Two versions below, the 2nd needs inspection, and may be the best.
(1) Chapter 11: The Abyss and the Plow Horse: A Descent into Darkness and a Search for Truth
THE FOOLS (Poem written in Care Unit, 1984)
You know who we are, there is no need for our names
We may be outwardly different, but inside are the same
Vacationing on chemical trips, playing strange mind games
Perhaps striving for success, and its dubious fame
We remain graceless souls blended into life’s darkest mass
Affirming our uniqueness, though we remain stuck in the same class
As those parading around like winners, but appearing just like an ass
Steering clear of self-awareness, Oh our transparency of glass!
Spewing words of wisdom, but with only another dogs’ bark
Seeking to make a good life, but on life’s script leaving a shit mark
We may eventually see the light, but now life is always so dark.
Needing more purifying inner flames, while snuffing every divine spark
Hoping to someday blossom, yet we will never possess Love’s flower,
While swimming in intoxicating sweetness, and then drowning in the sour
Never realizing that, over life, we don’t hold any real lasting power
We avoid the dark reality of our lives, by living in a chemical tower.
We may bring up life’s rear, though we think that we should be first
We want all of the best, somebody else deserves the worst!
Our life should be more blessed, why on earth do we feel cursed?
Our dependency creates overblown bubbles, just waiting to be burst!
“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
It remains no mystery to me why many people choose continued addiction or suicide over recovery and healing. Invisible wounds are the hardest to heal and the easiest to stay in denial about their life-threatening potentials. Addiction is a dark, complex labyrinth that ensnares the soul, often clouding one’s vision of hope and recovery. This narrative is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the search for truth amidst chaos.
In the lore of equestrian miracles, there is the story of Harry deLeyer and a horse named Snowman. In 1956, deLeyer arrived at an auction late, looking for a cheap horse. The only ones left were the “rejects,” destined for the glue factory. He saw an old, grey plow horse, eyes dulled by labor and neglect, already loaded onto the slaughter truck. Something in the animal’s eyes spoke to him—a spark buried under layers of defeat. For eighty dollars, Harry bought him. He saw value where the world saw waste. He saw a champion where others saw a corpse.
My journey from 1986 through 1987 was the time container for my own descent into the furthest reaches of hell, where I became that plow horse on the truck. I was broken, destined for the slaughterhouse of my own making, with addiction and little will to live as my companions on a lonely, isolating journey. I was starting to see the end of my road, my out-of-control car crashing through safety guardrails, racing toward the finish line of a dead-end life. I knew my problems could not be solved on my level, and I knew of no other accessible levels. Residential treatment and psychiatric care had failed. I was waiting for the end.
But just as Harry deLeyer stepped in to pull Snowman off the truck, a figure named Steve stepped into my underworld. Steve became my Harry deLeyer. He saw a soul worth saving when I only saw a junkie worth discarding. He recognized the potential for a champion jumper hidden beneath the grime of a plow horse’s existence.
My descent into addiction began at a tender age. Starting with beer when I was just five years old, my occasional abuse of alcohol escalated to other substances by the time I started experimenting with drugs with Randy Olson in 1971. Randy was more than a dear friend; he was a catalyst in my life, introducing me to marijuana and to my first wife. Little did I know, this would be the beginning of a long, arduous struggle with substance abuse, and a tragic relationship with a woman who had incurable mental illness.
PAIN
Growing without roots, with a will that won’t bend,
Weathering life’s storms, which never seem to end.
No longer waiting for the sun that was once promised to arise,
How could truth’s light possibly shine in dimmed eyes?
Having reached with futility for all the high goals of life,
With no spiritual growth, while consumed by inner strife.
Devoid of healing affection, and a stranger to real love,
Unrealistic hope was what my failed dreams were all made of.
Despair meets each day, summer has now changed into fall,
Looking at life, I am totally disgusted by it all.
Dying of loneliness, and holding life by only a thread,
With me rotting inside, hopefully, I soon will be dead.
Pain,
Why?
Fast forward fifteen years. I started living with Randy in a Beaverton apartment in 1986 following a tumultuous relationship breakup with Alcindia. I had also just walked away from a lifetime guaranteed job with the US Postal Service the previous summer. I found myself spiraling deeper into an abyss. Alcohol and drugs were my constant companions, numbing the pain of failed relationships and shattered dreams. Despite securing a full-ride scholarship from the US Air Force and joining the ROTC my freshman year at college, my addiction, and a marriage to a woman who had a nervous breakdown, derailed my aspirations of becoming an Air Force pilot and astronaut. My potential was vast, but my lack of self-esteem was even greater. The Challenger explosion symbolized the obliteration of those dreams, leaving me in a state of despair.
January 28, 1986, marked a turning point. The Challenger explosion was not just a national tragedy; it was a personal one. It represented the destruction of my hopes. I was 30 years old and had made a promise to myself at 15 that if I couldn’t shake my addiction by this age, I would end my life. The “conspiracy of silence” I participated in kept my struggles hidden, but the pain became unbearable.
PAIN REVISITED
Though the dark cloud looms on the horizon, it is also hidden within myself.
It hovers in the distance, just beyond my reach, as it patiently waits my most vulnerable moment.
I then feel the initial mist from its clouds, I know that I am its target.
A piercing wind picks up, hugging me with its frozen arms, and I vainly look for protection
As the torrential downpour begins, I feel my tenuous sense of peace and safety eroding beneath my feet.
As it strips back, layer, upon layer, upon layer, upon layer, of my consciousness, exposing a bedrock bereft of sanity and hope.
Exposing long forgotten mental relics, threatening old, unhealed memories, and dangerous old habits,
Stinging, piercing, hurting me at my core, obscuring visions of glorious, yet impossibly distant futures,
Washing away all tenuously held possessions of sanity, and hope.
Uprooting the feeble foundation of a life desperately, but futilely, attempting to, yet again, reconstruct itself,
Carrying a powerless, helpless, desperate soul back into toxic chemical valleys, amid a dark, swirling depression,
Ravaging, drowning, then decaying.
Pain,
Why?
Despite my best efforts to secure the means for assisted suicide, an aware pharmacist refused to refill a prescription with deadly potential. I eventually obtained a refill from my psychiatrist, but the immediate urge had waned.
Instead, I carried the suicide drugs under my car seat, ready for the moment agony became unbearable. My 1977 Datsun 310 sedan became my home, my sanctuary, and my prison. For a year, I lived in this vehicle, squatting in unoccupied homes, distancing myself from family, and descending further into addiction.
The Underworld and The Search for Truth
My search for truth led me into Portland’s underworld. Despite my circumstances, I clung to the spiritual principles of AA, even while avoiding abstinence. I realized I needed to avoid sex and new relationships, and eventually, to quit smoking pot as it dulled the intellect I needed for survival. I committed to befriending those I once judged against—society’s undesirables. I was a dead man walking, a fellow traveler in darkness.
I met Ralph at the Punjab, a tavern on Foster Rd. Ralph was a damaged soul, the center of illegal activity, and through him, I met drug chemists, motorcycle gang members, hit men, and prostitutes. Ralph became one of my protectors, redirecting those who wished me harm because I didn’t fit in—too healthy-looking, too educated. My vocabulary betrayed me; I was once busted for using the word “magnanimous” at a bar where “nickel words” were the currency.
Ralph offered me Sarah, his girlfriend, but I kept things platonic. With Sarah, I visited friends in jail, including Jake, a hitman for a motorcycle gang. On the way to visit Jake, Sarah and I snorted designer meth. The stress and drugs caused me to lose my speech for two days—a physical manifestation of the conspiracy of silence I lived in. When we met Jake, I could only grunt and squawk.
Then there was Robert, a convicted armed robber recently released from prison. We met at the Punjab. He told me he killed a man during a robbery. When he went to the restroom and returned alone, his eyes had lost their luster. He slumped onto the bar, having shot heroin. The bartender, Jack, told me,
“Some people are just waiting for a better day. Today is not the better day for Robert.”
The heroin shut him down to his humanity, leaving me wondering if that was my fate, as well.
Steve: The Harry deLeyer of the Abyss
Amidst this cast of tragic characters was Steve. Unbeknownst to me initially, Steve (not his real name) was an undercover federal agent investigating police corruption and drug rings. Steve was intelligent, well-dressed, and carried a sense of mystery. He became the big brother I never had. He offered guidance and criticism, testing my resolve and pushing me toward my “search for truth.” He would use drugs with me, but in such small amounts, I wondered if they affected him. He criticized my excessive use, telling me I was abusing myself.
This is where the metaphor of the horse and the savior becomes tangible. Just as Harry deLeyer looked at Snowman and saw beyond the heavy plow collar and the matted grey coat, Steve looked at me—an emaciated, paranoid, drug-addled wreck living in a Datsun—and saw something worth preserving. He didn’t pull me out of the mud immediately; he walked into the mud with me. He tested me, exposing me to situations that required intervention, perhaps to see if my moral compass still functioned beneath the addiction.
Through Steve, I met Georgette, a 15-year-old runaway escaping abuse. She was being “groomed” by a gang of thieves and junkies. When I saw her innocence, my heart broke. I saw an opportunity to break her free. I whisked her away, drove her to a clinic for medical help, gave her some of my retirement money, and told her never to return to the streets. I saved her, perhaps because Steve was teaching me, unconsciously, how to save myself.
Later, a cassette tape appeared at the Punjab. It was a recording of my conversation with Georgette. I had been surveilled. The fear was palpable. I was the “Wild Card,” unpredictable, dangerous to the criminal element because I still possessed a conscience, and dangerous to the investigators because of my mental chaos..
My downward spiral accelerated. I formed a brief, intense connection with Barbara, an emotionally unavailable woman who discarded me like trash. On Halloween, I dressed as a pimp, and for the first time in my life, received a compliment on my appearance. My self-esteem soared for eight hours before collapsing back into ruins.
I flopped in a house off SE 37th street with a group of users. After watching The Wall, I became violently ill, seizing and convulsing. The group abandoned me, throwing a blanket over me as they left for a party. I lay there, feeling abandoned and betrayed, realizing loneliness has many brothers and sisters.
Greg, Georgette’s former handler, tried to recruit me into a fencing operation. He showed me a basement filled with stolen goods and a meth lab. He wanted a partner who didn’t like women, mistaking my celibacy for homosexuality. I realized then that my “search for truth” was leading me into a trap. I declined his offer, telling him I was leaving soon—to Spain, or to death.
My physical deterioration was rapid. Steve commented that I looked like an “AIDS Poster Boy.” I was emaciated, hearing voices, and paranoid. I knew undercover operations were active, and I warned others, despite not knowing how I knew. I tore my car apart looking for transmitters. I renamed myself “the Wild Card,” letting the world know I was aligned with no one but death.
I met Dorothy, a heroin user shadowed by her incarcerated lover, Jakob. She believed Jakob could astrally project from prison to dominate her. She told me, “Good people do not really exist, just fucked-up people who occasionally make helpful choices.” I saw the darkness in her and realized that if I stayed, my search for truth would end in a needle. I left, escaping the temptation of heroin for a moment longer.
But the abyss has gravity. I met Doctor Dave, who introduced me to intravenous drug use. The rush was incredible, a hastened path to death I sought frequently for the final two months.
In early March of 1987, a new leader named Frank organized a massive party at a house on Holgate. I was ready for my swan song. My mental health was, in my opinion, irreparably damaged, and my search for truth had seemingly failed. Frank invited me upstairs to try his “witches brew” of speed and heroin—a combination I had never tried. I had nothing to lose.
As I followed Frank, I spotted Steve talking to a healthy-looking woman. She called him by his real name. He saw that I heard.
The masquerade was over.
Steve took me aside. I told him I had suspected him all along and that his secret was safe. I told him my journey was ending; I was going upstairs to die, or if I survived, to use the pills under my seat.
This was the moment. The slaughter truck was idling. The ramp was down. I was the plow horse, exhausted, broken, ready to be turned into glue.
But Steve—my Harry deLeyer—grabbed my arm. He excused himself from his partner and took me to his car. We drove to my father’s house. He commanded me: “Bruce, I can no longer keep you protected and safe. Your search for truth has ended within my world. Now your real search for truth must begin, starting with your relationship with your father. I never want to see you again, but believe me, I am going to try to help you, any way I can. You deserve so much better of a life than you have given to yourself.”
He dropped me off. Later that evening, he and his partner drove my car to my dad’s house. The suicide pills were gone from under the seat.
Steve didn’t just buy the horse; he unhitched the plow. He saw the jumper within the nag. He intervened when I was seconds away from the final plunge.
The transition was not immediate. Randy Olson returned. On March 13, 1987, we drank an inordinate amount of booze. In a blackout, I took one of my father’s loaded guns and drove to the home of a drug associate, Brock. I awoke when the gun discharged, shooting a hole in his front door. Brock injected me with speed to wake me up.
Suddenly, clarity hit me. A light went on. I saw the utter insanity of the person I was with, and the insanity of my life. I stood up, laughed at the madness, and walked out. I had five dollars. I could buy beer and cigarettes, or gas to get to my grandparents. I chose the gas. I chose family.
My grandparents nursed me through detoxification. A week later, Craig Salter, a childhood friend, called out of the blue. He asked if I wanted to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I went. I figured since God was big in AA, and I was searching for TRUTH, there must be a relationship.
I attended over 270 meetings in my first 90 days. I had lost my job, my possessions, and nearly my life. But in those rooms, I found my first spiritual home. I was to find many new spiritual homes over the next several years.
Harry deLeyer took Snowman, the eighty-dollar plow horse, and washed him, fed him, and loved him. Two years later, Snowman won the Triple Crown of show jumping. He cleared obstacles no one thought possible. He became a legend not because of his pedigree, but because someone saw the truth inside him when he couldn’t see it himself.
Steve called me one year later in 1988 to see how I was doing. I was doing great beyond any reasonable person’s expectations. Steve saw the truth in me when I was blind with darkness. He removed the suicide pills. He steered me away from the final overdose. He returned me to the place where I could begin to heal. The search for truth didn’t end in the underworld; and it continued when I walked out of it. The plow horse was never just a plow horse. He was a creature of flight, waiting for the weight to be lifted so he could finally soar.
Yet, to truly transcend the abyss, I had to become more than the passive recipient of rescue. I had to become my own Harry deLeyer. I needed to look past the accumulated grime of my own history, gaze into the mirror of my soul, and recognize the champion hidden beneath the scars. I had to finally see myself as worthy of investing love and life force, transforming from a broken plow horse into a being capable of its own salvation.
I am now a creature of flight.
I am always on the lookout for the next flock preparing for flight.
(2) Chapter 11: The Abyss and the Plow Horse: A Descent into Darkness and a Search for Truth
THE FOOLS (Poem written in Care Unit, 1984)
You know who we are, there is no need for our names
We may be outwardly different, but inside are the same
Vacationing on chemical trips, playing strange mind games
Perhaps striving for success, and its dubious fame
We remain graceless souls blended into life’s darkest mass
Affirming our uniqueness, though we remain stuck in the same class
As those parading around like winners, but appearing just like an ass
Steering clear of self-awareness, Oh our transparency of glass!
Spewing words of wisdom, but with only another dogs’ bark
Seeking to make a good life, but on life’s script leaving a shit mark
We may eventually see the light, but now life is always so dark.
Needing more purifying inner flames, while snuffing every divine spark
Hoping to someday blossom, yet we will never possess Love’s flower,
While swimming in intoxicating sweetness, and then drowning in the sour
Never realizing that, over life, we don’t hold any real lasting power
We avoid the dark reality of our lives, by living in a chemical tower.
We may bring up life’s rear, though we think that we should be first
We want all of the best, somebody else deserves the worst!
Our life should be more blessed, why on earth do we feel cursed?
Our dependency creates overblown bubbles, just waiting to be burst!
“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Seeds of Silence
It remains no mystery to me why many people choose continued addiction or suicide over recovery and healing. Invisible wounds are the hardest to heal and the easiest to stay in denial about their life-threatening potentials. Addiction is a dark, complex labyrinth that ensnares the soul, often clouding one’s vision of hope and recovery. But labyrinths are built stone by stone, often long before the wanderer realizes they are lost. My own labyrinth began construction in the foundational years of my existence, built upon a bedrock of isolation and confusing love.
I entered this world as a source of distress in November of 1955, amidst nearly two feet of snow in Portland. A “crying baby” who refused to be soothed, I disrupted the sleep of a father working two jobs to keep us afloat. My parents, desperate for rest before Dad’s 2:30 AM paper route, would bundle me in blankets and leave me in the car in the garage. There, in the dark silence of the garage, I learned my first lesson: my distress resulted in isolation.
My father was a man of immense intellectual curiosity—a student of Psychology, Metaphysics, and the Philosophy of Mind at the University of Portland. He sought to understand the human condition, yet the demands of a hyper-busy life forced him to abandon his academic pursuit of truth. Ironically, I would later pick up his mantle, rebelling against spiritual authorities just as he might have, to finish the job he started. But as a child, I did not know him as a philosopher; I knew him as a force of nature, sometimes distant, sometimes terrifying.
My mother, my “great protector,” returned to work mere weeks after my birth to help pay off debts. Consequently, I was passed between babysitters, some of whom were cruel. One, Jo Stanley, allowed her teenage son to terrorize me. My mother, sensing my misery, pushed for me to start first grade at age five just to escape that childcare hell. But the escape only led to a new form of struggle.
School was a battlefield where I was ill-equipped. Mrs. Tozier, my first-grade teacher, labeled my talking to myself as a “problem.” I spent hours under the dunce cap, banished to the corner. The solution from the adults was chemical: a prescription for “hyperactivity” that was actually a placebo—sugar pills in a methedrine bottle. I miraculously improved, perhaps because the adults felt better believing they had “fixed” me.
My sister Pam and I navigated a childhood landscape that felt both idyllic and perilous. I remember waking up from nightmares—terrifying visions that plagued me nightly until I was eight years old. My parents would often leave us at home to sleep while they went out and joined with others late in the evening. I remember the parents’ car being gone when I needed them after a nightmare, and a familiar panic would set in. Abandonment was a specter that haunted the edges of my consciousness. Even when they were home, the nights were fraught with anxiety. I would lie awake replaying my day, analyzing every interaction to see where I could have been “better,” hoping that virtue by day would purchase safety from nightmares by night.
Violence was a language I learned abruptly. In third grade, a bullying incident initiated by my sister’s boyfriend left me beaten and humiliated by a younger boy. But as he pulled my hair and ears, a surge of primal energy took over. I fought back, mimicking his violence until I won. I learned then that the world was unsafe, boys were untrustworthy, and vulnerability was dangerous. I retreated to the company of girls, seeking safety in their non-violent games, unconsciously seeking the maternal protection I associated with my mother.
And oh, how I needed protection. My father’s discipline was swift and severe. The image of my mother crying hysterically as my father raised his belt remains a “marker memory” of my trauma. I was always guilty, always wrong. If I denied it, I was lying; if I admitted it, I was punished. There was no mercy. One Christmas, I dismantled a broken toy gun to understand how it worked—a metaphor for my future life’s work of deconstructing the human experience—only to be whipped in front of a friend for “destroying” it. The shame was a physical weight.
Yet, I loved him. He instilled in me a deep love for dogs, creatures that became my steadfast friends when humans failed me. My dog Nina, killed by a car, and later Heidi, a beautiful Samoyed, taught me the miraculous power of unconditional love. But even that love was fraught with loss.
I grew up feeling like a “sinner” who didn’t fit the mold. Sunday school stories of Jesus dying for my sins felt irrelevant and harsh. I rejected their vague promises, just as I rejected the competitive nature of school where love felt conditional on grades. I stole from my father’s wallet to buy candy, acting out in a desperate bid for attention, negative or otherwise. I became a bully myself at times, oppressing girls with ridicule, projecting my own shame onto them—a cycle of trauma I would only recognize and apologize for decades later.
My descent into substance abuse wasn’t a sudden fall; it was a slow erosion. It began at age five with sips of beer, escalating as I sought to numb the hyper-vigilance I had developed. By 1971, my friend Randy Olson introduced me to marijuana, and subsequently, to a relationship with a woman suffering from incurable mental illness.
PAIN
Growing without roots, with a will that won’t bend,
Weathering life’s storms, which never seem to end.
No longer waiting for the sun that was once promised to arise,
How could truth’s light possibly shine in dimmed eyes?
Having reached with futility for all the high goals of life,
With no spiritual growth, while consumed by inner strife.
Devoid of healing affection, and a stranger to real love,
Unrealistic hope was what my failed dreams were all made of.
Despair meets each day, summer has now changed into fall,
Looking at life, I am totally disgusted by it all.
Dying of loneliness, and holding life by only a thread,
With me rotting inside, hopefully, I soon will be dead.
Pain,
Why?
The Crash
Fast forward fifteen years to 1986. I found myself living with Randy again in a Beaverton apartment, following a tumultuous breakup. I had walked away from a guaranteed job with the US Postal Service, spiraling deeper into the abyss. Alcohol and drugs were no longer recreational; they were necessary anesthetics for the pain of shattered dreams.
I had once secured a full-ride scholarship from the US Air Force, joining the ROTC with dreams of becoming a pilot and astronaut. My potential was vast, but my self-esteem—eroded by years of criticism and shame—was non-existent. My addiction and a marriage to a woman who suffered a nervous breakdown derailed those aspirations. Donelle Mae Flick Paullin, the most beautiful woman I had ever met, suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Our life together was a rollercoaster of her breakdowns and my enabling addiction. I went from being a potential astronaut to a guilt-ridden caregiver, and eventually, a broken man who walked away to save his own sanity, only to find he had none left.
When the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986, it wasn’t just a national tragedy; it was the external manifestation of my internal reality. I woke up on Randy’s couch to his screams about the explosion. Watching that disaster, I realized my life was also over. My dreams, too, had disintegrated in a plume of smoke.
I was 30 years old. I had made a pact with myself at age 15: if I couldn’t shake my addiction by 30, I would end my life. The “conspiracy of silence” I participated in kept my struggles hidden, but the pain was screaming.
PAIN REVISITED
Though the dark cloud looms on the horizon, it is also hidden within myself.
It hovers in the distance, just beyond my reach, as it patiently waits my most vulnerable moment.
I then feel the initial mist from its clouds, I know that I am its target.
A piercing wind picks up, hugging me with its frozen arms, and I vainly look for protection
As the torrential downpour begins, I feel my tenuous sense of peace and safety eroding beneath my feet.
As it strips back, layer, upon layer, upon layer, upon layer, of my consciousness, exposing a bedrock bereft of sanity and hope.
Exposing long forgotten mental relics, threatening old, unhealed memories, and dangerous old habits,
Stinging, piercing, hurting me at my core, obscuring visions of glorious, yet impossibly distant futures,
Washing away all tenuously held possessions of sanity, and hope.
Uprooting the feeble foundation of a life desperately, but futilely, attempting to, yet again, reconstruct itself,
Carrying a powerless, helpless, desperate soul back into toxic chemical valleys, amid a dark, swirling depression,
Ravaging, drowning, then decaying.
Pain,
Why?
I went to the pharmacist with prescriptions for antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication, intending to swallow them all. An aware pharmacist refused to fill them. I eventually secured a refill from my psychiatrist, Dr. Dan Beavers, but only after promising I wouldn’t kill myself—a promise I made with no intention of keeping. I placed those pills under the front seat of my 1977 Datsun 310 sedan. They became my constant exit strategy, waiting for the moment the agony became unbearable.
My car became my home, sanctuary, and prison. I squatted in unoccupied homes, distanced myself from my family, and let the current of addiction pull me into the underworld. I called my old friend Sean Tucker in Spain, telling him I had a fatal brain tumor—a lie to cover the truth of my suicidal intent. I filed for bankruptcy on my 31st birthday, severing financial ties just as I planned to sever my mortal ones.
The Underworld and The Search for Truth
My search for truth, distorted by chemicals and despair, led me into the darkest corners of Portland. I clung to the spiritual principles of AA like a drowning man clutching a piece of driftwood, even while I refused to stop drinking. I realized I needed to avoid sex and new relationships to survive, a faint echo of the boundaries I lacked as a child.
I frequented the Punjab, a tavern on Foster Road, where I met Ralph. Through him, I was introduced to a cast of characters that seemed pulled from a noir nightmare: drug chemists, hitmen, and prostitutes. I was a “dead man walking,” an anomaly in their world—too educated, too articulate. I was once nearly beaten for using the word “magnanimous.” My vocabulary, a remnant of my father’s intellectual legacy, was a liability here.
I met Robert, a convicted armed robber who had killed a man. I watched the light leave his eyes after he shot heroin in the bathroom. The bartender told me, “Some people are just waiting for a better day. Today is not the better day for Robert.” I wondered if a better day would ever come for me, or if I was destined to share Robert’s numb, gray fate.
I crashed my car near the Elderberry Inn while drunk, nearly going over a cliff. I rammed another car in North Plains. I was careening out of control, a hazard to myself and everyone around me. My retirement money from the Postal Service, cashed out in desperation, fueled my descent into the city’s dark underbelly. I connected with all manners of damaged and dangerous people, seeking a truth I couldn’t name in places it could never be found.
Steve: The Harry deLeyer of the Abyss
In the lore of equestrian miracles, there is the story of Harry deLeyer and a horse named Snowman. In 1956, deLeyer arrived at an auction late, looking for a cheap horse. The only ones left were the “rejects,” destined for the glue factory. He saw an old, grey plow horse, eyes dulled by labor and neglect, already loaded onto the slaughter truck. Something in the animal’s eyes spoke to him—a spark buried under layers of defeat. For eighty dollars, Harry bought him. He saw value where the world saw waste. He saw a champion where others saw a corpse.
My journey from 1986 through 1987 was the time container for my own descent into the furthest reaches of hell, where I became that plow horse on the truck. I was broken, destined for the slaughterhouse of my own making. But just as Harry deLeyer stepped in to pull Snowman off the truck, a figure named Steve stepped into my underworld.
Steve became my Harry deLeyer. Unknown to me initially, Steve (not his real name) was an undercover federal agent. He was intelligent, well-dressed, and carried a sense of mystery. He became the big brother I never had—a stark contrast to the aggressive male energy I had feared in my youth. He criticized my abuse, pushed me toward my “search for truth,” and tested my resolve.
He didn’t pull me out of the mud immediately; he walked into the mud with me. Through Steve, I met Georgette, a 15-year-old runaway being groomed by thieves. Seeing her innocence—perhaps seeing the vulnerable child I once was—broke my heart. I used my retirement money to save her, sending her away to safety. In saving her, I was unconsciously learning how to save myself.
But the darkness fought back. I was surveilled. Paranoia set in. I became “the Wild Card,” unpredictable and dangerous because I still possessed a conscience. My physical deterioration was rapid; Steve noted I looked like an “AIDS Poster Boy.” I was emaciated, hearing voices, tearing my car apart looking for bugs.
I met Dorothy, a heroin user who believed her incarcerated lover could astrally project to control her. She told me, “Good people do not really exist, just fucked-up people who occasionally make helpful choices.” Her cynicism mirrored my own, but I saw where it led—to the needle. I fled, escaping the finality of heroin for a moment longer.
But gravity is relentless. Dr. Dave introduced me to intravenous drug use, and the rush hastened my path to death. By March 1987, at a massive party organized by a dealer named Frank, I was ready for my swan song. I agreed to try a “witches brew” of speed and heroin. I had nothing to lose.
As I followed Frank upstairs to die, I spotted Steve. He was talking to a woman who used his real name. The masquerade was over.
Steve pulled me aside. I told him I knew. I told him I was going upstairs to die. The slaughter truck was idling. The ramp was down. I was the plow horse, exhausted, broken, ready to be turned into glue.
But Steve grabbed my arm. He drove me to my father’s house—the house of the man whose discipline I had feared, but whose love I still craved. He said, “Bruce, I can no longer keep you protected. Your search for truth has ended within my world. Now your real search for truth must begin, starting with your relationship with your father… You deserve so much better of a life than you have given to yourself.”
He dropped me off. Later, he returned my car. The suicide pills were gone.
Steve didn’t just buy the horse; he unhitched the plow. He saw the jumper within the nag. He intervened when I was seconds away from the final plunge.
The transition was not immediate. Relapse occurred. I shot a hole in a drug associate’s door in a blackout. But in that violence, clarity struck. I saw the insanity. I walked out with five dollars and a choice: beer or gas to get to family. I chose family.
My grandparents—the safe harbor of my childhood—nursed me through detox. A week later, a childhood friend invited me to Alcoholics Anonymous. I went. I figured since God was big in AA, and I was searching for TRUTH, there must be a relationship.
Harry deLeyer took Snowman, the eighty-dollar plow horse, and washed him, fed him, and loved him. Two years later, Snowman won the Triple Crown of show jumping. He cleared obstacles no one thought possible. He became a legend not because of his pedigree, but because someone saw the truth inside him when he couldn’t see it himself.
Steve saw the truth in me when I was blind with darkness. He removed the suicide pills. He steered me away from the final overdose. He returned me to the place where I could begin to heal. The search for truth didn’t end in the underworld; it began when I walked out of it. The plow horse was never just a plow horse. He was a creature of flight, waiting for the weight to be lifted so he could finally soar.
Yet, to truly transcend the abyss, I had to become more than the passive recipient of rescue. I had to become my own Harry deLeyer. I needed to look past the accumulated grime of my own history, gaze into the mirror of my soul, and recognize the champion hidden beneath the scars. I had to finally see myself as worthy of investing love and life force, transforming from a broken plow horse into a being capable of its own salvation.
I am now a creature of flight.
I am always on the lookout for the next flock preparing for flight.
