Bare Bones (13 page)

My mistake spanned all audiences and all platforms.

In that time, I went to a really negative place. It was awful. I slept on the couch when I slept at all. In one stupid move, I had gone from a celebrated young radio personality on the rise to a typical twenty-three-year-old doing the kind of dumb thing twenty-three-year-olds do. I was convinced I was going to be fired and truly believed I would never get a job in radio again.

I was so depressed that for the first time since my grandma passed away during my junior year of college, I finally mourned her. I didn't have any family members I could talk to about what was going on. My sister and I had fallen out of touch. She had her own personal drama happening as well as a baby, so we weren't close at the time. And my mom continued to struggle with her addictions. If I ever did speak to her on the phone it was because she needed something from me. Plus, my grandmother and I had been closer than my mom and I ever were.

That's why when I was a little kid I was always terrified she was going to die. She wasn't sick or even that old, but I was scared of losing her. Preoccupied with this thought, one day I asked my grandma what happens after you die. A very religious woman, she believed that if you were good you went to heaven; if you were bad you went to hell. She also said that the dead can reappear on earth as angels to protect the living. Now, it was hard for me to believe in angels running around, since I was the kind of kid who was told at five that Santa Claus was a fake just so I understood why there weren't presents. But I would have believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and anything else if it ensured I'd never lose my grandma. So I asked her, when she was dying, if there really was some sort of system for reaching back to the living, could she please give me a sign. “You will know,” she said.

There was a moment during my suspension in Austin when I didn't think I could get any lower. I was in turmoil. Trying to figure out what I was supposed to do as a human being on this planet, I had never felt more alone. My entire identity was (and still is, for the most part) my job. And this is coming from a person who had spent most of his life alone.

“Okay, Grandma,” I said out loud inside my empty apartment. “We had this deal that if you were out there, you would reach out to me in some way. And you haven't.”

All of a sudden (meaning anywhere from five to forty-five seconds later; I didn't time it), my guitar, which had belonged to my grandmother and had been leaning against the wall, came crashing to the ground. It was an old cheap instrument that has since fallen apart, but I had inherited it as a keepsake from my grandma after she died. I'm a bad guitar player, but when I played on her guitar I was reminded of how she taught herself well enough to play in church. She wasn't a musician but got to the point where everyone knew her as one. So if there was going to be one object that embodied my grandma, it would have been that guitar—and the damn thing fell over!

The logical part of me doesn't believe the ghost of my grandmother pushed that guitar over to send me a sign. (I have a weird thing about ghosts—whether it's my grandmother or anyone else I have known who died, I don't want them watching over me, because that means they're seeing when I go to the bathroom, pick my nose, hook up with a girl—or, mostly, hook up with myself. If they see all that, I'd prefer they didn't exist!) But wasn't it really strange that her guitar fell over right after I called to her? The idea freaked me out so much that I inspected the apartment to see if there was something that could have tipped the guitar over—the air conditioner turning on or a gust of wind through an open window. But there was nothing.

I completely don't “believe” that it was her, but there's a part of me that can't write it off completely. There's nothing to convince me either way, so I have to make peace with it. What I believe is that I'm going to do as much good for others as I can, and then we'll just see what happens.

A brief time after the panty hose incident, all the charges against Lunchbox were dropped. In the end, we were stupid but we didn't break the law in any way. Shortly after the legal resolution, I got the call to come into the office to meet with Dusty, with no hint as to what kind of conversation was going to take place. The Imperial March music from
Star Wars
played in my head.

“Issue an apology,” he said. “You're not fired. You'll start back on Monday.”

We were back on the air.

I was relieved, grateful, and deeply humbled. All of that took the show to a new level. I was a better person because of the huge lesson I had learned, and that made the show better.

While we had been off the air, our getting fired was a news story. When it was announced we were coming back, the news story was we were
not
getting fired. Our show before the panty hose stunt had been only moderately successful—probably ranked ninth or tenth in Austin—but it was not anywhere near the top. On the day I came back on air, we had more listeners than ever before tuning in to hear me make an apology. People love apologies.

They are crazy for them. It doesn't matter what you are apologizing for—or if they know what you're apologizing for. Much later, when I was already working in Nashville, I did a whole social media campaign of me apologizing. For what? Who knew. I told the people on my show, “Let's do this bit. It'll blow up.” I shot a video of me saying, “I just want to come on and say I'm really sorry for what happened. I should have never done that. I just hope you guys can forgive me . . .”

This amorphous apology garnered thousands of comments. Thousands. Some people wanted to know, “What did he do?” “What happened?” But soon people were assigning great meaning to it. “That's really great of you.” “It is much appreciated.” Taking responsibility for the bad things you've done by admitting you're at fault is seen as a virtue, even if no one has a clue what you're talking about.

So lots of curious new listeners tuned in to
The Bobby Bones Show
and heard me say I was really sorry for the panty hose stunt, how it was very stupid of me, and that I'd never do anything like it again—and they wound up hanging around. In the next three months our show climbed to number one, where it pretty much remained for the next decade.

It was amazing to think how close I had come to ruining my life at twenty-three years old. We had actually considered sending Lunchbox to make a deposit into the bank with panty hose over his head. To this day it makes me sick just thinking about that. Okay, truth time: Lunchbox was on his way to a bank, where he also planned to wear the panty hose, when he was arrested at the gas station! Thankfully, I had a great guy for a general manager. He didn't take a reactionary stance and call for my head but instead gave me a second chance. For that I am forever grateful, which I showed by naming my dog after him.

Now, anyone who has listened to my show for a minute knows my dog is the great love of my life. I love animals and wanted a dog, but it had to be small because I lived in a tiny apartment and had no money. The Staffordshire bull terrier breed was perfect because they are small, but unlike with a Pomeranian or Chihuahua I could still be a self-respecting man (at least in my mind) walking one. The dog I adopted was the runt of a litter of Staffordshire bull terriers from a puppy mill. He was really too small to take away from his mother, but because the breeders had been busted, all the dogs were separated. When I got him, he was so small he could fit in my hand. There was no doubt what his name had to be. “I named my firstborn after you,” I told Dusty. “He just happens to be a dog.”

BONES BARED

“
Hey, are you the guy from the radio?” a pretty girl with a big smile said.

It was a regular old Saturday in 2005 and I was in Culver's, a burger and custard chain, eating dinner solo while I waited to have my tires replaced at the shop right up the street. To be fair, new tires or not, I'd have probably been eating alone anyway. I do most things alone. Eat. Go to the movies. Make love. You know, all the stuff you wish someone else was participating in.

Anyway, the woman standing in front of my table said my name, startling me midbite, since—it might shock some of you to learn—I'm not used to pretty girls coming up to me.

“Yeah,” I said in a reply that was typical of my eloquence.

She then offered me some coupons for free ice cream, which at first I thought were something she wanted me to purchase. And I probably would have, if it included some of her company for the next few minutes, because even though I do everything alone, that doesn't mean I want to. But no, she was offering them to me for free. And that was it. We exchanged nice-to-meet-yous, and I had some small pieces of paper that each promised me one free ice cream cone.

That was Amy, now my radio cohost and one of my best friends. She is the person who, at this point in my life, probably knows more about me than anyone else in the world. She is quite possibly the friendliest person I've ever met. But to be fair, she did get those ice cream coupons for free, because her friend's family owned the store.

The next time I saw Amy, who I still didn't know as Amy, was not long after at the Barton Creek Mall, where we were holding an event for listeners. The purpose of our being there was to see if we could find someone to add to the show's mix. We weren't really looking for a new cohost. It was more of a let's-see-if-there's-anyone-interesting-out-there kind of thing where tons of people usually showed up. As the night went on, we met a lot of cool folks, but none who really stood out. We were about to wrap it up when Amy, the same girl from Culver's, appeared. She hadn't been standing in line for hours and didn't have some kind of bit planned. In fact, as I learned later from her friends, she had to be convinced to show up at the mall after her job was over that day. But she said hi again, and we talked for a little while. And then we went our separate ways.

I didn't offer her a trial on the show, but there was something warm and appealing about Amy that stood out from the crowd. The truth is, the event was sort of bogus, since I only ever hire my friends. If I'm going to spend as much time with other people in such a tiny space as you have to in order to do a radio show, I need to know them, like them, and trust them. Amy wasn't my friend, but I wanted her to be. So I set out to see if we could become friends. Over the next five months or so, I friend-auditioned her. We went to dinner occasionally or caught a movie, including the latest Pixar release,
Cars
. Our outings were always something silly like that, so they wouldn't be misconstrued in any way as a date. We were both single, but I was only in it for friendship business. Is that a term? Not sure, but Amy sure succeeded in it.

Months later I invited Amy to sit in on the show. This time, though, I was inviting my friend, a Texas A&M alum and granite salesperson whom I met after she offered me coupons for free ice cream at Culver's. She nailed it and I offered her a job.

I wasn't wrong about my instinct: listeners took to her instantly, and our rapport was so good, many began to speculate that we were in love with each other. Okay, here would be a good place to clear up any misconceptions. THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANYTHING ROMANTIC WITH US, EVER. NOT ONCE. After Amy started on the show, she got married to the dude she was actually in love with—a pilot who served twelve years in the air force. (So yeah, even if I did like her like that, I wouldn't have had a chance anyway.)

Amy and I are just good friends. That's really it. I wouldn't believe it myself if I didn't know it was true, because she and I are the exception to the rule about male-female relationships. See, a girl can be a friend to a guy. No problem. She can have an absolutely platonic friendship with a guy who is good looking, bad looking, funny, nerdy, foreign, blond. Doesn't matter. Women have the awesome ability to just be awesome. And friendly. They can be your friend.

This is not the case for guys. Guys
cannot
be legitimate friends with a female who is attractive to them. Now, guys, you may be reading this saying, “This is such crap, I have a female friend.” Before I continue writing, let me remind you that I have a penis. Not anything to brag about, but I am a dude. So I know how we work, how we think, how we're wired. At least I know how I think and how all my friends think. The evidence for my next proclamation is rather substantial—and it's not pleasant, but here it is. If a guy
isn't
attracted to a girl, he can be her friend. If a guy
is
attracted to a girl, he is just waiting for her to have sex with him. There
can
be friendship inside of that. It's not
just
about sex. But every dude with a female friend who is hot is just waiting . . . and don't buy it if he refuses to admit it. If you're married, it's all good. He'll wait. If he's married, cool, he'll still wait (or he won't). If you're both in a relationship, the time just isn't right yet. Or it may never be. But eventually, just maybe, it will be.