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Run For Your Life
Starring Ben Gazzara
Paul Bryan's Journal
1 - 11 April 1965
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Top Ten Episodes Paul Bryan's Journal (& Chronology of Events)
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1 - 11 April 1965 (Depart old life - pilot episode Rapture at Two Forty)
Paul has just left San Francisco, with the hope of squeezing 30 years of living into one or two when he encounters Leslie Thursten (Katherine Crawford), a woman he sizes up as indestructible, and the kind of person he needs to emulate. But they fall in love. For her, it's the first time.
Click the arrow at right to start the video clip.
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Return to "Rapture at Two Forty" page or read from Paul's journal about the events of the episode below
Chronology of Events
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Journal Entry
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Paul tells his fiancee that he's going away - probably for good
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San Francisco,
Thursday, April 1
It's been so difficult to think straight, but having decided to tell Kate nothing, just that I'm leaving and that she is free, I went to her apartment and broke the news that I'm going to Europe tomorrow, and wasn't sure when I'd come back. She was stoic, and though her voice didn't ask why, her eyes never stopped posing the question, more intensely so when I told her that I love her more than life itself.
She took off her ring and handed it to me, but I put it back into her right hand.
The anguish of this afternoon was a torment I could never have believed possible. I'm going mad, and have to get away.
Another living nightmare, the experience was really worse than hearing the diagnosis - like learning it three separate times. My heart was breaking for my dear Katie, but I felt this was the best way to protect her.
Maybe in time I'll be able to come to terms with what has happened, but for now, I can only run for my life, and try to squeeze the experience of what might have been 30 years into what is left to me.
After leaving Kate I went out to get drunk, but alcohol was like water as far as having any effect on dimming my senses. Met a woman trying to escape a violent husband, and that had a still more sobering effect on me.
But horror or no, I'm packed and ready to begin this uncertain future.
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Paul embarks on his journey from San Francisco to Paris
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San Francisco to New York,
Friday, April 2
Took an early morning flight to New York, and borded an overnight to Paris. Too much time for thinking, but at least my mind is settling on what I want to do.
I need to be around people who are living fast, and learn to do that myself.
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Paul arrives in Antibes on the French Riviera, and spots daredevil Leslie Thurston. He is determined to meet her, and rents scuba diving equipment to be able to go diving with her.
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Paris - Antibes
Saturday, April 3
What a whole new world. Like nothing I expected, and yet, just like the postcards I've received of the French countryside and the Riviera.
When I arrived at Antibes I saw a girl I have to meet. Made of steel, I could sense it. I need to find her secret, and I'm going to meet her tomorrow scuba diving, so I rented some equipment to try out in the bath.
Before turning in for the night, wrote a letter to Dwight Sinclair, advising that I would be withdrawing my name as a possible candidate for the party's Attorney General nomination, and that I expected to be out of the country for the rest of the year. I should have done this before leaving, but there wasn't time. Now the shadow of my lost political career has dimmed the warmth of the Riviera's glow.
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Paul bluffs his way onto a yacht where Leslie is diving, and by predicting that he'll get even deeper than she will, draws her attention, and she accepts his lunch invitation, but when they return, they learn that a man who went for the same depth as Paul's has died, and activities are abandoned for the day. Paul becomes acquainted with Leslie's father, another dare devil adventurer.
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Antibes, France
Sunday, April 4
Tried out the scuba equipment in my bath, and got the hang of it. All about the breathing, as I remembered from R&R days in Japan. Anyhow, I'd always been a good free diver, so was ready to take on the challenge, the first one just getting on the yacht. But Leslie and a bunch of friends merely swam over, and I told them I was a friend of the owner. This crowd would be easy to play poker with.
The group were running a kind of pool on how deep everyone would dive, so to get Leslie's attention, I put down a depth greater than hers. Worked like magic, and I got her to have lunch with me. She puts on a lot of bravado to match her adventurous lifestyle, but I think she's a very dear person inside. Her eyes revealed that, but she was throwing curves all over the place with her talk. Any come hither stuff brought out that she considered herself straight laced. She quoted Nitsche, but clearly hadn't read or thought much about what he said.
And yet, she was no fake. A really genuine person. Introduced me to her father who walks with a limp after being clawed, hunting tigers with a spear. If I was looking for something beyond the California Bar Association, I surely came to the right place. Leslie insisted that I try sky diving. With her, any time, but I didn't have the heart to admit how many planes I'd jumped out of in training and in Korea. Did tell her that I didn't know the owner, and went to the boat only to meet her. Interestingly she seemed neither flattered nor annoyed.
Things went totally downhill after lunch. We found out that Henri, a real nice guy who put down the same depth as mine, was killed doing his dive. Everyone departed quickly, and I went back to the bath tub to practice my breathing.
I don't know how long it's going to work, but so far, the move I made has been good. A whole half hour went by today without my thinking about the diagnosis, but mostly the longest gap was about ten minutes. What happened to Henri didn't help a lot, and spending the time “practice diving” in the bath really offered too much time for reflection. The jet lag is really setting in now. Though I was exhausted, and mercifully fell asleep soon as my head touched the pillow last night, I am wide awake now, and it's getting later and later - and I'm thinking much too much.
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Leslie attempts her dangerous dive, and Paul goes even deeper, but experiences hallucinations. He takes her out that evening, and rejecting his romantic overtures, she tells him that she's never been in love.
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Antibes,
Monday, April 5
Went out to the yacht in a launch this time, and was surprised to see Leslie extremely tense about making her dive. This girl I believed so invincible really does have a soft center. I guess we were all thinking about Henri when she went into the water, and held our breaths when she got to the depth he started to lose control. But she didn't miss a beat, and I could understand why, talking to her father while Leslie was making the dive. Mark Thurston, the racing driver who was killed was his son …. Think Pete knew him well …. I must ask him. Now, I think that Leslie must be having to live the life her brother would, had he lived. One look at her father, and she takes on the most daring thing she can do - for no special reason.
When we were dancing this evening, I thought there was something happening between us, but she cut it off the moment I tried to kiss her. Said she'd never been in love - not even a school-girl crush - because she'd never met a real man.
It made me think hard not just about her, but about myself, and how I am going to occupy my time in the next nine months.
Here I'm only on the second day of my rest of life vacation, and the puritan in me has already risen. Instead of hunting pleasure, I've decided to salvage the hidden woman in Leslie Thurston. She's a fine human being, but she's headed nowhere, and I have to do more than spend the rest of my life lying on a beach too.
Let it be noted, Leslie completed a perfect dive, and I started down while she was decompressing. It got a little hairy at one point. I don't remember much, but found myself hallucinating. However, when I came up, they said that I'd done 250 feet. Bit of a triumph, so at least I have something to say for this day.
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Leslie gets Paul to go sky diving, and between plane and ground, some magic happens, and she falls in love with him.
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Antibes,
Tuesday, April 6
What a man must do to win a lady's. Thought I'd parachuted from my last plane in Korea, but because Leslie wanted me to, I jumped out of one with her today
It wasn't anything I could relate to from combat - or even training. A beguiling sense of having left the world - and having stopped time. Extending freefall seemed to me an incredible feeling of control over my fate, something I'd completely lost.
Really challenged Leslie's will by waiting until the last second to pull the rip cord.
It appears we were both looking for someone indestructible, as those last moments in the sky turned everything around, and now we are lovers.
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Paul and Leslie spend every possible moment together
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Antibes,
Wednesday to Friday, April 7 - 9
These days are not really what I was seeking, but have been a balm for my soul that I couldn't have believed possible. I've never experienced such rapture before, or fallen in love so deeply, so fast, so passionately .
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Paul navigates for Leslie in a road race, but when she swerves to avoid someone walking across the road, Paul is injured. Leslie realizes how much she loves him, and he is forced to tell her that he is dying.
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Antibes,
Saturday, April 10
I had hoped that it would be as long as possible before I'd find myself in a hospital, but less than two weeks into my journey, here I am in Hôpital La Fontonne. The doctors say that it's nothing serious, just some sprains and strains, but they want to keep me overnight for observation in case of concussion. No pain in my head, but that's about the only place I don't ache .
We were going to go for a picnic, and then Leslie remembered promising to drive Gillian's car in a road race, and invited me to navigate. How many times I joked with Pete about doing that for him, and here I am, already experienced at the craft.
Leslie was a brilliant driver, and I was impressed. But apparently, someone walked into the path of the race ….. I can't remember anything, just being put into an ambulance ….. and Leslie completely broke down, thinking that she'd almost killed me.
Yesterday I told her that in time I would be moving on, and thought that she accepted that, but in the ambulance, she suggested that we have ten children before such a departure might take place. Then she begged me to take her along, and to this sweet girl, so trusting and endearing, I couldn't just say no, but told her about the prognosis.
She had been so tearful, I probably chose the wrong time, but she's taken it as well as a girl in love could. She stayed with me until I fell asleep, and said that she would be as brave as I wanted her to be.
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Paul is released from the hospital with his arm in a sling. Leslie tells him she's going back to the USA.
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Antibes,
Sunday, April 11
Guess I have a talent for spotting indestructible women. Leslie came to the hospital this morning to drive me to her father's villa where we've been staying, and delivered the news that she's going back to Philadelphia to start a different kind of life.
She was tender-hearted, and only made oblique references to what I told her yesterday. In obvious pain, but warm and loving without pity. Maybe I could have stuck around a little while longer with her, but the clean break is best.
She's leaving tomorrow, and had a lot of plans to take care of, so I decided to move back to the hotel, and let her get on with it. We said our goodbyes there, as she admitted she might not be able to go through with it if I saw her off at the train.
Rang Pete in Monte Carlo for the third time, but he could be anywhere. An idea is developing in my head that's got me looking forward to my tomorrows for the first time since I got the news.
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12 - 17 April 1965 (Who's Watching the Fleshpot - Racing partnership with Pete Gaffney)
