After twenty minutes I got up and looked at myself in the mirror. I chided myself for how weak I had grown. In my head I heard my father’s voice.
“Hold your head high,” he’d say. “We don’t need their pity. We’re Fussells! We’re better than that.” Except I wasn’t. I was tired and I hurt. And I desperately wanted to tell someone how poorly I was feeling. I splashed cold water on my face, slapped my cheek, and pounded my forehead three times with a closed fist.
“Come on, Jim,” I said.
The building pressure in my head pushed on the inside of my skull and squeezed my brain until it left its signature cold, empty pain. My head felt like it was going to explode.
At that moment I thought of my friend and coworker John Martellaro. He told me a story once about a politician he covered in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who shocked everyone by pulling out a gun during a press conference and blowing off his head live on local television.
The pain increased inside my head again, pulsing like a flashing red light at an intersection. I moved my neck. It felt like I had pinched a nerve. Fuck!
I winced and thought about that guy from Pennsylvania. I checked to see if anyone else was in the bathroom, even stooping to look under the stalls. Then I took my index finger and thumb and made a gun, and jammed it into the back of my mouth, pointing up toward my brain. I imagined cold, hard steel against my teeth as I bit down while fingering the trigger.
It could be over just like that, I thought snapping my finger.
Blam!
Over!
Blam!
Done.
Blam!
Fuck you!
Just then I heard the bathroom door opening. I hurriedly took my finger out of my mouth and wiped it on the front of my shirt.
“Mr. Fussell,” said Tim Engle, a friend from features who often greeted colleagues with an exaggerated formality.
“Mr. Engle,” I said in return. He headed for the urinal; my gaze returned to the mirror.
Three hours’ sleep again. I looked haggard and drawn. My eye bags had eye bags.
What had happened to me? When I was in my twenties and thirties my tics were easier to handle. I was bulletproof then—strong, fast, and flexible. I slept like Rip Van Winkle and had so much energy I could play thirty-six holes of golf, three sets of tennis, and a couple games of tackle football without feeling tired. My metabolism was so high I could eat as much as I wanted without gaining an ounce. At five feet ten, 155 pounds, I dunked volleyballs and leapt over parking meters with a forty-inch vertical leap. I was going strong at thirty-five and felt fine at forty. But when I reached forty-five my body began to break down. I felt aches and pains I never felt before. I couldn’t sleep, and I had to eat twice as much just to keep up my strength. I ate so much my weight shot up to 215 pounds, twenty-five pounds heavier than I’d like. Before I knew it I had become exhausted, hurt, old, and fat. Worse, I was starting to have memory problems. As I sat looking at my computer login screen, I couldn’t remember my password. Was it just the toll of middle age, or had all the shaking finally damaged my brain?
Great! I thought as I stared at the screen. What now?
“Think,” I whispered under my breath. “Think. Think.” It was like urging a car with a temperamental transmission, “Go.”
I sat in silence, not moving, trying to remember my password, holding my head with my right hand to keep it steady. When the Tourette’s was this bad I didn’t make a sound. It must have been a relief to members of the nearby copy desk. In past years I had been such a loudmouth they occasionally had to tell me to pipe down. But when the tics are at their worst, I don’t talk at all. If I’m in intense pain I might gasp or whimper, or pound on my desk with a closed fist. But I won’t talk unless I have to. If I don’t focus I’ll hurt myself with head shakes so powerful they could knock me down—or knock me out.
After remembering I had written my password down, I logged on and leaned back in my chair. Then, wham! My powerful neck turned my head softly to the left, then snapped it hard back to the right. It felt like I’d been tagged by Mike Tyson. I slumped in my chair and started to moan as the pain increased. Desperate to end the assault, I distracted myself by walking around the newsroom. But glancing around just made me mad. I looked at my coworkers, happily typing away or talking on the phone with remarkably still heads. And for a moment I hated them. They made it look so easy. They just came in and started working. Just like that. What did they ever do to deserve such an advantage?
I closed my eyes as the tension closed around me like a vise. I cried softly as I tried to beat it back. I wanted to go home. I wanted to soak in a bath until I wrinkled like a shar-pei. I wanted to eat. I wanted to get on my computer and play music at ear-splitting decibels.
I couldn’t think. It was never this bad. I started to panic. Was this what my life had become?
I sat down in a chair next to my editor, Sharon Hoffmann. I began to explain how I felt and that I was sorry, but I just couldn’t finish a story she was expecting that day. Before I knew it, everything just overwhelmed me. I tried to stay strong. I tried to stay professional. It was no use. I was too tired. As I talked about what was wrong, I began to cry—and I just couldn’t stop.
“Why don’t you just go home,” Sharon said. “It’ll be all right.”
“I’d love to,” I said, blinking back the tears. “I can’t. Don’t you see? If I go home now it will have beaten me. And I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let this thing beat me!”
I didn’t look at anyone as I walked back to my desk. I put on my headphones and played “Behind Blue Eyes” by the Who. That song always made me feel better.
Roger Daltrey sang about how I felt.
No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man …
To be the sad man …
Behind blue eyes.
I closed my blue eyes as I sang along in my mind, letting the music wash over me. Music had always been able to do things that medicine couldn’t. Before the song ended, my phone rang. I took off the headphones and stretched until my vertebrae popped.
“No pain,” I whispered to myself under my breath. “No pain.”
“The Kansas City Star” I said. “This is Jim Fussell speaking. May I help you?”
THE NEXT DAY was almost as hard, as was the day after that. My tics had changed, and like it or not, I would just have to learn to live with the increasing pain. Later that week I finished the other stories I was working on, making deadline with each one. The next time I talked to Sharon she had a new assignment for me.
“I need you to cover Oprah Winfrey” she said.
I blinked twice and furrowed my brow. Oprah?
Oprah, it seemed, was coming to Kansas City with a traveling beauty and empowerment workshop for women called Hi Gorgeous. The sold-out extravaganza created a buzz the likes of which I hadn’t seen in the city for years. Some reports had tickets for the event going on eBay for more than $1,000. And as a feature writer for the Star, I was there to cover it. And her.
By all rights I shouldn’t have gotten the assignment. That should have gone to my friend and colleague Lisa Gutierrez. Lisa, a terrific writer, was one of the biggest Oprah fans in the office. But she also was a professional who already was committed to another story she simply couldn’t postpone.
“So could you do it?” Sharon said, folding her hands into a pretty-please posture.
Oprah? I thought. What do I know about Oprah? Then again, what did I know about anything I wrote about before I started?
“For you, anything,” I said.
Sharon flapped her arms and gave me her goody-goody smile.
“All right, don’t get too excited,” I said.
All I knew about Oprah were the same things everybody knew. She was the queen of daytime, a billionaire power broker and star maker, and her most fanatical followers loved her with a breathless passion. I filled in the rest with my research and decided to write a story about her amazing popula
rity, her loyal followers, and—of course—that she and her crew were coming to Kansas City.
Naturally, I wanted an interview. That wouldn’t be hard. I’d just call up her Harpo production company in Chicago and …
Not so fast.
In each city, I was told, Oprah only did interviews with national press or the station that carried her show. I guess I could understand limiting the access, but to the Star? That was nuts.
We may not be the New York Times, but we’re not the Hooterville Gazette either. We’re a major, Pulitzer Prize—winning newspaper with more than a million readers a week. I argued my case with the woman at Harpo. No luck.
I couldn’t believe it. The queen of daytime was coming to my town, and they shot me down? Oh, I don’t think so. I had to find another way.
I played my trump card. Years ago one of Oprah’s guests had Tourette Syndrome. It comforted me to know I wasn’t alone, that I wasn’t just a freak. I called the Harpo lady back.
“If you won’t let me interview Oprah, would you mind if I said thank you to Oprah for helping change my life?” I said. Then I read her a heartfelt note I scrawled out on a napkin over lunch. Suitably moved, the woman told me she’d let me read it to Oprah before she spoke. But to be honest, I had an ulterior motive. Once I was with her, I figured, I might be able to slip in a few reporter questions for my story.
Oprah appeared in a large Kansas City park. When the big day arrived I was taken to a small line outside a large tent, which served as a greenroom. I waited with a crew from Entertainment Tonight and a reporter from a local TV station.
I felt like a kid waiting to see Santa. When it was finally my turn I was ushered into the tent where I saw Oprah in a banana-yellow top holding court. She had an air about her that commanded attention. It was like nothing I had ever seen—and I’ve covered presidents, superstars, and Nobel laureates. I introduced myself, shook her hand, and thanked her for taking time to see me. Seeing Oprah in person, two feet away, reminded me of how I felt when I visited all the famous sights of Washington, DC. I’d seen them on TV for years and knew they were real. But nothing could have prepared me for how I felt when I actually saw them in person.
I promised myself I’d remember everything—her smoky brown eyes, perfectly coiffed brown hair, yellow sweater tied loosely around her shoulders over a yellow striped shirt.
But at the moment, all I could think was, Don’t you move. Don’t you shake. Not now.
And then, standing directly in front of her, she turned to look at me.
“Hi, I’m Oprah Winfrey,” she said with a welcoming smile on her face. Unlike other big celebrities, she didn’t seem rushed or the least bit annoyed that I was taking up her valuable time. And she looked me directly in the eye.
I smiled, stuck out my hand, and tried to keep my head still. “My name’s Jim Fussell,” I said. “And I know you must have heard this plenty of times, but I’ll only get to say it once, and it’s important to me that you hear it. A long time ago you helped change my life in ways you can’t possibly understand. And I just wanted to say thank you.”
“Ohhh,” she said sweetly, as if to say, “That’s really nice.”
While asking her the reporter questions didn’t pan out, the heart-felt-thank-you part went better than I could have expected. I told her about my Tourette’s and how her shows had helped me. Then, as if on cue, my head shook hard to the left, then harder still back to the right. I told myself I wouldn’t cry, but several times I had to blink back the tears.
I had come so far. I was forty-six years old, married, successful, happy. I had two wonderful children. And though it continued to attack me every day, my Tourette’s had not won. And here, in front of me, was one of the reasons why. Whether talking about people with Tourette’s or about people living with other forms of adversity, I realized that her show—and Oprah herself—had been an inspiration to me.
She was clearly moved by my words—so much so that when I finished thanking her, she threw her arms around me and gave me a great big hug.
Here’s the thing about being hugged by Oprah Winfrey. You don’t really appreciate it when it’s happening. You’re too busy going, Omigod! Omigod! Omigod! I hadn’t asked for the hug. And as a reporter who was supposed to remain objective and dispassionate, it left me a tad uncomfortable. On the other hand, who cared? Oprah hugged me. It was cool. Most of all it just shocked the hell out of me.
Things like this just don’t happen in my life. Oprah Winfrey is the most powerful person in show business, a billionaire who changes people’s lives the way other people change their socks. And I was—well, I was nobody. But there I was, face-to-face with her, telling her about my life, about my pain, about my struggles. And she was listening, nodding, looking me in the eyes like she not only understood but actually cared. And then she smiled that warm, welcoming Oprah smile, her eyes softened, and she moved toward me with open arms.
What could I do?
In twenty years as a reporter I had covered my share of famous people—Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, movie stars, billionaires. I hadn’t hugged one of them. But I have to say the hug from Oprah was nice—warm, with a squeeze in the middle. But it was weird too. As we pulled back, I heard the crowd chanting for her, their voices thundering through the park like a herd of bison.
“O-PRAH! O-PRAH! O-PRAH! O-PRAH!”
I had just hugged an international billionaire, and one of the most popular and powerful people on the planet. A chill ran down my spine. I would have been happy to walk away without another word. And other celebrities would have let me. Oprah wanted to do more.
“Did you see my medical miracles show?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I missed that one.”
Oprah looked aghast. “You didn’t see Jeff Matovic?” she said, as if everybody else had.
Jeff who? I thought. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I must have missed that one.”
“Oh!” she said, as if I had missed the biggest opportunity of my life. “We’ve got to get you the tape of Jeff Matovic.” Oprah turned to address a group of assistants flitting around the tent.
“We’ve got to get Jim the tape of Jeff Matovic. GET JIM THE TAPE OF JEFF MATOVIC!” As they began scurrying around, nearly bumping into each other, Oprah turned back to me and winked. “We’ll send you the tape.”
“What’s on it?” I asked.
She flashed a knowing smile that seemed to say, “You’ll see.”
13
Hope in the Mail
WEEKS LATER, AS I was shooting baskets in the driveway of my home in the Kansas City suburb of Lenexa, Kansas, my eleven-year-old daughter, Allison, walked up with an armload of mail.
“What’s Harpo?” she asked, reading the markings on a thickly padded envelope.
“Hmmm?” I said, running after a high-arcing shot that bounced hard off the back of the rim and out toward Allie on a hot August day.
“It’s on this package for you,” she said. “It says Harpo Studios.” She handed me the package. “What is it?” she asked.
I dropped the ball.
“It’s from … Oprah Winfrey,” I said, as my mind raced back to my recent encounter with the talk show maven.
“Daddy, why was there a package from Oprah Winfrey in our mailbox?”
“This is the tape!” I said, feeling the hard rectangular shape inside the package. “I forgot! She said she was going to send it to me.”
“Send you what?”
“Oh, it’s just something she wanted me to see, sweetie,” I said. “Medical miracle or something.”
Allie shrugged her shoulders.
“Bo-ring,” she said, running back toward the house.
I tore open the brown package and read the label on the side of the tape. THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW: RADICAL MEDICAL MAKEOVERS. ORIGINAL AIRDATE 4/21/04.
I walked back toward the court and set the tape on a flat landscape rock as I finished my shooting workout with a few layups an
d twenty free throws.
“What’s that?” my wife asked, nodding to the envelope on the rock as she walked past with our overloaded recycling bin. “It’s actually from Oprah Winfrey,” I said, taking the green bin from her and walking it to the curb.
“Thanks,” she said as she as she walked alongside me. “Did you say Oprah?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s my tape.”
“Your tape?” she said. “Since when does the Oprah show send you tapes?”
“It’s not from the Oprah show,” I said, correcting her. “It’s from Oprah Winfrey herself!”
“Oh-kay,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Since when does Oprah Winfrey send you tapes?”
“She said she’d send it, and she did!”
Susan looked at me in the quizzical way I imagine her preschoolers sometimes look at her.
“And Oprah is sending you a tape from one of her shows because … ?”
“Actually I had forgotten about it.”
“Because ?”
“You know, this is very impressive. Most people who promise to send you things never do.”
“BE-CAUSE ?”
“I don’t know,” I said, setting the bin down on the edge of the grass and turning to walk back. “Because she … thought it was important for some reason.”
“What’s on it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s put it in!” she said, picking up the package.
I snatched it back from her just as fast. “I’ll … watch it later,” I said, setting it back on the rock.
“Why not just put it in now?” she said. “I’m curious to see what she sent you. We can all see it.”
“Later,” I said, bouncing the ball and swishing a twenty-foot jumper. “Why do you care so much?”
She flashed me her best “What are you, stupid?” face. “It’s not every day my husband gets something from Oprah Winfrey!” she said.
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