Lucky Man Read Online Free Page A

felt more like celebration than sweat. Staying there, however, maintaining that foothold, was an ordeal.
    A large part of my success was a result of the two “franchises” I had stumbled into—the twin phenomena of Family Ties and the Back to the Future series. They offered me financial security and the guarantee I could reprise the roles of both Alex Keaton and Marty McFly more or less indefinitely.
    This left me free to experiment and accept riskier roles for less money. So when Light of Day ; Bright Lights, Big City ; or Casualties of War failed to perform at the box office, it was hardly the end of the world. I'd go back to my television series in the fall, and at some point be able to climb back into the DeLorean. But by the summer of 1990, all that had changed. The TV series had wrapped for good, the Back to the Future sequels had been released and were already on their way to video. My cockiness had morphed into caution. I just didn't feel comfortable finishing any job without a contract for another in hand. Without the safety net of Family Ties and Back to the Future, the stakes were greater now than they'd ever been.
    If the new project meant time away from my family, that had to be weighed against the reality that I now had a family. That hoary old phrase “the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed” suddenly had meaning for me. This wasn't a time for resting on my laurels or sitting on my ass. This was a time to get while the getting was good.
    Who knows, maybe I sensed it wouldn't last forever, that the other shoe was about to drop. Could it be possible that I had somehow intuited that my career clock was ticking?
    Unlikely. This keep-your-head-down-and-keep-moving mentality had always been, as far back as I could remember, a major part of my personality, my modus operandi. Even as a kid, I lacked the faith required to be still. Maybe it was because I was undersized or because my dreams were oversized, but I'd always relied on my ability to elude, evade, and anticipate any obstacle or potential bully. It is one of the great ironies of my life that only when it became virtually impossible for me to keep my body from moving would I find the peace, security, and spiritual strength to stand in one place. I couldn't be still until I could—literally—no longer keep still.
    THE PINKIE REBELLION
    Gainesville, Florida—November 13, 1990
    Fifteen minutes into that first morning of the custody battle for my pinkie, the tiny tremor simply would not stop. Maybe if I ignored it for a while . . . I went into the bathroom, pulled open the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet, found a bottle of Tylenol, and dry-swallowed two. Standing in front of the larger vanity mirror, I held up my left hand, as if by studying its reflection I might gain a little objectivity. No such luck. Now there were two twitching pinkies. But wait, the medicine cabinet's mirrored door was ajar, creating a reflection within a reflection, ad infinitum ; now there weren't just two—there were too many to count. It was a chorus line of dancing pinkies—it was the freakin’ Pinkettes.
    The pills weren't going down. I padded out to the kitchen, pulled a ginger ale from the refrigerator, and wandered into the sitting room. Hair in revolt, eyes at half mast, I stood buck naked in the center of the pseudo-luxurious Presidential Suite doing everything short of talking to my hand like Señor Wences. Hell, forget Señor Wences, I was about five pounds of fingernail short of an end-stage Howard Hughes.
    I continued wandering from room to room, as if a solution might appear around the next corner, all the while trying a variety of strategies to impose my dominion over this digit. I pinched and pulled it. I pinned it to the nightstand with the Gideon's Bible. I folded it into a fist and held it flat against my chest, and always the result was the same. It would submit to whatever hold I applied, but four or five