My Life: An Ex-Quarterback's Adventures in the Galactic Empire Read Free Page A

plastic on you now to survive for three weeks?”
    I nodded.
    “Good. Danny, you leave this office and get out of town. In fact, get out of the state. Don’t go back to your place, there’s no point tempting fate. Just leave here and disappear for three weeks. I’ll have the politics settled by then. I’ll want you back here three weeks from today, call first just in case it doesn’t go right, and we’ll run you through a bankruptcy and that will take care of the financials. Can you do that?”
    “Sure,” I said, “no sweat.” As it turned out, I disappeared very thoroughly. I hope Nat wasn’t too put out when I didn’t reappear.
    I left Nat’s office that day in a real funk. In fact, in trying to set down the events here, I can’t remember anything between walking out of there and seeing “Welcome to Oklahoma” on the highway. I was going to be broke, and I was going to have no chance at one of those cushy jobs that pays a nice salary for doing very little. Thank you so much, Sheila. In one respect, I did plan to keep my promise to Nat. No woman was worth this kind of aggravation.
    By now, you’re probably saying to yourself, “It serves that sorry son of a bitch right. Am I supposed to feel sorry for him?” The point is well taken. The only person responsible for my life being a mess was me, although I was unable to see that just then. All I could do was swear that if I ever had another chance, I was going to make the most out of it. (As you’ll see, ultimately I did, and the galaxy will never be quite the same again.)
    Any second chance seemed awfully remote, however, as I headed north. All I could think of was what I had lost: my sunny and snug condominium, the ranch in Montana tucked up under the Absaroka, the heads turning whenever I entered a restaurant or a nightclub. Some celebrities hate the attention and the loss of privacy. I had reveled in it and now it was gone. I doubt that anyone who has not been a celebrity can appreciate the depth of my agony.
    I might have sworn off women, but I had no intention of swearing off alcohol. I was ruined anyway, whether or not Nat made good on his promise. At best, I would stand there while everything was taken away from me. Worse, the farther I got from Nat’s office, the more my confidence in even that outcome slipped. Sam Doroty would not be placated, my mind whispered, or Nat would strike a compromise that would seem reasonable to him but not to me.
    “I got you a good deal,” he would say. “You take a one to three and it’s all settled. That’s not so bad, you should be out in less than a year.”
    Sure. And do what? Make commercials on the need to know your bedmate’s father?
    The mental process turned into a downward spiral. Whenever I thought about the situation, my mind would find the worst-case scenario and establish it as inevitable. Then I would pick up from there and again find the worst possible progression of events. The best solution, for me, would have been to just run away from it all, but that didn’t seem possible. The next best solution was not to think. If I could not run away physically, I could run away mentally. I was fine as long as I was driving, totally involved with the road and shut off from everything else. Unfortunately, even I can’t drive twenty-four hours a day. If I tried to sleep, all those thoughts came crowding back. Alcohol, however, when taken in sufficient quantity, will blot out most thoughts. Consequently, I would drive as far as I could, then drink as much as I could. The next morning, I would wake up, hungover, and start the process again. I continued north for the simple reason that I had turned in that direction when I had first reached the highway. The amount of territory I covered each day shrank, however, as I was fit to drive for a shorter period each day. I finally ended my flight in Cleveland, Ohio.



Chapter 2
    I guess that after such a terrific start it was appropriate that I wound up in