Gregory Brady
Appearances
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
I'm a heroin addict in recovery. I started shooting heroin at 17 and I did it for years and years and years. In 1999 was one of my worst years, worst experience. I was shooting dope every day. I got in a car accident. I was half blind. I had broken my shoulders. The doctors gave me Percodan and Valium, and I still had my dope, and I was losing time.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
A judge put me in Bridgewater State Prison, which was a place where they put heroin addicts for 30 days just to get the drugs out of your system. It was probably the closest I came to death in my whole life. I get out of there, and I'm in my living room in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. I was living in the Berkshire Mountains, and I'm with my best friend Marilyn and my daughter Bianca.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
My daughter, at this time, is 11. And Marilyn was reading the paper, and she was talking about the Josh Billings. And I said, well, what's the Josh Billings? She said, it's a triathlon. You go 28 miles on a bicycle, five miles in a canoe, and seven miles on foot. And so Bianca said to me, Daddy, you should do the Josh Billings. And it was a big joke. And I said, one second.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
I said, I'm going to do it. Okay. So I did. I began to train, okay, little at a time. My body mended. I came back to life. I thought it was great. The Berkshires, the foliage, the mountains, the lake. Marilyn had a bike. It was an inch smaller than others, but that was okay. And she had a great big canoe. That was okay. We duct taped it together. We tried to make it proper for the race.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
And I had my Converse basketball sneakers. And so I trained and trained, and I finished first every night that I trained in my mind. You know what I mean? I could not be defeated. And I was so much feeling life. And so I'm playing the Stones with my earphones, and I'm listening. Daddy, you're a fool to cry. And I'm coming right over the finish line like this. It was just absolutely awesome.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
The day of the race came. I go to the race. I got my little bike, which is okay. And I see people clipping their shoes into the pedals of their bikes. And I went, my God, that's dangerous. What are these people doing? And so, first is a mile uphill. And I'm passing people. And I'm feeling good. Man, man, I might not even finish last. This is great. And then going down the hill, they went...
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
right by me. They flew right by me. And so little by little, I was starting to understand how much I was gonna, where I was gonna finish in this thing. So I get to the lake, I get to the canoe, and there's canoes everywhere on the lake, and I was so excited, because all I wanted to do was finish and not be last. That's all. And so I get in my canoe, and it's like a family canoe.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
I have a milk crate in the center of it, and I'm rowing it. You know, kids are flying by me in kayaks with their eyebrows shaved and their heads shaved and flames on their boat and all that. And I'm in, like, the Titanic. And I'm up higher than everybody on my milk crate. So I scream, is this moving? And a man answered me. He said, yeah, you're moving. I can see that you're moving.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
He said, look at the hill. You'll see that you're... He took the question literally. He thought I was really asking if I was moved. So we go around the lake and go around the lake and go around the lake. You had to go four times. I think I went five. I might have gone five because...
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
We get to the end, I got a quarter mile left, Marilyn's waiting for me at the end, and the lake is like ice, and I'm the only canoe on it. And so I go like hell, I go like hell, that's all right, that's all right, I'm gonna finish, I'm gonna finish, I might not be last. I get to the end, I say, Marilyn, give me the water, give me the water. She said, I drank it all.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
She said, she said, you took so long that I got thirsty. So I get my water and then I'm off. My sneakers are wet now because I screwed up in the water. And I'm running my seven miles to Tanglewood. Now the race ends at Tanglewood, which is an outdoor theater and the Berkshires and the Boston Symphony plays there all summer. And when the race ends, everybody parties up there. And so...
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
I'm running and it's like post-apocalyptic. There's tables, nobody. There's chairs, nobody. There's just glasses of water there waiting for me. I was kind of losing it a little bit and I get to the entrance of Tanglewood and there's all people there. I thought they would have been gone by now. And they were all there, they were all partying.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
And then I looked and the finish clock was still running, the great big clock, and it said four hours and 42 minutes. And I fell down. I hit like a pothole in the thing and I fell down. And I was going in and out of it and I couldn't, sounds were coming in and out. I heard somebody scream, get him an ambulance, make him stop. And then a man came over and he put his hand on my back.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
And I felt safe. I just felt safe. And his wife walked around me and poured water on me. And I couldn't look up. I was looking at their $500 running shoes. And I had this attack of shame. And he said to me, listen, buddy. He said, the guy that won this race won in two hours and three minutes. Next week, nobody's going to remember this guy's name.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
He said, if you can get up and get yourself over the finish line, it says four hours and 43 minutes. He said, you're going to be a story for grandchildren for years to come. And I went, oh my God. And I kept getting up and staggering and falling. And I could see Marilyn and my daughter at the finish line.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
And Bianca Lynn, my daughter, she was looking at me and she just had that awful look on her face and she was scared and she was looking at me like she had been looking at me my whole life. I was always in that kind of frigging condition. And so I got up and I fell, and the man stayed with me, and his wife kept pouring the water and all of that.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Saving Graces
And, you know, it was just, to me, it was just like a whole failure. And then Bianca got right up in front, right next to the clock, and she clenched her little hands, and she stuck her chest out, and she screamed, That's my daddy! And my God... So I stood right up and I walked over that finish line and she jumped into my arms and she said, I love you so much, daddy. Thank you.