Our relationship began very wildly. Cutter and I had a party at our house where, like normal restaurant bullshit, my co-workers all ended up attending. What started as a drunken wrestling match between Mandi and I turned into a quick, (and mean quick,) passionate romp in my room. After that night, there were others, much longer of course. Soon our late night booty calls became all night conversations. The next thing you know we were only banging each other and we were at work, labeled a couple. I will be honest, and she will tell you that I had really kept my distance from her at first. I did not want anything ruining my plans to return to where I belonged.
It almost worked.
I left for Porn Valley again only to return after a month. Mandi had moved into our house and as I said earlier, my roommates had really dropped the ball, leaving me know choice but to return. A little secret between you and me is that I did in fact miss Mandis companionship as well, but nevertheless, that was the return to NC that would sink my plans and I for years after would tell you that I should have just walked away from it. After having to settle back in my NC life, I still ran from the serious relationship with Mandi or anybody else. I had felt that if I was not going to return to LA, I should probably decide what the fuck I was going to do with my life and I knew it would suck if I stayed where I was. My hometown and I had too much past and it was a factory town, so in my line of business, I had no business being there. I traveled to Raleigh after the debacle of the house. I did not have enough money to get back to LA and my parents had grown tired of lending me money to do so. I had a childhood friend there that was letting me crash until I found a job that would give me savings and a ticket back to the desert. But something happened on the way to the forum. Being away from that party house and all the bullshit suddenly made me realize, just how much I missed Mandi. I could not believe it. After three months of commuting back and forth, I bit the bullet and moved in with her. I was back in my hometown again. I knew it would be an uphill battle from there.
Our relationship at this time was not the best. I had become thoroughly frustrated with the direction my life was going and I almost felt trapped. I chose not to call any of my friends out west because the one time I did, I broke out crying after hanging up the phone. I chose not to add any more depression on myself. I continued to wait tables and barely scraping by. To add to that, deep down where the sane mental brain does not care to explore, I had a vendetta brewing for Mandi. I had found out that she had cheated on me a couple of times while I was in Raleigh. I guess it was deserved, since I just jetted out of town one day. She would later claim that we werent together so it was not wrong. I was driving three hours every weekend to be with her and she was going out during the week and doing that to me? I hated her. I didnt care. These elements in mind did not make me a very good boyfriend. You can assume when Mandi stopped coming home at night, that she could be appropriately labeled as a bad girlfriend as well. Our relationship took a dump and neither of us had stopped to take enough time to wipe it up. We had different agendas, so we parted our separate ways.
After the break up I chose only to stay in Hickory for about a month. I moved to my best friend and his wifes house in Asheville. I acquired a job at a marketing company that would change my professional life forever. For the next year I traveled the East Coast making commercials, video promotionals and even a Nationwide Insurance commercial in South Bend, Indiana. From there, it only got better. I found myself in a doublewide trailer on the back lot of CMTs studio, to sleep in before I shot some B Camera for the Kenny Chesney video, I Go Back. From there, I traveled down to Miami to shoot the VMAS. It was the high life and even though my boss would hold out on my per diem money, I didnt care. This was the life. I thought about Mandi quite a bit. I would call her occasionally on the road to brag about my job and would stop by and visit her grandmother who I adored, while I was in town.
Then I would return to North Carolina to do a thirty-minute infomercial for Keffer Dodge in Charlotte that again, would alter my life. I had used the same crew out of Asheville on every one of my excursions. We were a well-oiled machine and I had grown comfortable with our abilities. For the Charlotte shoot, my boss, didnt want to pay everybody so I had to hire my high school friends to help out. At the last minute, my boss had also opted to come to the shoot and direct. I was not keen on the idea. We had always disagreed on the direction of our shoots, but he would always drop the argument when the client was ecstatic about the finished product. It should have told him something. That day it did not. After shooting a line up of used cars and interviewing employees, my boss decided to wrap it up. I had stated to him three times earlier in the day that we had not shot enough coverage. By the time he was sending the cars back to their spots I came to him again and stated we hadnt shot enough coverage. He assured me that we had and made it perfectly clear that he was the boss and I was the employee. I packed it up.
A week later I had cut all the footage I could use and looped it all twice and it still came up six minutes short. An infomercial has to come in at twenty-eight minutes and thirty seconds. Six minutes was a lot of dead air. I went to the local TV 46 and explained my situation. The guy assured me that he could cover the six minutes with past commercials and infomercials of theirs. I told the guy I owed him and left the master tape. He did not and for six over priced minutes of Keffer Dodges advertising budget, ran the dreaded color bars. After that incident, my boss brought me in the office and very nicely, stated that he could not afford me anymore. He wanted to come to an agreement that I would be a contracted employee, meaning I would not be getting my salary and benefits, but I would receive all the jobs that came through the office for a flat rate. I agreed under one condition and that was: Pay me the $3500.00 he owed me for my per diem pay from all the traveling in the last two months. He agreed.
He never called me again for a job. By this time, there was such a bad taste in my mouth with him, I did not care. All I knew was that I had worn out my welcome again in North Carolina. I had been on hiatus from the west coast for almost three years. I was going to take my $3500, pack my son, Vinyard, into my Jeep and get the fuck out of dodge. I moved in with my good friend, Doug, and slept on his couch. The stay was just long enough to get my money.
But then Something happened. Mandi tracked me down. Seemed fitting She had completely forgotten all about me for the last four months and here she is at the worst possible time for me, coming back into my life. We met up and hung out a little at first. I tried to keep her at arms reach, because I was not going to let anything mess up my plan.
It almost work.
We were back together. And it seemed much better this time around. It was very different and even to this day I cannot put my finger what it was. The money my boss owed me never came. In fact, he had found a loophole in business practices to prevent me from going after him in court. Once again, Garrick gets SCREWED OUTTA SOME MONEY. I decided that if Mandi and I were to be together, there was no way we were staying in Hickory. I had to go and seeing as the cost of living in Los Angeles had gone up, there was not going to be a year of saving before I could think about going back. Because I had enjoyed Miami so much when I was down there, I aimed for that beach instead. It was not as far as LA and still had the appeal. Mandi refused Miami. Here I was again sacrificing my plans. But at the same time I was trying to figure out where to go, I received an offer at Sunshine Network, down in Orlando. That was the place we agreed on. I grabbed a shit hole job at a factory to save enough to get us down there and we were off.
Orlando was nice. Mandi acquired a good position at one of the biggest hotels down there and I did my television/editing thing. I could tell Mandi missed her family. With my new position, I blossomed at my career. I learned more than I had ever and began thinking that I had arrived to the point with my talents, that I could do it anywhere. I would no longer have to worry that I didnt know enough, to do a job. I was Bruce Wayne in the mountains Learning everything I needed to know and when I was ready, I would return to make my stake.
One Wednesday night, Mandi had been quiet. Extremely quiet And then she said it,
Lets go get a pregnancy test. I jumped right up. I had been ready for years, despite the life on the road I had established for myself. We dropped into Walgreens and grabbed a three pack.
The first one was all we needed to see. The line was there and it wasnt just a faded line. That sunuvabitch was jumping off the test itself. We called everybody. We were pregnant.
After a month, we had both agreed that it would be smart to stay in Orlando until she was eight months and then move back to North Carolina to have the baby and live for awhile, due to our vast support group we had there. I agreed to that, but did not agree to Hickory. I was thinking Charlotte or Winston; anywhere, but Hickory!!!
It was a Wednesday as well, four months later when I was in the editing room and got a call from a woman I had never met. She began telling me that I needed to get to the hotel. Mandi had been bleeding and something was wrong. I rushed down and swept her to the emergency room. After Mandi had to endure using the bathroom and seeing a glimpse of our pregnancy dropping into the toilet every time, the doctors told us the bad news. We had gone in around noon and it had taken them nearly ten hours to tell us she had miscarried.
No, shit you fucking genius, was all I could get out. I am not a patient guy and Im really not patient when my woman had to sit around upset all day just to get a definitive answer to what she already knew.
We left the hospital and it was back to life with our dogs and the forty-hour a week jobs.
Pressure mounted to get out of Orlando. This experience had really put Orlando on the shit list so to speak with Mandi. Ryan had invited us to Rhode Island and Mandi was ready to go. I went up first to get everything taken care of, but she had decided half way through the second week that she didnt want to go to Rhode Island. (We all know that story already.) By the time I got back to Orlando, Mandi was ready to go home. I wasnt but had lined up some side jobs in Hickory, so the thought of maybe being able to open my business up there had crossed my mind again. She was frustrated and did not want to see my face. I didnt blame her at that point. We were at differences of what, where and how things should be done from here. I gave her a break and journeyed back to Hickory to secure some jobs and weigh our options. When I left, I had actually been worried that Mandi wasnt going to come home and I was just going to be out of the picture from then on. I hoped that my thought was not dead on like many of my other gut instincts were. Two days after being at home, I journeyed to Cutters house to hang out and unwind when I got the call.
Garrick, you are not going to believe this, Mandi said.
I was prepared for the worst. Maybe she had found somebody else. Maybe she had decided that she wanted to be single. I didnt know.
Im pregnant.
I thought it to be a joke. We had only two months before been in the same boat. I could not believe it. The three years we were together we had not practiced safe sex and two times in the same year we managed to plant an egg? How did that work?
I laughed in joy. We received a second chance. Within the week, I showed up in Orlando with a U-Haul and brought our life back to North Carolina. I knew I had to get something together fast. I knew this one was going to work out and my frustrations with not being able to land any jobs I would enjoy in this town, made the pressure a little tighter not to wind up having to settle for a factory job or something that I would get trapped at. I started up my business while working part time at a small television station at first and before I knew it, my company was coasting. I began a stint at AEBN. It was the global leader in internet smut and as I learned the business side of the profession I dabbled in, but ducked out of time and time again, I started realizing that if I were to make some more cash why not make a porn. I continued my business and in the shadows began making preparations to do it.
FAST FORWARD four months
Mandi woke me up at 4:30am. She thought she had gas. I thought she was wrong. We took off to the hospital and by 5:30am her water had broken. That was the day. By the end of the day my life would be completely changed. I would no longer be called, man, dude, shmuck, or asshole. It would be dad from here on out. With little difficulties, Mandi gave birth to our daughter, Payton Renea Lane a little over twelve hours later. Everybody says that in that moment, it changes your life forever. I will disagree with that statement. Through all the chaos and exhaustion, I dont think it changes your life forever, until the calm after the storm and you are looking at her and shes looking at you. The room is quiet and that nine months of sympathy weight, over hormonal fights, and opening gifts of diapers, swings, baby bottles and breast pumps, is all but a memory in the back of your head. That, is when it changes your life. I looked at Payton as I held her. Mandi had deservingly taken a nap at that moment. I watched her. I thought, shes my daughter. Maybe I shouldnt pursue this porn movie anymore. I would be setting a bad example. I could hear everybody at school making fun of her. I could see her friends not coming over to hang out, because their parents disagree with what I do. I mean this is Hickory, North Carolina we are talking about. This kind of situation is as trivial as tying your shoes in the San Fernando Valley, but really, what would I say to her if she started asking. What if I did quit this quest? What if she found out I quit trying to do it? Would she think I was a quitter or an under achiever.
No, I said to myself. I wasnt going to quit. I had come too far and this could be more college money for her if I could get it off the ground. She would never have to know.
As I drifted off to sleep, I thought to my self that my intentions to get back to Los Angeles were probably a fade to black story now. I would be a North Carolina resident for at least five years and even then, where would I be in five years? I would just have to put it out of my mind for a while. I still wonder where my life would have taken me had I stayed. I would not have Payton or Mandi. Would I be married? Would I be successful?
It really didnt matter at that point. I shut it out of my mind and went to sleep after the long day. The last thought in my head was, I could still go to LA. Maybe one of the movies I am shooting would get some attention and put me in a position to have to move back. Or if not, maybe a job would send me whisking out there for a couple weeks.
That kind of positive thinking would bring me to my next story
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