Youtube link to audiobook of Chapter 8 and the rest of the book!

Chapter 8

Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid

Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

From:

Subject:  Re:

To:

LL/SF,

I wanted to make you aware of an e-mail I got from a friend of mine … not to depress you, but just to show you what people have gone through in this business, and how it’s affected them. Tom has been in radio since the “glory days” (which are gone forever, I’m afraid). He has 30 plus years of experience, and has been fired and booted more times than God. This letter from him made me cry (literally). I think that, even not knowing him personally it will have a similar effect on you because of how sensitive you are. It’s just so incredibly sad and heartbreaking, the whole damn thing. 

Tom is talking about WDRR, where he worked for several years. He was the morning drive news/sidekick person. Then one day, suddenly, for no reason at all John Meyers decided to put a pretty young woman on the air (WITH NO EXPERIENCE!!!) in place of Tom. He was given the heave-ho one day, and since then has not been the same. Jesus. I don’t know what to SAY to him, what to DO for him, my heart just absolutely breaks. Like he says, I may be in a good place right now, but nothing lasts in this business, it’s very early in the game for me, and I should literally EXPECT to be booted at some point. 

Angela

From:

Subject:  Re:

To:

Angela, 

Your friend’s got the option of making the best of what’s going on in his life, or of walking around like the victim and creating more of his own problems by doing so. I’m not saying that he didn’t get a raw deal. I’m just saying that people have the option of taking a bad experience and using it to actually better their lives instead of worsen it. I look at it this way. You can lie on your deathbed looking back on a life filled with struggles and defeat, but also triumph. And you can take pride in knowing you had the strength to override all the obstacles thrown your way. Or you could lie on your deathbed looking back on a life filled with anger, defeat, regret, hurt, misery, failure, and bitterness, because you never did anything to rise above the obstacles. I personally don’t want to live my life like that, and I can’t feel too sorry for anyone who chooses to either.

Lori

From:

Subject:  Re:

To:

Lori,

I agree with you for the most part. You make a lot of good points. However, I also agree with my friend Tom in many ways because I, too, have already been a VICTIM of radio corporate greed … and this business is truly a different animal than most other businesses, DESTROYING innocent people every day. Sorry for the dramatics, but it’s true. You (and I mean you personally as well as “you” generally with regard to others who are not “life-time” broadcasters) cannot possibly understand the agony unless you have “walked in our shoes.” 

As I said, I think you do make some good points, and I respect them. But I feel you are coming from a position of judging a “war” you have never fought. It would be like me trying to say someone who’d fought in Viet Nam should “just get over” post traumatic stress syndrome. Who am I to make that kind of judgment when I have never even been close to fighting a jungle war? I hope you can understand where I am coming from on this subject.

Angela

From:

Subject:  Re:

To:

Angela,

I understand what you’re saying, but I think you missed the point I was trying to make. There’s no arguing that Tom, and you, and anyone who’s been in broadcasting have had difficult times because of the nature of the business. But I don’t think wallowing in self-pity and/or spreading negativity are going to help matters. Please read more closely what I was trying to say. The self-defeatist attitude doesn’t do anything but drag you and everyone around you down, and doesn’t solve anything. 

Lori

At least eight weeks had passed since Lori was last called into the radio station to voice commercials. The station’s staff had expanded, and it seemed to be more convenient for the station’s head producer to use someone in-house over Lori for weekday programming. Her only viable connection with the station had been dwindled down to sparse commercial reads for weekend hosts that she was responsible for producing on her own time. Because her internship would soon be nearing its end, she struggled to think of a way to stay connected to the station after the internship was officially over. Since the new format of the station was soon to be business, she thought of pitching the idea of reporting on the biopharmaceutical industry and bringing to light anything that might catch any miscellaneous stockholder’s interest. While it would be a far cry from the fluffiness and buoyancy that had originally drawn her to radio, it would be a way of keeping her new world of broadcasting orbiting outside of her old world of science. Inspired by her brother’s recent successes, she wasn’t sure yet that she really wanted to completely abandon the path her brother had so nicely smoothed out ahead of her. Maybe her idea of merging her two worlds would result in her eventually having the best of both, strikingly different as they were. 

Keeping her link with the radio station alive meant being faced every so often with seeing Nick, shielded behind his stone-cold and business-like daylight hours façade. She tried to avoid encountering both him and his mimed rejection by going to the station late at night when most of the staff had already left for the day. Although working late in the tiny, dark production booth near a maze of empty cubicles made Lori feel lonely at times, she knew that Nick’s wild fluctuations between overt seduction and chilling indifference would make her feel even lonelier.

The image of Nick’s face had stopped appearing over her car windshield as she drove through the streets of Springfield in the mornings to school.  She was beginning to finally feel her attachment to him dissolve; she was able to breathe again without her heart swelling and stuffing itself in her windpipe. The time had come for her to reclaim herself, to display the proud strength of her newfound character like a beautiful grapevine-entangled pergola perched high on a hilltop and overlooking countryside meadows. She was nobody’s fool; she was nobody’s puppet. And she needed no validation, or closure. She was simply… unto her own.

Mostly.

“I’m just calling to make sure that you put the read I did the other night into the system,” Lori said. “I left you a minidisk and a note. Did you get them?”

“And who is this?” Nick asked, playfully.

Lori paused. “Someone from your past.”

“And whom might that be?” he asked.

“You know who this is.”

He chuckled. “I know. I just like teasing you.”

She knew she’d have to try a little harder than usual to avoid getting sucked into the depths of his multi-faceted schizophrenic malady. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been called in to do voice-work for the station.  It’s also been a long time since you’ve called to harass me.”

“Do you want me to?” he asked. “I will, if you want. I just thought that you didn’t like it when I used to harass you.”

“I didn’t,” she lied. 

“Oh.” He grew quiet.

She sighed heavily into the phone. “I’ve been writing a lot lately,” she said. “It’s a story of sorts, and a lot of what I’ve written actually pertains to you.”

“Really…” 

“Ah-ha. I want to make sure that you’re O.K. with that.” 

“Read some to me,” he said after a few seconds of silence.

“Are you O.K. with this?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yeah. Read some to me.”

Lori glanced over at a tattered manila folder at the corner of her desk and picked it up. She could hear his breath hitting the receiver.

“Read to me,” he repeated.

She partially lifted the folder, and then set it back down in a cloud of dust. 

 “So … did you write about our … first time?” he asked, slowly and suggestively.

“I glossed over it,” she said. “What I’m writing is not exactly a celebration of events.”

“Oh.” He was quiet for a moment. “I can give you more material to write about, if you want.” 

“No,” she sighed into the phone. “I’m really just trying … to put everything behind me.”

“That’s O.K. It’s all right. But just know that I’m here if you want me.”

“Just make sure that you put my read into the system, O.K.?” She hung up the phone.

She recalled the vast magnetic force field surrounding him that had drawn her in time and time again. She was beginning to understand what a drug addict, alcoholic, or chronic gambler goes through when faced with that pinch of cocaine in a darkened alleyway, that sweaty bottle of Jack Daniels in a rusty toilet tank, or that lonely one-armed bandit in a crowded casino. 

Nick Warren was a physical and spiritual embodiment of every boy in Lori’s life that had left her longing for more. Around him she could smell the same thick, pungent odor of danger that she could sense with the rest, musky pheromones flaring her nostrils and moistening her mouth and continuing to make her crave more. He was her past literally coming back to haunt her. Except unlike her real past that left her feeling hollow and disillusioned, Nick teased her with the notion of finally filling that echoing void within. But this would only happen if she agreed to play by some simple rules. They were rules that didn’t apply to the conventional realm she had grown to know so well, but rather to his hidden underworld of uninhibited hedonistic pleasure that she thought she would never in her waking years be exposed to. And the precise rules she had to play by simply dictated that she had to play. Period.  

She wondered what drove him to want so much that seemed so meaningless in so many ways to her. Why couldn’t they both lay to rest the Dance of the Macabre and settle in with each other? Didn’t he like her? Didn’t he want to be with her? 

“Hel…loooo…” A male voice greeted Lori over the phone the following day. It was a stab at an Indian or Arabian accent.

“Nick?” she said. “Hey, look.  I’m in the middle of a crisis right now and–”

“What kind of crisis?” he asked, sounding dejected.

“A pot of boiling water with noodles is overflowing onto my stove–” She stopped herself before she wasted another breath on divulging something that she figured he really didn’t care anything about. “Never mind,” she said, starting to lower the receiver. “I’ll call you later.”  

“Okay. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Several hours passed. She drifted over to her computer terminal and began punching in her electronic mail codes with the saintliness and dedication of a missionary. 

From: Lori  

nick,

i’m sorry i couldn’t get back to you earlier. i tried, but you weren’t in. what did you want?

lori  

From:  

u 

When the black, twisting, funnel of debris and condensation can be seen in the stormy distance, over fields covered by wind swept grass, sucking every living and non-living thing around it into its hungry, anarchic gut, the natural response is to run panic-stricken as far away from it as possible. Lori, for some reason, found herself running open-armed toward it, bearing gifts. 

From: Lori  

in what capacity?

From:  

to have something warm

From:  

MY LAWYER IS GONNA HAVE TO READ YOUR SCRIPT, BY THE WAY… IT’S HIS DECISION TO LET YOU USE ANYTHING THAT RELATES TO ME … ‘CAUSE IF IT SELLS I WOULD BE ENTITLED TO RECEIVE SOME LARGE AMOUNT OF CASH FROM THE SALES

From: Lori  

is your lawyer the one you had to hire to bail you out when you were found in that hotel room with the five midget cross-eyed prostitutes and wild game?

From:  

MY HOES BAILED ME OUT. SO DO I GET TO HAVE SOMETHING WARM??

From: Lori

home-cooked meal?

blanket?

hug?

From:  

no that’s not what i want

From: Lori  

you are undoubtedly the horniest person i have ever known

From:  

SO IS THERE A PROBLEM WITH ALWAYS WILLING AND WANTING TO HAVE SOMETHING WARM AND WET ON ME OR NEAR ME

From: Lori  

get a puppy

From:  

well i have had your kitty before … that felt good 

Lori collapsed on her living room couch that evening, not sure if the overwhelming fatigue she was feeling was due to having studied long hard hours that day, or if it was due to having tried to get any studying done at all in between all of her e-mail exchanges. She stared resolutely into the coffee table that sat in front of her, trying to understand how and why it was all happening again. The coffee table, in return, gave her no answers, except maybe to alert her to a dust ring around an ancient mug of cocoa that desperately needed to be washed. 

She knew that she was chillingly unable to steer away from what was inevitably going to cause her a lot of pain. Having Nick Warren in her life had pinched like a sharp needle prick over and over again in the same bulging vein in the same soft region of skin. Though the puncture wounds sealed over nicely with time, the syringe was still perched and ready to take the plunge at any random point. 

She had to see him early one day at the radio station, when she had organized a meeting with the program coordinator to discuss her science reports. She kept his image only in her peripheral vision, as usual, afraid that looking right at him would leave her with the same kind of regret as if she had looked directly into the stark, blinding sun. 

After glancing in Lori’s direction, Nick gave her a polite, yet guarded, greeting and went casually about his work. She briefly acknowledged him in return before disappearing into a small studio with the harried program coordinator. Their mutual foolproof façade was still apparently in tact, a shield of armor that in a very ironic and insidious way seemed to only add to the fragility of all that was happening between them. 

From:  

i like the feeling of your … when it gets … and when you moan a little with excitement …

From:  

i like to tease you.… lol

so what was the reason u were in today? did u get warm when you saw me? 

From: Lori  

the station needs more biotech coverage. i’ve been getting feedback so i can do reports that will air at some point

From:  

wow that’s pretty cool … you know something? I’d like to have the real thing instead of someone teasing me …

From: Lori  

i wish that what i feel i CAN give you, you’d be willing to take

From:  

and what would that be???? please tell me 

Lori left the question dangling. She left it alone because she herself had no idea what she felt she could give him. She knew he had a habit of taking more than he should, and of giving less than he could.  In other words, he had the ability to hurt her, as well as the tendency. And she had no idea why.

(stay tuned for chapter 9…)

Here is a link to a real-life illustration of a challenging relationship dynamic, entitled “Reeling.”

And here are some other interesting and pertinent links:

DeMars Coaching – YouTube (DeMars Coaching)

Surviving Narcissism – YouTube (Dr. Les Carter)

NARCDAILY- You Are Not Alone – YouTube (NARCDAILY- You Are Not Alone)

Lisa A. Romano Breakthrough Life Coach Inc – YouTube (Lisa A. Romano Breakthrough Life Coach Inc)

DoctorRamani – YouTube (DoctorRamani)

Dr. Todd Grande – YouTube (Dr. Todd Grande)

Crappy Childhood Fairy – YouTube (Anna Runkle- Crappy Childhood Fairy)

Donielle Jolie Yanez – YouTube (Donielle Jolie Yanez)