THE CALL CAME early to my office, and I was in no mood to take it. Exhausted and trying to finish a long story on deadline, the last thing I wanted to do was talk to someone. That’s why when the phone rang at my desk I almost didn’t answer it.
“The Kansas City Star, go away,” I said picking up the receiver without pressing the answer button. I imagined I had heat-ray vision that melted it into a small, beige lump. Unfortunately the lump kept ringing. I sighed, rolled my eyes, and answered it for real.
“The Kansas City Star. This is Jim Fussell speaking. May I help you?” I said in an uninspired voice. The woman on the other end of the line was like no one I typically heard from. She didn’t sound like an editor, a reader, a PR flak, or a source. She was cheery—oddly cheery for that early in the morning. The woman had a high, excited voice and she was talking fast, congratulating me on winning this or that from the American association of something or other.
I tried to slow her down. “Wait …” I said. “Whoa. What?”
She kept talking. And while I’m sure she was a fine person, her cheeriness was off-putting. Who was that happy that early in the morning?
“I’m sorry,” I said, interrupting her gleeful prattling. “What’s this all about again?”
“You won!” she said, her voice nearly rising into a squeal. “You won first place!”
“Wait,” I said. “What won?”
“Your story!” she said. “It won first place in the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors [now called the Society for Features Journalism] writing contest.”
I laughed. I would have loved to believe that was true. I didn’t. It was a mistake. She had a wrong number. “Look,” I said, “you sound like a very nice woman. But you must have the wrong person. I don’t enter writing contests.”
“Is this … James A. Fussell of the Kansas City Star?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well then you won!” she said, her voice rising again into a giddy squeak. “Congratulations! And this is a big one, for general feature. This is the one everyone wants to win!”
“But—I didn’t enter anything,” I protested.
“Well, someone must have entered it for you,” the woman said. “Because here it is. And here you are. And you won! Congratulations!”
“Wait. What story are you talking about?”
“Uhh, it’s right here.” She read the headline. “ONE WHO HAS LIVED THE LIFE BECOMES AGENT OF CHANGE.”
“Oh, the story about Kristy Childs and Veronica’s Voice?” I said.
Silence.
“The prostitute-with-a-heart-of-gold story?”
“Yes! That’s the one,” she said. “It was an excellent story.”
“Somebody entered that?” I said.
“Apparently so. And it won!”
“Well that’s great news!” I said, genuinely shocked. “Uhh, thank you!”
We talked for several more minutes about the story, the contest, and the upcoming convention in Portland, Oregon.
I smiled broadly when I hung up the phone. I had won a national award—one a lot of others apparently wanted to win. Not only that, I had won it at the highest level, competing against reporters at such venerable papers as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.
I laughed at the thought. Me? Unreal.
It must have been the subject. The woman I had written about—Kristy Childs—certainly was an impressive person. A former prostitute with a harrowing background, she had founded Veronica’s Voice, a Kansas City group that hit the streets after dark to help women leave the life. I had fought for the story and for the time needed to do it right. It took many months of hard work. Persuading prostitutes they could trust me was not something I rushed. I remember working late many nights to rewrite it and fine-tune it to get it right. Turns out my editor at the time, David Frese—who was a huge help in structuring the story and making it better—had entered the story for me and never told me. I walked to his desk and thanked him.
“Hey, it was your story, man,” he said.
“Yeah. But it wouldn’t have been as good without your help. And it certainly couldn’t have won if you hadn’t have entered it. I want you to know how much both of those things mean to me.”
“Happy to do it,” he said. “It was a fantastic story.”
“Thank you,” I said.
But there was someone else I needed to thank. I never would have had the energy or drive to complete such a long and difficult piece of reporting and writing without the inspiration I got from Jeff’s miracle.
That evening I called Jeff and told him the news. “There’s a prestigious national award given every year by the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors that honors the best-written feature story of the year at all the biggest papers in the United States and Canada,” I said. “Uhh … guess who just won it this year?”
“You’re kidding!” he said.
“Nope.”
“You?”
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
“Not at all,” he said. “That’s fantastic, Jim!” he said. “Congratulations!”
“Thank you,” I said. “But here’s the best part. They honor the winners in Portland this year, and I’ve decided that … I’m going. And since I couldn’t have done this without you, I want you to come with me.”
I didn’t hear anything for several seconds.
“Are you kidding me?” he said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll be my guest,” I said.
“Absolutely,” he said, laughing in disbelief. “I’d be honored!”
48
Revenge of the Weirdos
SITTING ON THE bed in my well-appointed hotel room in Portland, Oregon, I twisted my back until my vertebrae cracked like a piece of twisted bubble wrap. I wasn’t twenty anymore. But on this day, fifty-one felt more like eighty-one.
It was September 2009. I had come to Portland as one of a handful of newspaper writers and editors who were being honored at a prestigious national journalism conference. Since the conference didn’t officially start until tomorrow, I had time to goof around. I removed my athletic socks and rolled them into little white balls. Spotting a black wastebasket in the corner of the room, I began bobbing like a point guard looking for his shot.
Fussell at the top of the key, down one with five seconds to go. Fakes left, goes right. Wants the lane but is cut off. Three, two, he’s in trouble. Throws up a prayer …
The wobbly sock ball arced high in the air, kissed softly off the side of the wall, then dropped in the waste can with a satisfying thunk.
It’s gooooood!
I bounded off the bed and gave myself a high five as I did a little victory dance and sashayed into the bathroom. That is, until I became light-headed and had to lean against the sink until the room stopped spinning. I was just tired from the trip, I told myself.
I knew better. I shook my head, and a familiar pain shot through my neck and radiated down my back. For a moment I felt like I was going to collapse. Biting hard on my lip, I shut my eyes and grimaced until the feeling passed.
I needed to soak in a hot bath. I turned on the water and got undressed. As the tub filled I pulled on an overly fluffy hotel bathrobe and walked to the corner to fish my sock out of the trash can. Tossing the sock on my open suitcase, I sat down at the small desk to start a trip journal on my laptop.
Sept. 23, 2009: After five hours of flying I feel like my head is going to explode. My hotel seems nice, but I haven’t had a chance to look around much. Probably go down to the lobby and check things out before the conference starts at 7. Jeff’s plane arrives tonight close to midnight. Must have polished his watch a dozen times already.
By now I could see wisps of steam wafting into the main room.
“You’re bath is ready, sir,” I said in a stuffy English accent. As I turned the corner to the bathroom the moist air hit me in the face like a hot towel. Standing over the tub, I
tested the temperature by dipping my big toe in the water.
“Holy shit!” I said, yanking my foot from the tub so fast I nearly fell in the toilet. It’s not like I had to go the burn unit or anything, but now my big toe looked like a radish.
I drained several inches of scalding water, then ran some cold before mixing it vigorously with large, sweeping loops of my arm. A twinge shot up my right side as if I had been shot. I dipped my other big toe in the water, this time with a more satisfying result. Letting the robe drop, I submerged myself in a warm, wet cocoon. My entire body sunk under the water, save for the top part of my mouth, which stuck from the surface like the blowhole of a whale. When the hot water cooled, I added more.
An hour later, the bath had done its job. I was so relaxed when I stepped out, I didn’t even bother to dry off. I just stood there dripping onto a white bath towel.
Naked and soaking, I wiped the condensation off the mirror and gazed into my bloodshot blue eyes. Fifteen hundred miles from home, I watched as I moved my head to the left and then slowly back to the right. I took a deep breath and stared at myself as I counted backward from one hundred. No pain. No tightness. Why couldn’t I just freeze like this? God, Tourette Syndrome sucked.
“Eighty-nine, eighty-eight …” And then those familiar feelings returned—the slowly building pressure, the unbearable stress, the all-consuming desire to shake the hell out of my head.
“Focus,” I said. “Don’t move.” And for a while I didn’t.
“Fifty-five, fifty-four.”
But when I reached thirty I couldn’t stand it any more. I moved my head slowly to the left, then wrenched it violently back to the right. I shook it so hard my wet hair flung a small shower of water droplets around the room—so hard I nearly knocked myself to the floor. Temporarily out of breath, I bent over and grabbed my knees. A jolt of electric pain flashed across the muscles of my upper back as a wave of dizziness blasted through my brain. When I stood up I caught sight of myself in the hazy, water-spotted mirror, a pained expression on my face.
“Hello, weirdo,” I said.
“No,” I immediately corrected myself. “Not today. You’re more than that.”
I smiled and moved closer to the mirror until my nose almost touched the glass. “You hear me?” I nodded, and gave myself a soft pat on the back.
After getting dressed, I grabbed my laptop and headed for the lobby. I still had several hours to kill before the conference’s opening reception, and I needed to get used to being around large groups of people again.
The lobby was crowded, and I began to feel uncomfortable almost immediately after stepping off the elevator. I found a bathroom and ducked in to splash some cold water on my face. Looking in the mirror I smiled at myself, as if that would make the deep bags under my eyes disappear. It did, but who was I kidding? I was just trading dark eye circles for crooked, yellow teeth. At least the water felt good. I dried my brown goatee with a swipe of my hand, and used the wetness to sweep my straight brown hair to the side. I took a deep breath. I had just about steeled myself for reentering the lobby when a teenager with long hair and a tattoo of Bob Marley on his arm walked a little too closely to me at the sink. I blinked three times and twitched as if poked by a cattle prod.
“Dude,” he said, edging away. “That’s messed up.”
“That’s an interesting way to put it,” I said. “But yes it is. Thanks for noticing.”
When I was finally ready to leave the bathroom, I saw dozens of people milling around the lobby who looked very much like they belonged at a journalism conference. Many carried newspapers or wrote on computers. I found a good spot in an out-of-the-way place and opened my laptop, hoping to fit in. I sat on an antique, caramel-colored couch in jeans and a black linen shirt. I had my reading glasses on top of my head, a blue pen tucked behind one ear, and a long black comb balanced behind the other. As I began to write, a man vaguely resembling actor Christian Slater (who I later learned was restaurant manager Nick Stoddart) approached in a black tuxedo carrying a silver tray of food.
“Good evening, sir,” he said in a voice worthy of a character from an old movie. “May I interest you in some foie gras? It’s served on a toasted brioche point with a grilled Bosc pear, a garnish of tomato-fig marmalade, and a chive spear.”
I looked up from my screen and wrinkled my nose. “I’m not sure I’m classy enough for foie gras,” I said, trying my best to hide the fact that I couldn’t quite remember what foie gras was.
He recoiled at the possibility. “Of course you are, sir,” he said. “You’re sitting in the Benson.”
He had a point. The Benson was a one-hundred-year-old grand hotel on the National Register of Historic Places. Simon Benson, a lumber baron, spared no expense. He spent a million dollars to build and furnish the place in 1912 at a time when a worker’s average yearly salary was $646.
A cast-iron railing escorted visitors up an Italian marble staircase, and dozens of Austrian-crystal chandeliers hung from the classically coffered ceiling. The wood used to make the walls and soaring square pillars in the lobby were fashioned from Circassian walnut bought from Czar Nicholas II and imported from the forests of imperial Russia. Every president since William Howard Taft had slept in its presidential suite. The place just smelled rich.
I smiled and took some foie gras.
Besides, maybe I was classier than I thought. I pulled a real gold one-hundred-year-old pocket watch from my laptop bag. The twenty-four-jewel double roller seemed right at home in the elegant lobby of the Benson. And soon, so did I.
Until I lost my comb.
I don’t go anywhere without my long black comb. When I comb my hair with it, or balance it behind my ear, it makes me feel more comfortable. Linus had his blanket; I have my comb.
All of which explains why I started to panic when I couldn’t find it. A wave of discomfort seized control of my head, cocking it like a gun. And just when I thought I couldn’t stand it anymore, I heard a voice.
“I think this is yours.” I looked up to see an older, white-haired woman in a red dress, my comb extended from her hand like a wand.
“It is,” I sighed. “Thank you.” Relieved, I slumped back onto the couch, breathing hard.
“Are you OK?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Well, no…. But yeah.”
The woman looked confused.
“Jim,” I said, extending my hand.
“Ella,” she said, grasping it.
We talked for a while—about the comb, the conference, and Jeff and the book.
“Why do you call him a miracle man?” she asked.
I laughed. “How much time ya got?”
“My daughter won’t be here for hours,” she said.
I took a long breath and finished the last of my foie gras, which was surprisingly good considering I finally remembered it was duck liver. Then I told Ella the story from beginning to end.
After I finished, she thanked me for sharing. “That’s wonderful!” she said, wearing the smile of someone who had just been given a special gift. It made me feel so good that she reacted that way to our story and gave me hope that others might feel the same way.
I tried to go back to writing but there were too many distractions. I excused myself and walked several blocks from the hotel to a group of downtown street vendors to buy dinner—a saucy pork and rice dish that I took back to my room.
Later, close to midnight, I climbed into my rented white Nissan Altima to pick up Jeff at Portland International. I rubbed my neck as I walked through the large, clean terminal to Jeff’s gate. I should have been tired, but the closer I got, the more energized I felt. I began thinking of all the things Jeff and I had done and all that he had meant to me.
Scanning the passengers as they walked off the plane, I spotted his smiling face immediately as he walked toward me in a peach-colored shirt.
“Howdy, stranger,” he said. “I just came here because I heard something about someone being a national aw
ard winner?”
“That’s funny,” I said. “’Cause I heard the same thing about you.”
Jeff smiled. “How ya doing, partner?”
“Can’t complain for after midnight,” I said.
We talked about everything and nothing as we drove back to the Benson. We should have gotten some rest, but we were too excited. Besides, Jeff was starving. We decided to go out and see what Portland had to offer after hours in its well-designed downtown.
It was a perfect night—warm and still. We wandered the downtown streets after midnight, amazed at how dramatically life could turn around. Five years ago we were both at our lowest points and didn’t even know each other. Now we were best friends, he had his Tourette’s under control, we had both won national awards, and we were writing a book together.
Well after 1:00 AM we stopped in a corner bar and sat down.
“Kitchen still open?” I asked the man behind the bar.
“Absolutely,” he said.
We ordered cheeseburgers and fries. We were the only ones in the place. It had wood paneling and an open, airy feeling, as if you were sitting outside. I wanted to remember this moment forever. I was glad Jeff was there with me. We had come through so much. And now our amazing, unlikely journey was unfolding, and finishing, right in front of our eyes in the middle of the night in Portland, Oregon.
“This is all so surreal,” I said.
Jeff raised his glass. “Well, you are a national award winner,” he said.
“And so are you,” I said with a grin. We clinked glasses.
We polished off the last fry and headed out. Still hungry, we continued walking toward a local landmark I’d been told we had to visit—Voodoo Doughnut. The place was famous for its unusual doughnuts, eclectic décor, and iconic pink boxes that carried the company’s logo and drawings of voodoo priests.
We finally made it to the place, but only after stepping over several vagrants who were passed out on the sidewalk in front of us. The place was packed with college students and seemingly every tattooed, blue-haired, exotically pierced, countercultural character Portland had to offer. The line was out the door and around the block.
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