The Twelve (14 page)

California

1979–1982

M
AX'S POKER PLAYING DAYS ABRUPTLY CAME TO AN END. IT STARTED
with the worst toothache he had ever experienced.

The pain was excruciating, and try as he might, he couldn't avoid the fact that he was going to have to do something about
it. As he was going into the dentist's office, he bumped into a former high-school classmate Peter Bohr, who was just leaving the office.

“Great to see you Max! How's tricks
?
” Peter asked as he grabbed Max's hand. “Still working for your old man
?
”

“Just hanging,” Max replied through the pain. “My dad sold his company a few months back. Not sure what I'm going to do next, but I always looked up to you at Hackley. Give me your card, and let's catch up soon.” Max grimaced as he spoke.

Indeed, Peter had gone to Hackley with Max but had graduated a year ahead of him. He'd been in charge of Max's first-semester study hall, was president of his class, and valedictorian. He had also been one of the school's top athletes.

“Absolutely—here's my card,” Peter said enthusiastically. “I recently took over the business division for CRM Films. Give me a call—we should have lunch and continue to catch up.”

***

Max called, and before two weeks had passed, they met at a posh restaurant in Tribeca. Max told Peter about the films with which he had been involved, and before the meal was done, Peter had offered him the position of associate producer in charge of the West Coast offices of CRM Films.

“My father is the CEO, and we've been looking for someone with entrepreneurial instincts who knows the ins and outs of documentary films,” he explained. “As improbable as it was, our meeting may turn out to be a break for both of us.”

“Well, I do know documentary films,” Max admitted, “and this is right up my alley.

“I accept,” he said.

***

With few loose ends to tie up, Max was soon living in Del Mar, California, enjoying the almost perfect weather and the complete autonomy he was given to run his division of CRM. Del Mar was a small community north of San Diego that was home to a racetrack made famous by such celebrities as Bing Crosby. Each year during racing season the town more than doubled in size.

Homes there were expensive, but Max's position paid well.

More important was the fact that his new position was enjoyable, and he felt productive for the first time in a long while. His office was manned by a sales manager with whom he shared an executive secretary. Each morning, twenty or thirty fresh film treatments were waiting for him, and it would only take him an hour to go through them, then select the ten or twelve that he thought had creative or commercial potential.

Max would take the treatments he had selected and walk across the hall to the sales manager's office. The atmosphere at CRM was very relaxed—every meeting was unscheduled and started the same.

“Frank, got a minute
?
”

Max would start describing each treatment that he had selected and ask key questions.

“If this is the best possible film on this topic, how many units would you be able to lay down in the initial distribution
?
” Though they were involved in a creative field, the sales were still the primary consideration.

In most cases, the answer was “not enough” or “not many,” or sometimes “none,” and those treatments were never looked at again.

Occasionally—once or twice a week—the answer would be different.

“We could lay down ten thousand or more units if the talent credentials check out.”

So in those instances, if the right cast and crew were, indeed, attached to the project, and the concept was the best it could be—or at least within the realm of being made decent through good editing—Max would acquire the rights.

Often the process lasted through midafternoon at most, leaving Max most of the day to explore the beaches and hot tubs and other attractions of Southern California.

He did so, and before long he had met someone who had him utterly entranced. Weeks turned to months, and he pursued her with relish until she agreed to marry him. With that, Max's life was everything he could have envisioned.

He was efficient and successful. He started getting attention from the press, until he was written up in the San Diego Tribune and in San Diego Magazine, where his photo was spread over two pages.

“Brilliant young producer comes to San Diego,” proclaimed the headline. San Diego was considered a sleepy town with military bases and some agriculture, leading many residents to resent its larger neighbor to the north, so they leaped at any opportunity to stand out. However, Max's fame came with a cost.

It didn't take long for his peers to become jealous of the attention he was receiving.

***

CRM maintained several divisions, and the head of the general interest section, Bill Battely, was a competitive man. Max inadvertently poached one of his top experts to create a film on OPEC and the oil crisis, and Battely took particular offense.

Battely was hoping to move up to CEO when old man Bohr—Peter's father—finally retired. This Max kid was getting too much press and having private dinners with “the chairman,” as Bohr senior was known.

A story appeared in the press in which Max was incorrectly given credit for CRM's top-grossing film, Free to Choose, by famed economist Milton Friedman. The reporter had been hoping to gain favor with Max, yet the only reason the film had been produced by CRM was the personal relationship between old man Bohr and Dr. Friedman.

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.