AUDIO: Chapter 26: Sacrament of Fear

Breaking new ground. A newspaper article in the Akron Beacon Journal in April 2000, the year before I left for Los Angeles, publicizing the work of two of my students, who had written and directed a musical at Hoover High School. My role was that of writing coach and producer of the show, which was titled Lost in LaGrange. Photo sourced from the author’s archives

In the darkness of a Los Angeles morning, I came awake suddenly, my heart pounding. In my hotel room, the air was still. Yet in the distance, the majestic waves of the Pacific Ocean crashed against the beach, following the rhythms of the planet.

It was 4:02 AM, Thursday, August 8, 2001.

Tension flooded my body, my stomach roiling, clutching. I lay there for a minute in the dark. Something felt off. I couldn’t sleep.

Fear had reached into my dreams.

Perhaps my mental calculator had churned through my careless purchases over the last few days. Perhaps my unconscious had shifted into panic mode. I lay there, staring at the red digita…