Chapter 4: Looking For to Save a Soul
Serving someone else out of my own relative wealth was a great way to utterly forget the "suck of self." Sweet relief.
February 18, 2000, Corte Madera, Calif. - From early 1999 until the “dot com crash” of February 2001, I had that dream job we all hope to attain at least once. Prima Publishing, at the time in Rocklin, Calif., hired me to transform their small online book catalog into a major internet videogame strategy portal. Prima boasted a 70-percent corner on the world's market for this product. To bring this majority into the digital marketplace, they gave me a broad license to employ new programs, use new technologies, and create new products. And have fun!
I was very successful from the get-go. This led to more resources, staffing, money, and freedom – total freedom. I occasionally answered to the senior vice president, but the job was such a blast that I needed no external motivation. And my yet-undiagnosed bipolar type 2 disorder brought the wonderful ability to envision new products out of thin air in all their complexity. For example, a small team and I developed an online gaming application so unique that it earned an international patent that now belongs to Random House.
One February day, I had a late meeting at the offices of Eidos Interactive in San Francisco. They were the makers of the Tomb Raider game franchise featuring handgun-toting Lara Croft. Afterward, I took myself to dinner, on my expense account, to what is now the Waterbar restaurant at the Embarcadero. There was no hurry as I looked out at the outstretched underbelly of the Bay Bridge. My motel room in Corte Madera 45 miles away was waiting for me. I ordered a half plate of oysters and a bottle of Fumé Blanc. The surf and turf seemed like the right choice. I asked for horseradish, sour cream, and two Splenda packets to make a custom sauce for the steak.
I enjoyed meals alone. Things had not been going well at home for some time. I had a great relationship with my kids, but my wife always seemed angry or distant. I still don’t know how much of it was in response to the effects of my unknown condition on her. It’s fair to say, extrapolating from other relationships I’ve known, that much of her anger came from the legitimate, unaddressed pain of a wife bewildered by her husband’s behavior. But then, how could we have addressed it 12 years before my diagnosis?
I was finished by 8 p.m. Sipping on a double espresso and settling the check, I began thinking about my other form of relaxation: my deed red 1999 Mustang GT convertible with tan leather interior. I appreciated not only the car’s responsiveness, but also the low, guttural growl from its dual exhaust. To this day I identify a “Stang” GT by its sound from blocks away. It makes me smile.
I got into the Mustang and weaved my way west to a main artery where I could cut over to Bryant Street and hit the last onramp to the Bay Bridge. U2’s Pop was spinning on the CD player. I hardly even noticed the song “Do You Feel Loved.” But as I downshifted to make the hard left into that little corkscrew that ramps you up onto the bridge, “MoFo” came on. This was an invitation to gun it as I suddenly joined the stream of traffic on the bridge’s lower deck. It's perfect speeding music with the wonderful percussive assault and screaming whistles.
“Lookin' for to save my save my soul
Lookin' in the places where no flowers grow
Lookin' for to fill that God shaped hole.
In 30 minutes, I was pulling into the motor lodge in Corte Madera, a glorified truck stop known for its ostentatious Scandia miniature golf center and row of fast-food restaurants. I was tired, but I wasn’t ready for the night to be over. After flinging my bag into my room and donning my long overcoat, I grabbed snacks and drinks from the AM/PM. My plan was to find a game at Scandia’s arcade that I could dominate – Asteroids or Defender. Or, maybe the batting cages to either dole out or receive some humiliation.
But on this night, on my way to experience the amusement I thought I needed, there was Ed. He was in a wheelchair on the street corner, with one leg sticking straight out like a battering ram and a small cast on his foot. It was a freezing February night. I felt immediate concern for Ed, as he had on only a light windbreaker and thin pants.
Ed asked for help getting food and drink from the Mini Mart. I said, “Sure, what ya want?” and he answered. “Okay, wait here and I will be right back.”
This one was a real no-brainer, right? I was 90 minutes away from my home in Roseville, but my Mustang could easily make it in 75. Suddenly, I didn’t feel tired at all, and I began to listen. “You know what to do. Do it.”
Well, yes – I surely did. The AM/PM clerk rang up three hot dogs, a big bag of chips, a six-pack of diet soda (Ed may be diabetic?), and two ready-made sandwiches for the morning. As I returned to the street corner, I said “Ed, I think I have a better plan for your night. I’m concerned about your being out here in the cold. I’m not far from home, but I have a room right here. Would you accept my room in my place for the night?”
Ed looked at me like I was from another planet, and said, “Um, sure … that’d be really cool.” I placed the food in his lap and wheeled him to the motel, into the elevator, and then into my room.
At this point Ed said something gutsy, something real. “Um, Mac … I’m cold and I haven’t had a bath or shower in two weeks. Would you help me take a bath with this cast?”
“Not a problem Ed,” I replied. “We should do that. I can stay and help until eleven-ish, so we have time.”
We took care of it all. Wrapping his cast in the plastic Mini-Mart bag and elevating his arm on the side of the tub, I eased him into the water. All embarrassment fell away. We worked together. Ed knew I was on his side.
I closed the door to grant him privacy. Hoping it didn’t sound condescending, I reminded him to keep adding hot water and letting the cold drain out. It was late. I needed to head home. But the sound of Ed running the water and enjoying this relaxing bath brought me happiness.
A half hour later Ed called out for help. We got him dried off and into some of his other clothes, and then into the big, warm bed. I showed him how to work the remote control and said I had requested a noon checkout and “do not disturb” for the morning. Finally, I gave him my phone number in case the hotel questioned his presence in the room.
When I left Ed, he was watching Law and Order and downing hot dogs and pop. I said a silent prayer of thanks that I had been given the means to provide such simple necessities.
As I drove away from Corte Madera, I clicked the CD back to “Mofo” … and laughed. No, I was not trying to save my soul. There was no way I could ever earn such a thing. As for the God-shaped hole? Serving someone else out of my own relative wealth was a great way to utterly forget the "suck of self." Sweet relief.
I always knew this run was going to end. And it did, almost a year to the day later, when Prima eliminated my entire department. I would rise again, briefly, to even greater heights in the Bay Area before my total crash and burn in 2009. The loss of this dream job would cause a chain reaction of events that would initiate my seven-year journey into homelessness.