I can recall nights that spring when at two or three in the morning, dead drunk, I’d be leaning across the sill of my open window and crying in great, coarse-throat jags. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Despite my new interest in the backstage crafts, I was living a life without satisfaction and was given to black silences or murderous rages. I’d go to a party, behave sullenly, then leave to be alone in my misery. I was a vagabond in the city, wandering its streets at night without purpose or direction. Lovers passing left me sick. One night I dreamed I was born again, good-looking. My scalp itched constantly; I was convinced I would soon be bald. I passed out at a party from a bellyful of bathtub gin and woke at dawn lying on a garbage dump, five miles south of town. I was nearing the end of a road; you might have thought me beyond saving. I needed luck. Soon.