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good note, hugging each other, wanting to believe that we will
both be all right. And for the moment that possibility seems
real and true. That we can change. Yet inside we are scared be-
cause we know this hope is fleeting and that the better life we
imagine for ourselves may just be another illusion. The bottle,
pills and powders own us and we are fooling ourselves if we
think we can survive without them. I make it something like
twelve days. You last four months and then, because you re
doing so well, the counselors let you go home for the weekend
to be with your husband. But on Monday morning, when
you re supposed to return to the recovery house, you re too
drunk to get out of bed. Your husband is disgusted. Your coun-
selors have had it and won t take you back.
So you re on your own now. For a while you double up on
your A.A. meetings, call your sponsor five or six times a day
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and work the twelve steps religiously. But it s the same old
story, you get a day or two sober and then go out again, each
binge worse than the last, and eventually, inevitably, you alien-
ate all the people who love and care about you. You have
drained all your resources. You have cut all ties. Ruined all re-
lationships. You are now among the living dead who for what-
ever reasons cannot or will not stop drinking.
This is when your late-night calls begin again, while I m
still going through my bitter divorce, struggling to stay sober
and living with the woman who helps me toward this end, the
woman I will later marry. I ve put together three months at this
point, and like the others in your life I have run out of pa-
tience. Each time you phone you are drunk, full of anger and
self-loathing, and you direct it at me because it is eating you up
inside. Your husband doesn t understand you. He never has.
You cry over the death of baby Katherine and blame me and
yourself for Barry s suicide. Mom is a petty criminal. Dad is a
dumb redneck. You cry over our rotten childhood and tell me
you were never loved, never felt love, that it was all a big lie. The
rape, you never talk about.
Sometimes I let you carry on. Sometimes I just have to
hang up. All the calls are the same except for one, the last, and
you re sober. But when I answer the phone that morning and
hear your voice again I immediately assume the worst.
 What do you want? I say.
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 I just called to talk.
 I m busy.
 Doing what?
 It doesn t matter. I don t have time to fight right now.
 I don t want to fight, either, you say.
But I don t believe you.
 I have to go, I say.
 Jimmy, you say.  Don t hang up. Please don t hang up.
There s a long silence. I twist the cord of the receiver
around my hand.
 What, I say.  What do you want?
 I want to apologize.
 For what?
 These last few months. I know I ve been acting crazy and
taking it out on you and everybody else and I want to tell you
I m sorry.
 It s okay, I say.  I m not any better when I drink.
 No, it s not okay. I need to know if you still love me.
 Of course I do.
 I love you, too. You know I do, no matter how I act, no
matter what I say.
Another silence passes.
 Can I ask a favor?
 Maybe, I say, because I m still skittish. I m still on guard.
 Do you mind if your kids spend this weekend with me? I
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know it s your time with them but I d really like to see them
again. It s been a while.
 Sure, I say, and when we hang up I feel better about my-
self and you.
What I do not realize is that this is your way of saying
good-bye to them and me. I understand that last weekend with
my boys went well, you took them to a carnival near your
house, everyone had a good time, and I respect you for this
final gesture. I love you all the more for it. But on Sunday, after
their mother picks them up, you drink again and begin to rage.
Your husband takes the bottle away and empties it into the
sink. He hides the car keys. He confiscates your purse, your
money and credit cards, and then locks himself in the bed-
room. You pound on the door. You scream but he just turns up
the TV and you storm out of the house in the heat of another
fight.
This is July, the month our brother killed himself, and the
night is warm. All you re wearing is a T-shirt and panties. The
overpass on Lankershim Avenue is just around the block, and
soon you are there, lifting yourself up to the rail. The Los An-
geles River is no river at all but a narrow concrete channel that
runs thirty, maybe forty feet below. In the distance you hear
the cars moving along the Hollywood Freeway and beyond it
you can see the glow of the city lights. The steel rail is cool
beneath your bare feet and you feel a warm summer breeze
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pass along your face. Do you think of baby Katherine? Can
you picture your husband and daughter? Do you see me, your
brother?
Because I am standing beside you.
The following morning a passerby spots your body and
phones the LAPD and soon the patrol cars are on the scene. A
police helicopter hovers overhead. The noise and commotion
bring your husband out of the house, and because he s been
looking for you, because you ve been missing for thirteen
hours, he hurries to where the crowd has gathered. I find out
that same night, from Heidi, who despite our bitter divorce
takes me into her arms as she delivers the news: Your sister
killed herself. She s gone. I m so sorry.
Later, when your ashes are scattered at sea, I learn from
your husband that you had talked about taking your life for
some time. Had I known, would it have mattered? Could I have
made the difference? Marilyn, you know I would ve tried.
In the beginning the alcohol and drugs bring you relief.
They give you courage and confidence and then, slowly, over a
period of years, they strip it all away and you spend your final
years struggling to fill the emptiness that it s left inside you. It s
futile, it s madness, and for you and our brother there is only
one way to end the pain. This is the choice you make. I have no
right to judge what you are capable of enduring. But in my
dreams I am standing beside you on that rail of the overpass
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above the L.A. River, and I reach for your hand. You look at me
and smile.
 Don t worry, you say.  There s nothing to be afraid of
anymore.
Then you squeeze my hand and let go and I watch you fall,
again and again, as I will for the rest of my life. There is no
more pain. No impact. In my dreams you are suspended in
midair, the wind rushing up around you, captured in the mo-
ment of flight.
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S p r i n g 1997
S OUTH D AK O T A
First I feel chilled. Then come the cold sweats and this tin-
gling sensation up and down my arms like ants are crawling [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]