Fixed my résumé and bought new dress shirts and acted like a lawyer, like a banker, did that well enough, learned my story, told my story, got the right perspective on it all, I was grateful, I moved on, I got over it—stayed up late, ran away from men in nightmares, worked to be the best and brightest, be the president, be somebody AT THE TOP. It had taken nearly every day to turn the boy that I had been into the man that I became, a dead man. That, in the final analysis, or my best analysis now, is what I realized that night: I had strived to win this world and won my death instead.
