Robert Forto story
I took full responsibility in a courtroom in February 2000. The reasons that led me there grew out of a serious gambling addiction that had already been running through my life since the early 1990s, the kind that turns ordinary decisions into irreversible ones and leaves other people holding the cost. From my darkest days onward, Michele was with me at every stage. Even though I was the black hole in the sun[i], she kept the family and everyday life moving when I could not. She has never treated the years that followed as something that required her to pretend the past had not happened
Accountability and Restitution
We paid every penny that was owed to those I had harmed. That was not a gesture. It was the minimum the court and the facts required, and it was done.
Fast forward six and a half years, and the morning was ordinary in the way that only a morning ending six years can be. It was 9:05 a.m. on Monday, October 16, 2006, and I left the place where I had been held. The sun was shining, and the air felt normal, hot, humid, and muggy, as most days still are in Central Colorado, even with the first hint of fall and the leaves beginning to turn. For a few hours, it almost seemed possible the worst was over. I have thought more than once of the Foo Fighters line from “Walk:” learnin’ to walk again, waited long enough, where do I begin?[ii] Because that was the only accurate description of those first weeks. The days required relearning the ordinary motions of a much faster world.
The nights did not wait, not by a long shot. Since then, the same terrors have returned every night. Metallica put a version of it in “Enter Sandman:” sleep with one eye open, gripping your pillow tight, exit light, enter night. The beasts under the bed, in the closet, in your head[iii]. They don’t present themselves as memories or lessons. They come with the full weight of the years that brought me to that courtroom and the years that followed, and they don’t negotiate.
I have built a life in the daylight: Denver Dog Works, the move north, Alaska Dog Works, the work with families and dogs, the doctorate itself, the succession we have been leaning into firmly with Nicole, the writing, the coaching, and the public account of what happened. None of that has shortened the nights. The work is as real as the terrors, and they have been there every single night for twenty years.
Public Perception and the Complete Record
Those who have never lived through something like this generally hold a version of it that is thinner than the record. They know the charges, the Animal Planet episode, or a rumor that traveled faster than the full account. Some decide the story ends at the sentence. Others decide it ends when the restitution is paid, and the door opens. Either version leaves out the ordinary mornings and nights that came after, and both have a cost. Things like that don’t show up on a balance sheet.
Clients who never called, or the conversations in the mushing community that started and then stopped. Professional rooms and the biggest stages where the incomplete story arrived ahead of me and stayed longer than I did. The fragments are easier to repeat than reading what happened, what I did, what we paid, and what Michele and the family carried while I was gone. Godsmack’s lyrics for “Touché” has stayed with me and says: I’d only do for you what you’d do for me. Most public versions haven’t offered the same[iv].
The nights haven’t ended, and I don’t expect them to. What I have come to see, slowly, is that the public and the private version of a life can run on separate clocks. One of them is edited by whoever speaks last[v]. The other keeps the original hours. Twenty years after the morning at 9:05, both clocks still run, and I still wake up each night, often drenched in sweat, inside the one that doesn’t reset.
Michele has stood by me into the daylight[vi] and held me close at night. She calls me her knight in tarnished armor. To me, nothing else matters[vii]. The Foo Fighters line from “My Hero” still echoes loudly when I watch her keep the familiar work moving, defined by infinite colours and shapes[viii]: there goes my hero, he’s ordinary. Even though the night terrors continue, the parable of having long-lived what you thought you were still holds, even though time might not be on my side anymore[ix].
As this chapter (hopefully) closes, an anthem from my generation cries out: come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be. As a friend, as an old enemy. Take your time, hurry up, choice is yours, don’t be late. Take a rest, as an old memoria[x].
That is the record as it stands, even if it is soaked in bleach[xi].
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Endnotes
[i] From the album, Superunknown by Soundgarden.
[ii] Reference to the song Walk by the Foo Fighters which references the universal struggle of facing the dark, anxiety, and the unseen terrors of the mind.
[iii] Reference to the song, Enter Sandman, Hetfield describes it as representing the universal struggle of facing the dark, anxiety, and the unseen terrors of the mind.
[iv] Reference to the song, Touché by Godsmack, Erna describes the mutual exhaustion, frustration, and the feeling of growing apart because one partner cannot be fully present.
[v] Reference to the song, Once in a Lifetime by The Talking Heads about living on autopilot, and the unconscious daily routine.
[vi] Reference to the album, Driving Towards the Daylight by Joe Bonamassa which describes trying to find a way home.
[vii] Reference to the song, Nothing Else Matters from Metallica’s self-titled album, which references the testament to honesty and exposing yourself.
[viii] Reference to The Colour and the Shape, which is the second album by Foo Fighters.
[ix] Reference to the song, Cryin’ Like a Bitch, Erna described it as a takedown of an arrogant, power-tripping individual whose relevance has faded.
[x] In the song, Come as You Are, Cobain described the track as being about social expectations, personal contradictions, and unconditional acceptance.
[xi] The lyric, Soaked in Bleach from Come as You Are, Cobain invites outcasts, addicts, or flawed people to be accepted just as they are, regardless of how dirty or damaged (“mud”) or scrubbed clean/sanitized (“bleach”) society views them.
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