Battely leapt upon the opportunity and sent the article—along with four or five others about Max—to the chairman, along with a simple note.
You might want to look into this.
Max was fired. William Bohr had his son Peter make the call and sent along a personal message:
If we were back in the old country, we would throw you in the brig. But since this is civilian life we can only take away your stripes. We will pay you through the end of the year but have everything packed and gone by the end of business today.
Max was in shock.
He had done nothing wrong and had signed up more than thirty titles in the eighteen months he had worked for the company.
He was advised by industry colleagues that he could sue CRM for wrongful termination, but that wasn’t Max’s style.
In a bizarre twist of events, the day before he was fired, Max’s fiancée ended their engagement, and Max was left crushed on all fronts. He was so devastated by the sudden end of his engagement that he was in too much shock to even analyze what getting fired really meant to him.
When in the next few days he did think it over, he realized that he didn’t really want to work for anyone—even with a sweetheart situation such as he had had with CRM.
He wanted to live life on his own terms.
So as far as he was concerned, he was once again free to create his own destiny.
***
Max had no money, so he would need to start small.
He made arrangements to use the local cable television equipment to produce a “how-to” video in the style of the popular Jane Fonda workout videos and thus was born MAXimum Productions. He teamed up with the creator of the Del Mar Workout at the local gym and thought it was a catchy name and a good workout—ideal for the Jane Fonda market.
His greatest problem was that he didn’t have Jane Fonda—or any celebrity, for that matter—associated with the Del Mar Workout, so when he took the rough cut to a distributor, he was told that they could take five hundred units to test it, but they were pessimistic.
Max needed a minimum order of five thousand units just to break even. At five hundred units he would lose $2.00 on every tape and didn’t have any capital to make up the difference. It appeared as if MAXimum productions would never get off the ground.
While pondering his options, Max received a phone call from a neighbor Andy Kay, who had an intriguing new idea.
“Max, I remember from one of our dinners that you said you know test preparation training from the days you worked with your dad’s publishing company.”
Max didn’t know what he was getting at, but he was interested.
“Yes, that’s true. What’s on your mind?”
“My pet project here at Nonlinear Systems has been to develop a machine I call the ‘tutor-computer,’ designed to help students improve their vocabularies. I’ve long been a fan of Johnson O’Connor’s work and believe that vocabulary improvement is the most important educational goal for everyone.
“Would you consider helping me out with this project, as an outside part-time consultant?” Andy asked eagerly.
“Absolutely,” Max replied and added, “I can start immediately.” Once again, synchronicity seemed to present him with an ideal work opportunity, just when he needed it most.
He served as project director and marketing manager, in return for a percentage of future sales. They got to work immediately and moved ahead at a rapid pace.
Two months into the tutor-computer project, one of Andy’s engineers developed what became known as the KayPro computer—immediately the second most popular portable computer in the world after the Osborne, which it was soon outselling.
Work continued on the tutor computer, but it was no longer a priority. The KayPro took off, and Andy’s little company soared from $2 million in annual sales to $250 million.
Suddenly there were dozens of technical writers and computer consultants on staff. When these writers learned of Max’s background and connections, they asked him to help them create “how-to” training films.
Overnight MAXimum Productions had morphed into a thriving training film company, featuring some of the best technical talent in the world. Max was intrigued by the advances in technology and the high-tech world. He wasn’t technically oriented himself, but he soon figured out how to determine which films were likely to be popular. And in a training world that didn’t know a DOS from a CMP, or Lotus from WordPerfect, Max was considered a technical guru.
Gone were his ambitions to produce “real films,” or do anything other than play golf, date beautiful women, and generally enjoy the California lifestyle.
***
The years passed without Max encountering any more of the twelve names. It was almost as if Maria, Yutsky, B.N. Sharma, and Yoko had been part of a dream life.
With the exception of the one improbable name—Running Bear—they would have been easy to discount as an illusion, born of a near-death trauma.
But one by one, they had appeared to him, so that he could no longer shrug them off. Neither could he explain them, though.
And yet . . . Running Bear?
As absurd as it seemed, there had to be an explanation.
***
Every few months he would receive word—usually from his parents—of an incident that had resulted in Louis being taken to a mental facility for observation, only to be released within the mandated thirty days.
He knew the routine. His brother would take his medication while incarcerated but would stop as soon as he was released.
One time, after an incident that had led to a short period of institutionalization, Louis actually showed up in California. He was still smelly, dirty, and speaking loudly and only semi-coherently. Max felt sorry for him and arranged for Louis to stay at the Marriott Hotel where he could get a good night’s rest and clean up.
They met there for lunch the next day, and Max offered to pay for Louis to stay another night.
“Oh, no—the hotel’s much too expensive,” Louis protested. “I won’t stay there. I can just sleep in my car in the parking lot and save all that money.”
Max was appalled.
“But it’s my money,” he countered, “and I don’t mind paying.” But before he could continue, Louis interrupted him.
“No! I like to save my money. I’ll be fine in the car.” With that they parted and agreed to meet at a diner the following day.
The next morning Max went to the Marriott parking lot to look for Louis but couldn’t find him. Nor was he in a room.
Several hours later, when they met for dinner, Max asked Louis where he had slept.
“I saw a Motel 6 down the street, so I parked my car and slept in it there instead. The Marriott was much too expensive.”
“But the Marriot parking lot would have been free as well,” Max asserted. “There’s no difference.”
“You don’t understand anything about money.” Louis insisted, and his voice took on a tone Max didn’t like. “The Marriott would have been more expensive, and with what I saved, we can afford a good dinner.”
Max let it drop, and they enjoyed a quiet meal.
Despite the years of youthful beatings, he couldn’t help but feel sorrow. As they ate, Max came up with what he hoped would be a solution, and suggested a psychiatrist to treat Louis. He made a deal that he would provide a monthly stipend, above and beyond what Louis received from their parents, provided the doctor could confirm on a weekly basis that he was taking his medication.
Louis agreed, and the treatments began. At the same time he became an avid gambler and a regular at the famous Del Mar Race Track. He was good at it, too, and winning regularly so that he didn’t need to take the extra money from Max.
After two months Louis stopped seeing the psychiatrist and went off his medication. Like all the Doffs, food was one of his primary delights, and his excuse was that the medication upset his stomach, interfered with the taste of the food, and made him feel groggy and l
ess alive.
Max warned him that the payments would stop if he didn’t resume taking his medication, but with Louis’s newfound income, the threat had little weight.
Louis responded by writing a long letter accusing Max of illegal activities. He said that he was going to report Max to the IRS and the FBI.
Soon thereafter he disappeared altogether, and Max lost track of his whereabouts. Through some discreet inquiries, he heard rumors that Louis had adopted a nomadic lifestyle—living in his car, spending summers in Michigan and winters in Tennessee and Florida.
Louis would rent a room when he felt the need for a shower and a bed but mostly just seemed to live out of his car at campsites, Motel 6 parking lots, and horse racing events.
***
It was shortly after reconnecting with Louis that Max’s mother, Jane, was diagnosed with cancer. The tumor was located on the left side of her brain, exactly where the trauma of her car accident had been most severe.
Jane struggled with radiation and chemotherapy treatments for close to two years, but when she lost her ability to speak or move she handed Max—who had flown back to Greenwich for a final visit—a short note.
I am ready to enter the light.
Within two days she was gone.
Max helped his dad organize the funeral and a special memorial service for Jane. Louis was neither invited nor banned, though Herbert did confess that Jane secretly believed the ongoing heartache over her son’s erratic behavior had hastened the onset of her illness.
In any event, neither Max nor Herbert had any way of contacting Louis, so they couldn’t invite him to the funeral—even if they had wanted to—and they couldn’t inform him of his mother’s death.
Chapter Sixteen
Grace
1979–1984
WHILE HIS FILM CAREER WAS PROVING TO BE A REAL ROLLER-coaster ride, his love life turned out to be similarly dramatic . . . and unpredictable.
Grace Bradley was the first woman Max had met after moving to San Diego. He ran into her at a “residents only” swimming pool in the exclusive Sea Point Village condominiums in Del Mar, where he was living. She was swimming laps, and the moment she got out of the pool, Max knew he was in love. She was blonde and possessed the finest legs he had ever seen. In his eyes, she was his absolute ideal.
He followed her into the hot tub.
Her eyes laughed as if she did not have a care in the world, and her voice was as sweet as any music he had ever heard.
“Well if you aren’t the most crooked swimmer I have ever met,” Grace said, laughing. “Or were you just trying to bump into me on purpose?”
“I’m just directionally challenged, I guess,” Max replied, and he smiled back. “Though I’m awfully glad I bumped into you. You’re probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”
That caused her to smile even more broadly, and he was entranced.
“I don’t see a ring on your finger,” he said. “I hope that means you’re single.”
“I am single, but don’t get any ideas. I’m just coming out of a divorce, and I promised myself I wouldn’t start dating again for at least six months,” Grace responded, her blue eyes glittering in the sunlight.
“Well, we don’t need to date, but I hope we can become friends,” Max said. “I just moved in yesterday and hardly know a soul in Sea Point.”
“I have lots of friends, and I’ll be glad to be on your informal welcoming committee,” she said cheerfully. “My mother back in Iowa raised me to be part of the Junior League, and even though everyone here in California seems so laid-back, I still believe in honoring social obligations.
“I’ll introduce you around, and in a week or two you’ll realize I’m just one of many beauties living here in Sea Point.”
At thirty-three, Max was enjoying the freedom of being single in San Diego at a time when most women in their twenties thought nothing of having sex on the first date. So while he waited for Grace, he could still have all the sex he wanted with the many available and attractive women he was meeting at film festivals and through his new California friends.
***
Yet Grace was wrong, as far as he was concerned. Even after six months, Grace was far more than just one of many beauties—she was the one he was destined to marry.
***
After nine months of dating, Max proposed and Grace accepted.
She was still the woman of his dreams. He would beam with happiness when he was with her, pinching himself to convince himself that it was real—that he would soon have this perfect mate.
Her greatest interest was in Get Real, a New Age meditation regimen started in California by a fellow named Harold Henderson. It seemed strange to Max, but he didn’t give it much thought as long as it made Grace happy.
And Max had to admire success. Harold didn’t seem to have much going for him, yet by teaching meditation he had—in essence—created his own cult.
People would pay good money for the meditation classes, and Harold ended up having as many women to sleep with as he wanted. Though he was in his sixties, he spread rumors that he was over one hundred years old, and that the meditation techniques had given him perpetual youth. To keep his “chi,” he claimed, he needed to sleep with younger women.
The majority of his young disciples thought it was an honor to be chosen to help keep him young.
Grace, being from Iowa, was relatively conservative. So despite practicing the meditation, she had never slept with Harold and claimed that she never intended to do so. She believed in sex within marriage, she said flatly, yet she also believed in Get Real meditation.
Grace was clearly under Harold’s spell.
When Harold had learned that Grace was engaged to Max, Harold had suggested that she align herself with a more advanced Get Real practitioner.
He introduced Grace to Stephen, who was a “third-level” student. Grace had been meditating for nine years, so she had risen all the way to the “fourth level.” There was much she could teach Stephen, Harold explained, and in doing so she herself would rise higher in the ranks.
In addition to being a third, Stephen was a multimillionaire real estate developer. Max at the time was earning an associate producer’s salary of $40,000 a year and could not compete.
Grace returned the ring to Max. Within three months she was engaged to Stephen. There was nothing Max could do.
He was devastated.
***
The day after Grace broke off their engagement, Max was fired from CRM.
He was distraught over losing Grace and for a long time, despite the impracticality of the situation, he refused to give up hope of reuniting with her.
Before long, however, MAXimum productions was formed, and he had no time for anything but work. It was a blessing in disguise, really—intellectual and emotional synchronicity at work, though from his position in the midst of the drama, he didn’t realize it.
Indeed, it would be ten years before he began to form the full picture.
Chapter Seventeen
A Return to Grace
1994
MAX RECEIVED A CALL FROM MEG PERKINS, ONE OF GRACE’S closest friends.
He hadn’t stayed in touch with Grace or any of the Get Real groupies, but enough time had passed that he agreed to meet with Meg, who was an actress.
She drove down from Los Angeles to ask Max’s advice about films and to pitch him a concept she wanted to develop. He explained politely that the concept she was proposing was good but not the kind of material he handled.
Then an afterthought struck him.
“By the way, whatever happened to Grace?” he asked nonchalantly, though he realized that the old wounds hadn’t entirely healed. “I heard she had moved away. Is she still with Stephen?”
“Oh no,” Meg replied, shaking her head vehemently. “That marriage lasted only three years. Grace moved up to Portland and is selling real estate. In fact, she’s coming down next week to a business conference. I am sure she’
d love to see you if you have the time.”
Max wasn’t sure how he felt about Meg’s revelation, but curiosity beat out common sense, and he said that he would like to see her. Meg agreed to set it up.
***
Two days later Max was sitting at his desk looking out at the ocean from his second-floor office in the MAXimum building. He had bought the building for the view and spent most of the day on the phone while watching surfers, dolphins, migrating whales, and other attractions of the beach.
He was shocked out of his reverie by a female presence behind him who placed her hands over his eyes.
It was Grace. He could tell without even hearing her voice.
He could feel her energy. He heard her laugh as she removed her hands, and when he turned around to face her, he was amazed to see a woman now nearly forty who hadn’t aged even a day in ten years.
Maybe that Get Real stuff really works after all, he mused, but he didn’t say it aloud.
They chatted for a while, and to Max it felt a lot like his near-death experience. He knew it was him doing half of the talking, but it was like watching himself from a distance, as he asked her out to lunch.
***
Within three months Grace and Max were again engaged to be married.
He invited one hundred of his closest friends and associates to Aruba, in the Caribbean Sea, and celebrated a three-day wedding that included golf outings, boat outings, traditional feasts, and tuxedoed guests dancing to big band music at the Brickell Bay Hotel, rented just for the occasion.
Grace had really done her homework and had incorporated many traditional island elements into the activities. She had a great aesthetic sense, and with Max’s ability to provide an unlimited budget, the wedding met all expectations . . . but one.
***
Even before the ceremony, Max had a feeling he was making a mistake. In fact, he had decided to consult several friends and psychics—as well as the minister who was to marry them—and they all were of the opinion that it would be a mistake for him to marry Grace. Yet once again, Max allowed his heart to supersede his brain.
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