I haven't written for a few weeks because I didn't want to overreact to what you said about Alex: "My recollection is that he doesn't want to have anything to do with you." For the record, though, my initial reaction was, "Why would Allan want to rub salt in my wound about an event that he knows was very disturbing to me?"

I see now, of course, that you had no intention to hurt or provoke me, but were merely saying what you remembered to be the case, no more no less. As such, your statement is perfectly friendly and perfectly true. It's even tactfully understated.

I won't, therefore, overreact by making a lot of curt claims that would sound like nothing more than emotional denial writ large. But, for the sake of starting a deeper dialog than has before been possible between us, I've decided that it might indeed be helpful to "overreact" in a different sense: in the same sense that you "overreacted" to your fascination with math by becoming a mathematician, and I "overreacted" to my sorrow over irrational human suffering by finding a wise man in the form of Paul Rosenfels and starting the Ninth Street Center. So allow me to "overreact" for a moment by telling you why the whole question of Alex is an interesting issue for me. (I will respond in a more lighthearted way to some of the other topics we've been discussing in my next message.)

To be honest with you, I haven't thought about Alex in years. And whether he has grown to be the great creative genius we always suspected he would become really doesn't matter any more. But my admiration for Alex, and the remorse over the unhappy and entirely accidental blowup that interrupted our boyhood friendship, was indeed very important 30 years ago. The surprising strength of my reaction to your innocent remark of three weeks ago proves that even today more closure would be good for me.

I won't retell here the story of Alex's great adventure. How he told me one Saturday morning that he was going to hitchhike upstate and that I could come along. How we spent a lovely summer afternoon in the automobiles of friendly strangers eating hot dogs and feeling like Lewis and Clark mapping out injun territory. How I was so impressed with the new assertiveness and self-confidence he seemed to have acquired. How nightfall unexpectedly seemed to unglue and even frighten him. How he panicked because he hadn't told his parents where he was — despite what he'd told me — and was actually running away from home. How he became hysterical and incoherent and said in a hot rage, "I don't know how I could ever have let you talk me into this!" How I finally grabbed the mouthpiece of a telephone out of his hands and bopped him on the top of his head with it, the way I'd seen Humphrey Bogart slap women to snap them out of their hysteria. How, since even then he wouldn't let me talk him through his dilemma, I got fed up and hiked home by myself. (Okay, so I went ahead and retold the story of Alex's great adventure! So sue me!)

You heard this story at the time it happened and, fact is, it's no more interesting than anybody else's tale of falling in the mud with their prom dress on. It has no truth to tell about wisdom or strength, just a couple of kids out of their depth and losing their way. Most of us go through lots of experiences like this and forget about them after a week. They're supposed to build character or something.

Did I feel ashamed of myself for this incident? Yes and no. Yes, it was a failure. Yes, neither of us came out looking very "mature" or even socially competent. But we were children. And children have their little adventures and come home in tears. They fall off their bikes. They get into fights. They torture animals and don't know enough to feel guilty until many years later. They're clumsy behaviorally, intellectually and every other way. It comes with the territory. But if you don't make mistakes, you don't learn much. So you either go out and make a fool of yourself or you stay home and end up a smug wallflower. Alex and I believed in going out and we had an accident from which at least one of us learned something.

Too bad Alex didn't have the guts to strike back. It would have rescued his pride, and the whole incident would have been over that very day. (The whole psychology of slapping someone to snap them out of their hysteria, by the way, is pretty transparent: When someone is trembling with fear and loathing about some remote future they totally forget that they still have control at least over the here and now. Slapping them or splashing water in their face triggers a visceral "fight back" reaction that surprises them and makes them instantly feel more control over their immediate surroundings, sometimes enough for them to be able to say, "Thanks, I needed that.")

For me it was over that very day. I didn't hold any grudges, just a kind of bewilderment over Alex's hysteria and a curiosity over what family argument must have triggered the whole escapade. And I was astonished several weeks later when David said that Alex was in constant terror of running into me. What in the world could he have been in terror of? Facing the lies he had begun to tell himself (and perhaps his parents) about the incident? David saw through those even before hearing my side of the story.

For many months afterwards I looked forward to an opportunity to show Alex that I held no grudge and that I looked forward to our becoming friends again, but I wanted to wait for him to calm down enough to accept even that much. I never saw him again.

I think — as I thought at that time — that I acted about as well as an average 17 year old would when coming up against a friend's psychological crisis that was utterly new to his experience. Considering that I had spent the whole day assisting and supporting Alex's great adventure, I think on balance that his treatment of me would have to be accounted the more shameful.

But on a whole other, deeper, level — in a way that ultimately has nothing to do with Alex at all — I have to report to you that I am the kind of person who doesn't like to fail in his efforts to help or even just befriend people. It reminds me of a wonderful documentary I once saw about a surgeon who pioneered heart operations on children. After he killed five beautiful young innocent creatures he gave it up in horror and disgust. But the president of the hospital (it could have been anyone, I suppose) sat him down and told him point blank that he had to ignore his own remorse and carry on in the name of the other beautiful young innocent creatures who would certainly die if he didn't figure out how to heal them. Sometimes we all need to be told to stop feeling sorry for our failures and look to our future successes. (Do you remember the story about Patton slapping a weeping solder in an infirmary? Same thing.) When I finally threw cold water on Alex by bonking him on the head, I was trying in a childish and purely instinctual way to say "Stop! Let's both calm down and solve this problem!" And because it succeeded only symptomatically it failed. I failed.

This incident is important (I now think) in my development because it showed me in a very concrete way how easily some people wander into situations whose unexpected and unintended complications — especially if they can't face their own feelings about having failed — can haunt them for years. And it showed me how much I might become able to intervene in a constructive way if only I could understood people better and knew what to say and do. (Needless to say, I haven't gone on to develop phone-bopping as a sub-therapy of rolfing. That turned out to be the last time I ever hit anybody or anything except for 1969 when I was angry at Paul and ran to my apartment to splatter a ceramic frog against a brick wall.)

There are at least three ways in which Alex might feel about this incident today. 1) Maybe he did literally disappear off the face of the earth or lies in some mental hospital bed totally consumed by delusions, in which case neither of us can help him. 2) He is still fixated in rage and denial over the incident and has never "gotten over" it, in which case the best medicine of all for him would be to resume a friendly and non-threatening dialog with me. 3) He got over the incident 30 years ago, perhaps with the help of a therapist, and would enjoy reassuring me that he holds no grudges, in which case I would be glad to accept his reassurance and offer him mine. Hey, maybe he became a loveable old psychotherapist and likes to tell this story as an example of the kind of boyhood squabbles that shouldn't be blown out of proportion?

To be perfectly honest, Allan, your sole observation, commemorating only Alex's final bitterness, seemed at first to me so unimaginative, mean-spirited, and lacking in hope for reconciliation that it sounded like the telling outburst of a very discouraged and isolated person who has perhaps found not enough forgiveness, reconciliation and growth in his own relationships. I'm not accusing you of fitting that description, of course. I don't know you at a psychological level any more than you know me, and at this stage simply hope to learn more. (The more we know about one another the more we can help one another, right?)

I have been lucky in my long life to have found lots of understanding people who are sympathetic to the growth process, and who in your place would probably have said something like, "I'm sure Alex would get some closure from knowing what's happened to you, Dean," or "I'm sure some friendly gesture on your part would be good for Alex." Maybe you think this kind of talk is just diplomatic wishful thinking, but from what I have seen of life, people who don't wish for growth and reconciliation rarely recognize it when it comes knocking.

Enough for now. I hope you find this letter challenging (or at least interesting?) and can respond in a constructive way. I look forward to in-depth dialogs (not to mention chit-chat) with you on many topics, most of which will hopefully be more light-hearted than the sad subject of Alex. Fifteen years ago you wisely closed off one series of letters saying that we were lecturing each other dogmatically from mountain tops. I hope this didn't sound like a lecture. I also hope you understand why I find any kind of "wallowing in negativity" to be unhealthy and to be avoided when there is an alternative.

Perhaps you should take a few weeks to think about these issues before responding, as I did? I've probably said one or two things that have inadvertently ruffled your feathers, or which you may accidentally misinterpret at first in the "rush to judgement" that we all suffer when feeling challenged. I wouldn't want our new friendship to end up in any hennish squawk-fest.