I stopped running and started walking instead, last spring.
Diary 1 January 1987. Ran 5 miles--Bruce Townsend (out of shape) with me, very slow, to Old Salem Church.
A note lower on page: 12 June 1987. Learned ystdy that on 4 Feb 87 Bruce shot himself to death, down by the Brandywine.
In the summer of 1986 brown, healthy young Bruce, a bicycle rider who rented next door, helped me carry into the house a toilet I then installed. In the fall of 1986 I saw Bruce at one meeting but did not speak to him. On the first day of 1987 we emerged for a run at the same time, and went together. Bruce said he was not at all certain he could go without alcohol. I was fresh back from Vanity Fair in Manhattan, where consciences are always for sale, the fresher but cheaper ones in 1986 at the Deconstruction and the smaller New Historicist booths, the smokier ones, at give-away prices, at the old New Criticism booth. I told him I was not sure either, for Michael had stopped me on Fifth Avenue to ask who I had murdered. So I understood, and we sympathized with each other a bit, and I went back to work and learned to ask questions at meeting like what you do when, and did not get around to asking where Bruce was till June.
I hate it when young men die.
I hate it when young men die because their addictions are killing them and they can't bear the pain.
So every January first since 1987 I have run, and now walk, in memory of one young man I hardly knew, one who went one way while I went another, because I started asking questions. "Dell, what can you do when . . . .?"
Diary 1 January 1987. Ran 5 miles--Bruce Townsend (out of shape) with me, very slow, to Old Salem Church.
A note lower on page: 12 June 1987. Learned ystdy that on 4 Feb 87 Bruce shot himself to death, down by the Brandywine.
In the summer of 1986 brown, healthy young Bruce, a bicycle rider who rented next door, helped me carry into the house a toilet I then installed. In the fall of 1986 I saw Bruce at one meeting but did not speak to him. On the first day of 1987 we emerged for a run at the same time, and went together. Bruce said he was not at all certain he could go without alcohol. I was fresh back from Vanity Fair in Manhattan, where consciences are always for sale, the fresher but cheaper ones in 1986 at the Deconstruction and the smaller New Historicist booths, the smokier ones, at give-away prices, at the old New Criticism booth. I told him I was not sure either, for Michael had stopped me on Fifth Avenue to ask who I had murdered. So I understood, and we sympathized with each other a bit, and I went back to work and learned to ask questions at meeting like what you do when, and did not get around to asking where Bruce was till June.
I hate it when young men die.
I hate it when young men die because their addictions are killing them and they can't bear the pain.
So every January first since 1987 I have run, and now walk, in memory of one young man I hardly knew, one who went one way while I went another, because I started asking questions. "Dell, what can you do when . . . .?"
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