The Twelve (15 page)

Louis agreed, and the treatments began. At the same time he became an avid gambler and a regular at the famous Del Mar Race Track. He was good at it, too, and winning regularly so that he didn't need to take the extra money from Max.

After two months Louis stopped seeing the psychiatrist and went off his medication. Like all the Doffs, food was one of his primary delights, and his excuse was that the medication upset his stomach, interfered with the taste of the food, and made him feel groggy and less alive.

Max warned him that the payments would stop if he didn't resume taking his medication, but with Louis's newfound income, the threat had little weight.

Louis responded by writing a long letter accusing Max of illegal activities. He said that he was going to report Max to the IRS and the FBI.

Soon thereafter he disappeared altogether, and Max lost track of his whereabouts. Through some discreet inquiries, he heard rumors that Louis had adopted a nomadic lifestyle—living in his car, spending summers in Michigan and winters in Tennessee and Florida.

Louis would rent a room when he felt the need for a shower and a bed but mostly just seemed to live out of his car at campsites, Motel 6 parking lots, and horse racing events.

***

It was shortly after reconnecting with Louis that Max's mother, Jane, was diagnosed with cancer. The tumor was located on the left side of her brain, exactly where the trauma of her car accident had been most severe.

Jane struggled with radiation and chemotherapy treatments for close to two years, but when she lost her ability to speak or move she handed Max—who had flown back to Greenwich for a final visit—a short note.

I am ready to enter the light.

Within two days she was gone.

Max helped his dad organize the funeral and a special memorial service for Jane. Louis was neither invited nor banned, though Herbert did confess that Jane secretly believed the ongoing heartache over her son's erratic behavior had hastened the onset of her illness.

In any event, neither Max nor Herbert had any way of contacting Louis, so they couldn't invite him to the funeral—even if they had wanted to—and they couldn't inform him of his mother's death.

Grace

1979–1984

W
HILE HIS FILM CAREER WAS PROVING TO BE A REAL ROLLER
-coaster ride, his love life turned out to be similarly dramatic . . . and unpredictable.

Grace Bradley was the first woman Max had met after moving to San Diego. He ran into her at a “residents only” swimming pool in the exclusive Sea Point Village condominiums in Del Mar, where he was living. She was swimming laps, and the moment she got out of the pool, Max knew he was in love. She was blonde and possessed the finest legs he had ever seen. In his eyes, she was his absolute ideal.

He followed her into the hot tub.

Her eyes laughed as if she did not have a care in the world, and her voice was as sweet as any music he had ever heard.

“Well if you aren't the most crooked swimmer I have ever met,” Grace said, laughing. “Or were you just trying to bump into me on purpose
?
”

“I'm just directionally challenged, I guess,” Max replied, and he smiled back. “Though I'm awfully glad I bumped into you. You're probably the most beautiful woman I've ever met.”

That caused her to smile even more broadly, and he was entranced.

“I don't see a ring on your finger,” he said. “I hope that means you're single.”

“I am single, but don't get any ideas. I'm just coming out of a divorce, and I promised myself I wouldn't start dating again for at least six months,” Grace responded, her blue eyes glittering in the sunlight.

“Well, we don't need to date, but I hope we can become friends,” Max said. “I just moved in yesterday and hardly know a soul in Sea Point.”

“I have lots of friends, and I'll be glad to be on your informal welcoming committee,” she said cheerfully. “My mother back in Iowa raised me to be part of the Junior League, and even though everyone here in California seems so laid-back, I still believe in honoring social obligations.

“I'll introduce you around, and in a week or two you'll realize I'm just one of many beauties living here in Sea Point.”

At thirty-three, Max was enjoying the freedom of being single in San Diego at a time when most women in their twenties thought nothing of having sex on the first date. So while he waited for Grace, he could still have all the sex he wanted with the many available and attractive women he was meeting at film festivals and through his new California friends.

***

Yet Grace was wrong, as far as he was concerned. Even after six months, Grace was far more than just one of many beauties—she was the one he was destined to marry.

***

After nine months of dating, Max proposed and Grace accepted.

She was still the woman of his dreams. He would beam with happiness when he was with her, pinching himself to convince himself that it was real—that he would soon have this perfect mate.

Her greatest interest was in Get Real, a New Age meditation regimen started in California by a fellow named Harold Henderson. It seemed strange to Max, but he didn't give it much thought as long as it made Grace happy.

And Max had to admire success. Harold didn't seem to have much going for him, yet by teaching meditation he had—in essence—created his own cult.

People would pay good money for the meditation classes, and Harold ended up having as many women to sleep with as he wanted. Though he was in his sixties, he spread rumors that he was over one hundred years old, and that the meditation techniques had given him perpetual youth. To keep his “chi,” he claimed, he needed to sleep with younger women.

The majority of his young disciples thought it was an honor to be chosen to help keep him young.

Grace, being from Iowa, was relatively conservative. So despite practicing the meditation, she had never slept with Harold and claimed that she never intended to do so. She believed in sex within marriage, she said flatly, yet she also believed in Get Real meditation.

Grace was clearly under Harold's spell.

When Harold had learned that Grace was engaged to Max, Harold had suggested that she align herself with a more advanced Get Real practitioner.

He introduced Grace to Stephen, who was a “third-level” student. Grace had been meditating for nine years, so she had risen all the way to the “fourth level.” There was much she could teach Stephen, Harold explained, and in doing so she herself would rise higher in the ranks.

In addition to being a third, Stephen was a multimillionaire real estate developer. Max at the time was earning an associate producer's salary of $40,000 a year and could not compete.

Grace returned the ring to Max. Within three months she was engaged to Stephen. There was nothing Max could do.

He was devastated.

***

The day after Grace broke off their engagement, Max was fired from CRM.

He was distraught over losing Grace and for a long time, despite the impracticality of the situation, he refused to give up hope of reuniting with her.

Before long, however, MAXimum productions was formed, and he had no time for anything but work. It was a blessing in disguise, really—intellectual and emotional synchronicity at work, though from his position in the midst of the drama, he didn't realize it.

Indeed, it would be ten years before he began to form the full picture.

A Return to Grace

1994

M
AX RECEIVED A CALL FROM MEG PERKINS, ONE OF GRACE'S
closest friends.

He hadn't stayed in touch with Grace or any of the Get Real groupies, but enough time had passed that he agreed to meet with Meg, who was an actress.

She drove down from Los Angeles to ask Max's advice about films and to pitch him a concept she wanted to develop. He explained politely that the concept she was proposing was good but not the kind of material he handled.

Then an afterthought struck him.

“By the way, whatever happened to Grace
?
” he asked nonchalantly, though he realized that the old wounds hadn't entirely healed. “I heard she had moved away. Is she still with Stephen
?
”

“Oh no,” Meg replied, shaking her head vehemently. “That marriage lasted only three years. Grace moved up to Portland and is selling real estate. In fact, she's coming down next week to a business conference. I am sure she'd love to see you if you have the time.”

Max wasn't sure how he felt about Meg's revelation, but curiosity beat out common sense, and he said that he would like to see her. Meg agreed to set it up.

***

Two days later Max was sitting at his desk looking out at the ocean from his second-floor office in the MAXimum building. He had bought the building for the view and spent most of the day on the phone while watching surfers, dolphins, migrating whales, and other attractions of the beach.

He was shocked out of his reverie by a female presence behind him who placed her hands over his eyes.

It was Grace. He could tell without even hearing her voice.

He could feel her energy. He heard her laugh as she removed her hands, and when he turned around to face her, he was amazed to see a woman now nearly forty who hadn't aged even a day in ten years.

Maybe that Get Real stuff really works after all, he mused, but he didn't say it aloud.

They chatted for a while, and to Max it felt a lot like his near-death experience. He knew it was him doing half of the talking, but it was like watching himself from a distance, as he asked her out to lunch.

***

Within three months Grace and Max were again engaged to be married.

He invited one hundred of his closest friends and associates to Aruba, in the Caribbean Sea, and celebrated a three-day wedding that included golf outings, boat outings, traditional feasts, and tuxedoed guests dancing to big band music at the Brickell Bay Hotel, rented just for the occasion.

Grace had really done her homework and had incorporated many traditional island elements into the activities. She had a great aesthetic sense, and with Max's ability to provide an unlimited budget, the wedding met all expectations . . . but one.

***

Even before the ceremony, Max had a feeling he was making a mistake. In fact, he had decided to consult several friends and psychics—as well as the minister who was to marry them—and they all were of the opinion that it would be a mistake for him to marry Grace. Yet once again, Max allowed his heart to supersede his brain.

“If it doesn't work out, we can just get a divorce,” he said, trying to sound cavalier. He was caught up in the romanticism of the occasion and the fact that this beautiful woman, who had remained in his heart for ten years, was going to be his wife. He saw her as a deeply spiritual life partner, with high aspirations for mankind and the desire to create a community where the leading spiritual teachers and minds of the century could come together.

This, Max was certain, was to be the marriage that would give his life purpose.

The Tibetan Miracle

1996

I
T WAS TWO SUMMERS AFTER THE WEDDING, AND MAX'S MARRIED
bliss was already teetering.

Ever since she had returned to California, Grace had made it clear that this wasn't where she wanted to be. Her dream home, she explained, was an estate in Virginia, and she constantly pressured him to move. But this was where MAXimum Productions was based, and it was Max's company that kept her in the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed.

Despite her continued activities as a meditation teacher, Grace was the most self-absorbed person he had ever met. She had little-to-no interest in his career, and the things that fascinated him.

He tried to tell her about the Twelve, and she always started out interested, then feigned the need to do something very important. If he mentioned it again later, she had no idea what he was talking about.

She decided to go to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for a special retreat at the ashram of the only blue-eyed Tibetan nun in the world. The nun was Agatha Winright, who at age nineteen had gone to Tibet and been ordained. A few years later she realized that the celibate life wasn't for her, found a compatible spiritual partner, married, and had four wonderful children, all while maintaining her Tibetan Buddhist practices.

She eventually raised enough money to purchase a four-hundred-acre tract of land outside Jackson Hole and founded Mandala Mandala as a retreat center for spiritual students. Agatha had announced that a famous Tibetan monk would be giving a special class at the end of August. This monk was six foot two inches tall—almost a foot taller than the average Tibetan. It was rumored that he had magical powers and could put his hand through boulders.

This was the kind of spiritual teacher Grace longed to meet, so she signed up immediately. She encouraged Max to participate, as well, but he was resistant.

She told him that she didn't want to nag him into attending the retreat, but instead handed him a little blue book with the title Dzogchen Meditation. Max opened it up and read the first sentence.

The goal of meditation is not to meditate.

“Well, that's a nice change,” he said wryly. “I might actually read this book.”

But Grace was undeterred.

“I think you'll have a totally different take on meditation if you join me on the retreat,” she said.

Max wasn't convinced, but he wanted to keep his wife happy and to show her that he was open-minded—if not eager—to learn a new discipline.

So, he paid the registration fee and soon he was headed to Jackson Hole with Grace to learn this meditation that would guide him toward not meditating. She tried to explain that the goal of not meditating was in essence to be meditating all the time, in every conscious and unconscious moment—what the Buddhists called mindfulness.

Eventually she gave up, but still Grace was ecstatic.

“I'm so glad you decided to come,” she cooed. “You're going to love this retreat.”

Landing in Wyoming, they picked up a rental car at the airport and drove to the retreat center. It was hot and dusty, and the final three miles of road were unpaved, rutted, and challenging, even in their luxury car.

Max hadn't been paying much attention to the accommodations, which he assumed would be rustic, and as they arrived, he saw signs that pointed toward campsites, and realization set in.

Max wasn't the camping type—he had never set up a tent in his life. It was almost seven in the evening by the time they arrived and getting dark. Except for the flashlight that Grace had brought, there was no light.

Apparently the entire site was electricity-free.

Grace remained undaunted as she selected a campsite and directed Max in the proper way to erect a tent.

***

An hour later, frustrated and irritable, he and Grace joined the rest of the group in the main building, where the meditation classes were to be held. A warm-up meditation was about to begin, and Max and Grace were given pillows and told to follow along.

Fortunately for Max, it was a short, fifteen-minute sampler. Everyone else in the room had been meditating for five years or more, and after the session, everyone was asked to introduce themselves and express their goals for the retreat.

Most of the meditators were hoping to elevate their practices to the next level. Many felt they were close to reaching nirvana, or at least a state in which they had no attachment to their bodies or their senses or any thoughts related to normal human activity—something they called “Samadhi.”

Max was last, and when it came his turn to reveal his goals, he spoke frankly.

“I'm really just here to accompany my wife, Grace,” he admitted. “I know nothing about meditation, but she has been meditating for twenty years, and this is important to her. So here I am.”

This didn't seem to sit too well with his new classmates, and from what he could gather, the retreat was only for advanced students. Many of them felt as if Max had slipped in as the spouse of an advanced student—it was rare that an advanced practitioner would be married to anyone who wasn't similarly advanced or at least highly motivated.

Max resented the fact that he was being judged in this way. He saw it in the faces of the people around him—these so-called advanced students. It reminded him of the spiritual leaders he had met on his travels who refused to accept those who were different.

It was okay if you agreed with the doctrine they were practicing, he noted, but if not, your value as an individual was diminished. He hated the hypocrisy of it all and realized that was why he had never embraced any particular religious belief system. Max was on his own path of discovery and didn't want to be distracted from the truth of who he was and the discovery of his true purpose.

The next person to speak was Agatha herself, the organizer and founder of the retreat center. She looked from one person to the next, engaging each with the kind of calmness that came from thirty years of meditating, and started speaking.

“We've had a change of instructors for the week,” she admitted. “I realize most of you came specifically for the opportunity to meet and meditate with Tulku Hanka. Unfortunately, the Chinese government has denied him the visa he needed to leave China, and he is unable to join us.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd, and she waited for it to subside, then continued.

“Tulku Rinpoche Chiba, founder of the Turquoise Convent in Nepal, will be taking his place. Tulku Chiba was coming anyway, since he was scheduled to perform the ceremonies to dedicate the new stupa, which will be finished this week. Tulku Chiba is the foremost authority on stupa ceremonies in the world.”

While he understood “Turquoise Convent,” he still couldn't quite make out the names of the persons who seemed so very important to the crowd. Since there was no difference among them, as far as he was concerned, he just shrugged it off.

“He is also a great teacher,” Agatha continued, “so I hope you will find the retreat just as rewarding as if Tulku Hanka had been able to attend.”

Max had learned about stupa ceremonies when he was working on In Search of the Historical Jesus. A stupa was a round structure filled with sacred articles, such as pictures of the Buddha and relics made by monks, around which devoted Buddhists would circumambulate while making their prayers.

It was believed that a stupa was the physical representation of the Buddha on Earth, and actually drew Buddha's energy to itself, then passed it along to those who financed, built, maintained, and paid homage to it, as well as to those who prayed around it.

Despite her entreaties, the news that Tulku Hanka was unable to attend did not go over well with the attendees. They had paid good money and flown from all over the country specifically to meet with the tall monk of miracles.

This Tulku Chiba was no miracle monk.

Grace was the most vocal in expressing her disappointment.

“This really isn't right,” she said loudly. “I came in part to interview Tulku Hanka for a book I intend to write. You should have let us know before we arrived.

“We'll stay,” she continued, “but it's more than disappointing.”

A rumble of agreement spread throughout the crowd, but before Agatha could respond, her husband walked into the retreat room and drew everyone's attention.

“Who owns a car with license plate 4G 18VR
?
” he asked, speaking over the hubbub. “It's parked on the campsite, and all cars must be parked in the special parking area only. This is sacred land and ecologically delicate. We must all honor it, so whoever owns that car, please move it immediately.”

The car belonged to Grace and Max, so off they went, and she was able to fume all the way back to the campsite, then from the campsite to the parking area, and then back to the tent.

It was past eleven by the time they returned and complaints or not, there was nothing left to do but go to sleep.

***

The next morning the teacher, or Rinpoche, as he was called throughout the retreat, arrived at the camp. He was a well-built man with a buzz cut and sharp Tibetan features and was dressed in a purple robe.

Rinpoche spoke only Tibetan—not a word of English—so he came with his own translator.

The sessions did not run on time, but once Max got used to the delays, the classes were more or less like any other college class. Much to his surprise, he found it amazingly interesting—at least on par with the best classes he had attended at Harvard and Yale. It was the first time since he had been banned from taking philosophy courses at Yale that he was genuinely stimulated by a professor.

Rinpoche, however, was better than the Yale professors. He didn't merely ask questions such as: What is the shape of the universe
?
Or, what color is the universe
?
He also had the answers. But rather than simply reciting his own opinions, he seemed intensely curious to hear what people in the group thought.

Most of the attendees wouldn't even volunteer an answer, but Max was used to participating . . . and being right. For some reason he said, he thought the universe was blue.

When he gave this answer, he was told that he was wrong and that he should go outside into the surrounding forest and meditate on the correct answer. He was told that Rinpoche would send for him when enough time had passed.

Max ended up spending more time in the forest than all the rest of the meditators combined.

He envisioned the universe shaped as a double helix. According to Rinpoche he was wrong.

Out to the forest he went.

He began to feel as if going to the forest was like wearing the dunce cap back in second grade and sitting on the stool in the corner of Miss Montaldo's second-grade classroom where the other children would snicker.

But these meditators didn't snicker, though some couldn't help but smile at the frequency of his trips.

Nonetheless, this was serious business for the participants, and they did seem to appreciate that Max was engaged. Grace never went to the forest because she never volunteered any answers to Rinpoche's questions, nor did most of the group. The nature of the teaching didn't require being called upon, and no grades were being given out—other than the grade each participant might give himself or herself on the road to enlightenment.

***

Max learned many things, including the fact that their teacher had a wonderful sense of humor.

At the age of three, Rinpoche had been annointed as the lineage carrier of a great monastery in Tibet. At the age of six he was recognized as a tulku—or high priest—of a neighboring monastery. This was most unusual, since such appointments meant being discovered as the reincarnation of a past tulku, much as the dalai lamas are selected. It was rare indeed to be selected twice, as the reincarnation of two different enlightened souls, but apparently the Buddhist path allowed for such exceptional occurrences.

Even rarer, from Rinpoche's perspective, was that both lineages he represented had enjoyed more than five hundred years of uninterrupted autonomy, then came crumbling down during his reign.

He was only fifteen when the Chinese—who had already invaded Tibet—decided to imprison all lamas and put them in the highest security prisons, in essence work camps situated in deep forested regions, where the prisoners were compelled to cut timber all day and then be tortured at night. The only other prisoners in the camps were murderers and others who had been condemned to death.

The guards came in the middle of the night and chose a lama or murderer, and more often than not the individual would never appear again. In the few cases when they were returned, they had been brutally beaten. Yet it would only be a matter of time before these tortured prisoners would be taken out again for questioning, and after every second questioning, they never returned.

“I actually was grateful to the Chinese for my incarceration,” Rinpoche explained through his translator. “It was like being in the highest lama university in the world. The Chinese had gathered up the wisest lamas from all over Tibet, and I learned from all of them. I was young and strong, and one of the best workers. So I remained low on the list of those to be tortured and executed.