Confessions of a Crypto Millionaire

by Dan Conway

  She called me one day, about a year before I started at Acme. “Hi, honey,” she said.“I just wanted to tell you, they think I have leukemia.”

  A few weeks before, at her annual St. Paddy’s Day party, I had noticed she wasn’t laughing much. Normally, like the rest of us, she’d be butchering the lyrics of Irish folk songs and relishing stories of our grandmother, Nana, who had a heart of gold but would push the kids with her cane and tell them to “keep still” if they were too loud.

  Maureen found blood in her urine. Tests indicated it was a leukemia-related tumor.

  “The doctors tell me they can knock out the tumor with radiation, but they also need to treat the underlying leukemia. I’m going to UCSF tomorrow. It’s a weird type, apparently.”

  When my dad was sick with terminal lung cancer years before, I practically got a Ph.D. in cancer via the Internet. Since then, I’d been closely tracking anyone on my Facebook feed who was dealing with cancer. A “weird” type was obviously what you didn’t want to hear.

  “Don’t worry, it’s going to be all right,” I said. “UCSF is one of the best hospitals in the world, and I’m sure they have all sorts of amazing treatments.” It’s interesting how quickly I could dish out platitudes with conviction while my brain was screaming, “This is BAD!”

  As time went on, we became more concerned with each update. The cancer was uncontrolled, strange, vibrant. There was a troubling lilt in the doctors’ voices when they talked about Maureen’s condition.

  In the meantime, as is always the case, I needed to make a living. So I’d go from taking a call about Maureen’s status on the busy sidewalk on Montgomery Street, where I didn’t have to worry about getting emotional, to going back upstairs to send cogent-sounding emails, plan meeting agendas, and edit press releases.

  I started to feel that I was being tamed, that my family was being tamed. I was struggling at work. And a core member of my family was suffering and might die. The cold, hard world was turning on me and my family. All my thoughts of early retirement were gone, and I just wanted to survive. Of course, I wouldn’t acknowledge that I was throwing booze on this dumpster fire, hoping it would go out.

  I kept plugging along. After a long day at work, I’d pull up in front of our house and brace myself for kid duty. I’d paint a smile on my face, grit my teeth and get through dinner, cleanup, and baths. I loved them, but with the constant demands to assemble toys, make dinner, and clean up messes, I didn’t have any time alone to unwind. I was ashamed that I felt this way.

  After we returned from a one-week vacation to Russian River, where we’d spent each day playing catch, building sand castles, and making blackberry pies, I stayed in the BART parking lot for a few moments to have a cry. I knew I wasn’t going to be as present for my kids, now that the pressures of real life had returned. I knew I wasn’t being a good dad.

  At night, I’d get back on email from nine p.m. until midnight, and sometimes until one or two a.m. I was determined to succeed at this job, and that meant learning everything I could and answering as many emails as possible. No matter how hard I tried, there seemed to be more incoming than I could deal with.

  I chalked up some wins on projects that didn’t require managing the rift between Red State and California. Some California team members dropped by to say, “Great job.” Red State said, “Good job, and it’s about time California did something right.” I was recognized, and it felt good.

  My reward was an email up the chain. The prize for doing something good at Acme was a positive note from a supervisor that cascaded gloriously out of the bowels of the day-to-day work, to the warmth and brightness of the thirty-first floor of the Red State skyscraper. It was a way for everyone in the chain of command to associate themselves with awesome work and take a little bit of credit for themselves. It was amazing to see how high these emails could go. On occasion, they’d go all the way to the CEO and the board of directors. At some point, there would be no one more senior to send it to, leaving only Jesus Christ or Dick Cheney to say, “Great work.”

  If the project being applauded involved a buzzword in fashion at the time, you could win a cascading, upwardly mobile email for an achievement so trivial it was laughable. Sharp-eyed managers would spot the connection and launch the note vertically before anyone beat them to the punch. They’d write something like, Mary, this is a great example of leveraging synergies with NGOs … thought you should see our work here. And just like that, out of nowhere, that note with your original email would skyrocket to the powers that be, one manager at a time.

  On one occasion, I wrote an email to my supervisor with a good deal of necessary background information. It was simply an explanation of something that needed explaining, nothing extraordinary. To my great shock and pleasure, this note was deemed “storytelling.” Unbeknownst to me, a traveling motivational speaker had recently impressed the Red State executives with the need for more storytelling. No one knew what that meant, but apparently I was very skilled at it. My note exploded vertically, and I was momentarily and gloriously celebrated as one of Acme’s very own top-notch storytellers by a number of senior vice presidents I recognized from their scripted town hall webcasts.

  The herd mentality of the corporate culture grated on me. One executive or another was always promoting a new process or snappy best practice. Employees were expected to rally around these ideas with exclamation points and big smiles.

  Flip Side was now running around like never before, screwing up most of the work-related words out of my mouth. I turned to humor for stress relief. When my jokes landed, it made me feel like I was at least good at something.

  I’d seen other Californians with a good sense of humor thread that needle, knowing when to turn it up or down, never erring from an approved range. But that wasn’t me. I’d go for broke to get the laugh, going right beyond the line of appropriate. Once, during a particularly serious discussion when we were all twisted up figuring out how Acme could influence San Diego Neighborhood Councils with our philanthropic efforts and other corporate AstroTurf strategies, I said with a straight face, “I think it’s time we consider buying a neighborhood council.”

  There was a pause, and then everyone burst into laughter, everyone except the silent marshals from Red State. I received a chilling email to “watch my humor.”

  There was a beautiful electric display in my office that showed thousands of colorful dots connected by a bird’s nest of wires. It was supposed to show the great power and complexity of Acme’s operations on the Internet. It had been commissioned by one of my predecessors at a time when the company was desperately trying to prove it was a top-notch tech company.

  I’d use it as a prop to break the ice when candidates came in for job interviews. After greeting them warmly, I’d escort them to my office and direct them to the display.

  “This is Acme’s Internet presence. If I hear of a transmission problem, I can go to this display and identify a possible issue,” I’d explain. “It’s definitely not foolproof, but more often than not, there is a trunk line that can be rerouted, and we can deal with it very deliberately.”

  We’d both continue staring at the display. Every single time, the candidate would express their awe with complete sincerity, matching my deep reflection and focus. Either they actually believed I could scan the Internet and perform maintenance, or they thought I was crazy but decided to humor me so that I’d hire them. Finally, I’d tell them I was kidding and explode into borderline inappropriate laughter, the kind that makes me extremely unattractive when I’m watching YouTube prank videos, according to my wife.

  I’d also ask candidates if they’d like a glass of water. If they said yes, I’d disappear into the kitchen and bring back a square black container that was clearly a small flower vase. The person would always take it and would never indicate that drinking water out of a pot during an interview was unusual. I couldn’t look at the water without losing it, so I completely blocked it out. I would’ve been mortified
if someone actually drank from it, but they never did.

  Aside from these (I hope) harmless jokes, I was extremely nice to the people who came in looking for a job. One type of candidate frightened me: those who were out of work with long, impressive resumes, high-powered grad school credentials, and probably big mortgages. Anyone over forty practically begged me to hire them for Second or Third Level jobs. What had happened to these people, I wondered? They’d been thrown off whatever professional vessel they’d been riding to retirement.

  Chapter Eight

  This is Bad

  Maureen kept getting worse. She needed a bone marrow transplant to live. I have three siblings, including Maureen. After donor testing, we were all matches—except Maureen, who only partially matched each of us. She proceeded with a bone marrow transplant from a stranger off the registry who was as genetically close as they could find.

  Following a bone marrow transplant, recipients require round-the-clock monitoring and care with complicated, high-stakes drug administration. I honestly don’t know how anyone without a big family or other substantial support network manages. Luckily, we come from a large, tight-knit family, and everyone pitched in to help. We put together a detailed care schedule. I was on duty with my brother, sister, mother, cousins, Maureen’s partner, her kids, and close friends.

  The transplant halfway took. Her body didn’t reject it, but her stomach became so inflamed, she couldn’t eat. Every week brought new crises.

  I’d visit her at the recovery center after work. Before walking through the lobby with the antiseptic smell, I’d visit the liquor store in the strip mall next door. I’d buy a flask of vodka and pour it into a half bottle of orange juice.

  I didn’t feel like I was doing something bad. In my mind, I was simply using the booze to access the best part of my family and myself. The part that scoffs at convention and goes for broke. The part that told Maureen it was a good idea to sneak onto Hank Williams Jr.’s tour bus after a concert in 1987. I told myself that booze wasn’t the endgame but a vehicle to let it all hang out, to be a Conway.

  Eileen was sorry she had let me start drinking, though of course she had no power to stop me. One night, after I started at Acme, seemingly out of the blue, she told me she thought I had a problem. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I asked her what on earth she was referring to. I was usually the drunkest person at any party we attended. I had at least three drinks every night from the moment I took that first sip of wine. But I didn’t end up in a Mexican jail, get a DUI, or show up drunk for work.

  She calmly said, “You’ve changed,” and walked upstairs to bed.

  That scared me. I couldn’t deny that this was starting to sound like the preamble to serious marital problems, perhaps even a divorce. But with my addiction growing, my career a challenge, and my sister dying, I wasn’t prepared to do anything about it.

  Now that I was fully ensconced in my drinking life, wine and chewing tobacco were important components of my nightly routine as I plowed through emails. Also strong Manhattans and margaritas, depending on the season. I’m like a lot of alcoholics and drug addicts who never get tired after taking substances, even sedatives. Anything that made me feel different, stimulant or depressant, energized me. With a few drinks in me, I had more stamina to keep pulling up the next email.

  It goes without saying that once I started drinking, exercise became something other people did. I didn’t have the time. And my sleep wasn’t getting any better, so I talked to my doctor about Ambien. I got a prescription and started using it nearly every night. I slept like a rock, but I didn’t dream, which made me a little edgy. Maybe my lower back pain was keeping me out of REM sleep. I got a prescription for Vicodin and started taking one before bed and also when I needed a pick-me-up.

  The emails kept coming in at all hours—demands from Red State, reporting requirements from the Machines. One early morning, after a late night, I was still groggy and drove into the back of a SamTrans bus. It barely moved, but my car was totaled. The driver claimed to be injured and had to be taken out on a stretcher. I hoped she hated her job, and I’d given her the perfect out.

  If I had them, I’d take two Vicodin before extended play sessions with the kids. Sometimes we’d all be driving down El Camino to one event or another, and Eileen would ask why I was driving so slowly. Sure enough, I was going twenty in a thirty-five. So I’d hit the gas and we’d fly forward, exceeding the speed limit as I lost myself in the flow of substances running through my brain.

  ***

  The only thing intending to grow more bloated than my face was Acme, which announced a $12 billion acquisition of Globex in early 2011.

  This was full-scale war. All of the troops were being activated. The generals on our call were talking louder than normal, laying it on the line, telling us how important this was for the company.

  I knew I’d have a big role in this effort and was excited to get started. The perpetually complicated dynamics between California and Red State seemed surmountable, since we’d all be fully aligned and working like hell to get this merger approved. That weekend, I spent a lot of time at the library gathering my thoughts. I drew up the beginnings of a plan that I thought would get us off to the right start in California. This acquisition might be my path to success.

  Then Red State emailed to tell me I wouldn’t be working on Globex. They said I had too much on my plate with the San Francisco widget factory project. This was devastating news, to say the least. It was like being relieved of command before D-Day. I would be the only public relations lead in the country not working on the acquisition.

  Leadership at Acme made a big point of referring to us as a family, a tribe bound by something greater than the bottom line, though that thing was never identified. If you believe that, you must have come from a pretty fucked-up family.

  As an ostracized member of that family, I now went through the embarrassing process of declining to participate in acquisition-related conference calls and meetings that I’d been invited to, explaining over and over again that I wasn’t working on that project. But my team was working full steam ahead on it, and I was still their manager. Awkward. And devastating. It was like being forced to wear a “dead meat” sign around the office.

  Going to work was hell. I hated the people in Red State with a cold heat. I dreamt of all of the things I’d like to tell them and their aw-shucks attitude as they continued to insert shivs into my guts.

  The combination of booze, Vicodin, and Ambien at night was making me foggy during the day, paranoid during moments of contemplation, and overall at least twenty percent dopier than I already was. But in my heart of hearts, I pinned all of my problems on those miserable bastards in Red State.

  I started furiously looking for jobs and had a few interviews. I came off as a desperate, shattered man with bloodshot eyes. They’d be sure to get back to me if anything else opened up. My ability to fake it during interviews no longer worked.

  Home was anything but a sanctuary. As I mentioned, Eileen wasn’t happy with me due to the drinking and my overall miserable disposition. Even friends weren’t excited to see me. When I spilled a glass of red wine on a friend’s shirt at a Friday night get-together at our house, he said, “Damnit, Dan, you have to be careful.” I’d spilled a glass of wine on his couch the previous Friday. I made a note to avoid that asshole in the future.

  I needed more relief, and I had an idea where I could find it. The Vicodin was great, but it ran out too quickly. I needed more Vicodin, because it really calmed me down and gave me some peace. My body had already been breached by addiction. This was just one more step.

  A few years prior, I’d read a story in the San Francisco Chronicle about a place called Pill Hill in the Tenderloin District, a fifteen-minute walk from my office in the Financial District. I remembered the story focusing on the scourge of this place and how it was like a food court for drugs. People would walk by, get what they needed and go about their business. Very bad stuff.
I thought I’d check it out.

  The Tenderloin was a dystopian hell. It had been a drug-infested den for more than sixty years, a home for desperate, impoverished lost souls. As I walked down Seventh Street in my suit, I spied many horrors: people lying in their own vomit with matted hair and no shoes, small children yelling “Fuck you” at one another while playing in traffic, and grizzled, zombie-like humans sitting on the sidewalk, some in wheelchairs, staring vacantly into the distance. Each retail storefront was protected with heavy bars. Sirens crashed as police cruisers raced by.

  There was so much malfeasance happening in the Tenderloin that the SFPD placed an entire station in the middle of the neighborhood. Ultimately, nothing ever seemed to change the mood of the place, not the shiny happy people from Twitter’s new headquarters down the street or the multitude of recovery and rehab charities in the area.

  I had a feeling I was about to do something very bad. It’s the same feeling I had in third grade when I stole a candy bar from Safeway. I didn’t remember having that feeling as an adult. This is what it feels like to be a criminal, I thought. It was a scene from a movie, certainly not my life. But there was Flip Side on my shoulder, who kept whispering how good I’d feel after taking a few Vics. I knew he was right.

  I walked for about fifteen minutes, which is all you need to see the whole neighborhood, then I doubled back. I figured the guy in the leather jacket near the liquor store might be able to help me out. He was muscular and peppy. His head darted from side to side.

  As I walked by, I asked, “Do you have any Vics?”

  He looked at me and said, “Yeah, what do you need?”

  He had five, and they were five dollars each. I said Ok and walked a little further. I looked around, didn’t see any cops and took out my wallet.

  He said, “Shit, man, get your money around the corner, then give it to my partner.” His head nodded toward a younger guy in an impeccably white t-shirt.