It's Time! Page 3

  The guy looked at me. “Fuck you, boy. This is none of your business.”

  “No, fuck you,” I said. “You’re leaving now!”

  The kids around us loved this. Two kids from two different high schools were about to face off against each other. That was cool. At least, this is what they thought in their adolescent minds. Some of them started chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

  More people came running over and gathered around, just like in the movies.

  That did not help matters much. I didn’t want to touch this guy. I had no idea where this would lead. He was bigger than I was, but that wasn’t the issue. I felt sorry for him. He was too stupid to know that it was wrong to punch a girl in the face.

  Back then, I was not an unknown entity in high school. I was pretty built for a senior. I worked out. I practiced martial arts. I was a lifeguard. I was the guy who made jewelry. I had started for both the Santa Monica High water polo and swim teams for two years, and although I elected not to compete in my senior year, I was in top shape and ready to fight if I had to. But as far as this meathead was concerned, I was a nobody.

  I told him again, “Just go now, and leave them alone.”

  A bunch of the kids started chanting, “Buff! Buff! Buff!”

  The big kid yelled “Fuck you!” and threw a wild right hook.

  As I blocked it, I punched him full force, right between the eyes. He went back but recovered, and then swarmed me like a football player. He picked me up and dropped me to the sand and started throwing punches. I managed to work my way on top and up to the mount. Though I didn’t know the term then, I ground-and-pounded him into bloody submission.

  “Fight over due to strikes,” or a KO, as we would say in the Octagon.

  When I was done with him, he was not a pretty sight. His blood was everywhere—in the sand, on my clothes. My new Pendleton shirt was ripped to pieces and hanging from my shoulders.

  The crowd was cheering, but there was no glory in it for me. I didn’t ask for this. But a glimmer of wisdom in my head said, No, but he did.

  When I saw that he wasn’t getting up, I grabbed my girlfriend and left. I knew it was also time for me to leave.

  I wasn’t thinking too clearly when I got home late that night. I only knew I had to get out of those clothes, which were torn and covered with the guy’s blood. I left everything on the washing machine, washed my face and hands, and crashed in my bed.

  The next morning, when I came down for breakfast, my parents were waiting for me. Their eyes were heavy with concern. My mother held what was left of my shirt, now stiff with dried blood.

  “What happened, Bruce?”

  I could never lie to my parents. It just wasn’t in me. They were such straightforward, honest people; lying didn’t make sense in our house. I told them the truth. I didn’t like what had unfolded, but I felt like I didn’t have any other choice.

  My mother was shocked but not surprised, as this was hardly my first rodeo. She came over to shower me with love.

  My father, on the other hand, was ecstatic. You’d think he’d just won the lottery. He was so proud his son had fought the good fight, defended a woman’s honor, and taught a brute a lesson.

  The phone rang. My father went to take it. I heard him talking to one of my friends in the next room. I didn’t hear much of the conversation, but only a few highlights. “Yeah?” he said. “Yeah? Okay … you let them know. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  When he reappeared in the kitchen, he was sticking a snub-nosed Colt .38 Detective Special revolver into his waistband. He looked at me and nodded. “You,” he said. “Get dressed. We’re going out.”

  “Where are we going?” I said.

  “That was Bob Ryan. The kid you beat up last night is looking for payback. But he doesn’t know where you live. Him and his loser friends pulled a knife on Bob in back of the supermarket where he works in downtown Malibu. They know Bob knows where we live. So we’re going into town and we’re going to settle this, once and for all.”

  My mother said, “Joe, please, why—”

  “Quiet,” my father said. “You heard me. Get dressed.”

  “What’s with the gun, Dad?”

  “Simple,” my old man said, “You’re going to fight this guy in the parking lot, where everyone can see that you beat him again, fair and square.”

  “Yeah, but what’s with the gun?”

  “I’m gonna hold off all his friends while you take care of business,” he said.

  “Are you fucking crazy?” I said. “No way.”

  Something similar to this had happened once before. When I was only fifteen years old, I was at the movies with my father when a group of four young thugs broke into the theater exit door. My father hated that someone would just knowingly flout the law like that. He hated how morality was going to hell in a handbasket in this country. He saw himself as one of the last true White Knights, although a bit crazy at times.

  When the gang broke in, my father told me to wrap my belt around my fist with the large buckle dangling down as a weapon. He instructed me to stand behind him and back him up if things went south. Then he marched over to the gang and confronted them, ordering them to leave. Not a single person in the theater got up to help us. It was four potentially armed gang kids against the two of us.

  But, of course, they left.

  And the day we were supposed to meet the linebacker in the parking lot, I’m happy to say that showdown never took place. When we got down to the appointed spot by the beach, the other guys were nowhere to be found. The guy never bothered me again. That was the end of that, except for one thing: I now knew just how far my father was willing to go to settle a score.

  THE story of that fight and its aftermath touches on several important aspects of my character: my instinct toward justice, toward righting wrongs; my instinct to protect those who need it; and my struggle to be myself when pitted against my equally strong-willed father.

  For every bit of toughness my father instilled in us, I believe my mother taught us kindness and compassion. My father did, too; he could be the kindest and most caring man in the world, but he had no time or patience for A-holes of any kind. My goal as a grown man is somehow to live up to both their examples, to take the good from each and leave what isn’t me behind.

  I’ll never forget the day I was hanging out “downtown” at the Malibu Country Mart, one of the nation’s first outdoor shopping centers. I was a high-school junior and decked out in my lifeguard swim trunks. I had probably just come off duty and was planning not to do too much for the rest of the afternoon. I glanced over my shoulder for a second and spotted my mom coming out of one of the shops. She waved. I told my friends to hold up a second as I ran over to give her a hug hello and a rundown on my plans for the day.

  She wasn’t in a rush to get back home, and was thinking about hanging out herself.

  “Do you want to stay a little while and have an ice cream with me?” she said.

  “Nah,” I said, scrunching my face into the sun. “I gotta get going.” After all, I had places to go, things to do. I couldn’t waste time at an ice-cream counter with my mom. I was not a little kid anymore.

  She smiled. “That’s fine. I’ll see you later, okay?”

  I nodded and ran off.

  I don’t know how long I hung out with the guys. There was always something happening or a chance to go surfing. And a little while later, as I ran off with my friends, I happened to swing past the ice-cream place. There, on the other side of the window, I saw my mother sitting alone at a table, digging into a cup with a spoon.

  I thought nothing of it then, but the human mind is funny, what it remembers, what it forgets. I’m telling you, I sometimes wish that I could go back in time and sit in that shop with her, if only for a few minutes, so she would not have to sit there alone.

  The part of my character that makes me want to stick my neck out for a high-school girl I wasn’t dating, or grab innocent people out of
harm’s way when people start brawling on the sidewalk, is somehow tied up in the love I have for that woman in the ice-cream shop.

  When she married my father, she set out on a hell of a ride. A few years into their marriage, they split up and she took Brian and me to go live with her mom in Philly. I don’t remember those days, and I’ve never fully learned the cause of the split, but I remember the day he came back, standing tall in the doorway, dressed to the nines.

  For all his toughness, the man was a dreamer. And she helped him live out every one of his dreams, even if it inconvenienced her to do so. A few weeks after that infamous ski trip when I heard them talking about coming up with enough money to pay the bills, they were forced to put an ad in the paper offering my mother’s diamond wedding ring for sale. Someone called, offering to buy it, and my mom went alone to the parking lot of the Country Mart to meet that buyer. I can only imagine how she felt that day, selling her ring so her family would have food to put on the table. And sure, when they made a success of their business, my father bought my mother another ring to make up for the one she’d sacrificed. But no woman should ever have to sell a token of her love.

  When I got older, I sensed that my mother needed more purpose in life. Later in life, with her in mind, I would start a business, SportsBuff Enterprises, with the idea of asking her to help me out. She was remarkably effective handling the phones, booking venues, and managing and selling my merchandise. In fact, one year she earned $50,000 in commissions and took my father on a trip to Europe. It was her way of saying, “Look what I did! Now let me treat you to something.”

  My mom was nothing if not a devoted, supportive wife and a loving human being. In her eyes, Joe Buffer could do no wrong. I had a more objective opinion, of course. My dad was tough. There were days when I hated him. Hated how stubborn he was, how hard he was on my mother and Brian and me. It was always his way or the highway. And once his anger got up, watch out. His emotions were too hot to handle.

  He got into an uncomfortable conversation once with one of my early girlfriends, Rosy, a girl I loved dearly. They did not argue, mind you. It was just enough of a discussion for my father to decide that he didn’t care for her. And after that, Rosy was banned from the house forever. It tore me apart inside. I went to have an angry word or three with my father about it, and he practically kicked me out of the house. He was not interested in opinions that didn’t agree with his. But after much thought, he came to understand how important she was to me, and he and I worked it all out between us.

  3

  BOILER ROOM

  When I got out of high school, I enrolled in business and film classes at Santa Monica College. One day I was scanning the job board in front of the guidance office and saw a flyer that promised, MAKE $250 TO $400 A WEEK SELLING OVER THE PHONE! That didn’t sound hard at all. I needed to make money doing something that wouldn’t interfere with studying—and martial arts training and, of course, surfing.

  I interviewed with these people in Santa Monica, who explained that they sold office supplies, mostly paper and photocopier toner, over the phone. They offered me the job on the spot.

  “Be here tomorrow at five o’clock.”

  “I’ll be in class then,” I said.

  “Not 5:00 p.m.” They laughed. “Five o’clock in the morning. We have to get here early every day because we’re selling to the East Coast.”

  I don’t know many college kids who would have enjoyed getting up that early, but I thought this would be perfect. If I could put in some hours before class, I’d be making money without having to skip classes.

  My parents and my brother Brian weren’t convinced it was a smart opportunity. Who bought office supplies over the phone? The job sounded like a joke or, worse, a scam.

  I was the first one at the office the next day. I watched as the owners and the salespeople started arriving in their Porsches. Beautiful cars. Well, I thought, they must be doing something right.

  They set me up in a cubicle with a headset and taught me what they called the “Reroute Pitch.” It went like this:

  Phone rings.

  “Hello?”

  “Yes, this is Bruce. I’m calling from U.S. Toner in California. How are you doing this morning?”

  “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.”

  “I understand that. Can you tell me one thing, though? What’s the model number on your copier in your office?”

  “Our copier? Uh, lemme see. It’s right here. Uh, it’s the Xerox 3100.”

  “Really? Oh, hey, listen, you’re gonna like this. One of our accounts down the street has the same model copier as you do, only they just got rid of their machine. We just shipped them a fresh order of the Xerox 3100 toner, and instead of sending the toner bottles back, we can sell it to you at a very substantial savings.”

  “Uh, I dunno.” Pause. “How much of a savings, exactly?”

  When the Reroute Pitch worked, it worked like a charm. It was simple, persuasive, effective. When it dawned on me that every no brought me closer to a yes, I dialed those numbers like a maniac. I was motivated to be Number One. By the way: logging tons of noes in order to get to a yes still applies to selling today, no matter what the product.

  One day the owner came out and said, “Okay, during the five-to-eight-a.m. shift, the person who makes the most sales gets a buck.”

  I know what you’re thinking: Who cares? What’s a dollar? It’s nothing. True, you could buy more with a dollar then than you could today, but that wasn’t the point. The dollar was really a carrot, an incentive to get people to try harder. Everyone wanted to be the one to win that dollar and wave it in everyone else’s face. Hey, buddy, you think you’re a salesman? How many of the dollars have you won?

  That’s when I realized that just working for a paycheck is not enough. In fact, you could almost say that is non-motivational. But if you give people a carrot, someone will always, always, always distinguish himself or herself to take that carrot home. This is true no matter who you are. It’s not about the dollar. It becomes a point of pride. People love incentives.

  BUFFERISM NO. 3

  “I’D RATHER HAVE ONE PERCENT OF OTHER PEOPLE’S EFFORTS THAN 100 PERCENT OF MY OWN.”

  The billionaire J. Paul Getty said this. He was talking about delegation. You can only do so much on your own. If you’re successful, you’ll ultimately get to the point where you’re relying on other people’s efforts. If you can build a team and get everyone to chip in, you’ll go further. If not, you’ll be micromanaging till you’re blue in the face.

  That very first time, I tied with another salesperson and the owner ripped the buck in half and we each got half a buck. We thought it was hilarious. See? It wasn’t about the money.

  “Get back to work!” they told us, and we did.

  With the Reroute Pitch flowing from my lips and the exhortations of the bosses, I became a top salesman in three weeks. I was making something like $500 to $800 a week, not the piddling $250 to $400 they had promised.

  I’m sure by now you’ve figured out that the products we sold weren’t overstocks from a previous client’s order. In fact, they weren’t even brand-name toners, but generics. I knew that every time we picked up the phone, we were technically telling a lie to the people we were calling. But I rationalized it to myself by thinking of it this way: the generic toner worked just as well as the real ones, and customers were happy with their products because we got few complaints and cheerfully accepted all returns. We weren’t telling the truth, but we were selling a decent product at a good price, and at the end of the day, nobody was getting hurt.

  Besides, it wasn’t my job to worry about the legalities. It was my job to sell.

  One time I looked up from the cubicle while on a call and saw the sales manager looking at me. He was pulling down a thousand a week. I’ll have your job someday, I thought.

  And two months later, I did. The bosses loved me. I had a way of motivating the newbies, getting them to produce
like no one had ever dreamed. I was like Alec Baldwin in that scene from Glengarry Glen Ross: “You know what it takes to sell real estate? It takes brass balls to sell real estate!”

  The day I drove home in my new black 1975 Porsche 911S, Steve McQueen saw me and hailed me down. Came over to check out the car. He was such a car nut, such a car nut. He loved anything that had an engine: dirt bikes, planes, motorcycles, and Porsches. He walked around that machine and gave me a handshake.

  He was so proud of me. “Congratulations, kid, you’re doing great.”

  My father was over the moon. I was probably pulling in more monthly than he was at the time. He was devoting himself wholeheartedly to his craft, writing short stories, novels, screenplays, and magazine articles. He landed himself a literary agent and saw his first book published during this time. It was a hell of a book, a fast-paced, gritty thriller about a hit man with a heart of gold called, simply, Skull. In 1975, the New York Times’s crime fiction critic praised it as one of the best books of the year. “The writing is tough and earthy, and the book is not for the squeamish, but it is far better than the average,” the paper wrote. (Another reviewer said if you wanted to know how to write sex scenes, you had to read Skull.)

  On weekends, Brian and I would either travel with my parents to Vegas and other states to help them exhibit, buy, sell, and trade their guns and collectibles at various shows, or we’d handle them on our own. Brian and I fast became experts in gun collecting and developed our own collections over time. Brian swiftly became an expert in the field, and I still look to him for advice and expertise. He is a trained sniper who would proudly show you the penny he shot clean through at a hundred yards—scary! I’m passionate about guns, but I’m not a hunter. I always tell people that I could more easily shoot a two-hundred-pound man who was climbing in my window to rip me off than I could blow away Bambi. It’s just not in me.