While he hadn’t made it to our wedding, McKay had generously paid for three nights of our stay and the Spa Terme, which he said would be a sin if we didn’t put to use.
The hotel was as elite as he said it was. Actually, more so. I ran into basketball great Michael Jordan in the elevator, and the king of Saudi Arabia and his many wives had taken the entire floor above ours.
Even though I spent a lot of time in the yards of the wealthy, I had never before actually experienced such opulence and beauty. Still, the greatest beauty on the island was at my side. A part of me asked the same question over and over: How could this miracle have happened? How could a poor, Dumpster-foraging boy, grandson of an illegal immigrant, end up in a place like this with a girl like mine? Only in America, right? It almost made me think that God didn’t hate me so much.
Monica and I returned home from Hawaii, tan and rested, just two days before Christmas. Carly had decorated a Christmas tree for us. It was the best Christmas of my life, but at that time, pretty much every day was the best in my life. I was deliriously happy.
For Christmas, Monica gave me a Mont Blanc pen, a shaving kit, and a coupon book that she made herself, promising all sorts of favors (some I could share with you, some not). I gave her some expensive perfume that the woman at the Rodeo Drive Chanel store raved about and a pearl necklace. If you somehow haven’t noticed, the pearl had become a recurring theme in our life together.
By then I had already been in California for four winters, so I was accustomed to green Christmases. We were still on vacation and reluctant to let our honeymoon go, so we spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s at a bed-and-breakfast in Napa Valley. I had never before felt such exquisite love. The new year held remarkable promise. I guess that’s why they call it the honeymoon phase. When you’re floating along in such a powerful current of nuptial bliss, it seems inconceivable that anything could ever go wrong. It was the calm before the tsunami.
Chapter Thirty-Four
They say that distance makes the heart grow fonder. I say it makes the heart grow mold.
—CHARLES JAMES’S DIARY
We returned home for good the evening of January first. I guess “good” was relative. The next morning I received a call from work with my flight information. The gears of McKay’s money machine had started turning again. Two days later I left L.A. for subzero weather in Minneapolis. I was woefully unprepared for the cold, so my first stop was at the Mall of America to buy a parka.
Notwithstanding the weather, it was good to see the crew again, especially McKay, who was in good humor and enthusiastic to get back to work. January is a time when people actively decide to weigh less and earn more, so our seminar attendance was always up and our sales percentages strong. That month I witnessed our first million-dollar day.
I called Monica every day. Actually, the first two weeks I called her six or seven times a day, sometimes just to hear her recorded voice on her voice mail. After the first week she asked me to stop calling so much. It hurt my feelings.
“Why?” I asked. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too,” she said. “The thing is, you’re not going to be able to keep it up. Then you’ll call me less and less. Then, one day, you’ll forget to call.”
“That would never happen,” I said.
“It happens,” she replied softly. “I’ve seen it. It’s like taking a coal from a fire. After it’s been gone for a while, it starts to turn black. To charcoal. I don’t want to see that with you. I want us to always be excited about talking to each other.”
“I understand,” I said.
“Let’s make a rule: just one phone call each night when we go to bed, and once during the day.”
“What if something big happens?”
“Then we make an exception. It’s not like I’m ever going to get mad because you called.”
“What about text messages?”
“You know I hate texting. But whatever you want. Deal?”
I breathed out. “Deal.”
“I love you, my desperado.”
“I love you, my pearl.”
The third week of January I was in Omaha, Nebraska, having a late drink with McKay after a full day of presentations when he said to me, “I’m going to hate losing you on the sales floor.”
My heart froze. “You’re firing me?”
He smiled. “I think you’re ready for the stage.”
This was an even less expected turn. “Are you serious?”
“Serious as stage four cancer. You’ve always been heading for this. You’re good-looking, you have ambition, you have natural stage presence, and you have the stories. Your Saturday morning Dumpster story is gold-plated. And the fact that you’re the great-grandson of Jesse James—it’s almost too good to be true.”
“Great-great-great-grandson.”
“Not important,” he said. “Facts are an anchor; imagination gives us wings. In our world, if the facts get in the way, we rewrite them. We’ll definitely want to play up your Jesse James connection—not all of it, of course, just the rebel, legend side. We don’t want our clients to associate you with the Jesse James who robbed people.”
“What will I sell?”
“We’ll start you off with the home-flipping package.”
“I’ve never flipped a home.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’ll triple your income.”
“I’ll flip whatever you want,” I said. “Even burgers.”
“Of course this will mean you’ll be on the road more. Will Monica be okay with that?”
“She won’t be happy about it, but she’ll understand. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
McKay laughed and lifted his drink. “To what a man’s gotta do.”
I called Monica around midnight my time. It was only ten in California. She had gone out to dinner with Carly, which I was glad for. I hated it when she was lonely. She screamed with excitement when I told her the news. She sounded so happy that I didn’t have the heart to tell her about the being-away-from-home part.
The next day McKay helped me develop my first presentation. He didn’t have to do as much as he thought he would, as I had been studying the presenters for months. McKay taught me a few secrets about group persuasion and mind control that I’d never share here.
The first time I presented was unremarkable. I didn’t embarrass myself, but I certainly wasn’t knocking anyone’s socks off. Sales were fair. I was afraid of what McKay might say, but he just patted me on the back and said, “You’re doing great. It takes time to build a Stradivarius.”
Two days later I presented again, this time in Kansas City. My presentation went better—as did my sales, nearly doubling. My third presentation was comfortable, the fourth intoxicating. There’s something extremely powerful about connecting with large crowds of people. Seasoned performers call it the stage-light mirage—when the audience’s love begins to feel real. It was addictive. Looking back, I suppose that this is where things started to unravel. I began to need them needing me.
Monica was right about our phone calls home. I remember the first morning I woke up and realized that I hadn’t called her the day before. I checked my phone. She had called me three times, then texted me a blue heart emoji, our code for missing each other. The pressure and rush of performing had taken me into a completely different world. Being in different time zones added to the problem of keeping in touch, but the truth is, my head had been turned. In more ways than one.
I didn’t know that there was a rock star–like status to being a presenter—one that drew groupies. Women began to give me their phone numbers and hotel keys, and even followed me to my hotel room. Every now and then, when I’d been away from Monica too long, there would be one who actually tempted me. In those cases I ran—just like the biblical Joseph ran from Potiphar’s wife.
I also started to encounter the backlash that came from some of the clients who failed with our programs. In my previous job taking contracts, n
o one outside of McKay and the sales manager cared what I did. But on stage, it was personal. I was the face of the organization. I was the one taking their money. And when people weren’t happy, they blamed me.
I was in the Dayton, Ohio, Marriott coming out of my room when a man cornered me in the hallway. His biceps were nearly the size of my thighs and he wore a hunting knife on his belt.
His wife had purchased my program a few months earlier and tried, unsuccessfully, to get her money back. The man threatened to beat me up right there if she didn’t get an immediate refund. I calmed him down some, then called the home office and authorized her refund. Seeing how easy it was to refund her money only fueled his anger.
“You people are crooks!” he shouted at me. He then walked out into the hotel’s crowded lobby and shouted, “Don’t get suckered by these Master Wealth crooks. Hold on to your wallets and run.”
The experience shook me. For the first time it also made me deeply question the ethics of what we were doing. I went back to my room and called McKay but he didn’t answer. Later that night I found his assistant, Amanda.
“Do you know where McKay is?”
She nodded. “He’s in the lounge.”
“Is he with anyone?”
“No. He’s just getting drunk.”
“I need to talk to him.”
She smiled wryly. “Good luck with that.” She walked off.
A few minutes later I found him in the corner of the hotel lounge. He saw me as I entered and waved me over. “Hey, Desperado. Qué pasa?”
“I’ve been looking for you,” I said.
“You found me. What’s up?”
“I need to ask you something.”
“Take a seat,” he said.
I took out a Wet-Nap and wiped off the chair, then sat down across the table from him. Only when I was close could I smell how much alcohol was on his breath. He gestured to me with a half-full glass of Jack Daniel’s. “Well? What do you want to ask?”
“How many of our clients actually succeed?”
McKay didn’t hesitate with his response. “Not many. It’s not our fault, of course. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it swim. More than half the people don’t even open the box after they get home.”
“Do they ask for a refund?”
“Fewer than you would think. Eight point two seven percent.”
It struck me that he knew the numbers so precisely. “Why so few?”
“Shame, mostly.” He lifted his glass and took a drink, then set it down. “Same reason people buy gym memberships they never use. They don’t want to admit to being the losers they are.”
“So we refund eight percent of sales.”
“Hell no. The final’s much lower than that. We put a few obstacles in the way of their refund. The fine print. It’s not hard to deter them. These are quitters we’re dealing with. You put out a speed bump, and they see a wall. That’s how losers roll. End of the day, we actually refund less than a half percent.”
I looked at him in amazement. “Less than one percent get their money back?”
“I wish it were less,” he said. “Those losers just waste our time. Losers lose. It’s what they do. It’s what they’re good at.” He took a drink again, this time not breaking eye contact. “Let me put it this way. Just because you went to college doesn’t mean you’ll get a job. It doesn’t even mean you’ll graduate. Less than half of those who start college finish. Less than ten percent ever use their degrees. But do you see them lined up for a refund?” It was a rhetorical question. I didn’t know he was actually expecting me to answer. “Answer me. Do you?”
“No, sir.”
“Our program can reveal their inner loser for a whole lot less than the average student loan.” He laughed. “How’s that for a sales pitch? Buy our package, we’ll show you your inner loser.”
I didn’t laugh.
He leaned forward. “What’s wrong? Sudden attack of conscience? You think that what we’re doing is wrong? That it’s psychologically manipulative?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You did, just not in those words. Let me teach you something, James. The whole world is psychologically manipulative. You turn on the TV, it’s there. Listen to the radio, it’s hypnotizing you. It’s on the freeways and Internet. You can’t get away from it—a hundred million entities vying for that six inches of real estate in your skull.
“And it’s not just Madison Avenue. Punk rappers start rambling about cop killing and cops start dying. It’s the way of the world. Everyone’s mind is for sale. Even yours. We’re just a bit more transparent about it.” He looked at me angrily. “If you have a problem with that, you’re in the wrong business. We sell blue sky. We give people tools to succeed. For better or worse we show them their true self. If they’re too dumb or too lazy to use what we give them, that’s not our problem. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Should we feel sorry for those fools?” He looked me in the eye. “Should we?”
“No, sir.”
“No, sir is right.” He studied me for a moment, then said, “Don’t ever forget that. Because on stage, even losers can smell hesitancy like a hog smells truffles. At the end of the day, we’re in the entertainment business just like the rest of them.”
I had nothing to say. I just sat there. McKay’s gaze remained on me until he suddenly laughed. “Man, you look morose. Lighten up. Have a drink.”
“I’m okay,” I said.
“No, I don’t think so.” He pushed his drink across the table to me. “Go on. Have a drink.”
The idea of drinking from someone else’s glass horrified me. I didn’t even want to lift it.
“Drink,” he said.
I lifted the glass and took a drink, then gave it back. I wiped my hands on my pants under the table while he finished his drink.
He pushed the glass aside and said, “Let me ask you something, James. Do you know what the most dangerous animal on the planet is?”
“No.”
“Take a wild guess.”
“I don’t know. The great white shark?”
“Homo sapiens. We’re the apex predator on this planet. We’re the top of the food chain, the sovereigns of slaughter, the maestros of murder. It’s us versus them, eat or be eaten. You’re either the butcher or the cattle. No in-between. No gray space. No fuzzy, feel-good places.”
He leaned forward until the smell of his breath repulsed me. “This world is no place for sentimentality. The lion doesn’t mourn the antelope and it doesn’t have the teeth to eat grass.” A broad, haughty smile parted his lips. “You, Mr. James, just like your great-great-great-grandfather, do not have the teeth for grass. Never forget that. Because in the end it’s that, not compassion, not mercy, and especially not love, that’s going to save you. It’s knowing the true nature of humanity that’s going to keep you out of Dumpsters.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
I thought I was chasing success, when all along I’ve really just been running from failure.
—CHARLES JAMES’S DIARY
The next day, the McKay Master Wealth show traveled to Cleveland, home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I only knew this because our announcer played repeatedly on that fact as he whipped the audience up into a state of frenzy. I had to pretend I was with them.
I had been up much of the night mulling over what McKay had said. I came to the conclusion that he was right. I wished he wasn’t but from my experience I couldn’t deny it. Monica and I were living better than either of us had before. Joining him was like being given a VIP pass to life, the four Cs—cars, cuisine, clothes, and, most of all, clout. I had lived almost all my life on the other side of that fence, surviving off the crumbs others dropped and didn’t miss enough to claim. I had lived controlled and beaten and, most of all, afraid. Fear was my lifelong companion.
You can’t live the world the way you think it should be lived: that’s magical thinking. That would be like playing baseball and telling the
umpire that the rules don’t apply to you. It doesn’t work that way. The world is a game with set rules and set umpires. Wisdom says to play with the rules you’ve been given. It’s not my fault they are what they are. I didn’t make the rules. I don’t even have to condone them. But to deny them was foolishness and would do me harm. It was what it was. And I was done with Dumpsters and hand-me-downs and dented cans. I wasn’t that helpless little boy anymore. It was time to turn my fear to ferocity. I was an apex predator.
After my presentation I passed McKay on the way from the stage. I nodded at him and he nodded back knowingly. Considering how much he’d had to drink the night before, I don’t know how much he remembered from our conversation, but from his expression I knew that he remembered enough. He knew I had bought what he was selling. He knew the kin of Jesse James was also a fighter. Maybe even an outlaw.
From that moment on I immersed myself fully in the game. No regrets. Take no prisoners. The tour went on. Time went on. I lost track of what city I was in. I lost track of the days. I even lost track of how long I’d been gone from home. We were on a Southwest swing through Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Phoenix, and Tucson, then back home.
I was on fire. The tour was going well for everyone, but especially for me. I was paid a 15 percent commission on the packages I sold, which meant that some days I made more than fifty thousand dollars.
McKay was right. I didn’t have teeth for grass. Hunters hunt. And you can’t do that at home.
Chapter Thirty-Six
When the space shuttle reenters the earth’s atmosphere, it faces intense temperatures of more than three thousand degrees. Lately, that’s what reentry feels like to me too.
—CHARLES JAMES’S DIARY
Financially, at least, Monica’s and my situation just got better and better. Three months after my promotion we moved from the rental in Culver City to an apartment complex in Arcadia, close to the arboretum. Our new place was a little smaller than the house, but it was much nicer. The apartment was new and the complex had a swimming pool and fitness center and peacocks freely roaming the area. And it had the added benefit of not having Monica’s mother crashing in drunk at three in the morning every few weeks.