“That’s as good as reason as any to stay,” he replied and so I remained. In the beginning, when all I could do was shuffle (I was a bloated 385 pounds back in 2000) from the group home to his office on Whitney Avenue, I’d stop twice and rest on the benches outside the Yale University Law School. Across the street was the Grove Street Cemetery, where they offered tours for history buffs; usually elderly folks working their way from headstone to crypt, sometimes taking notes as the tour guide spoke. The imposing gate out front is inscribed with the words, “The Dead Shall Be Raised.” Outside those gates, the students seemed to be moving so rapidly, bopping past me, holding hands, jogging, laughing with some beautiful girl or boy from New Zealand or Zimbabwe or Zurich. I’d memorize snippets of their conversations and jot it all down when I returned to my room in the home. Every day I’d take two quotes I’d overheard from students and fall into the tales that way – I started writing stories. Maybe a pretty girl just found out her that friend had screwed her man or the dashing young Dean of Students had developed a penchant for bargain basement prostitutes. That kind of stuff kept me relatively sane. Further and further away from the blood and the whole mayhem of my past. It got me through, as they say. And so did Dr. Laney.

*          *          *

 “More than half of all communication takes place nonverbally,” the local Toastmaster President, Randy, told me when I showed up for that first meeting. He was a burly guy with a red and grey mustache and a ruddy nose. Something about him made me think of a friendly walrus. “Be aware that you are constantly sending nonverbal messages,” he said. ”When you speak in public, the listeners judge you and your message based on what they see and what they hear.”