Bruce Alexander

A figure in a dark gown and hood skips across a field, twirling a scythe.

"Cut. Let's do one more. Can you click your heels?"

I recall the day our friendship started. We were a few weeks into our first year at a boarding school in Fort Lauderdale, one of those elite, college preparatory schools, with a name more suited to the vistas of the Northeast. Me: white, British, living in The Bahamas; him: brown, Jamaican. I had tickets to a David Bowie concert in Miami, and Nate and his younger brother had just finished serving a suspension for alcohol possession; they needed no prodding to get out of the dormitory.

"Let's Dance!" Nate said.

We took a long cab ride to the Orange Bowl - I remember the brothers didn't talk to each other - and arrived during the first set. It was their first time at a stadium-concert and, coupled with their abysmal ignorance of Bowie songs, they seemed a bit overwhelmed.

An abbreviated show (we had curfew), another expensive taxi ride, and we checked in at the dorm office with minutes to spare.

Boarding school turned out to be the preview of what was to come. Nate's brother became the prefect, while Nate and I were considered alcoholics. We kept our grades up, but we were hardly scholars. The only thing we didn't do together was lose our virginity.

After graduation, he told me what his father had told him: he had to work harder than the rest of us, because, to Americans, he was black; and boarding school would be the best time of his life.

We next met almost a decade later, in New York City. Nate had just finished film school and I was a film buff. We wrote a horror/comedy script, coerced some friends with beer and drove to a farmhouse in Connecticut. I played the lead role, Death, and Nate directed.

Two weekends of heavy drinking and we had our film in the can. I returned to London and Nate started editing.

At 29, I moved back to Fort Lauderdale, opened a water sports business and got married. Nate was single and managing a bar for his father. He flew up for our 10-year high school reunion.

"Still a virgin?" I said.

"Someone took pity on me," he said.

"How much did you pay her?"

Over the next few years, we kept in touch via email.

35: I had two kids. Nate was still single, the bar had failed, and he was working on a script.

40: My kids were at our alma mater, which no longer took boarders. Nate was not married, but he was in love. He was also working on a script.

Later that year, he called. He had sold one ('commercial trash') to Hollywood for seven figures and was flying to Los Angeles.

I got on a plane. At the hotel in Hollywood I discovered that he had more hair than I did, and more baggage. We partied like boarding schoolers.

"Are you going to marry her?"

He didn't answer.

41: I learned from his brother that she had left him and he had bought a cottage in the hills. The emails stopped.

One day, I heard that his script was still in development and Nate had checked himself into rehab. My wife and I had won that battle long ago, and I couldn't goback there. I made excuses about family obligations and never visited.

45: Nate had a heart attack.

I got on a plane.

He was at home with a live-in nurse. Receding hairline and thin.

"The script got shelved," he said. "That's Hollywood."

Nate had invested and would live well, if frugally. He said he would write another one, intimate, low-budget, and do it himself. And he had stopped drinking.

I had lunch with his brother before I left.

"How is he doing?"

"I think he'll be alright."

I never learned what happened between them. Nate never talked about his childhood.

On my 50th, he called me from the airport. We were just sitting down for the family dinner, but my wife understood; she always understood.

Nate was waiting outside the airport, smoking a cigarette. We were both near-bald and carrying extra pounds.

"Still married?"

"She can't get enough."

Nate stayed with us for about a week and spent a lot of time with my boys. Not for the first time, I thought about where our paths had diverged. Her. She had stayed with me for over 20 years, and had given me two sons who were about to go off to college. Not for the first time, I wished I could have done more for Nate.

One day, he insisted on visiting our old school. It had expanded and barely resembled our memories. The nature trail hadn't changed. We used to come here after study hall and smoke Winston Lights.

"How's the script coming?"

"Slow. The words don't come easily."

52: I was watching my Liverpool lose to the Red Devils when I got the call. It was his brother. Nate had killed himself.

He left me a package. It was a DVD, with a handwritten note: "Finally finished editing. For a title, what do you think of DEATH TAKES A STROLL