Cash Out (37 page)

About the book

A Rare Bird in My Native Land

Y
EARS AGO
, I was talking with a software engineer when he looked at me and proclaimed, “You're kind of a rare bird, aren't you?”

Rare bird?

“You know,” he said, eyeing me, “you work at a tech company on the San Francisco peninsula, and you actually grew up around here.”

He was right. I
was
kind of alone that way. Often I had stopped and wondered, Where were the people I grew up with? Where were the fellow souls of my Bay Area youth? Where were all those people who, like me, were thrilled to get into a public university somewhere in the state and return four or five years later to chase dreams? How could it be that, less than twenty years later, so few of my people—the locals—could be found at my tech company?

Why did I feel like an outsider?

At night, when I went home to a nearby community packed with seemingly modest homes on seemingly modest streets, I often felt the same way. Where were the people I'd grown up with, the sons and daughters of teachers, electricians, accountants, receptionists, civil servants, and utility workers?

What had happened to the middle class?

It was no different when I visited my mom and sister in nearby San Francisco. The city had changed. Gone, it seemed, were the values of socioeconomic diversity and tolerance that had made this place so special in my youth. How had we ended up with this new culture of status and affluence? Did anyone else notice how empty some neighborhoods got during the holidays, when people would return to their true hometowns?

Was I witnessing that dreaded phenomenon: gentrification?

And then later I wondered: was
I
gentrifying, too?

In about ten years, I had gone from “starving journalist” to “Silicon Valley speechwriter.” From East Bay everyman to peninsula property owner. And as the years passed, I wondered if I was slowly losing my way. Was I becoming a fancy boy? Hell, no, I decided. I embraced my old Honda, my Chico State sweatshirts, my power tools and flip-flops. I built things with my hands and got dirt under my fingernails. I got back into volleyball, explored coastal towns packed with longtime Californians who seemed to smile back a little more often. Even so, back in the Valley, I couldn't relax. Had I been sucked slowly into the hyperventilating, overachieving lifestyle of the peninsula, this twenty-first-century magnet for highly educated fortune-seekers? Was I losing this battle with myself?

As I watched a new wave of people strike it rich, I thought about some of the people I was meeting along the way—good people, like a former WD-40 public relations guy who had become one of the first one hundred employees at Google. What would
I
do if I were in his shoes and could cash out? Would I chase new dreams? Would I try to put balance and moderation and human connections back into my life?

Reflecting on all of this—the changing demographics and culture of the Bay Area, the unprecedented wealth events of my surroundings—I wondered if anyone was writing about this. Sure, people were writing about the riches folks were making, and some were noting a new kind of gold rush for California, but was anyone exploring this from a more personal and cultural level? This story, which I felt so deep in my bones, hadn't been told.

In writing
Cash Out
, I decided to stick with what I knew best. In some ways, I gave my protagonist, Dan Jordan, some of my own traits and circumstances. Like me, Dan would be a speechwriter in Silicon Valley working with an array of really smart and interesting people. Like me, he'd feel tired and overworked and worried about losing himself in frothy white waters of the Valley. Like me, he'd have a wife and two boys he'd love with all his heart. And like me, he'd reexamine some of the big decisions he'd made over the years.

Unlike me, he'd be days away from cashing out a fortune. And unlike me, he'd live across the street from a spry older man who saunters about his front yard in a skin-colored Speedo.

I decided to put Dan on a collision course with some of my favorite characters, and then pile on the pressure: put his cash-out money on the line, put his family life in jeopardy. As I wrote, I found a connection to some of those larger themes (the pursuit of balance and meaning) that I think so many of us in the Valley and beyond think about. I drew from my own dreams, added new challenges wherever they would advance the story. Onto Dan's shoulders I piled motive upon motive, burden upon burden.

I wrote late at night, after my wife and kids had fallen asleep. Some days I wrote at lunch, or when the family was out for an hour. Some nights I couldn't stop, and I'd write into the very early morning. The first draft of
Cash Out
was written during a thousand stolen moments over the course of a few years.

But at last I got the story out. I took Dan Jordan right to the edge, to a place where resolution, one way or the other, would be obvious and within reach—if not in our own lives, at least for him.

Read on

Author Recommendations

I
F YOU ENJOYED
C
ASH
O
UT
, consider these suggestions for more good times.

Read

Boonville
by Robert Mailer Anderson
When I first read Anderson's novel, I was delighted to see someone finally capture Northern California in all its diverse and off-the-wall glory. Touching, captivating, and hilarious, this book still sits on my top shelf ten years later.

Florida Roadkill
by Tim Dorsey
I still remember where I was when I read Tim Dorsey's first book (on a beach), and what I said to my wife after reading the first few pages: “This guy's nuts.” Dorsey is sidesplittingly funny, wonderfully ungoverned, and afraid of nothing.

Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse
by Victor Gischler
I have yet to read anything by Victor Gischler that I haven't really admired. In
Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse
, he applies his wide range of talents to new heights. Inventive, funny, and off-balance in a wonderful way,
Go-Go Girls
seems to do whatever it wishes—without any negative consequences.

Music for Torching
by A. M. Homes
This book took control of me and didn't let go. The tale of a married couple who find themselves stuck in affluent suburbia had me engrossed, titillated, and ultimately stunned.

The Financial Lives of the Poets
by Jess Walter
I hadn't read Jess Walter until my editor, Cal Morgan, mentioned
Financial Lives
during a discussion about my own book. I soon got a dose of what I'd been missing all those years: insight, compassion, humor, and depth, served up with grace.

Me Talk Pretty One Day
by David Sedaris
Among the funniest books I've read, this collection of essays is a pure joy. The highlight of the book for readers with my kind of sensibilities? Perhaps a small piece about one very “Big Boy.”

The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death
by Charlie Huston
I inhale anything written by Huston, who happened to grow up a few miles from me and even attended the same college, although we never knew each other. He also happens to be one of the most talented authors, period.
Cash Out
readers also might be interested in another of Huston's California tales,
The Shotgun Rule
, which is set in 1980s Livermore.

A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole
Four hundred and five pages of comic genius that eventually won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Frank Sinatra in a Blender
by Matthew McBride
McBride's debut novel is one of the funniest books I've read in a long time. I laughed hard—so hard, in fact, that I wept, tears rolling down my cheeks, my nose running. There's also a pretty compelling story in there, centering on the wonderfully drawn Nick Valentine (think
Bad Santa
meets Hunter S. Thompson) and his hilarious little dog, Frank Sinatra. I couldn't put it down.

Sabrina's Window
by Al Riske
The debut novel by one of my favorite authors tells the story of a woman who dares to break out of her normal life, and creates a town scandal along the way. Whimsical, touching, and uniquely unpredictable.

Green with Envy
by Shira Boss
My lone nonfiction selection,
Green with Envy
touches on many of the themes I ended up exploring in
Cash Out
, including America's battle with overindulgence and how it's preventing so many people from living free. I could not put it down, and I still find myself revisiting its stories and insights.

Taste

Guacamole Gregorio
I get cocky about only one thing: my guacamole. Enjoyed with the right music and Mexican beer, great guac is more than just food; it's a reminder of what's great about California living. In the fictional world, my guac makes cameo appearances in two novels, including
Cash Out
. In real life, it has won a series of “guacamole showdowns.” In 2008, in a fit of philanthropy, I finally opened up my recipe for worldwide consumption. Visit gregbardsley.com and make your own batch today!

Listen

A stash of Latin jazz for the rest of us
In
Cash Out
, Crazy Larry gets his hands on Dan Jordan's personal stash of authentic, old-school Latin jazz. This part of the story was inspired by a friend of mine who got his hands on 152 tracks of the real stuff, thanks to a Guatemalan connection. That connection is long gone, but there
is
a great resource streaming across the Web every Sunday afternoon, which is when Latin-jazz aficionado Jesse “Chuy” Varela airs his world-class radio program. Goes great with guacamole: kcsm.org/jazzprograms/latinjazz.php.

Connect

Poke me
Join me on Facebook, where I'll bring you an endless series of posts, photos, clips, stories, and two-line observations. Also, be sure to “friend” me with “full access,” so I can voyeur you and your friends and check out your college spring break photos from the 1900s. God, I love the Internet.