ONE
Philadelphia, 1986
Death finally came for me shortly after midnight one miserable December night. I thought I was ready for it, but it arrived suddenly, not like a thief, sneaking up on me, but bold and angry, like a vandal intent on smashing its way through my defences. Death, the filthy hooligan, grubby and unwashed, leaving its soiled mark over the sheets and on my bruised skin. As I lay in my childhood bed at home in Philadelphia, attended by my weeping mother and the private