It remains no mystery to me as to 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. I was starting to see the end of my own road, with my out-of-control car crashing through all of the safety guardrails and continuing the race towards the finish line of my dead-end life.  I knew that my problems could not be solved, at least not on my level, and I knew of no other levels that were accessible, or available to me.  The time period of January of 1986, through March of 1987, was to become the time container for my descent into the furthest reaches of hell and darkness.

I moved back in with Randy in December of 1985, after ending my relationship with Alcindia in a rather dramatic fashion,  and I continued to stay with him until March of 1986. He had relocated into a smaller apartment in Beaverton, from the apartment that we had shared in 1984, after my divorce from my first wife, Donelle.  (note:  at this point, Donelle, though still quite mentally ill,  was no longer living on the streets of Portland as a homeless person).  On January 26th, 1986, after yet another night of fighting depression with the hops and yeast antidepressants, I woke up upon Randy’s living room couch at 8:45am, with him emerging from his bedroom, screaming to my clouded mind:

“BRUCE, WAKE UP AND TURN ON THE TV!! THE CHALLENGER JUST EXPLODED!!!”

After watching that horrific event over and over, I had the crushing realization that my life was also over. Of course, to me, the explosion of the Challenger represented the final destruction of my childhood dreams of becoming a US Air Force pilot, and, ultimately, a NASA Astronaut. I saw mirrored in the Challenger disaster the total destruction of all of my hopes of realizing my life’s potential, and I made the decision right then and there to end it all, and fulfill a 15 year pledge that I had made to myself when I was just 15 years old. I had known since then that I was a hopeless alcoholic and drug addict, and if I could not shake the disease by age 30 (and if the disease itself had not already killed me) I would take matters into my own hands. I just held on as best that I could for the intervening years, and I tried my best to adapt to my self-destructive life situation. I never told another soul of my self-imposed 15 year “pull date”, should I fail at sobering up.

I only needed to refill a prescription for some antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication that I already had secured from Dr. Dan Beavers, a psychiatrist that I had been seeing since 1985, and I was going to take them all at once, and call it a life. I went to the pharmacist, with the intention of seeing the deed completed immediately.  While standing in line,  I was to see Mike L. who also was at the same Fred Meyer pharmacy.  Mike was Alcindia’s sister’s friend, who I had known through a few parties organized by Alcindia, and I started to share the smallest part of my story with him.  He immediately shut me down, stating that he had no time for other people’s problems, which reaffirmed my understanding of the other people’s tendencies towards indifference to each other..

The pharmacist would not fill the prescriptions, however, even though I had one refill left on each one, and he told me that I needed to see the shrink again.  I was not to be deterred. I  scheduled an emergency visit to my psychiatrist for that afternoon.  He perceived what might be happening within me, and he elicited a promise from me that I would not kill myself with the medication. Dr. Dan had just had another patient, Scott M. kill himself using the same medication that I had prescribed to me, and Dan was still grieving mightily, and could not tolerate another such event from a patient of his. So, he got the empty promise from me that I would not commit suicide.   I immediately placed those pills under the front seat of my car, for easy access and immediate use, should the conditions of my life prove that it needed immediate termination.   I never intended to take those pills as prescribed, instead telling myself that unless I found a reason to live, that I was leaving this planet, without a rocket ship.  Thus, began my official “search for truth”.

The look of a new death experience.

JANUARY 1986 PASSPORT – How I looked near the day of my planned death

I called my old friend, Sean, who was still stationed in Madrid, Spain for the US Air Force.  I was still suicidal, and told him that I had a fatal brain tumor, and that I was going to die soon.  He offered for me to stay with him in Madrid for a while.  The thought of a geographic change brought a little hope to me, so I secured my passport, and applied for my pension from the US Postal Service.  I was going to take that money, and use it for airfare and support to get me to Spain.

I also filed for unemployment benefits, to help with my immediate income needs. I filed for bankruptcy, as I had no intention of meeting my financial obligations, which were immense.  I had student loans, credit card debts, credit union loan debts, personal debts to my father, and other debts that totaled close to forty thousand dollars.  I wanted the slate to be clear by the time I was gone, and bankruptcy seemed like the right process to engage in. The bankruptcy was to eventually become official on the exact day of my thirty-first birthday, November 20, 1986, the final day of the expiration year that I had long ago accepted to be my own.

“No thanks, this is where I take my leave!”

I announced in a rather angry tone of voice.  I grabbed my overnight bag, and headed towards home, even though I was drunk, almost to the point of being in a blackout.  Somewhere along Highway 26, beyond the Elderberry Inn, I crashed my car into a guard rail, nearly going over a cliff in the process.  I could not get out of the driver’s side door, it was so crashed in.  I quickly got the car back onto the road, in my attempt to get home before any more trouble befell me.  When I finally reached North Plains, I fell asleep at the wheel again, stepped on the accelerator, and rammed into the back of another car at freeway speeds.  We both pulled over, and I was able to bribe the owner of the car not to call the police, since I was DRUNK, by writing him a check for $471, which was every last penny that I had in my checking account.  My car was totaled, but somehow I was able to make it home, miraculously escaping death or a DUI citation.

Di DI called me a month later, wanting to talk, and wanting a copy of the love poem that I had given her two years before.  When we met, she told me that the poem was the most beautiful gift that anybody had ever given her, and that she was sorry that she did not find the spot in her life for me.  We both cried, and parted company on rather sad terms.  We were never to see each other again.  She died one year later, when she was killed in a drunken driving related automobile wreck in Lake Oswego.

I was to receive the retirement money by the end of March.  By this time, my immersion into the Portland underworld was about to get underway.  I felt under incredible obligation to repay my father what I owed to him, which was nearly $3,000.  I no longer had enough money to give me sufficient support for a final trip to Spain, so I was stuck at home.  I then began to travel the darkest, most desperate roads that our city had to offer.  I needed every bit of my retirement money from working at the US Postal Service, where I had worked for close to ten years.  This money supported me as I wandered through the city’s dark underbelly.  I lived out of my 1977 Datsun 310, when I was not crashing in abandoned or empty homes with other homeless people,  while connecting with all manners and types of damaged, and dangerous, people..

It is a funny thing, I was nearly dead, or so I thought, so I had little fear as I met new people and befriended them. Most were people who I never would have associated with in my more ordered past, but in this phase of my life,  I did have a strong curiosity to get to know those who I would have avoided in the past. My only intention was to find the truth of living and of being , IF THERE WAS SUCH A THING, and I intuited that the Truth might be hidden somewhere in this darkness and unknown.   I engaged will all types of individuals, and I had conversations with them about what life meant to them, and what they felt about God, Good, Evil, Darkness, Light, and human relationships.

I carried my suicide drugs under my car seat, so that when the pain got too real again, I would make my departure from my world of little or no meaning, no peace of mind, and extreme personal suffering. My Datsun sedan was to become my main home for the next year, having eschewed all associations with family, and friends from my past.  This vehicle served me well.

I then began to undertake my own unique journey, which took me into Portland’s underworld community of drug manufacturing and distribution, homelessness, witnessing of crimes against self and other, associating with and befriending homeless teenage victims of sexual predators and child abuse, friendships with members of motorcycle gangs and their hit men, felons, murderers, and undercover federal agents, some of whom were still investigating the criminal tentacles remaining from the Stephen Kessler, Wayne Harsh era when in 1982 a prison guard was murdered during the famous prison escape from Rocky Butte Jail, and, also, when DEA records were stolen from a federal facility by the same, infamous, Stephen Kessler..

I ran with my new “friends”, and my only intention was to be the best person that I could be, while living out the final moments, days, or weeks of my life. My intention was to bring harm to no one, and to practice the 12 steps of AA, even while still avoiding recovery from drug addiction and alcoholism, which I had totally given up on ever successfully completing. My AA book, which I carried in my car wherever I went, would later come in handy, but not in the way Bill Wilson, the originator of AA, ever had in mind when he co-wrote it..

My first “realization” was that I needed to avoid sex. I committed to no new relationships with women, including no sexual encounters (pretty easy decision for me, as I was so beat up by my history of misadventures with women over the previous 14 years).

My second “realization” was that I could no longer smoke pot, because it made me feel paranoid, and wanting to keep isolated, and in my need to find ‘truth”, those characteristics were counterproductive. Pot also dulled my emotions, intellect, resourcefulness, and curiosity, and I needed those qualities of being to survive in my new world, with all of the new people who I was to associate with. I made a commitment to hang with the type of people who, in the past, I never would have befriended. The way I saw it, the people who I had judged against may well have had some of the answers that I was searching for. In my mind, I was already a dead man walking, so past fear of society’s undesirables receded into the background, and I now considered myself a fellow traveler in darkness.

I met well over a hundred new acquaintances over the next year. I spent hundreds of hours in conversations with all manners and types of emotionally disfigured human beings, the same human beings, that while living my life of “white middle class privilege”, I never would have associated with. Yet in my “final journey through life”, these oppressed, maligned, and misrepresented human beings became my best, and only friends. I was to later realize that the same spiritual disease that afflicted my underworld friends also terrorized my privileged white middle class friends, only the privileged had better ways to mask their disease from themselves and others.

Methedrine, crank, speed, go-juice, or one of any number of other street names of the same street stimulant became my primary drug of choice, as it made me feel “social”, connected and conversational with all others. I would not sleep for up to one week at a time, while running with my peer group. The Punjab tavern on Foster Road became my main hub or center for social contact with many of the social branches of the tree of death that I was now climbing. Many a night, and after hours’ parties, were spent with a revolving group of my new friends there, with a main core group of people who had mutual interests.

I don’t know how to tell the rest of this phase of the story, except for inserting a series of “vignettes”, where I am able to document and describe some of my major interactions with others. The following descriptions will, once again, appear fragmented and incomplete, which is a great descriptor for my life during this same period of time.

I will begin my story of the underworld with Ralph. Ralph was from Scappoose, Oregon, or so he said. He was the center point for much underworld activity, and I quickly became his friend, and driver, through many underworld adventures. Through him I met drug chemists, motorcycle gang members, hit men, armed robbers, practicing felons in possession of firearms, prostitutes, homeless victims of child abuse, heroin addicts, and Steve (not his real name), who was an undercover federal agent, and who would figure strongly in my future release from personal HELL. Steve deserves a story devoted all to his self, as he saved my life when I stood at the final brink, early in March of 1987.

I learned to really love Ralph, who was an incredibly damaged soul, and his excessive drug use would sometimes cause concern for me. I noticed that paranoia was creeping into his mind, and we would joke about it, but he became my first living example of the damage that excess meth use causes. He was one of my “protectors” in the underworld, and would redirect others who were tempted to bring harm to me, because I did not fit in too well at times with Portland’s dark underbelly, being too healthy looking, too educated, and too well spoken. My appearance would quickly change, however, as I lost 70 pounds, receding to 136 pounds by November. My big vocabulary betrayed me on several occasions, and I was counseled to use smaller words wherever possible. One time I was “busted” for using the word “magnanimous” while sitting at the bar, and I was told that people who use “quarter words” where a “nickel word” is enough were not welcome there.

One quick little story about Ralph before I leave him for now. Once, I had all four tires of my car slashed while parked overnight for a party with Ralph and his minions. Ralph put the word out on the streets that this was unacceptable behavior, and whoever did the deed would answer to him personally, and to lay off of that car. I felt strangely safe, and protected, while with Ralph, even though there were continue threats against my safety and well-being. While jacking up my car for tire replacements, I had to use my AA book to help with extra elevation, which attracted some strange looks from those who already thought that I was a stranger in this strange land. Hey, I had finally found a constructive use for the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I actually felt a little pleased with myself. Ralph told me to “ditch that evil book”, and I kept it hidden from all sight from that point on, though to this day, I still own that very same book.

In his appreciation for me, Ralph also offered to me Sarah, his long-term girlfriend, who he had an “open relationship” with. But I had already eschewed all connections with women, other than platonic ones, because I feared that they would distract me from achieving my goal of either killing myself, or finding some new truth that would sustain my will to carry on. But I did share many adventures with Sarah.

While hanging out with Sarah, we would occasionally visit incarcerated friends at the local jails. One day, she decided that we needed to visit Jake, who was being held in Clackamas County Jail until his transfer was completed to a federal penitentiary. I knew Jake on the outside, and he was always so kind and friendly towards me. I wanted so much to express my sorrow at his long-term imprisonment. It was on the way there that I learned that our “friend” was a “hit man” for a regional motorcycle gang that distributed drugs, and one ”hit” went horribly wrong for him, apparently.

Sarah and I snorted some of the latest designer meth creations from our favorite local chemist just before arriving at the jail. It was just after that I had either a stroke, a prolonged seizure, or I was struck dumb, and speechless, for two full days, perhaps by the realization of the potential danger that I was in. When we met Jake at the reception area for the jail, all that would come out of my mouth were awkward grunts and squawks. Yes, the stress created by the meeting, coupled with the drug interactions, probably caused my loss of the ability to speak, thus contributing to the “conspiracy of silence” that my own drug use and addiction enabled.

I cannot comment at length on Wayne Harsh (this is his real name) right now, as it would be inappropriate.  I met Wayne one day while with Sarah, and he actually seemed to remember me from our childhood.  The last time that I had seen Wayne was in the late 1970″s, when he was a Clackamas County Sheriff.  I had seen him driving his police car, and I had thought, at the time, what a great coup it was for him to become a sheriff, based upon my limited understanding of who he was as a person.  He and my childhood neighbor Jack Brownlee actually took a chainsaw to one of the fir trees supporting my tree house, causing it to fall in the woods.  This was the same tree that I had fallen out of when I was in fifth grade, while waving to Jack’s younger sister, Marcia, who I could see in the next cul-de-sac from my elevated vantage point.  Wayne and I  talked briefly, yet I was not to befriend him under these conditions.  I wish Wayne nothing but the best, and I remain unconvinced that he is the “bad person” that the press made him out to be, for supplying the getaway car to Stephen Kessler..

Hal was a tall, lanky fellow, who wore black rim glasses. He had always seemed to have a cigarette going, which was common with the crowd that I was now running with. Hal was the alternate transportation for Ralph, when I was unavailable. Hal lived in downtown Portland, near the Scientology office. We became friends for a while, and spent a lot of time processing information together about the insane people and situations that we were experiencing while hanging with Ralph and Sarah. There was never a dull moment, that was for sure.

Hal was from a devout Catholic family background. His family was economically disadvantaged (POOR), and Hal had to work even while in high school to help his mother make ends meet financially. He had taken four years of college, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in forestry, and he was no dummy, that was for sure. He had a strong work ethic, when he was employable, but now he was suffering from the after effects of some sort of emotional breakdown. To support his income stream, he peddled speed at some of the local strip bars and taverns. It was a high risk proposition, as he had to make exchanges with some really damaged people, as well as potential exposure to informants and snitches.

He tried to present a happy face, though whenever I saw him. I felt a strange, sad feeling. One time, while visiting him at his home, I saw a copy of his college degree from Oregon State University. His photograph was next to it, and it was only from six years previous. yet, he looked twenty-five years older now. I was a little surprised that I could feel my own heartbreak around the loss of human potential for somebody else, yet not even feel it for myself.

From time to time, we would get involved in discussions about religion, philosophy, psychology, and society, in between snorting lines of our latest shipments. He was the best person for animated discussions, which were accentuated by the stimulants that we liberally used together. Hal loved to make extensive commentary about the Pope, or about the state of American Catholicism. I would usually just listen to him after he got all “fired up” because I just did not share the same sense of oppression that he experienced because of his religion while he was growing up. I certainly was oppressed, no doubt, but at this point I did not have a really good clue as to why I felt that way.

He would always end his religious take downs by stating, unequivocally, that heaven and hell are right here on earth, nobody has to die to get there. Just look around, he would say, the evidence is obvious.

“I carry heaven and hell in my own mind, Bruce. I don’t need the Church to tell me how to feel, behave, or believe, for they just add more layers of hell for me to sort through to find my own little piece of heaven”.

“Hal, I don’t really follow the Christian religion, or Catholicism too much. I only know that I carry more than a nodding familiarity with Hell. Since I do not experience anything resembling heaven on earth, I guess that is why the church people hope that it exists after we die, because we sure aren’t drinking from its fountains right now!”

“Bruce, there was a time when I occasionally knew peace of mind, and that is when I first knew that I did not need any God, any Jesus and his crucifix, or any Pope to lead me into my own greater good. But after walking through this world for the piece of time that I have, I have somehow lost all hope that it will return anytime soon. The damage in the world is becoming the damage in my own mind. I despair that the world will ever change, and I doubt that any change is even possible for myself”

“Hal, wow, I actually might be your long-lost brother from another mother. I don’t have any answers. I stopped using pot because I wanted to see if it was preventing me from accessing important parts of myself. I use speed now, because it helps keep me engaged with the world in a more social way, yet I am no happier than I was before. I stopped using antidepressants last year, and now I am just riding this bucking bronco until I get tossed for the last time. I am not planning on picking myself up again, when I hit the dirt the next time.”

Yes, our discussions never ended on a positive, life-affirming note, but how could they? Hal was to get arrested, and charged with drug distribution, when another “friend” of ours, Cowboy Ron, snitched on Hal to save his own, sorry ass.

I won’t give Cowboy Ron the honor of much comment. No, I did not change Cowboy Ron’s name here. I only hope that he sees himself here someday, if he survived his own private hell. Cowboy Ron hurt a lot of people, including his wife and children, but that is another story, for another day. Sometimes the predator becomes the prey, and maybe that was what he was really looking for, in the end. People do bad things to hurt themselves, and other people sometimes just become collateral damage. I did not enter the underworld to judge anyone, including Cowboy Ron. I sometimes ran with the wolves, but this rabid dog challenged me in ways that made my flesh crawl.

Robert was a convicted armed robber, who was recently released from prison in May of 1986. One night, fate gathered us both together to sit at the bar in the Punjab tavern. The bar was a long, semi-circular arc, which seated up to 14 souls. The bar had two pool tables, and several tables and booths where people could be comfortably seated. And, there were several video games, which drew my attention at “after hours’ parties” where I was usually quite wired, and needing extra entertainment.

I was sitting at the bar yet again one evening, conversing with the owner Jack, who was to become another friend to me, when Robert slid in, and sat right next to me. He was dressed in a leather jacket, which was popular at that time, and fairly new jeans. He was about my age, 30 years old, and looked like he wanted to talk. Let us “tune in” to a conversation that we engaged in that evening:

Robert: Hey, I have a plan for this seat, is it OK for me to sit next to you for while?

Me: Why, of course! Where are you coming from, you appear to be already having a good time.

Robert: Well, tonight is the night for good times, for sure. I just needed to get out, and get some “fresh air” and hook up with some old friends. I have been out of the neighborhood for a long time, and I am hoping to find some old friends.

Me: Well, maybe a new friend might show up, say, right next to you this evening?!

Robert: That would sure be nice.

Me: My only requirements are that you are not a murderer, because if my life has to end tonight, I want it to be by my own hands (I said this half-jokingly)

Robert: Hmm, I was just released from prison, having spent ten years behind bars for a pretty famous robbery committed in 1975.

Me: Oh, really? You really made the news, eh? I think that your notoriety won’t get in the way.

Robert: Umm, I killed a man while committing the robbery.

Me: (gulping, I am feeling rather uncomfortable and stupid now, and my thoughts began racing). Robert, everybody deserves a second chance, let me buy you another beer, and let’s turn our attention to the present.

Robert: Sounds good!

We clink our glasses together, and each take a big drink. An ‘old friend’ of Robert’s comes up to the bar, and accompanies Robert into the restroom, leaving me at the bar. I ask the bartender for a shot of whiskey, which I quickly down, and then wash the bitter flavor away with a big drink of beer.

Robert returns to the bar, sans his “old friend”.

Me: Well, what is up for the rest of the evening?

Robert: (slurring his words noticeably, and his eyes had lost their luster) I think that I will just hang out here for as long as I can, then move on down the road a piece.

He then closes his eyes, and slumps down, face onto the bar. Then, he falls off of the chair, and tries to right himself on the floor.

Me: Bartender, I think that my friend here just got sick, should we call an ambulance?

Jack: Heck no, Bruce, he is right where he wants to be. If you could, please help him over to a booth in the corner where he can try to get his shit back together.

Me: Jack, did he just shoot heroin, or something? Why would he do that to himself? I just don’t understand, because I want and need to talk to people now, and that would be so counterproductive.

Jack: Bruce, SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST WAITING FOR A BETTER DAY. Today is not the better day for Robert, and it may never arrive for him.

The Needle And The Damage Done, by Neil Young

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0t0EW6z8a0

Me: Wow, thanks for that, Jack, I did not really understand, but I think that I do now. Let me get him out of view before we all get into trouble.

The Conspiracy Of Silence claims yet another human being. The heroin completely shut him down to his humanity, and left me wondering what my own fate might be,.

This story goes on, through an almost endless array of struggling, spiritually darkened humanity. I will continue this story with many other human beings that I had the privilege, honor, and distress to meet and converse with. Each one of them helped me to find the next step on my own path to recovery, and to finally embracing the path to truth and love within my own heart.

Dorothy was a young woman in her early 20’s, who had two young children. I was invited over to her house one evening, and was privileged to have a fairly intense discussion with her about our life’s issues. She was a heroin user, becoming dominated by the needs to use, and she was also “shadowed” by a former lover, Jakob, who was incarcerated in jail at the time of our connection. While I was there, I noted her “scraping” used spoons, so that she could get together enough heroin residues to give her a fix. Her supply was out, and she was waiting for her next delivery, so things were getting a little “tense” for her We spoke of what we thought the real powers of this world were, and it got a little interesting.

She did not believe in the power of “God” or “Jesus”, having long eschewed any connection with such concepts. She lived for the moment, and knew all too well that “shit happened” regardless of how “good” or “bad” a person was. She believed that her criminal boyfriend, Jakob, had extraordinary powers, and could “astrally project himself” out of prison at night. As long as she had company (friends, or heroin), Jakob could not materialize into her home, and threaten her and dominate her, as he did when he was not imprisoned.

“There is only darkness, Bruce, and all of the people who attempt to use it. Those who use to help others are considered “good people” yet, these same people will turn against others in a heartbeat, should the need arise. Good people do not really exist, just fucked-up people who occasionally make helpful choices for themselves or, inadvertently, for others, usually while they are really just trying to selfishly take care of themselves”.

“Dorothy, I believe that we all have both energies, and it may only be that if we stumble upon the right understanding, we can act more from a not-so-dark, not so selfish position, and occasionally help ourselves and each other to have better lives”

“Well, how much time and energy do you put into having a better understanding of yourself, and being more helpful to others?”

“Good point, Dorothy. But I actually try to look at the forces of darkness within myself, to see where I might also be negatively impacting myself and others through a lifetime of not fearlessly confronting those energies. I have no idea what will be revealed, if anything, if I ever successfully overcome my own darkness.

I continue to search for the reasons to stay around here, and see if there is any real value to staying alive. My old way of seeing life sure has not brought any lasting happiness or social responsibility to me. If there is no Truth to stumble upon to keep me going, then I may as well allow the darkness that I already know to finish swallowing me up, and take me away from my own suffering”.

“Heroin is quite helpful for me, Bruce, have you considered trying it? My supplier will be here shortly, and I can give you a little bit.”

“Dorothy, thanks for talking with me, and making the offer to share with me, but I have to return to some other business that I am attending to, so time for me to leave”.

My search for Truth would have ended that day, had I stuck around Dorothy’s home. I was only minimally tempted to try heroin that day, as I felt quite disturbed by the darkness that I felt coming through Dorothy. I never saw her again.

Steve belongs in a special story all to himself, but I will include him here because he had ultimate importance in my “search for truth”. I met Steve at the same time that I met Ralph. Steve was a very intelligent, well-dressed man, about 8 years older than me. He drove a nice 1982 Chevrolet, which somebody had tricked out (I did not think that he did it, however). Shortly after becoming a “peripheral person” in our rotating community of characters, his car became impounded by the police, and he could not get it released back into his care (or so he said). That is where I first became “suspicious” of Steve, because I sensed that he was looking for somebody who might have an “inside track” into our Portland Police Department, and its inner workings.

Steve and I shared a lot of time together over the 12 months that I wandered over the underworld landscape. I could always count on him to give me good insight into others, though he held the truths about himself close to his chest. He became a ‘big brother” to me, at times, and would not spare me criticism, if I appeared out-of-place, or out of touch. He would criticize Ralph’s excessive drug use, all the while using extremely small amounts of the same stuff, which he poured from a very tiny vile. He initially could not understand why I thought it necessary to be where I was, either, though he was the only person that I ever told that I was on a “search for truth”, while continuing to use speed, and alcohol. I did not understand, at the time, how he could “get by” with so little use of drugs.

From time to time, Steve would seem to “test” me, by exposing me to new situations and people who required some sort of help or intervention. Through Steve I met Georgette, a 15-year-old runaway girl, who was escaping a sexually abusive father by being homeless in the southeast Portland area. She was hanging out with another sexually abused homeless young man, named Greg, who was three years her senior, and already skilled in the art and science of locating abandoned or temporarily vacated homes, for their own temporary residences. Greg was always accompanied by five to ten other “friends”, who would be his assistants in illicitly securing property or goods for resale, and, I was to learn, help distribute freshly manufactured methamphetamine. Greg, I would learn, was also about to “peddle” Georgette, for added income.

Georgette was a tiny young woman, no more than five foot two inches, and ninety-five pounds. When I first met her, I noted her innocence, and my heart almost broke, and I felt helpless, though I wanted so much to protect her from her fate. She had developed “pink eye”, and I saw an opportunity to break her free from this group of itinerant thieves and junkies. I had her grab her meager belongings, and I placed her in my car, and we talked for hours. She was the younger sister, or daughter that I never had, and I wanted to keep her safe. I finally whisked her away from the gang, and drove her to Outside In, where she could get necessary medical help and counseling. I had recently received a retirement payout from my 10 years working at the Postal Service, and so I had some extra money, which I stuffed into her pocket. I told her, in no uncertain terms, that I never wanted to see her again with her “friends”, or there would be serious hell to pay. I never saw her again, though a tape recorded message of my conversation with her would mysteriously show up a few days later.

One evening the next week, I was sitting at the bar in the Punjab tavern, which was my second home, talking with Jack and a couple of acquaintances when a cassette tape was thrust across the floor, originating from a table on the other side of the tavern.  There were four men seated at the table, and none would maintain eye contact with me when I looked their way.  I got off of my bar stool, leaned over and picked up the cassette tape, and looked at it with Jack and the two men sitting on either side of me.  We discussed what it might be, and none of us wanted to confront the table where the tape originated from, for we all had our own paranoia and suspicions of strangers.  Jack walked to the back of the bar, and grabbed a cassette recorder, and inserted the tape into the player.  My voice started speaking from the machine, and a fear took over me like I had never felt before.  When I saw what the subject matter was about, I asked Jack to please stop playing the tape, as it was making me extremely uncomfortable.  I asked Jack for the tape, which he gave to me.  The other people at the bar started regarding me suspiciously, as well, and all that I could offer to the listeners was that Georgette must have been miked, and that somebody in the bar wanted to “out me” for having befriended her.

Greg (Georgette’s ‘handler’) was to later engage me, and asked to speak to me in private.

“Bruce, I hear that you might be able to help in my situation. I have a friend who has set up a trailer near 82nd avenue, and we can hang out there, and use it as our base of operations”

“Greg, I am not sure what you are asking of me. My time is quickly running out, I am afraid, and whatever “help” that you are seeking, I probably do have sufficient assets to draw from”.

“Well, we have a pretty good operation going right now. I am getting lots of merchandise stockpiled, and, in fact, we have filled an entire basement near 52nd avenue. Before you say no to anything, let’s go over and check it out”.

“OK, but I can’t be tied down to any one place, any one situation, or any one person. I certainly do not have any interest in buying or selling stolen items. I will go over with you and have a look at the house, though.”

We drove over together to the home on Duke Ave. near Brentwood City Park in my Datsun 310, talking about a wide range of subjects. Greg appeared to be only about 17 years old, yet he told me that he had been on the street for over six years. I could tell that he was “feeling me out”, asking me many leading questions. My paranoia, which was a gradually increasing inner experience for me over the last several weeks, was barking at me, the closer we got to the safe house. As we entered the driveway to the home, Greg then asked me

“Bruce, you sure don’t talk like anybody that I have ever met. You talk about things that I don’t like to think about, or would normally not even consider. You are so different, and you sound a little strange at times, I think.

I think that we should be partners. I can tell that you do not like women by the way you have ignored all the girls we hang out with, and you should know that I have little attraction for women, as well. I only feel a strong bond to men”.

I think that I then swallowed a golf ball sized lump in my throat

“Greg, I don’t think that you understand. I am not sexually attracted to ANYBODY. I want to meet people and make friends with no ties, sexual or otherwise to anyone. I have to travel light, because I am going to be leaving very soon.”

“I have heard you say that before. Where the hell do you think that you are going to go”?

“I got a passport earlier this year, with the intent to travel to Spain, to start a new life, or maybe to die. I think that my journey will not be taking me too far from home now, though”.

“I don’t understand. Why do you talk of death? Are you dying?”

“I am really not sure what I mean anymore. I know that something feels like it is dying inside of me. I won’t know until more time passes, and I meet more people. I will then know for sure what I mean”

“You don’t make any sense. Maybe when you see what we have in the basement, it will be easier to make up your mind whether to stay or to go”.

We exited the car, and walked up to the front door together. Greg knocked on the door, and a nearly fifty year old woman of unkempt appearance answered.

“Greg, come on it! I have missed you! Umm, I have not been able to organize everything yet.”

“Martha, this is Bruce. He is OK, don’t be afraid of him, I’ve known him forever Don’t worry about the mess, we can take care of that later”

There was some more small talk, and then we walked downstairs. Martha had merchandise almost stacked to the ceiling covering almost the entire basement, of which I estimated it was 1500 square feet. There were brand new boxes of retail merchandise, as well as some “used” items of very good condition. It was like an unofficial hardware section of Home Depot, and the clothing section of Fred Meyer. I saw chain saws, table saws, drill motors, hand guns, shotguns, military style guns like an HK 91, toys, kitchen pots and pans, appliances, car parts, lawn mowers, bicycles, clothes, shoes, and just about anything one could imagine.

We walked into a closed off section of the basement, with Martha becoming quiet, and almost reverential.

“I want to show you how the lab is progressing. Dieter has made great progress, and has secured all of the hardware and chemicals necessary to get started. We have not been able to get Jeff bailed out of jail yet, so we may have to kidnap one of our other chemists for a week to run a test batch or two”

She opened the door, and there were three tables filled with Erlenmeyer flasks, beakers of various sizes, Bunson burners, propane tanks and fittings, glass cookware, coffee filters, some sort of automatic stirring or mixing device, stainless steel pressure cookers, and a host of other tools that I did not immediately recognize, even though I had taken chemistry lab several years before. There were also several Mason jars and mayonnaise jars filled with substances of various colors, some of which were liquid in nature. I do not remember if they had made provisions for ventilation, though there was a window that looked north located near the ceiling that would have been adequate. I made sure not to offer up to them the fact that I had some background in chemistry, as the thought of being trapped in a lab as an assistant for a week or more sounded a bit like imprisonment to me, no matter how much free drugs might be made available to me.

“Well, let’s smoke a joint, and celebrate the good fortune that we are about to have!”

Martha then pulled out a stick and lit it up. When it got to me, I declined.

“Aren’t you a partaker of the wacky tobacky?”

“Not today. I’ll stick to my crank now. I need to keep my head clear, and the joint just gets in the way of what I am trying to do”.

“I don’t get it. Pot is the best stress relief available, save for the brown or black holiday”.

“I am trying to figure some things out. It is hard for me to function at the level I need to while high on pot”.

“Are you sure you are OK?”

“Oh yes. By the way, I could use a line of crystal, can you send me a life line?”

“Now you are talking! Let’s get the party started.”

And with this group, another one week run starts, with no sleep, little food, and too much conversation. I was never quite sure what to make of Martha. I never saw her again.

Greg lost interest in me, and found himself a “friend” to hang out with him at his trailer. I saw him from time to time after that. He looked worse and worse every time that I saw him, and I think that he reflected back to me my own disease and disfigurement.

I don’t remember exactly when I first met Barbara, but Steve had introduced us in the late summer.  She kept turning up at after hours parties and other supposedly spontaneous happenings around SE Portland that I had been invited to,  She was to become an emotionally unavailable running mate for me for several exciting weeks in the fall.  She was a pettite woman, and had a outgoing personality that attracted others to her as much, or more than, her physical appearance.  Barb wasn’t interested in sex, as her focus was to be lighthearted, to have fun, and to use drugs, to excess, if possible.  I attended one party in NE Portland with her where we were with fairly high class, normal looking people, and I felt safe with her, probably one of the only two times I ever felt that way in the underworld.  Like most times with her, at the end of the evening, she discarded me like an empty potato chip bag.  She was an unpredictable person, and my kind of gal for these times!

One of the best times of my underworld life was on Halloween.  Her girlfriend, Joanne, and Barb invited me to go out on the town with them, as long as I dressed up as a pimp, and them as .prostitutes. Barb and Joanne wore skimpy skirts with stocking and exposed garters, and they NAILED the look. I still had a pair of leather pants, a nice expensive suede leather jacket, velvet hat, fake gold chain necklace, and cowboy boots, so I had the look down. it covered up my emaciated body to near perfection. I also got the first, and only, complement about my sexy appearance in my life so my self-esteem in the underworld was at a record .level,  to be sustained for about 8 hours before collapsing back into the self-hating ruins that I had grown accustomed to..

We drove downtown, and started bar hopping early in the evening.  Everywhere we went, it was ELECTRIC, the three of us stunned others and we got all sorts of attention, though it was mostly the unwanted type by guys with their needs.  Up The Down Staircase, The Last Hurrah, Jakes, and several other stops made for an exhilarating evening.  Barb finally tired of having me around, and discarded me around 2:30 am.  She could be quite blunt at times and I always knew that I was around her only when she wanted the company of someone who had no expectations of her.  She could be demeaning, and was to me several times, but who was I to complain?  I sensed that someone, or something, or a combination of the two, had an iron grip on her soul, and limited her freedom.  Loneliness and loss of desire to keeping living were two acquaintances that had their grip upon me.  Welcome to the club, Barb, there is open admission, all comers welcome!.

I continued an incredible downward spiral into addiction, and Steve commented to me, in November, how I looked like I could be the “Aids Poster Boy” because I had become so slight of figure, and so unhealthy looking. I had started “hearing voices”, and I had become paranoid, as well. Yet, I did not let on to others that I had become so disfigured internally, though the signs were starting to appear. I “heard” that there was a major undercover operation active in Portland, and that dozens of criminal indictments were immanent. In reality, that was partially the truth, yet I should not have known that, let alone warn a few others of those “facts”.

Steve wanted to know how I knew of these indictments, and I would not tell him. I noted that people were tailing me almost all of the time now, and that some of my conversations were being recorded in my car. One day I tore my car apart, searching for the transmitter, or the recorder. I had two different people stop by, and try to interrupt me from the search, which only added to my own paranoia. I did not locate the transmitter, but I really began to fuck with any listeners’ mind, by talking dark shit, and renaming myself “the Wild Card”. I let my world know, in no uncertain terms, that I was no longer aligned with anyone, as I was on my way to my own death.

I will fast forward through three months more of Hell. My main core group had collapsed, with Ralph relocating himself to protect himself. I had lost touch with Steve, my last connection with sanity. I was running with a new group, and most were intravenous drug users. I met Doctor Dave, a short, friendly man, with a severely pockmarked face, a man who also recently was released from jail. He introduced me to intravenous drug use. He ever so carefully shot me up with speed, for my first time of ever using the needle, and most subsequent times, as well. I could not shoot up by myself, as I feared needles so much. But the incredible rush I received from intravenous drug use made me want to use this hastened path to Death frequently for the final two months of my drug abusing life.

I will share a story of Frank, and Steve’s providential return to my life. Another house had been commandeered near the intersection of Holgate and McLoughlin Blvd, and that became our new hangout. Our new leader, Frank, organized a big party, and we had over 70 people show up. This was in early March of 1987, and I was ready for my swan song. My mental health was irreparably damaged, and my “search for truth” had apparently only uncovered a hastened path to Death for me. Frank had just secured a fresh batch of speed, and heroin (which I had never used before), and he was mixing up his renowned “witches brew”, and invited me to join him. Sure, why not? I had nothing to lose, but a life that was already dead. I started to accompany Frank to an upstairs room, when I spotted Steve talking with a healthy looking 30-year-old woman, a person that I might have been attracted to, had i been healthy. I overheard her calling his name, and it was NOT Steve. “Steve” saw that I heard his real name, and he then knew that I knew.

Steve took me aside, and tried to explain. I instead stopped him, and told him that I had suspected him all along of being undercover. I also told him that his secret was safe with me. I told him my journey was about to end, that I was going upstairs with Frank, and if I survived that experience, I was going to return to my car, and grab the pills under my front seat, and finish business, once and for all. Yes, I was finished.

“Steve” grabbed my arm, excused himself from his ‘girlfriend’, and took me outside to his car. We then drove to my father’s house, and “Steve” then commanded to me “Bruce, I can no longer keep you protected and safe. Your search for truth has to end within this dangerous 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.”

We arrived at my father’s house, and he let me out. He and his partner drove my car to my dad’s house later that evening, and I never saw him again. The pills had disappeared from under the driver’s seat, as well. There was no way that I was going to go back to Dr. Beavers, as I was too ashamed to have anybody see me in the state that I was in.

Note 1: One year later, he called me, to check and see how I was doing. I was a year clean and sober, and, in tears, I gushed with my love and gratitude for “Steve”. He was the best friend that I never knew I had.

Randy Olson was to return to my life, yet again. I was still a mess, strung out from months of drug abuse, alcoholism, gambling, and I still only weighed a mere 135 pounds. My face was all broke out, and I had the most horrific shakes, and I “heard voices”. I had experienced convulsions several times.. I was still drinking, but I was no longer using drugs very much. I invited Randy Olson over on March 13 of 1987. He came over, and he, and his girlfriend and I proceeded to down an inordinate amount of my fathers’ booze and wine. My parents were still “snow birding” in Arizona, and would not be home until the end of the month, so I was still able to keep my dysfunctional momentum going. Well, after partying with Randy until about 10:00 PM, Randy had to go home, so I was left alone with my horrible problems.

HURT, Sung by Johnny Cash written by Nine Inch Nails

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt1Pwfnh5pc

It was then that I entered into a blackout, and picked up one of my father’s loaded guns, and drove, quite drunk, to Brock’s home in the Milwaukie area. This person was an associate of one of the drug chemists in the underworld culture that I had just emerged from. I have no idea why I went down there, but I awoke from my blackout when the gun in my lap discharged, shooting a hole in the front door of his apartment. He had two sleeping children on one room, and a sleeping wife in another room, and I was fortunate to have not brought harm to anyone.

He then brought a hypodermic needle out, and injected me with crank/speed (I still would not inject myself.) I immediately snapped out of my drunkenness, and proceeded to talk with this guy for 24 hours. I got one more injection, and then clarity finally hit me.

Literally, a light went on in my mind, and I saw the utter insanity of the person I was with, and the insanity of my life. I stood up, laughed at the guy, called him, and myself, nuts, and walked out of the front door, got into my car, and drove back to my parents’ home. I was changed, though I just didn’t know how much at the time. As I had only five dollars left to my name, I needed to make a decision. Either I needed to buy more beer and cigarettes, or I needed to get some gasoline for my car, and go visit my grandparents in north Portland. I kept the five dollars, and drove to family. My grandparents were happy to see me, but were concerned for my appearance. I claimed to have the flu, and grandmother nursed me back to some semblance of health over the next five days, while I detoxified and had withdrawals from cessation of cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs, all at the same time.

I returned home to my parents’ home after a week at the grandparents. It is another funny thing, two days later, out of the blue, Craig Salter called me, for the first connection in three years (he was a childhood friend that both Randy and I had known since the 5th grade, and the same person that I chose to have my relapse with after my Care Unit experience), and asked me if I wanted to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with him. He was required to attend meetings due to the conditions of the court that had prosecuted him for a DUI. Of course, Craig was not an alcoholic; at least he thought that he wasn’t. I knew that he was, though. I, in fact, was the person that got him drunk the first time in High School, when Craig was 17 years old. I actually may have started him on his own horrific decline into his own alcoholism, just like Randy Olson had started me on my first drug, which was marijuana, and may have indirectly contributed to my own eventual decline.

Anyway, I went to that AA meeting, because the way I figured it, since God was such a big part of AA, and since I was searching for TRUTH, there must be a relationship between those two forces, and AA must have an angle on that. I proceeded to attend over 270 meetings in my first 90 days, since I had nothing else to do, having lost my job, and, basically, my life, to my disease. Craig eventually stopped going to meetings, after his court ordered attendance ended. I continued to attend them, feeling like I had finally found my spiritual home. I did fall into a temporary trap at the HInson Baptist Church, thinking that my personal TRUTH must somehow be hidden in the church system, and that I could unearth some more by attending church, and being baptized.

I then literally spent thousands of hours over the next several years in AA meetings, communication, investigation, reading, writing, meditation, associating with all types and manners of people, and, eventually, healing my relationship with my parents (especially my father).

I was enlightened by a new teacher, a recovering alcoholic by the name of Jack Boland, who had released to the world many series of tapes on recovery and spirituality. I was given one of his tape series of recovery by a co-worker at the Fred Meyer warehouse, John Johnson, of whom I will be eternally grateful to, on May 16, 1987. I then listened to these tapes over and over, during the Memorial Day weekend, and something miraculous happened afterwards, probably as a result of my openness to the experience brought about by listening to these tapes, and practicing some simple steps from the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous Alcoholic Anonymous Twelve Steps

1). We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
2). Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3). Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4). Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5). Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6). Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7). Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8). Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9). Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10). Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11). Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12). Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

My search for Truth, which had taken me through the darkest regions of hell, was about to give me wings, and enable me to fly to the sun, and beyond.

Yet, the prison guard with one of the primary keys to release me from my own spiritual imprisonment was my own unhealed relationship with my father. Overcoming a lifetime of oppression and control by others is no easy task. It also must be done clean and sober, for the true depth and healing of the experience to permanently take hold. I began a new relationship with my father, starting with my new-found sobriety. The real fruitage of healing from the relationship was not to become apparent until many, many years later.  That is another story, for later.

Note: Stephen Kessler was recently denied parole, and will spend the rest of his life in prison. He was regarded as the most dangerous criminal ever encountered, by several federal agents.  He died in 2019, while still in prison.

Wayne Harsh was a friend of my neighbor while I grew up near Rex Putnam High School, and he eventually became a Clackamas County Sheriff prior to his own fall. We knew of each other, and he was well-known for his connections with automobiles, and, in fact, either intentionally or inadvertently supplied the getaway vehicle to Stephen Kessler during his prison escape.

Coincidentally, I was roommates with Tom Cravens in the Physicians and Surgeons Hospital Care Unit in 1984, when we both sought sobriety (Tom was successful, but I was not). Tom was one of six co-conspirators with Stephen Kessler during the 1968 prison riot, where a lot of the Oregon State Prison in Salem was burnt down,, and shame was brought to our Oregon Governor, Tom McCall. While growing up into the beast that he became, Stephen Kessler also shared the same school as my present wife, Sharon White, and, in fact, beat up a teacher while in the same classroom that he shared with my wife (end note).

Chapter 11: The Abyss and the Plow Horse: A Descent into Darkness and a Search for Truth

It’s no mystery to me why many of us have chosen our culture’s wayward conditioning, addictions, or suicide over healing. Unconscious influences and unhealthy attitudes, coupled with traumatic wounding and its often-Invisible wounds are the hardest to mend and the easiest to ignore.

We can see the effects of poor adaptation by citizens to our culture, its history, and supporting religions through the rise of addictions, alcoholism, loneliness, depression, mental illness, racism, sexism, and fear of immigrants that are now troubling our land. We have to treat our pain somehow, and, believe me, this country’s citizens are quite good at self-medication at the expense of self-healing.

Addiction feels like a twisting maze, built slowly over time, long before you realize you’re lost. I began self-medicating early and often, and when it became a way of life, every path seemed to end in a dead stop. My struggles started in my earliest years, grounded in loneliness and a complicated kind of love. In a world where anxiety feels normal, it’s no wonder so many remain trapped in those dark, tangled corridors.

I will keep my freedom, my guns, my money, and my religion, and you can keep the change-Hank Williams Jr. Spiritual freedom has never been about guns, money, or religion,

The effects of toxic masculinity and its branches—whether in religion, politics, or capitalism—are stitched into the fabric of our culture, creating imbalances, suppressing the divine, and demeaning the feminine. It’s not hard to see the madness around us: the commodification of life, mass killings, early deaths, suicide, addiction, alcoholism, abuse of women and children, species extinction, and ecological destruction—all pointing toward a bleak future unless American society awakens and pushes back against the dark norms of a dying world

The Poem of the Lost

THE FOOLS (Poem written in Care Unit, May 1984)

You know who we are, there is no need for our names

We may be outwardly different, but inside are the same

Whether vacationing on chemical trips, or playing strange mind games

We must continue to strive for success, and its most 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 dog’s 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 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?

Trauma creates human toxic gas bubbles, just waiting to be burst!

The Labyrinth of Unseen Wounds

I am a lover of horses. It is in my blood, it is in my bones. My late aunt Hazel Ray (mother to the famous singer Johnny Ray) raised horses at their Salem, Oregon ranch, some of which were used for racing. My mother rode a retired racehorse to school in the 1930’s, and I have admired, mostly from afar, the equine species for much of my life, though I spent several years in in the 1970’s and 1980’s handicapping the horses at Portland Meadows at Delta Park, Lone Oak Racetrack in Salem, Oregon, and Longacres Racetrack in Renton, Washington.

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, already loaded onto the slaughter truck, eyes dulled by labor and neglect. Yet, 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 vessel 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, he saw a soul worth saving when I only saw the end of days. But before the rescue, it is essential to retrace the path I created that led to the slaughterhouse.

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 first job, a 2:30 AM paper route, would bundle me in blankets and leave me in the car in the garage. There, in the dark silence, I learned my first lesson: my calls for love resulted in isolation. My voice had no value. Love was not to be available when I needed it the most, thus trauma’s impact began very early for me.

My father was a man of immense intellectual curiosity—a student of Theology, 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 work and family life forced him to abandon his academic pursuit of truth after over four years of study. 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, often physically distant, always exuberant, yet 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, and, at age five, threaten me with sexual abuse. 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.

Party room photograph of my parents, circa 1963. This used to be the garage where I was often forced to sleep when I was a baby.

The Architecture of Pain

School felt like a battlefield I wasn’t ready for. I was physically and emotionally behind my classmates and had only started speaking about eight months before starting school. My first-grade teacher, Mrs. Tozier, saw my habit of talking to myself as a “problem” and often stuck me under the dunce cap in the corner. There was a family conference initiated by the principal, Mr. Hill, as something had to be done with me. The adults’ answer was chemical—a methedrine prescription for “hyperactivity” that was really just sugar pills in a methedrine bottle, an idea spawned from my mother. Mrs. Tozier personally handed me a pill every morning, thinking it was speed. To the teacher, I seemed to improve, maybe because she believed she’d “fixed” me. That fake methedrine was a problem dodged as a kid but one I later faced head-on as an adult.

My sister Pam and I grew up in a world that felt both magical and dangerous. We had vast areas to explore and play near our home, and there was never a shortage of trees to climb or islands to explore. Yet the inner world was where the real danger existed. I remember waking from nightmares—dark, terrifying visions that came almost every night until I was eight years old.

My famous rocking horse, which my great-grandfather had given to me

My parents would sometimes leave home to visit friends on weekend evenings after putting us to bed. I remember climbing onto my rocking horse to peer out the window into our garage when I needed comfort after yet another night terror. And I remember our parents’ car being gone, and the panic that would set in. The fear of abandonment always lingered at the edges of my mind. Even when they were home, nights were thick with anxiety. I’d lie awake replaying the day, dissecting every moment to see where I could have been “better,” hoping that being good in the daylight might buy me peace in my dreams. I wet the bed almost every night until an apocalyptic dream in 1964, and then the night terrors dramatically subsided.

Violence within our home was familiar to me, as I was beat often by my father. But violence from others was a new 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 often unsafe, some boys were untrustworthy, and vulnerability could be dangerous. I retreated to the company of girls until I was in 5th grade, 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 against me 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, when I was 13 years old, 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 Ann Cook, a daughter of some friends for “destroying” it. The shame I felt was a familiar companion.

Yet, I loved him. He instilled in me a deep love for play, nature, hard work, camping, and dogs, creatures that became my steadfast friends when humans failed me. My first dog Nina, killed by a car when I was 7, 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, and the whim of the curve that we were graded upon. 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 at times, oppressing shy or awkward girls with ridicule, projecting my own shame onto them—a cycle of trauma I would only recognize and apologize for later in my life.

Shadows of the Past: Randy and Donelle

We moved to a new neighborhood just before I started fifth grade, and that’s when I met Randy Olson—a man who would have a huge impact on my life. He lived about three-quarters of a mile down Oatfield Road from us. Randy was an incredibly outgoing guy with a great sense of humor, though he had grown up a bit awkward, shooting up so quickly in seventh grade that he earned the nickname “Lurch.” We spent countless hours playing pickup basketball, football, and baseball in every season, and shared plenty of sleepovers and camping trips. Randy was a constant in my life, a brother in every way but blood.

Through Randy, I met Donelle.

Donelle’s senior yearbook photograph

It was 1971. Randy had a girlfriend named Terri-Lynn Barr, who had a stepsister named Donelle. One day, Randy drove Donelle down to Portland, and I had my first chance to meet her. When I first laid eyes on Donelle, I was hooked. She was gorgeous beyond description, intelligent, and sensitive. I had a sense that I had witnessed my future. But I was sixteen, without a driver’s license, and plagued by low self-esteem. I let her slip away initially, believing I couldn’t compete for her affections.

But persistence is a strange bedfellow to insecurity. Eventually, I commandeered my father’s Honda 50CC motorcycle—a bike intended for fishing trips he never took—and drove that silly little machine up I-205 to Vancouver to see her. We became sweethearts. We were both virgins, but our intimacy was shadowed by her past. Donelle had been sexually abused as a child by her stepfather, Bud Barr. The trauma of that abuse rendered our physical relationship difficult, a harsh disappointment that mirrored the emotional disconnect we struggled to bridge.

Donelle’s life was a tragedy of toxic male energy. Her mother, Marlene, had neglected her children, leaving them vulnerable to predators like Bud. Donelle carried the weight of this abuse, and it manifested in severe mental illness. She suffered her first nervous breakdown late in her senior year, diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. I watched the woman I loved crumble.

I had secured a full-ride scholarship from the US Air Force in 1973, joining the ROTC with dreams, since I was nine years old, of becoming a pilot and astronaut. My addiction and relationship to a wounded woman derailed those aspirations. Donelle Mae Flick Paullin, the most beautiful woman I had ever met, would continue to suffer from mental illness her entire life. Our life together was a rollercoaster of her breakdowns, temporary resurrections, and my co-occurring 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.

We decided not to have children. I worried about Donelle’s unhealed traumatic wounding and recurring mental health struggles and my ability to be a good father while still carrying the dysfunction born from my past trauma. Both Donelle and I held onto our wounded inner child while having no idea how to heal them.

Today, we see in the public sphere—most starkly in deeply corrupt figures like Donald Trump—the devastating result of a society that refuses to mend its wounded inner children. It’s a grim display of unresolved pain projected onto the masses. Trump faces no limits as he inflicts harm on a nation and the world. Unlike him, my trauma-filled childhood ended with me; it would not be passed on to another innocent soul, let alone an entire democracy.

I gave up on my dreams, and committed to support Donelle and myself, taking a swing-shift job with the US Postal Service in 1975. It was supposed to be a temporary gig to help me get by while attending school during the day, but it turned into a decade-long grind after I dropped out of school in 1976, and again in 1983. I had enough credits for two degrees, but my low self-esteem turned those missed opportunities into a spiral of depression and self-destructive habits.

We married in September 1979. Donelle had stabilized, studying to be a Sous Chef. But the stability was a mirage. By July 1980, less than a year into our marriage, she collapsed again. The voices returned. She heard screams from the basement of the police department; she was terrorized by her own mind. She would often exclaim

“I am controlled, I am controlled”,

yet she would not be able to tell me who or what the interior jailer looked like.

I committed her to Dammasch State Hospital. The guilt was crushing. But Donelle was extremely sick. The mental health support team had no idea how long Donelle would be held, so I filed for a legal separation, in preparation for an eventual divorce if she did not experience recovery. She was to be released five months into her hospital stay, and we got back together early in 1981.

Our relationship was a cycle of hope and despair. In 1981, during one of her next breakdowns when I moved across the street to another apartment to save myself, my best friend Dan Dietz raped her while she was incapacitated by alcohol. When I confronted him, he claimed no memory, but I broke my hand on the door he stood in. I never saw him alive again.

Dan Dietz (right) and Randy were co-best men at our wedding.

The violence of the world seemed inescapable.

I finally walked away from the marriage in 1983, forcing her out of our apartment. It was an act of self-preservation that felt like betrayal. Donelle lived on the streets of Portland for nearly a year afterward, often visiting with me to ask for money and other assistance at the main US Postal Service cafeteria at 3:00 am many mornings when I was on lunch break from my graveyard shift.

The Postal Service Purgatory

My career at the US Postal Service was a backdrop to this personal unraveling. I started as a floor clerk, then a letter sorting machine operator, a maintenance electrician and mechanic, and then an electronic technician trainee. I worked with damaged souls—Vietnam veterans like Larry, who told stories of fragging officers, and conspiracy theorists like Greg, who actually predicted a Donald Trump style presidency. I befriended Bill Y, a black Vietnam veteran, during training in Oklahoma. One night, in a segregated bar in Oklahoma City, Bill waved a gun to protect me because I was the only white guy in a club that I was not welcome in, teaching me a lesson in brotherhood and protection I had never before experienced.

Despite my intelligence and education—I had aced advanced math and science courses at the University of Portland, plus stockpiled innumerable engineering credits—I was stuck blowing dust off equipment. My attempts to finish my engineering degree were thwarted two times by my recurring addiction. I was functioning outwardly, but inwardly, I was eroding.

The Descent into Addiction

My decline wasn’t abrupt; it was a gradual slide. It started at age five with small sips of beer. By 11, I was stealing full bottles, having at least one each week. In 1971, Randy introduced me to marijuana, and by 1973, I was using both alcohol and marijuana almost every day. I kept up this pattern for the next twelve years, with only brief breaks here and there.

In 1984, after my divorce, I moved into the Panorama Towers in northwest Portland with Randy. We were party monsters, using chaos to delay dealing with our issues. It was here that I was reintroduced to Di Di (Diane) McCloud, a beautiful woman who I had admired two years before when she was a steady of another friend. We fell deeply in love. I wrote my first poem and gave it to her. The relationship was only to last for two weeks, when she had to leave for Las Vegas to take care of family matters.

Poem Written for Di Di, in 1984.

Though hibernating for oh so long,

And hiding from the deep pain of winters’ chill,

Love reawakens to sing its special song,

So for how much longer can we be still?

With eyes that melt winters’ deepest snow.

A tender touch that always seem to say,

That all we will ever need to know,

Will be learned along Love’s way.

Two minds that were brought together.

Two hearts that seek to share,

Two bodies that need no tether,

Two become one, though still a pair.

Heavenly nights and rapturous mornings,

Love promises through all of our years,

The sweet, stirring music of love sings,

For two souls who now have the ears to hear.

True love can be the source of dreams,

For two hearts continuing to awaken.

I pray that we are all each other seems,

And share in Love’s next journey taken

In April 1984, I checked myself into the Lovejoy Care Unit for alcoholism to save my job. There, I met Claire, a counselor who told me my father was trying to live his life through me. I sobered up, but my spiritual foundation was still rotten. I understood that my father had negatively impacted my life, but that knowledge had no healing capacity at that time.

That June, at the Postal Service training center in Norman, Oklahoma, I missed a crucial test by five points—just enough to lose out on a better position in the maintenance department. The disappointment hit me like a punch. Right then, I decided to relapse. On my way home, with a layover at the Denver airport, I found myself on the same flight as my Care Unit counselor, Claire, who was headed back to Portland. I kept out of sight, already planning my next drink while avoiding what might have been my chance at redemption.

By the summer of 1984, Randy and I moved to Beaverton. While at a local bar I met Alcindia. She was a cute younger woman, about six years younger than me. I brought her home, and we hooked up. But my life was messy. As I was living with Randy, there was the additional complexities of the relationships he had, such as a girlfriend named Claudia. In a moment of weakness and confusion, after coming home from my graveyard shift, I jumped into bed, but his girlfriend appeared shortly afterward, naked and ready for attention. So I slept with Claudia while Randy was at work. Alcindia later found out through a voice activated recorder she had left under my bed.

Yet, we moved in together, and eventually her mentally ill mother Carol came to live with us, which really compounded the confusion in our lives.

PAIN (written in Cedar Hills Hospital, January, 1985)

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,

Slowly rotting inside, hopefully, I soon will be dead.

Pain,

Why?

Alcindia and I became long term lovers and drug-using friends. I knew that I was “slumming” with her, but hey, I was lonely, and needy. Her best friend Baby was usually with us, and sometimes a member from a local motorcycle gang who supplied some hard drugs like crystal methedrine to us.

Baby, front, and Alcindia, back.

I wrote a poem to capture some of my feelings around these kinds of hookups:

Oh, those ephemeral loves, I wish we had never started,

Just vacant wayside stops in life, from which I soon departed.

Standing alone, though seemingly surrounded by others,

Desiring just one, wondering who would be my next lover.

Searching for that one, to share in a new life’s dream,

Disgusted by the many, who were not quite what they seemed.

Needing attention, and wanting to share love,

That’s what all of my dreams seemed to be made of.

My life has become quite empty with only darkness looming ahead

Without an inner change of heart, quite soon I will be dead.

Running on life’s mysterious road, one final journey to start,

With no maps to follow, save those presented by my empty heart.

I realized our lifestyle was killing me. I entered Cedar Hills Hospital in January of 1985, staying three nights to sober up and get a new medication plan addressing my depression. Dr. Beavers prescribed me some amazing anti-depressants that almost instantaneously righted my listing ship. I was discharged and lived the best six months of my life up to that point, clean and sober, and actually believing in myself.

Alcindia on fateful camping trip to Bend of July 4, 1985

On a Fourth of July camping trip in Bend with Alcindia I stumbled upon a half smoked joint, and a crazy thought came into my mind. I could use the joint to be normal, or I could continue on the medication. Without discussion with anyone, I took a couple drags off of the marijuana joint, and severe mental illness overtook me. I called in sick to my job and never returned to work because of the shame I felt at being such a loser.

My frustration and anger with myself for being such an idiot wore on my relationship with Alcindia, who I blamed for sabotaging my sobriety. I broke it off in a rather spectacular fashion in November 1985 and moved to Randy’s new apartment in Beaverton.

1993 photograph at Thanksgiving dinner. I had six years of sobriety at this point, Randy? Well, sobriety was not for him. (Randy on the right)

January 28, 1986, was to become the turning point in my life. I woke up on Randy’s couch to his screams:

“Bruce, wake up! The Challenger just exploded!”

Challenger Explosion January 28, 1986-The day I attempted suicide, and began my Search For Truth

Watching the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrate in a plume of white and gray smoke, I realized it was not just a national tragedy; it was the external manifestation of my internal reality. I had joined with the ROTC with the thought of fulfilling childhood dreams. My potential had been vast, but now I had no potential, with no will to live. Watching that disaster, I realized my life was also over. My dreams had disintegrated.

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 (written January, 1986)

Though the dark cloud looms on the horizon, it is also hidden within me.

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 Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication from Dr. Dan Beavers. I intended to swallow them all. I was standing in line when I ran into Alcindia’s sister’s friend, Mike. I tried to share the smallest part of my story, but he shut me down, stating he had no time for other people’s problems. It reaffirmed my belief in the indifference of the world and served as a reminder that I would not be missed too much when I exited this life.

The pharmacist refused to fill the prescriptions. He told me I needed to see the doctor again. Undeterred, I scheduled an emergency visit with Dr. Beavers. He sensed I was in crisis and elicited a promise that I would not kill myself—he was grieving another patient, Scott, who had done just that. I gave him my empty promise that I would do no harm to myself.

I was left with an intense desire to end it all and a proven method to accomplish my erasure, yet the universe conspired to prevent me from taking final action that day.

A revolutionary idea popped into my head:

Now I must begin a search for Truth.

But a search does not begin with answers; it begins with a descent.

While driving along Beaverton Hillsdale Highway, I spotted my friend Di Di McCloud, walking on the sidewalk. I had known her since 1981 and had lost touch with her when she had left me in 1984 to visit her family.

We planned a trip to the beach. I picked her up that next weekend and drove her to the beach, intending to spend the weekend with her there. She met up with others while down at a Seaside bar. They had a lot of cocaine, which I had no interest in using, in addition to being generally repulsive people. I announced my decision to leave immediately, leaving Di Di to fend for herself, which she was more than capable of doing.

I drove home that evening, in a blackout drunk condition. I crashed my 1974 Dodge Dart near the Elderberry Inn, nearly going over a cliff. I rear-ended another car at freeway speeds in North Plains, but a $471 check written to the other driver prevented a police intervention. I limped the car to a repair shop where I then abandoned it.

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, then 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 might never be found.

A photograph taken of Sean and me in 2012

My search for truth, distorted by chemicals and despair, led me into the darkest corners of Portland. I called my old friend Sean Tucker, who was in the US Air Force stationed in Spain, telling him I had a fatal brain tumor—a lie to cover the truth of my suicidal intent. Sean offered his home for me to live in for a while, so I secured a passport, but the cost to relocate was too high for my limited budget, and the lure of the underworld kept me local.

Death takes a photograph of itself

I purchased a used Datsun 310 car for $1000 cash at a local dealership. I filed for bankruptcy in March of 1986. It became official, coincidentally, on my 31st birthday, November 20, 1986. I was severing financial ties just as I planned to sever my mortal ones.

1977 Datsun 310 motor home and chariot of the godless in 1986-1987

Randy found another girlfriend, and could no longer house me, so my 1977 Datsun 310 became my home by March of 1986. It was my sanctuary, my bedroom, and my prison. I occasionally squatted in unoccupied homes, distanced myself from my family, and let the current of addiction pull me into its desperate undercurrents.

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.

Vignettes of the Damned

Ralph:

I frequented the Punjab, a tavern on Foster Road. There, I met Ralph, a man from Scappoose who was to be a central figure in the local underworld. Through him, I was introduced to a cast of characters that seemed pulled from a noir nightmare: drug chemists, undercover officers, hitmen, homeless people, and prostitutes.

I was an anomaly in their world—I was too healthy, too educated. I was once nearly beaten for using the word “magnanimous.” A patron told me to use a nickel word whenever I was tempted to use a quarter word. My vocabulary was a liability here. I eventually descended to levels that were acceptable to others, and, it was not a good look for me.

I grew to love Ralph, who became my friend and protector. I became his primary driver for many of his “exchanges”. Once, I had all four tires of my car slashed while parked overnight for a party with Ralph and his minions. Ralph put the word out on the streets that this was unacceptable behavior, and whoever did the deed would answer to him personally, and to lay off my car. I felt strangely safe, and protected, while with Ralph, even though there were continued threats against my safety and well-being.

While jacking up my car for tire replacements, I had to use my AA book to help with extra elevation, which attracted some strange looks from those who already thought that I was a stranger in this strange land. Hey, I had finally found a constructive use for the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I actually felt a little pleased with myself. Ralph told me to “ditch that evil book”, and I kept it hidden from all sight from that point on, though to this day, I still own that very same book.

AA Book, AKA extra car jack mount

Sarah and Jake:

Sarah was Ralph’s long-term girlfriend. They had an open relationship, and Ralph said that it was OK to be with her any way that felt OK. She became a woman I shared many adventures with, though I kept our connection strictly platonic to avoid emotional entanglement. We often visited friends in jail together, and it was on a trip to see our friend Jake that my reality fractured. After snorting designer meth, Sarah casually revealed that the “kind” man we were visiting was actually a hitman for a motorcycle gang.

The cognitive dissonance of this revelation, combined with the drugs, caused me to have a stroke-like episode where I lost the ability to speak. Meeting Jake at the jail, I could only produce animalistic grunts and squawks. It was a terrifying manifestation of the “conspiracy of silence” that ruled our lives—my voice literally stolen by the horror and the chemicals I had consumed.

Steve:

Steve was the big brother I never had, a well-dressed man of mystery who navigated the treacherous landscape of the underworld with an intelligence that matched my own. He often played the role of mentor, criticizing the rate of my drug abuse while often using with me, though he used much less and always seemed to maintain a composure I lacked. He constantly “tested” my resolve by exposing me to desperate situations and broken people, perhaps to see if I would crumble or find the “truth” he urged me to search for.

Through Steve, I was introduced to the darker corners of the city, including the tragic circumstances of runaways like Georgette. He was a guide who didn’t pull me out of the mud but chose to walk into it with me. It was a complex friendship built on shared vices and intellectual sparring, even as he watched me deteriorate into a paranoid, emaciated shadow of myself.

I was to learn later, much later, that Steve was part of an undercover operation investigating reported corruption within the Portland Police Department, specifically cocaine distribution by an unnamed officer, and several potential accomplices to Steven Kessler, a notorious criminal who had killed a prison guard in 1982, escaped, and broke into the DEA Portland office to steal documents about past and present investigations, among other criminal actions while on the loose.

In a potentially damning connection, I was roommates with Tom Craven at the Care Unit in 1984. Tom was a co-conspirator with Steven in the 1966 Oregon State Prison riots. I also grew up with Wayne Harsh, a neighbor of mine until 1973 and a former Clackamas County Police man who supplied the getaway car to Steven Kessler after he escape from prison after the death of the guard.

Hal:

Hal was a lanky, chain-smoking intellectual who served as my alternate driver when Ralph wasn’t around. Despite holding a bachelor’s degree in forestry and possessing a strong work ethic, he had been reduced by mental instability to peddling speed at local strip bars to survive. We spent hours fueled by stimulants, dissecting religion and philosophy; he carried a deep-seated Catholic guilt, often claiming that heaven and hell were not afterlives, but states of existence right here on earth.

He possessed a tragic cynicism, believing that the damage in the world mirrored the damage in his own mind. While I felt oppressed by life, Hal felt oppressed by God and the Church, arguing that he had to sort through layers of hell just to find a piece of heaven. Our conversations never ended on a hopeful note, a fact cemented when he was eventually arrested for drug distribution after being betrayed by an acquaintance, becoming yet another casualty of the game, we were playing.

Barbara:

Barbara was an emotionally unavailable whirlwind who entered my life in the late summer, interested only in a running mate who had no expectations of her. She was petite, outgoing, and treated me like an accessory for her escapades, discarding me whenever the night ended or her mood shifted. Despite her demeaning nature, I felt a strange, fleeting safety with her, perhaps because her loneliness and nihilism matched my own so perfectly.

Our relationship peaked on Halloween, when we roamed downtown Portland costumed as a pimp and his prostitutes. For a few hours, the leather and velvet disguise covered my emaciated frame, earning me the only compliment on my appearance I’d received in years. But true to form, she abandoned me at 2:30 AM, leaving me to realize that we were just two damaged souls crashing into each other in the dark.

Robert:

One challenging night at the Punjab, Robert slid next to me. He was a convicted armed robber who had killed a man in 1975. He was looking for old friends. I bought him a drink and we got on really well for about 20 minutes. When his connection arrived, they went to the bathroom. Robert returned, eyes dull, and he slumped off his chair.

He overdosed on heroin right there in the tavern, though it was not fatal. When I asked the bartender if we should help, I was told,

“Robert is waiting for a better day. Until it arrives, he is right where he wants to be.”

He had me move Robert into a booth where he would be less conspicuous. It was a chilling lesson in the apathy of the underworld—Robert had sought oblivion to get over the hump of a bad stretch of days, and the heroin had simply granted his wish.

Dorothy:

Dorothy was a young mother and heroin user who lived in terror of her incarcerated ex-lover, Jakob, believing he could astrally project from his cell to control her. During a visit to her home, I watched her scrape resin from spoons, desperate for a fix, while she delivered a flat, cynical sermon on human nature. She told me that “good people” didn’t exist—only messed-up people who occasionally made helpful choices for selfish reasons.

Her worldview was bleak, mirroring the darkness I felt closing in on me. She offered to share her incoming supply of heroin with me, a temptation to finally numb the pain completely. Disturbed by the palpable darkness in her home and not yet ready to surrender to that final oblivion, I fled, leaving her to her ghosts and her needle. I never saw Dorothy again.

Georgette:

Then there was Georgette, who Steve first introduced me to. She was a 15-year-old runaway being groomed by thieves and a handler named Greg. Seeing her innocence broke my heart. I used some of my retirement money to whisk her away, driving her to Outside In for help. I stuffed cash in her pocket and told her never to return to Greg. In protecting her, I was unconsciously learning how to save the child within myself.

Paranoia followed this act of grace. A tape recording of my private conversation with Georgette appeared at the Punjab tavern. I had never been more fearful in my life. Some of the things I said about two people were very unflattering. And those two people were familiar with the arts of intimidation and violence.

The underworld was watching.

Greg:

Greg was a young man who had been on the streets for years, acting as a handler for runaways and a fence for stolen goods. He was intrigued by my vocabulary and my disinterest in women, mistaking my celibacy for a shared kinship. He attempted to recruit me as a partner, bringing me to a safe house on Duke Avenue to show off his operation—a basement stockpiled with stolen weaponry and appliances, and a hidden meth lab.

He couldn’t understand my cryptic talk of death or my refusal to join his enterprise. Standing in that basement, surrounded by the machinery of crime, I declined his offer of partnership and his offer of a joint, needing to keep my head clear for my own descent. He eventually lost interest in me, and as time passed, I watched him physically deteriorate, a mirror reflecting my own disease back at me.

Martha:

Martha was the matron of the safe house on Duke Avenue, a woman of unkempt appearance who presided over a basement that looked like a department store of stolen dreams. She managed the logistics of Greg’s operation, hoarding everything from chainsaws to automatic weapons while overseeing a chemist named Dieter who cooked meth behind a closed door. She seemed almost reverential about the lab, eager to show off the beakers and chemical progress.

She offered me a joint to celebrate our “good fortune,” which I declined in favor of a line of crystal to keep my edge. I stayed in her orbit for a sleepless week of manic conversation and chemical fumes before moving on. I never saw her again, but she remained in my memory as a strange, domestic figure in a house built entirely on theft and addiction.

The Wild Card

I continued an incredible downward spiral into addiction, and Steve commented to me, in November, how I looked like I could be the “Aids Poster Boy” because I had become so slight of figure, and so unhealthy looking. I had started “hearing voices”, and paranoia plagued me. Yet, I did not let on to others that I had become so disfigured internally, though the signs had appeared. I “heard” that there was a major undercover operation active in Portland, and that dozens of criminal indictments were immanent. In reality, that was partially the truth, yet I should not have known that, let alone warn a few others of those “facts”.

Steve wanted to know how I knew of these indictments, and I would not tell him. I noted that people were tailing me almost all of the time and I had been overtly warned through my Georgette experience that some of my conversations were being recorded in my car. One day I tore my car apart, searching for the transmitter, or the recorder. I had two different people stop by, and try to interrupt me from the search, which only added to my own paranoia. I did not locate the transmitter, but I really began to fuck with any listeners’ mind, by talking dark shit, and renaming myself “the Wild Card”. I let my world know, in no uncertain terms, that I was no longer aligned with anyone, and I was on my way to death.

The Rescue

By March 2, 1987, at a massive party organized by a dealer named Frank, I was ready for my final assignment. I agreed to try a “witches brew” of speed and heroin.

Why not?

I had nothing to lose.

As I followed Frank upstairs to begin a new addiction cycle—and perhaps to die—I spotted Steve. He was talking to a woman who used his real name, and it wasn’t Steve. The masquerade was over.

Steve pulled me aside. I told him that his secret was safe with me, that I had known all along that he was an undercover agent. Even in my mental illness and paranoia, I had known. Steve then stated:

“Bruce, I can no longer keep you protected. It is time to make a decision for yourself.”

I told him I was going upstairs to finish it. To die, perhaps today, perhaps next week. But Steve didn’t let me go.

Steve stated:

“Your search for truth has ended within my world. Now your real search for truth must begin. Your father is the starting point for what must come next. You deserve so much better of a life than you have given to yourself.”

He acted.

He grabbed my arm and led me outdoors.

He drove me to my father’s house—the house of the man who had traumatized me, but whose love I still sought.

He dropped me off.

Later, he returned my car.

The suicide pills were gone from under the seat.

Steve was my Harry deLeyer. He saw the champion in the plow horse. He unhitched me from the wagon of death just as the ramp to the slaughterhouse was lowering.

The Awakening

My parents were in Arizona until the end of March, so I broke in.

I was in such bad shape, I was shaking, my skin was broke out all over my body, I was hallucinating, and I heard voices appearing to be the thoughts of others, so I was in no condition to seek out help again from my psychiatrist. He would have committed me to a hospital,, for sure.

I invited Randy over, and we drank until around 10:00 PM, then he left. Shortly after, I blacked out.

In that blackout, I grabbed my father’s rifle and drove to a drug chemist’s home in Milwaukie. I accidentally shot a hole in his front door. The chemist, Brock, unperturbed, injected me with speed to sober me up. We talked for hours. He injected me again.

And then, something unexpected happened. Clarity struck. I saw the insanity. I looked at Brock and yelled, “We are nuts!” I walked out of his home with five dollars to my name and a choice: buy beer/gas to die, or gas to get to family.

I chose family.

My grandparents—the safe harbor of my childhood—nursed me through five days of detox.

My grandparents are central in this photograph from 1977. They were the best!

A week later, my childhood friend Craig Salter invited me to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and I decided to go. My first official day of sobriety began March 21, 1987. Since God played a big role in AA and I was searching for truth, I thought there might be a connection. I revisited the Twelve Steps of AA and ended up attending 270 meetings in 90 days. With no job at the time, recovery became a compelling new focus for me.

The Revised Twelve Steps

Practicing the Twelve Steps is about knowing oneself. Living the Twelve Steps is the realization that we are spiritual beings hypnotized by our human experience.. What might a man performing a self-examination through internal probing discover about his self?

To uncover the treasure, we first have to dig through the dirt, and believe me, it can be a toxic waste site., This requires patience, time, experience, and humility, but eventually insight is developed whereby we, as men, can see the forces of corruption within our own heart and soul, and through the seeing, we also facilitate the healing, as well.

In the rooms of AA, and through the teachings of Jack Boland, I began to rewrite the script of my life. I realized that my “Search for Truth” had to evolve into a “Scholarship of the Spirit.”

Based on my journey through the abyss, I revised the Twelve Steps to reflect my spiritual understanding.

12 Steps Revised To Reflect My Spiritual Experience

1. Through our own extended suffering, we finally found the desire to want it to end. We admitted that when we become self-destructively habituated to any substance, situation, or perception, or judgement and/or lack of forgiveness in our relationships with others, we lose our freedom of choice, bring unnecessary trauma into our lives, and into the lives of others, and, thus, fail to achieve any lasting sense of inner peace and joy. We finally realize that our lives have been lived unconsciously, and have become unmanageable as a result of that neglect.

2. With our new found hope and openness for change, came the desire to begin to awaken to higher possibilities for our lives. We realized that, in our essence, we have an interior, though neglected, power that will heal us and restore us to balance, if we pursue it in earnest. We now realize that we have not been living up to our full potential as human beings.

3. We made a decision to turn our will, and our lives, over to the care of our higher interior power. We become open to the possibility of embracing a new Truth for our lives. We want to access the power to continuously evolve, and we want to cultivate our heart to be more loving to ourselves and to others. We decide to let go of ANYTHING that impedes our progress towards happiness, healing and wholeness. We realize that without the deepest of desires, and intentions, to change our behavior, we will not be transformed.

4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. We have lived a life without a high sense of self-esteem, and we have made unfortunate choices because of the scarcity consciousness that has resulted from it. We realize that when we find the blocks to our evolution, and become willing to remove them, our new found insight will guide our paths with precision to the Truth of our existence. This is our entrance onto the path of mindfulness and higher consciousness.

5. We admitted that we were not being truthful with ourselves and with others, and by talking with another who we may trust, yet not be beholden to, about our errors in judgement and in actions towards our self and others, we can better deal with the shame and self-judgement that so often arises from the deadly secrets that we once felt that we must keep. Just by honestly talking with someone else, our burdens can be lifted. Our secrets need no longer keep us imprisoned, and mentally ill. When two or more people come together in the spirit of truth and honesty, mutual compassion and empathy also become part of the gathering.

6. We became entirely willing to let go of our attachments to unhealthy attitudes, behavior, and people. We wish to see clearly, without the limitations of our past, of our family history, and of our cultural conditioning, with all of their embedded trauma.

7. We open our hearts through humility and the willingness to change to embrace a new possibility for our life. Our new found sense of connection with our higher interior power inspires us to become more grateful for the gifts that we now have, and we are now spiritually preparing to finally give back to the world in a meaningful, positive way. We want to finally let go of all of the emotional charged memories which keep us trapped in a dead past. Rejoice, for the old demons are being transformed into the new angels!

8. While we were unconscious to our higher potential as human beings, we brought emotional, spiritual and perhaps even physical harm to other innocent beings, and we want to try bring healing and peace to those who have suffered from the effects of our ignorance. We realize that through the mirror of all of our relationships, dysfunctional or otherwise, we are granted a view into how we truly see ourselves. We want to see through the eyes of Truth, and not through the pain and suffering that unfulfilled relationships may have brought to us.

9. We made direct amends wherever possible to all people we may have brought harm to, except when to do so would bring further injury to them or to others. Our guilt will not be assuaged at the expense of others. We make full application of our new found wisdom, and our renewed desire to bring no harm to any sentient being. We want our world, and our own personal sense of self, to feel safe from further attacks from us, and our honest disclosure of our mistakes to those impacted by our errors in judgement will continue to support that intention.

10. We continued to take personal inventory, and, when wrong, promptly admit it. We have become honest with ourselves. We practice mindfulness, and continue to develop our capacity for insight into ourselves. We now know ourselves, and we now know many of the potential impediments to experiencing and expressing the Truth of our being. We no longer solely abide in old modes of thought, and now we are more focused on the beauty of the present moment.

11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with the Truth of our being, praying only for knowledge of Truth, and the willingness to live within its infinite domain. We now understand that this whole process of recovery is a meditation on life, and that the evolving, healing life that we are now experiencing is our living prayer. Each time we drink from the deep interior waters revealed to us by meditation, more of our painful dreams are dissolved. We finally realize that the capacity to change, to evolve, to grow in our infinite spirit is the whole point of our human existence. We are now traveling upon new paths of consciousness.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we attempted to carry our message of recovery to our world, while continuing to practice these principles in all our affairs. We have finally become whole, and are now conscious, caring human beings. We have accepted full personal responsibility for our lives, including healing our past, and keeping our present balanced and harmonious, and we no longer blame others for who we are now. We are now experiencing prosperity on many levels, and have witnessed the healing of ourselves. We have saved the world—from ourselves. Our life is now our truest teacher. We realize that we have no power to bring salvation to others, yet, it is our responsibility to point to the way of healing for others who may still be suffering, and who may finally become interested in overcoming their own limitations.

The Plow Horse Soars

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; and it continued in earnest when I walked out of it.

Sandman, 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. And I was like Sandman, soaring into a fantastic future I could never have anticipated.

Steve called me one year later to check on me. I thanked him profusely. I felt love and appreciation for him. I was awakening to a new, wonderful life. I can’t help but think that Steve, through his connections, helped secure an apprenticeship for me with the IBEW Local 48 electrician’s union.

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 had a story to tell.

My whole life I had believed that I had nothing to say, and that became an essential part of my life story. In March of 2017 I begged and beseeched my wife, Sharon, to please tell my story for me, as she had already written a great book, and had that capacity. She compassionately, and authoritatively, reminded me that my story was my own to develop, and to tell, and it will die with me, unless I find the courage, and the willingness to share it.

I started revisiting my childhood experiences and piecing together the story of my life. I studied some of the family writings and started recalling family stories about the grandparents on my father’s side I never really knew. And while I was writing and thinking and making sense of it, I was struck with a profound realization. I saw, for the first time, the wounding process that I shared with my father.

Grandma Elsie, Grandpa Beryl, and Aunt Susie, circa 1948

Grandma Elsie, Grandpa Beryl, Susie Paullin (dad’s sister) circa 1948. My father threatened to kill grandpa Beryl if he ever hit Grandma Elsie again, when he returned from his WWII commitments in 1947. Grandpa Beryl was a violent, demeaning bad man when he was drunk, but he sobered up in his later years, and became a good person.[/caption]

I felt an incredible compassion, love, and acceptance for my father, who had also suffered immensely under the spiritually destructive parenting of his own diseased parents. This can be particularly difficult for men. Men typically inflict their own wounding on everybody else, in subtle, or not so subtle ways. Usually, this manifests in poor collaborative intentions, and dominating, or being dominated, by others while engaging in passive/aggressive coping strategies. Philosophies of oppression and the monetization of reality often emerge from deep wounds. Women, children, and those with gentle or non-confrontational natures are frequently victimized.

We often downplay our inner stories, doubting there’s anything worth telling, or hiding them out of shame. But the truth is, our stories deserve to be told. Make peace with your story, develop your own timeline, develop your own personal story, and be the hero of your own journey. Do whatever it takes. Find and cherish your story no matter how difficult it is initially because as you heal and grow, that story starts to take on significance until it becomes part of the grand story. It should no longer be “his story”, or “her story”, but instead, the unitive “our story”.

When I recently rewrote this section on my search for truth, a period of time following my 1986 suicide attempt, I was to reenter the consciousness, and the emotional experience, of those most troubling times. I did not expect or anticipate this, and I reexperienced many of the dark emotions that characterized this most turbulent and disordered time in my life. I finished the work, and felt sad, and disconnected. I took my Miata for a long drive, which typically lifts my spirits, no matter what may be going on in my life.

This time, however, it did not work. I drove for 65 minutes away from home, and I found no relief. When I began to slow down, to turn around and come home, a dove flew over my car and seemed to lead me for over twenty seconds to a place to park, and to turn around. I then remembered what the dove symbolized in my mind, the reassurance that my guiding spirit HAD NOT ABANDONED ME and was continuing to lead me to my own promised land. Suddenly, a torrent of tears erupted from me, and a huge release of energy overwhelmed my being. I then felt an amazing forgiveness, love, and compassion for the past version of myself, a form of self-forgiveness that I had never experience before.

Can there be a greater gift to give oneself in this life?

Are you tired of your own suffering, or the needless suffering of others?

Are you tired of being the silent stick figure in the dreams of others who would control and manipulate you like a mindless puppet, and turn you into unholy versions of yourself?

Are you tired of your past wounds controlling your perceptions, and guiding you onto diseased and despairing paths of unconsciousness?

What is your story?

Where is your story hidden?

The world needs to hear it.

Let the healing begin in earnest.

Start looking for the authentic you.

This is the real, eternal search for Truth.

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Welcome to your entry onto the Universe’s unlimited bandwidth of life, love, and death.

We have been waiting for you.

note 1: I received a call from Di Di in 1988, and she requested a copy of a poem I had written for her in 1984. I delivered it to her. We hugged and cried together. Di Di died later that year in a drunken driving car accident in Lake Oswego, where she was the unfortunate passenger.

Note 2: Randy died June 3, 2013 at the age of 58. We attended his funeral.

Note 3: Donelle Mae Flick Paullin died on my birthday, November 20, 2022.

Note 4: I saw Barbara at a restaurant when she was our waitress in 1990. I was eating with my present wife Sharon and Sharon’s daughter Hayley. Barbara recognized me and apologized profusely for the way she treated me in 1986. I accepted her apologies and wished her well for her new clean and sober life.

Note 5: Steven Kessler died in prison recently, shortly after seeking to be released on probation. He was regarded by the Feds as the most dangerous criminal Oregon had ever produced.

Note 6: I had several long stretches of sobriety since 1987, some as long as nineteen years. I relapsed late in 2006, when I broke my leg training for a road race, and became addicted to pain pills. I now practice a program of conscious sobriety, where I can have an alcohol-based drink. This mindfulness-based behavior is often referred to as rational recovery, but is frowned upon in AA circles, where complete abstinence is strongly advised.