Bruce was unlike anyone I had ever met. Thin as a rail, but as tough as nails. I remember one time we were playing tackle football on an old abandoned field. We ran a play, and when we came back to the huddle, I saw him pulling sharp rocks out of his arm. Blood was trickling from the wounds. I thought he would be ready to call it quits, but he just smiled and said, “Give me the ball again.” I looked at him and asked, “Doesn’t that hurt?” and he simply answered with a question by asking, “Doesn’t what hurt?”.
He was different. When my older brothers first met him, they became fast friends. They would do everything together, and somewhere, along the way, Bruce embraced me as well. He didn’t spend much time at home. He spent most of his time , well, anywhere but home. I don’t know what went in the home, but it just seemed everyone at his house just kind of resigned themselves to the fact that Bruce was different. He would never conform to the rules and regulations set forth by the tough, martinet Deacon. In fact, he and the Deacon never saw eye-to-eye on anything.
There was just something about the two of them. Their disagreements led to many painful and long beatings for Bruce. As he got older, the Deacon found he could no longer lift a strap to him. And, so, instead of dealing with Bruce, he just threw him out onto the streets. During those times he often found refuge at our house. My mother loved him as she did any of her sons. Bruce was always welcome.
The biggest problem with Bruce, though, was his propensity to run afoul of the law. It lead to quite a bit of prison time for him at a very young age. His mother once told me that, “Bruce walks through the front door and always ends up running out the back door.” He wasn’t a very good criminal. He seemed to always get caught. And when they caught him, they always sent him away. But, when he was released, he always had a meal and bed waiting on him at our house.
During the summer of 1977 I was home from college working with a natural gas company. We were repairing a pipe outside of my hometown’s city hall. I was down in the ditch, digging dirt away from the pipe, when someone said, “Hey, little brother.” I looked up and saw Bruce standing above and looking down at me. I climbed out of the ditch and gave him a hug.
“When did you get out?” I asked.
He smiled and answered, “They just dropped me off. Tell Mama I’ll be around to visit tonight.” He often referred to my mother as “Mama”.
“She’ll be waiting. Don’t stand her up.”
“I won’t. I can’t to taste some of her good food,” he said.
So, are you home for good now?” I asked.
“I’m not going back there. I’m tired of prison. I can’t go back.”
“Just live on the straight, and you won’t have to,” I said to him.
“Yeah,” was all he said. He smiled and gave me a hug, slapped my back, and walked off. That was the last time I saw him. He didn’t show up for dinner that night.
A few months passed and in the late fall, while in Army boot camp, I got a call from my mom and she gave me the news. Bruce had made good on his promise to not go back to prison. Unfortunately, though, it wasn’t because he had decided to walk a different path in life. After I saw him that summer day, he had returned to his old criminal ways. It was just who he was. And being that person led to his death. It seems he died in a shootout with the police during a botched robbery attempt.
And when I heard the news I could only think of our last encounter and his final word to me. I think I somehow knew that he had it planned that way all along. Because my friend Bruce lived his life on his terms. He ended it that way, as well.
