventeen. I set off to the nearest recruiting station and joined the Marines. I lied about my age but they didn’t seem to care. I knew there was a war coming with the Japanese because I had a subscription to Time magazine, which I read front to back every week. Anybody with half a brain knew that it wouldn’t be long before the fireworks began. It was August 1941, and I knew that if I joined then, by the time the first shots were fired, I’d have some rank. At least above a private. When war was declared December seventh, I was already a buck sergeant. And eight months later, the following summer, the first contingent of Marines were shipped to the south pacific to begin the fight with the Japanese. And I was with them.”
       “You fought the Japanese?” I asked.
       “Yes, I did.”
       “Did you…”
       But dad cut me off. “I’ll tell you those stories some other day.”
       Another long silence, then Bill asked,
       “How come we’re meeting your parents now?”
       “Because it was dumb of me to have stayed away all these years. And I want them to meet you before it’s too late.”
       Another silence, and then dad said, “There it is.”
       Looking up ahead, there was off in the distance from the main road, a single house. It was old and grey, standing alone, shaded by a dull green stand of trees. Situated on a flat field of dry dirt, it looked as if it was waiting to inhale its last breath before crumbling back into the earth.
       As we pulled into their driveway, Dad said. “Their names are Henry and Daisy.” I sat back in my seat. “My middle name is Henry,” I said quietly.
And as we got closer to their house, we saw them step out onto the porch and gently wave to us. Dad brought the car to a stop, and we all got out, and we all said hello. They were both very soft-spoken, and their movements were slow and careful. Henry invited us in and Daisy asked if we would like some lemonade. Bill and I said yes, and then Henry invited us to take a seat in the living room. 
       After bringing us our lemonade, Daisy returned to the kitchen, which was just feet away, where Henry and dad were in conversation. It was hard to make out what they were saying, talking softly as they were. But it was easy to see that dad was leading their conversation. He seemed to be trying to make sure that Henry and Daisy were okay. Bill and I sat quietly on an old couch, sipping our drinks, just listening as best we could, taking in the old furniture and faded landscape prints on the walls. From where I was sitting, I could see in dad’s face a gentleness in his expression. And I could hear a kindness in the tone of his voice. He was taking care of them. After many years away, nearly two and a half decades, he had come back home. He never explained why. Never explained what happened to make him decide to return. It was doubtful Daisy had ever tried to make it up to Dad for breaking his heart that painful day when he was twelve years old. Something had changed in Dad. His long-ago hurt was no longer important. I always loved him, but that day I was seeing a side I’d never seen before. Though I couldn’t have put words to it then, what I felt was pride. I saw what it means to be a good man.
       Two months later Henry died, and Dad moved Daisy into our suburban house. Within a month, she had declined rapidly into severe dementia. One day I came home from school, and Pat, my stepmother, said she didn’t know where Daisy was, would I please help find her? I went outside and looked up and down the street, but she wasn’t to be seen in either direction. Then, I thought I heard her voice. It was coming from the house across the street. There was a double garage with the double doors open. I walked up the driveway and the closer I got, the more distinct became Daisy’s voice. It sounded like she was talking to someone. Entering the garage, there she was, in the far corner, pressed up against the wall, her face just an inch away from the sheetrock siding. She was trying to walk through the wall, her little feet tapping against the wall with each step. I walked over to her and said, 
       “Grandma, what are you doing?” And she said, in soft desperation, 
       “I’m going home.”

       The first sound was silence, palpable and immense. The second sound was my breath being taken away. Stepping out of the car, I entered an impossible cathedral, tall beyond imagination, and ancient. The redwoods reached up over a thousand feet, to a shaded ceiling pierced by pinpoints of light like stars in the infinite night sky. The Muir Woods were the oldest living thing on earth, and they commanded immediate respect. Even my thoughts whispered as I looked up.

       We had driven up from Berkeley to spend the day hiking and exploring Muir Woods Park. My new friend and current roommate and I were both taking the summer session at UC Berkeley. Finishing my freshman year back in New York and having no notion of what to do with myself until fall semester, I decided on a whim to check out the university where so much of the cultural revolution had taken place. Why not? Maybe the campus there would still be engaging and swarming with protests headed by Angela Davis or Abbie Hoffman. That could make for an interesting summer.

       But I was disappointed, nothing was happening on campus. No protests, or angry radicals with bullhorns, whipping crowds into feverish excitement. People were simply going about their business, calmly and quietly. The days of anti-establishment and anti-war seemed to have spent themselves. Telegraph Avenue, the flashpoint for many of the student marches, was slumbering.

       The week before the end of the summer session, my roommate and I drove his car up to The Muir Woods. We agreed to take separate solo hikes. The plan was to meet back at the car in three hours. The weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky. There were no other cars in the small clearing that served as a parking area. Heading off in opposite directions, I followed a lightly trod path winding through the thickening forest. Within a short time, I was deep into the shadows of the giant redwoods. The air around me cooled, and the sounds of the forest began, as if in welcome to my presence. It was impossible not to relax in this magical world. Impossible to hang on to the pressure of attaining purpose and staying one step ahead of nagging anxiety and pointless sorrow. Here, in the land of these giants, I heard that I was safe.

       I must have walked for a good hour when I saw further down the path a brightening. As I got closer it became apparent that this was an opening out of the forest; an aperture into something new. Accustomed to the muted shadow light of the forest, this opening became so bright, I squinted and shaded my eyes with my hand. Stepping out of the forest, through this opening, I saw, with amazement, a huge golden field of grass, sloping gently upwards to a perfect horizon of brilliant blue sky.

       The summit of this golden hill wasn’t far away and it seemed to challenge me to reach its crest. Walking through the grass, I felt a soft breeze tugging me forward. The air had a fragrance different from the deep forest which smelled like secrets. I began to feel a new excitement. The grass waved in swaths and swirls, billowing around me like a tribe of undulating dancers. Moving slowly up the incline of the field, a thin line of deep blue began to muscle its way between the gold of the field and the light blue of the sky. With each step, this line of deep blue continued to broaden, until, my heart racing, I reached the rim of the hill and the Pacific Ocean exploded in silent immensity before me. 

       Taken completely by surprise, having no idea I was anywhere near the ocean, I stood absolutely still, staring down and out to a horizon hundreds of miles away. This massive expanse of power and dominance gut-punched me in a way that defied description. I felt infinitesimal and infinite at the same time. Sitting down in the grass, I was consumed and captured by what I saw before me. There were no ships on the water in front of me, no man-made structures of any kind.

       After a few moments, obeying an unexamined impulse, I leaped to my feet and took off my clothes.  

      Once completely stripped, I put my tennis shoes back on and started to run. Fast. As fast as possible. The field was at least a hundred yards wide, and I ran from one end to the other, circling the perimeter, leaping and sprinting and laughing, yelling with abandon in communion with this moment. I felt the wind cooling the sweat on my body, and the sun warming first my back, then my belly. After one full lap, I was greedy for more and circled the field again.

       Finally, out of breath, I returned to my clothes and sat down, smiling with pleasure. Folding my arms across my knees, a unique kind of happiness slowly overcame me. Then I laid down, and closed my eyes, and listened to the soft ocean wind brush through the golden grass. I still had a little flame of joy in my heart that couldn’t be taken away.

       It seemed fitting that my trip home from Colorado ended with a ride from a drug dealer, his girlfriend, and their dog. He had pulled over his large white four door Lincoln and offered me a ride as I hitchhiked on Interstate 84, somewhere in Idaho. I climbed in the back and sat next to his large, white, overfed canine. Turns out, we were all headed to Lake Oswego, and he insisted on delivering to Marnie’s door. 

       Marnie’s house was cottage-like, nestled beneath tall Douglas firs, Maples, large rhododendrons and surrounded by an unmanicured lawn. The property bordering Lakeview Boulevard was hidden from view by a tall, thick laurel hedge. A narrow gravel opening served as a driveway. The half an acre backyard was fenced off with old plank wood and had a substantial garden that delighted me when I was child, pulling up my first carrot from the dirt, which could be eaten right there on the spot. There was also a little fish pond burrowed into the edge of a huge wall of shrubbery, magical to me because of the golden fish gliding in the dark water. On the other side of the driveway, near the back, there was an area shaded almost always from the sun. It was like a cove, and once inside, a solitary wooden bench invited one to sit quietly and be still.

        There was a glad feeling as I settled into my grandmother’s house and a sense of being home for the first time in quite a while. Bill had lived with Marnie for a few years, and he was the de facto head of the house. After a rocky teenage relationship, my brother and I reached a détente. He was a survivor too, in his own way. And Marnie, it was easy to see, was happy to have us around. We shared dinner most nights. Marnie cooking, with Bill and me cleaning up.

       Down to my last few dollars, Bill got me a job at the local neighborhood grocery store where he’d been working for a few years. They put me behind the cash register, an old-fashioned manual push button machine. To my surprise, I became an ace cashier in no time at all, achieving an Olympic level of proficiency. Had there been such a category for cashiers, I would have easily been a gold medal contender. It was primarily a family run store and I enjoyed the comradery. 

       One day I met a wonderful girl. Karen. We were at a backyard party, on a sunny day, and we found ourselves sitting across from each other at a picnic table. 

       “God, I hate parties, “ I offered after we’d introduced ourselves.

       “Then what are you doing here?” she asked with a smile and studied me.

       We talked for a long time about politics and books we liked, and it became obvious there was an attraction, at least to me. However, before anything could develop further, my dad called from Houston and said he’d lined up a job for me in Montreal at one of his firms’ subsidiaries. It was a junior executive position with no clearly defined function. I would train for six months, and then head overseas to work at a massive multi-hundred million dollar construction project in Iran. The idea of an adventure in far- away Persia intrigued me. Two weeks later, I was off to Montreal. The smartest thing I remembered to pack was Karen’s mailing address. 

       “You’ll need to learn French, you know,” Karen had challenged me before I left.

       Over the course of the next eight months, I played the role of a young corporate exec. While there, Karen and I corresponded often, her letters were a connection to home that was important to me. Our letter writing gradually deepened our bond. I wrote to her about Stephen, my mother, and even Gloria. Fortunately, the job overseas fell through, and I had no interest in staying in Montreal. I had been ready to hang up the junior exec suit and tie anyway. I wanted to get back to Oregon. And the greatest portion of my motivation to do so was to see Karen again.  

       Within a year of my return to Oregon, Karen and I married. It would be the last good decision I would make for years. We set up house in Lake Oswego and were happy together. We were a young couple brimming with optimism. Her Dad offered me a job selling cars at their Buick dealership, one of the most successful dealerships in the northwest, and certainly the most respected. I was grateful for the job and began to learn about the tradecraft of selling and set about it with enthusiasm. But after a few months, a curious thing appeared. Insomnia. I started to experience nights of inexplicable sleeplessness. This made no sense, because life was good. We had two cars, a wonderful rental house to live in. Our relationship was strong. I liked her very stable and large extended family, and they liked mine, as small as it was. We spent free time with friends, attended concerts, and shared a love for long drives, singing along with the radio. The future was bright. But the insomnia continued to visit me with increasing frequency. It was maddening. There was one three day stretch where I hadn’t slept at all. I lied in bed on that third morning, my head in Karen’s lap, sobbing, having no idea what was wrong with me. Karen had no idea how to help me.

       After some heart to hearts with Karen, it became clear that selling wasn’t within my natural skill set. I felt impatient with customers. We guessed my job was causing the crazy making insomnia. Maybe getting my college degree would be the best thing. Returning to Columbia was out of the question, it was too expensive, my dad having suffered severe financial setbacks. But, one side of Karen’s family was Mormon, and her grandmother recommended Brigham Young University, a private university with great academics and very affordable. Neither of us were church-goers, nor I Mormon, but a few months later we moved to Provo, Utah. I began my junior year, with a major in Business.   

       I took on a heavy class-load, all serious and challenging. I studied hard and kept my focus, and after the first year my efforts were paying off. The insomnia and anxiety were still badgering me, and other persistent disruptions began to surface, like styes and mysterious rashes. But I was maintaining a 3.8 GPA and was near the top of my class. Burying myself in my studies helped keep my demons at bay, and muted an inner voice that whispered I was undeserving of the good fortune that had entered my life. I didn’t identify with being steady or successful. I was more comfortable living in chaos. 

       With one more semester to go, I looked forward to graduating and then entering law school. Karen stayed busy selling real estate. She was good at it, and we paid $25,000 for a small house and began fixing it up. We loved each other and were close, but things were beginning to crack. At this point, I had all my required courses taken care of, including the ones I was currently working on. There was one requirement, however, that I still needed to check off to be complete, an elective course outside of my major. Scanning through the options, there was a course called Film Appreciation. Basically, the class watched classic films on Saturday afternoons and then a short one page synopsis had to be written about the film seen that day. This was the perfect elective course for me. I loved old movies.

       One Saturday afternoon, after having watched the classic western, High Noon, I walked up to the projection room and knocked on the door. I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask the teacher about the film. When the door opened, I was greeted by a young graduate student. His name was Sam. The rest of the students had filed out of the auditorium, so only the two of us stood there. Before I could say more than hello, Sam said,

       “Are you an actor?” And I said,

       “What?” 

       “Are you an actor?” he repeated.

       And I said, “An actor? No, no, not even close. I just came up here to ask you a question about the film.”

       And Sam said, “You should be an actor.”

       I sort of laughed, and said, “No, not me. I’ve never acted in my life, except for one time I played Columbus in third grade.”

       “Doesn’t matter,” Sam said. “You should be an actor. I want you in my play I’m directing next month.”

       I laughed, again, sort of, and said, “ No way. Sorry. Thanks, but I’m not an actor. I’m a business major. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions about the film.”

       “Forget the film. I want you in my play.”

       And I said, “Nope, nope, that’s not gonna happen,” as I subtly began to back up.

       Sam took a step toward me, said, “I want you in my play. You’d be perfect.”

       Turning fully around, I began to descend the steps that led to the exit doors, and said, over my shoulder,

       “No thanks, gotta go, thanks anyway. Good luck.” I picked up my pace a little, but Sam kept right with me.

       “You’ve got to be in my play.” Sam insisted. He seemed harmless, though as I began to lengthen my stride toward the door, I began to worry that I might have entered the land of ha ha. This man wasn’t taking no for an answer. He followed me out of the auditorium, close on my heels, keeping up a steady stream of reasons why I should be in his play. 

       “You’ll play a ground control radio operator in communication with fighter pilots during the Battle of Britain in World War Two. The title is awesome, “Seven Minutes”, and the fighter planes are sabotaged to explode seven minutes after take-off. You’ll be positioned behind a small desk, wearing headphones, with a mic in front of you on the lip of the stage facing the audience.  The fighter pilots aren’t seen, just their voices are heard. It’s a one act play, under a half an hour long.” I lost track of how many times I said no. Didn’t this guy realize how insane it was to want a totally inexperienced person, like me, to be in his play? My god, I took a course in public speaking once and my knees knocked so violently behind the podium I nearly fainted. But Sam stayed with me as we exited the building, continuing with his excitable conviction that he’d found the missing piece for his play. Crossing the great lawn, Sam was unrelenting, pestering me repeatedly,

       “By the end of the play, the saboteur is caught and the allies win the war.”

       “No.”

       “You have to!”

       “No I don’t.”

       “You’re perfect!”

       “No!”

       “You were made to play this part.”

       “No I wasn’t.”

       “Yes you were. Please!”

       “You’re gravely mistaken if you think I’m going to do this!”

       “Just give it a try! You’ll see I’m right!” And on and on it went. Until about halfway across the great lawn, I felt my resistance begin to crumble. The power to defend myself was evaporating. My pace slowed and then I stopped altogether. Turning abruptly around to face Sam, breathing heavily, and looking him straight in the eye, I said, in a voice I couldn’t believe was mine, 

       “Okay! I’ll do your damn play!”

       After three weeks of rehearsal, the play was ready for performance. 

       When it was over, the stage lights went dark and theatre was completely quiet. A few seconds passed and then applause erupted from the audience. It sounded like thunder to me. I felt an elation I never imagined before. The stage lights came back up again and the audience was still applauding as we took our bows. And it was in that moment that I knew, with out any doubt, what I had to do with my life. I had to do this. Perform. And I had to start immediately. Though it was a small play in a small university theatre, with a limited run of one performance, it was a transformational experience, and the fuse had been lit.

       When I came home afterwards, I burst into our house and announced,

        “I’m going to be an actor.” Karen looked at me, startled, and there was a moment of silence. Then, with a look of concern on her face, she said,

       “What?”  

       And I said, “I’m going to be an actor. I’m transferring out of the business school tomorrow and entering the theatre department. I’m going to be an actor.”

       And there was another pause. I had stunned her into silence. Maybe she saw my enthusiasm, maybe she could see my determination. Maybe, more likely, she thought I was losing my mind. But she never protested, she never complained. She simply said, “Okay.” And after four months of reconnaissance in the theatre department, taking acting 101 classes, it became obvious that chasing a degree in theatre would take too long. I needed to go where the jobs were. And that meant Hollywood. 

        Casting aside the promise of a life of stability, security and steady success, I turned our world upside down. We sold our little starter home, packed our things, loaded the U Hall and headed west to Los Angeles. A friend of a friend lined us up with a crappy apartment in a crappy neighborhood that was beyond depressing. I was so focused on acting, I was blind to these circumstances, but Karen wasn’t. We both suffered countless bites that came from fleas propagating in our green shag carpet, we witnessed drug deals on a regular basis, loud fights coming from the apartment above us. We kept a close eye on a neglected little boy, whose mother moonlighted as a hooker. Two career criminals lived at the end of our floor. My insomnia and anxieties hadn’t lessoned. Karen worked for a temp agency while I chased auditions. We barely scraped by. After a couple of months of giving it a go, a tearful and heartbroken Karen had had enough. She sat me down one day and said,

       “Larry, I love you more than anything, but I can’t do this anymore.”

       With deep regret on both sides, we went our separate ways. I buried the end of our marriage like I buried all of my pain. And going solo again, I pursued my new passion with alacrity, completely unaware that the fuse I had lit was attached to emotional time bombs soon to detonate. In the land of make believe, I achieved success quickly, and it was possibly the worst thing that could have happened to me.

      The clock read 3 am. I was due back at the ABC studio at 7:30 am and I was nowhere near ready for sleep. Cocaine did that. It also allowed one to drink for hours on end without passing out. So, the previous eight hours had been my favorite mixture of lines of blow, followed by shots of whiskey chased by beer. 

       It had been a year since ALL MY CHILDREN had cast me on the show, as Greg, and my storyline was hugely successful. The young couple known as Jenny and Greg became the most popular daytime romance in the country, following on the heels of another young couple, Luke and Laura, of GENERAL HOSPITAL. I was ridiculously unprepared for the intensity of the fame. Magazine covers, talk shows, interviews, photoshoots, Life magazine, the cover of TV guide, personal appearances at malls sometimes garnering thousands of screaming fans, limousines, first-class, autographs, baseball hats, sunglasses, ever-larger weekly bags of fan mail. The show always rated in the top three of daytime programming, frequently pushing past twenty million in daily viewership. It all felt tremendously exciting, at first. I loved the work and I loved the camaraderie at the studio. 

       A few months into the show, some of the crew invited me to take part in their weekly Friday night jam sessions. It was mostly beer and shots and Hendrix era covers. My musicianship consisted of beating a conga drum and I did so with enthusiasm as the night and the drinking progressed. At one of the early jam sessions, someone offered me a line of coke. The effect was immediate. Where the Budweiser and Wild Turkey mellowed me out, the coke jacked me up again, intensifying the buzz. Any nagging insecurity I felt was replaced with bravado. I had no clue that I had just begun a long fifteen-year descent into hell. 

       Month after month, my fame as Greg grew. It became impossible to even walk down the streets of Manhattan without being recognized. People would scream, “Greg! Greg! Greg!”, and often I would be chased by mini mobs of fans. Stores and restaurants were places of refuge where I’d hide in the back until the rush was over. It became routine for me to wear my recognition reduction gear, baseball caps and sunglasses. Even that became less and less effective as time steamrolled forward. Being famous was fun, there was a certain thrill that came with it. I began to feel special, awash with entitlement, acclimating to an elevated status. It was almost like I was untouchable, and was treated accordingly. Once punctual, if not early to work, I often began to show up late. Down on the studio floor during tech rehearsal, more often than not I’d be goofing off instead of focusing on the work. At restaurants, I’d swoop in without reservations, expecting the best table, not to mention being comped, after a table-side visit from the head chef. I gradually became less polite and gracious to the people around me. But underneath this growing sense of importance, lurked a discordant beast. The circumstances of my past haunted me. The abandonment, the molestation, Mother’s murder, all of it, had drilled into me that I was never truly worthy of being valued. The newfound outward praise conflicted with my inner experience. It just didn’t fit. The unacknowledged and unarticulated truth was that I felt like a fraud. My life was a lie. The two things that kept my demons at bay, were alcohol and cocaine.

       It didn’t take long to seek out and make my own connection with a purveyor of coke. It was everywhere. There were even people at work selling it. In the early stages, I’d pick up a small amount, usually a gram, the transaction often taking place in the men’s room. I’d hang out with friends after work drinking and snorting the night away. At first, things seemed completely under control. It was just casual fun. But little by little, my desire became stronger, and the craving for coke escalated from Friday nights to whole weekends of binging. I silently vowed that weeknights were off-limits for indulging, especially if I had to work the next day. Then I began to rationalize that if I stopped partying early enough, weeknights were acceptable party zones. I’d peruse my dialogue for the next day and if it wasn’t a lot, that gave me further permission to violate my promise not to use. Within a year, I was fully addicted, and careening off the rails. I was showing up to work with massive hangovers, burning through the fog in my brain, pulling it together just in time to shoot the show.  

       As I looked at my clock that night, I had a moment of desperate clarity. Having snorted all my coke and finished off the booze, I was alone and wide awake. In three hours, a heavy day of work loomed.  Though I knew my dialogue well enough, I was shaking and beginning to panic. What if I forgot my lines? What if everyone knew? What if I got fired? Sleep wasn’t coming and I would show up at the studio looking a wreck. My heart was racing, pulsing way faster than normal, and rivulets of sweat began pouring down my face. Pacing like a caged animal, feeling trapped and frightened, panic gripped me tighter and tighter. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared, crawling out of my skin. Bursting with fear, I wanted to scream. I closed the window blinds and double-checked the door locks, as paranoia crept in. 

       I needed help. But there was no one to call. No one. And then, I thought of my dad. Could I reach out to him, this one time? He’d find out I was drinking and drugging, failing desperately and destroying my life. I didn’t know. But I was beyond desperate. I had to try.

        It was midnight in Oregon. He might not answer the phone. Dialing his number, I tried to calm myself, but I couldn’t stop shaking. His phone rang several times and I was about to hang up when I heard a click, and then, 

       “Hello?” his voice deep and masculine. 

       “Dad! It’s me.” I began to cry. I hadn’t cried in years. “ I’m in trouble, Dad.  I need help. I’m drinking and using cocaine all the time and I can’t stop. I can’t stop, Dad. Help me, please help me, please Dad, I’m in trouble!” These cries poured out of me, pleading and weeping and choking. When I was finally spent, he said, 

       “It’s okay, son, I’ll be there. I’ll be on the first flight out of Portland tomorrow morning. You hang in there, and I’ll see you soon.”

       It was like magic. Dad was coming. It was going to be okay. He was coming to help me and we would put it all together again. 

       “Call me as soon as you land at JFK. I’ll be at the studio. Thank you, Dad. Thank you.”

       I went to work and did my job. My spirits were hopeful. If Dad caught the first plane out, he should be landing at JFK around One o’clock. Dress rehearsal would just be beginning, so I couldn’t be at my phone when he called, but I had asked him to come straight to the studio. At two o’clock, we took our first five-minute break. I raced up to my dressing room, but there was no message. At three o’clock, we took our second five, and I raced up again, but there was no message. At four o’clock there was no message. At five o’clock, I was finished for the day and went down to the lobby to look for him. There was still no Dad and no message. Was his flight delayed? Worse yet, was there a crash? 

       In my dressing room, I picked up the phone and dialed Dad’s number. After a couple of rings, I heard a click, and then his voice.

       “Hello?”

       “Dad. What happened? I thought you were coming to New York.”

       “Well, I figured once you slept it off, you’d feel better,” he said.

       I closed my eyes for a moment, before saying, “Oh, sure. No, I do. I feel better.”

       After we hung up, I zipped up my backpack and left the studio. There was the usual gaggle of fans waiting outside, and I signed autographs and thanked them for watching the show. Then I hailed a cab and headed downtown to my dealer.

The sound of a small rock rolling down the hill caught my attention. It was a soft sound, barely distinguishable from the silence of the morning. I looked up and over the dry brush I was hiding behind and stared hard at the steep slope angling down toward me. It was a good three hundred feet distant. With my naked eye, I scanned the slope from left to right, from top to bottom, determined to spot the source of that sound. But nothing alive came into view. I scrunched back down and leaned against the dead tree that was part of the blind. I had been positioned here since daybreak, remaining nearly still ever since, only shuffling from time to time to relieve stiffness, and once to remove a small rock that had slipped into the inside of my tennis shoe. I should have been wearing boots. As the sun slowly pulled itself over the ridgeline, I felt myself urging the morning forward. The plan was for the hunters, all six of us, to regroup at noon, where Wade, the rancher, and his son, had left the pickup truck. From where I was, it was about a mile north. There were two more hours of waiting to get through and I didn’t know if I had the patience. I wanted to use the rifle they had given me. I was a first-timer, as a deer hunter, and, having just turned twenty-two, I thought I had something to prove. But at the rate nothing was happening, that might be a long time coming, if ever. 
       After a period of quiet, I heard my horse snort. I looked back behind me to check on him. He was still where I had left him, hidden behind a small copse of trees roughly fifty feet away. I had ridden this horse several times before and knew I could trust him. He knew how to be patient.
       Then I heard it again, the same soft sound of a small rock rolling down the hill. Again, I scanned the hillside, sweeping my eyes back and forth across the dust-colored terrain, my pulse beginning to quicken. But there was nothing moving up there, as far as I could see, except for two hawks gliding lazy circles high up in the sky. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me, maybe I’d been alone too long. But these doubts were cut short, because there it was again, that soft sound, even closer now, right on the heels of the last trickle of sound. This time I picked up my rifle, slowly, and carefully laid the barrel across the dry bark of the dead tree, pointing up at the ridgeline.  Shouldering the rifle, I cocked my neck down to the scope and squinted through to the crosshairs.       Now magnified, the ridgeline felt close enough to touch. It didn’t take long to find what looked like a trail leading down the slope. Following this path as it zigzagged back and forth, I couldn’t tell how old or fresh it was. But I kept tracing its descent with the crosshairs. And then I stopped. Standing perfectly still, blended nearly invisible into the hillside, a deer stood motionless. My heart jumped a beat and I had to look again to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. But she was there, as still as could be. She was listening, ears half rotating like radar. Is that why she stopped, had she heard me? After a moment, she continued down the trail, her pace slightly hurried. As I followed her with the scope, I was taken with the grace she possessed, as she soundlessly maneuvered the steep decline. 
       Then the deer slowed to a stop, and now I knew why she had hurried up before. She was catching up with the rest of her friends. She was the last in the single-file line, the rear guard, making sure there was no threat nearby before rejoining the group. And that’s exactly what she did, but as I lowered the crosshairs a fraction of an inch, what appeared before me took my breath away. It wasn’t just a small band of deer, not the five or six I expected, but a herd of at least fifty or more, roiling in silent commotion at the base of the hill. And they were in a rising state of panic, sensing danger, not knowing which way to run.
       Lifting off the scope, I strained to see with my own eyes what I couldn’t see before. And now, knowing what to look for, I could just make out the herd straight in front of me, amazed that so many could have gathered there without my awareness. Returning to the scope, I searched for the buck, the male deer. He had to be there, somewhere in that tumult. I just needed to see the rack, the antlers, that would flag his identity. And it didn’t take long, the branched horns rising above the rest of the deer, giving away his position. Here was my target, cleverly hiding in the midst of the others. I lowered the crosshairs to exactly where I had been told would be the cleanest kill shot. The chest, dead center, from profile. I had to wait for a few of the deer to move out of the way. And then it came, the moment the buck was completely exposed. My aim was perfect and I pulled the trigger.
       The bullet exploded from my rifle, and a piercing thunder instantly followed, the echo slamming against the hillside, so quick, so loud, it was as if the very air had been ripped apart. Jolted off the scope, I lost sight of the buck. He was nowhere to be seen. Had I killed him? Was he down on the ground, out of view? Or was he hiding again? There was no way to know. The rest of the herd was now in full panic, twisting and turning, moving in every direction, its fear palpable. And then, off to the left, I saw the buck slowly emerge from behind a thicket. He stepped out in the open and stood in perfect profile to me, again. As I lined up the crosshairs, the thought occurred to me that maybe this was a second male. He looked to be the same size as the first one, the same size rack, a four-pointer, and a second buck would make sense considering the size of the herd. But I didn’t have time to think. I had to shoot now or lose my chance. Aiming the crosshairs, chest dead center, I pulled the trigger. And this time I saw the buck fall.
       After a few moments, I stood up and watched the stricken and frenzied herd disperse in front of me. Once they were gone,  a  sharp silence remained in the air, an absolute stillness. I swung my legs over the dead tree and began walking in the direction where I had first sighted the buck. I had to see if I had killed twice. Quickening my pace, it didn’t take long to reach the spot where the buck would be, and after circling the area a couple of times, I found him. He was lying flat on his side, eyes open. I stood looking down at him for a moment, thinking there should be something I was supposed to do, but I didn’t know what. Turning away, I looked to where the other buck would be and walked hurriedly in that direction. And it didn’t take long to find him either. Lying in the dirt, dead, his antlers causing his neck to twist his face upwards, as if he had strained for one last look to see who had done this.
       Having killed twice, I had more than satisfied the inarticulate need to prove myself. Now I needed the other hunters and their approval. I hadn’t heard any other gunshots that morning, so it was likely that I was the only hunter to have scored. Turning away from the dead deer, I hustled back to the blind, and quickly gathered up my things into the saddlebags, strapping my rifle tightly in its sheath. Then I untied the reins holding my horse and swung myself into the saddle. With a sense of growing excitement, I turned North in the direction of the truck, and once clear of the trees, I spurred my horse into a gallop.
       The land was mostly dry and dusty, with scattered rocks and sagebrush strewn over the surface. The air felt fresh and scented with the country. We were approaching a slight rise in the ground, a small incline, blocking the view ahead. But instead of slowing down, my horse powered up the slope even faster, and just as we crested the rise, just as the horizon came back into view, we confronted a large sagebrush directly in front of us. My horse made an instantaneous leap to the right, avoiding this unexpected obstacle. But this had the unintended consequence of throwing all of my weight abruptly to the right side, causing my right foot to slam down hard into my stirrup. This forced the cinch to loosen and the saddle to slip, rotating downward, shooting my foot through the stirrup, making extraction impossible. Within a split second, my face was in the dirt, and my horse panicked, bolting forward, terrified. I landed hard on my left shoulder, closing my eyes on impact. My right leg was strung up and tethered to the saddle that was now bouncing under the belly of the horse. I let out a scream at the top of my lungs for the horse to stop, but this only made him run faster. The instant I opened my eyes, I could see the horse’s rear hoofs pounding like pistons just inches from my face, and I knew there was nothing I could do. Any second I would bounce the wrong way into a driving hoof. My face would explode and death would be instantaneous. 
         Seconds flew by that felt like minutes, and the horse, running at unimaginable speed, showed no sign of slowing down, as it dragged me flailing at its feet. In that moment, when time seemed to stretch, I suddenly felt completely insignificant, as if my life had abandoned all meaning. But then something impossible happened. The entire legging holding the stirrup ripped off the saddle, releasing my foot from its grip and dumping me in the dirt, bruised and scraped, but alive. For the briefest moment, I lay still. It was quiet, except for the fading sound of my horse running away. I looked in that direction, just in time to see him disappear over the horizon. Slowly getting up onto my knees, I sat back on my heels, looking in every direction to see if anyone had seen what had just happened. But there was no one in sight. Taking my time, I eased up onto my feet and dusted myself off, as I tried to understand what had just taken place. It was as if a giant raging hand had shot down from above, plucking me up and smashing me down, intent on my destruction, but deciding at the last second to let me live.        Standing still, just listening, I heard a vast silence surrounding me, and I felt separate from it. I needed to start moving, my legs and arms and back were beginning to stiffen. Turning to look from where I’d just come, I began a slow stumble walk in that direction. After roughly fifty yards, I found the borrowed hunting rifle that I had just used, laying in the dirt. Picking it up, I wiped it down with the tail of my shirt, and then I headed to the truck.
       Arriving before anyone else, I climbed onto the bed of the truck, grabbed a bottled water from the cooler, and sat down, leaning against the back of the cab. Half an hour later, two of the hunters showed up, happy to see that I was okay. They said they’d seen my horse off in the distance running full speed with its saddle upside down. They assumed the worst, as they tracked back to the truck looking for me. Within a short time, everybody had returned to the truck, and I had told my story a couple of times. Before we headed off to claim the two bucks that I had killed, Wade, the fifth-generation owner of this ranch, led my newly saddled horse over to me and asked if I wanted to get back on. I said yes, and swung up onto the saddle. Then Wade said one last thing to me. In a low voice, he said, “Son, I’ve never known anyone to live through what happened to you today.” After giving me a hard look, he pushed on.
       The rest of us followed Wade as he led us to the site of the dead deer. He seemed to know exactly where they were, without needing me to point them out. Someone brought up the pickup truck and we dragged the deer close to the tailgate. There were two young men, older than me, who seemed eager in their desire to gut the deer, and they asked me if they could have the honors. Looking down at the two carcasses, the thought of plunging a hunting knife into their still warm bellies, held no attraction for me. Nodding consent, I told them to go ahead, and they leaped to the task with an enthusiasm that surprised me. Standing back a few feet, I watched the disembowelment, the steaming life spilling into the dirt. And I wondered why I felt an impatience, unnerved by a sense that I was waiting for something, a reprieve of some kind, unsure why the one I had just received wasn’t enough.