Lawrence Block: A Long Line of Dead Men

Maybe he'll outlive us all.

Three weeks and a day after our annual dinner, Ray Gruliow called me. "You'd know this," he said. "Do they still have AA meetings at the little storefront on Perry Street?"

"They do indeed," I said. "Six or seven times a day."

"The times I went, the room was so smoky you couldn't see from one end of it to the other."

"It's smoke-free these days," I said.

"Well, that's something," he said. "I was thinking I might see what the place looks like these days. How'd you like to keep me company?"

I met him at his house and we walked over there together. He said, "I feel a little funny about this. I'm sort of a controversial character. And I haven't exactly kept a low profile over the years. I'm in the media all the time."

"You've even got a sandwich named after you."

"I told you about that, huh?"

"Listen, if some deli owner made a sandwich and called it the Matt Scudder, I'd tell the whole world. But what's your biggest fear, Ray? That people at Perry Street will recognize you? Or that they won't?"

He stopped in midstride, looked at me, and let out a bark of laugher. "Jesus," he said, "it really is all ego, isn't it?"

"Pretty much."

"My wife left. That's three marriages down the toilet. Last week I was hung over during jury selection and made a really bad call. And my liver's swollen, and I woke up the day before yesterday and couldn't remember how I got home. And just before I called you I was thinking about Severance and it struck me that it wouldn't be that bad to stick my neck in a noose and kick the chair away. You know something? I don't give a shit who recognizes me and who doesn't. Something's got to change while I can still recognize myself."

"It sounds as though you're ready."

"Jesus," he said, "I hope you're right."

"So do I," I said. "The last time I took a guy to a meeting, it didn't work out too well."

The prolific author of more than fifty books and numerous short stories, Lawrence Block is a Mystery Writers of American Grand Master, a four-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe and Shamus Awards, and the recipient of literary prizes from France, Germany, and Japan. Block is a devout New Yorker who spends much of his time traveling.