Scary Boy Story: I Escape With My Life
Read the first chapter of the true-life story that inspired Scott Zuniga's first studio song release in a decade: "Every Day I Escape You."
Every Day I Escape You - Chapter 1: I Escape With My Life
This is chapter one of the true-life story that inspired my song “Every Day I Escape You.” A new chapter will be released every month. Become a paid subscriber to get early access.
For the full experience, listen to “Every Day I Escape You” as you Read:
I Escape With My Life
—
I’m alone, drifting in the icy waters of the North Atlantic Ocean.
A chip off the old iceberg.
My skin, bumpy-red like a crab, feels nothing. If you see me, there’s no sign of life, no breath.
My pain sensors are two thousand miles away in Texas, where my small business teeters on the brink of collapse.
"When will you give up on the business?" my wife once asked after a difficult week. She sees the pain I’m in.
"When I die," I reply coldly and resolute. I know the answer scares her, but I froze my music endeavors indefinitely for this. If it fails, I fail.
I must captain the ship. Sink with it if necessary.
Now, I am sinking.
How did I get here?
—
After my first album, I was making progress toward a sustainable music career, but it wasn’t happening fast enough. With our new son on the way, my wife chose to leave her university position to focus on motherhood. Our income now relied solely on my success.
Selling security systems door-to-door gave me stability. It was a college summer job that turned into a steady current of cash, letting me surface for music when I needed to. But as the tides of fatherhood approached, I thought, “Why not start my own business?” It’s more respectable than going door-to-door, plus I’d be my own boss, keep more of the pie, and I could still grow my music career on the side.
Naïve in retrospect.
Business ownership is a jealous beast, it doesn’t let you just “do another business on the side.”
—
Big Star Security was named as an homage to the 70s rock band from Memphis and as a way to promote the company as a hub for local musicians who needed a day job. Employees included a rock drummer, a goth-band multi-instrumentalist, a videographer, a singer-songwriter, myself, and a whole slew of amazing, non-artsy folks. In music-friendly Austin, TX, the marketing worked.
Sales surged, and so did the business. I was doing it all: selling, managing, installing—building my future with sweat equity. Like the hero of a Bruce Springsteen video, it was an American dream story. I worked daily from 7 AM until midnight, no weekends, few holidays, and saw my family very little. I was selling my time now to buy it all back in the future.
On some nameless day that I can’t remember, I packed all my music gear into a closet and slid my guitars under the bed to make space for business supplies. My gamble was paying off, and I told myself I would return to making music once everything was running itself.
—
A few months later, a technician I’ve been working with tells me his wife was exposed to the new virus everyone is talking about. He quits to isolate with his family. The next day, all my installers quit, opting for the new Federal Pandemic Unemployment benefits.
Our pediatrician warns us about our son’s asthma and its susceptibility to the virus. To play it safe, I quarantine in my bedroom for two weeks, running operations from home and talking to my wife and son through the window while they play in the backyard. They leave each meal at my door with a knock, home-prison-style.
The business can’t handle the lockdown. Employees bail and bills pile up. In the end, I don’t have Covid, but even a negative diagnosis has financial side effects that I struggle to recover from.
—
During the pandemic, security companies are deemed “essential,” allowing us to bypass shelter-in-place rules and keep working. I face a harrowing choice: install the few remaining sales myself to keep the business afloat or file for bankruptcy and let it drown.
The weight of this decision is crushing. If I abandon the business, everything I've sacrificed will be for nothing. If I continue, I risk exposing myself to the virus. My family’s future hangs in the balance either way.
I make my mind up fast—real captains don’t jump ship!
I return to work despite the high risk, while my wife and son move to Utah to quarantine in my parents’ basement. The thought of being separated from them stings, but the CDC says we’ll have a cure by the fall. A couple of months isn’t so bad.
Thus commences my year of solitude, a year that tests my resolve and forces me to confront the true cost of my ambitions.
—
I am a one-man band again, wearing all the hats, and coming home to an empty house every night.
Exhausted, I sit on the stairs in silence for hours, wondering, "What am I doing?" The silence is deafening, filled with the echoes of a life I once had: the house concerts, the first day home after our son’s birth, the birthday parties and holidays.
I’m a ghost in my own home, haunting my own existence. Each night, I fade into bed and rise again at dawn to replay the same day in silence. The days blur together, each indistinguishable from the last, a monotonous loop of solitude.
In winter, I don’t turn the heat on. I like seeing my breath indoors—it reminds me I’m alive.
—
One year on, the business outlook hasn’t improved. I’m still treading water.
In the thick of it, my mom announces she wants a vacation with her four adult sons to celebrate her retirement as a school teacher. The destination: Scotland-esque Bar Harbor, Maine.
On a chilly May day at Sand Beach in Acadia National Park on the North Atlantic coast my brother Stuart strips to his skivvies and challenges us all to get in.
“You’re daft Stuart!” my mom laughs, knowing we’ll do it. Seconds later, her half-naked lads are sprinting towards the icy ocean.
But the cold tells the truth, and my brothers retreat as soon as their feet hit the water.
I know if I think about it, I’ll do the same. So I jump headfirst into the waves and keep swimming.
As a subconscious defense mechanism from the cold, my mind turns to thoughts of greater pain: I’m behind on taxes, invoices, proposals, overdrafts, and demanding customers calling in the night—it is all too much. Living alone with these financial burdens and the weight of needing to succeed is unbearable.
I miss my son so much.
Where did I go wrong? Why did I need to be the boss? Why didn’t I just keep working for someone else? Is it ego? ADHD?
Where did this relentless drive for “success at all cost” come from?
Nothing makes sense.
In refusing to settle for less, I settled for nothing. A year without my family that I will never get back. Ignoring the present in hope of a future I can’t touch.
—
Before I know it, I am drifting too far. The shore is shrinking. I can’t feel my legs. The shock of the cold finally hits me, burning like bee stings. Dizzy and gassed, my heart starts racing, the acid in my eyes stinging them shut, my windpipes stopping air to make room for what is about to come out.
Then, from somewhere deep inside, older than I can remember, a primal cry erupts from me. It’s an emotional exorcism unlike anything my body has ever experienced, at least not since birth. It must be terrifying to witness: a blood-curdling roar from a grown man, followed by raw, guttural sobs. In that moment, I become a fountain of catharsis in the ocean, a geyser like none other.
The vastness allows me to expose my deepest vulnerability. No expectations, no judgments—just me, stripped bare to my core. All the fear, pressure, and anger I've been holding inside rise to the surface, escaping through my eyes, nose, and mouth, so the water can wash them away.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, I calm, drifting quietly in the water. The echoes of my lamentation fade, and the world around me grows silent.
Gradually, I come to my senses. My body acclimates; the cold no longer hurts. I let myself float quietly, watching my breath as it leaves me and returns to the air I took it from; it reminds me I’m alive.
Somehow, in the most dangerous place I've ever been, I feel completely safe.
—
I’m unaware of the emotional, mental and spiritual storms that await me in the coming year, but in that moment, the bone-chilling water pushes the fog from my eyes and gives me clarity: it is time to abandon ship.
I need to get back to shore, sell my business, and bring my family home.
I felt that cathartic scream.