Day 1: 8pm

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Chapter 1:

Well the first days are the hardest days, don’t you worry any more
‘Cause when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door
Think this through with me, let me know your mind
Woah-oh, what I want to know, is are you kind.

Uncle John’s Band, The Grateful Dead.

I am lying on my bed at the Ritz Carlton reading.

They have upgraded my room to “Luxury Fire Lanai Ocean View “ from the garden view guest room I had reserved. There is no explanation for the switch, my “BonVoy” status was another victim of Covid. I suspect Liam may be behind it. He knows that this trip is stretching my finances, and he has a soft spot for his uncle. Whatever the reason I am grateful. Not because it is a bigger room. It isn’t. But I do have a view of the ocean and a fire pit and can easily imagine sitting there at night, fire crackling in the pit, glass full of bourbon in hand staring out at the Pacific hoping to catch a pod of whales breaching.

I am an inveterate reader. The type of person that always has a couple of books going at one time and another couple on his nightstand or in this day and age my Kindle ap waiting to be started.  Thank God for the Audible, Kindle and Apple books app on  my phone and iPad during the pandemic. I don’t know if I could have managed the last seventeen months of the pandemic without a constant source of new reading material. Far more than the streaming services that had defined so much of the Covid isolation experience for many, the printed word for me was supreme. It exercise my imagination far more and allowed me into the authors universe using my own eyes, not those of an intermediary. With books I may have been alone but I was never by myself.  

Make no mistake. I had been alone.  My only companions other my dog and books  were two dimensional and locked behind a screen.. It was “Travels with Charlie” without the truck and Steinbeck’s prose. Just like him the feeling of isolation from a world that I no longer fully understood. Confronting people like the Trumpinista’s who know longer behaved in rational, fact based world and killed millions with their ignorance and conceit. 

The point is that is no surprise I am reading. Nor that I am doing it from my bed as opposed to the by the pool or on the beach. I am tired and content with snuggling only with my down comforter and enjoying the view of the Pacific in air-conditioned comfort. .

It is not even a huge surprise what I am reading. One of the habits I developed over years of nearly constant travel is to always have a book about my destination handy. It didn’t matter whether it was nonfiction or fiction. Reading a story about a place or learning a bit of its history allowed me to connect to it in new ways. more deeply. I especially like reading mythology probably because it is a wonderful cocktail of fact and storytelling. Which is why I chose: Hawaiian Legends: The Legends and Myths of the Hawaii: The Fables and Folklore of a Strange People by King David Kalakaua.

He is an engaging writer despite his prose is rooted in the middle 19^th century. He reads like Dickens might have had he been born in Maui not London. What is surprising about this book is the effort Kalakaua takes to connect ancient Hawaiians to biblical times. He points out that the origin humans in the Hawaiian mythology, Ku and Hina, were created from dust and had life “blown into them” just like Adam and Eve. Hawaiians circumcise their males as do Jews and Muslims . He says it is supported by anthropological research pointing to the physical similarities between semitic and Polynesians peoples.

I think King David Kalakaua is trying too hard to make a connection. Perhaps it has something to do with his name although I suspect it has more to do with the missionaries who flocked to the islands in the early part of the 19^th century. No doubt they helped the natives “see the light” by equating their myths to those in the bible. Adoption and inclusion of native culture into Christian mythology has been a hallmark of evangelism since Peter.

The person I would love to talk to about this is my dad. He was an intellectual, a scientist and a professor. He loved breaking down theories down to their basic premises and then examining those microscopically to see if you could find a flaw. A colleague of his once described as a man who upon seeing a herd of white sheep would proclaim “lets drive around to see them from a different angle to make sure they are not black on the other side.”  We have had these types of conversations a lot over the years as he and I were eager travel companions. I remember arguing with him in Israel about whether the rock, as in the Mosque of the Dome of the Rock, was the actual place Abraham took Isaac to be sacrificed. In Alaska we talked about how the indigenous people arrived in the new world. Was it a “land bridge” or by sea? In his native Vienna we discussed the barbarian hordes. Sadly, when we were in Hawaii together, we never discussed this. We talked about other things.  Like green flashes.

Dad  has been gone for five years. Even after all this time it is hard for me to say he is dead. This is not because I can’t accept his passing. I can. I do. I was holding his hand when he left. Watching someone transition from this world’s existence to whatever may lay beyond creates a kind of post traumatic shock that is hard to shake. It provides a finality but experiencing the razors edge difference where life can exist one second and then be gone the next makes you think, or perhaps hope, that the difference between the two states is perception. What are my symptoms of my PTSD?.  Most of the time it is just ghost memories, like his love of mythology and hotels that have “enough” towels.  But on occasion, especially since my days of Covid isolation, they have taken on more corporeal manifestations. They are no less maddening, hurtful, nostalgic, painful or scary. They are just more real and leave an indelible mark on my state of mind. Instead of conversations there are monologues with most of the talking taking place on my side.

It occurs to me as unimpressed as he had been with Hawaii when we visited the last time there is no doubt that he would have liked this room. Dad judged hotels by their showers and the quantity and quality of their towels. The Ritz would have gotten the Dabuk (our last name) seal approval.  Not only does it have six programmable shower heads with various levels of massage, but water temperature is set by thermostat not successive approximation. My shower had been a sybaritic delight. After eighteen hours of travel among the unvaccinated I had felt the need to clean down to the molecular level. As I lay down on the California King bed with its snow white down comforter I think “Pretty good Dad..” And I can almost hear him mocking me with “Lets see if it is still this good tomorrow.”

The ghost of my father reminds me to call my mother. My friend Des once called me a “Mamas boy” When he saw the look of horror on my face, he quickly added  “So am I.” I am really not though. Mom does not really control my life. Well not much. For years, or at least since Dad went away, I have been her primary care giver. I am the one who takes her to the store, the Dr, to visit family and friends. She lives alone and with little to serve as distraction she tends to worry about all nature of things from Donald Trump to whether her printer is running of ink. I assuage her fears when I can. Letting her know that I have reached the hotel successfully is a worry I can take off her plate. Okay. It also makes me feel loved to know that my well-being is an integral part of hers.

I look at my watch. It’s almost 4pm here so it is nearly 10pm back east and if I don’t call her now, I know she won’t be able to go to sleep. I touch her name on the speed dial of my phone and, after a pause of a couple seconds,  her phone begins to ring. And ring. And ring. Eventually, I reach the conclusion she is not going to answer. This doesn’t worry me too much. It has happened a lot recently. It just means she is doing something else.

I hang up and a wave of fatigue sweeps over me. I place my glasses on the night table, tuck a pillow under my neck and close my eyes. I fall asleep without even thinking about it.

“The green flash should happen at any moment.”

The speaker of that line was my best friend, Conor Sean Kennedy. We are on the deck of his apartment in Manhattan Beach, California watching the sun make its nightly plunge into the Pacific. This view, the nightly reverence for the final moments of the day, are still new to him having recently moved from Atlanta, and he was showing it off in the way one might show off a new car. The intention was not to rub your nose in how wonderful his life was but to share delight (excuse the pun) in where his life had taken him. He had reached a new pinnacle, and he was savoring it.

I understood. After all, isn’t that what best friends are for. To share in and celebrate each other’s successes. I knew that it was all new to him. This view, the apartment, the city and state still had a new car smell to it. They were all just weeks old.  A month before he and his wife had been empty nesters in a McMansion in a suburb of Atlanta. He had been running a second phase start up in the fin tech sector (I was never quite sure of what they did) that was struggling to find traction when out of the blue a former colleague had invited him to join Mercers, the largest insurance brokerage house in the USA and head up their west coast business. The job carried with it the stink of prestige, a huge salary and overall package that could make him a wealthy man in just a few years.

When he first told me about the job, I knew he would take it even though that decision was less obvious to him. He had invested so much time and ego in his startup that he was reluctant to leave despite the business having seriously drained his bank balances. He had a streak of stubborn in him, always had, that made him believe that given a little more runway, a little more money, his foray into entrepreneurship would make him as wealthy Mark Cuban. But the boy loved prestige. It was baked into him from our days of growing up in a tory suburb of New York City. His father had been a President of a small insurance firm and the life he had grown up in was that of entitlement and privilege.  Two things that don’t necessarily greenhouse entrepreneurs. Working for the most well-known company in his industry was something that appealed to his sense of self. I am not criticizing. All of us have egos and while Conor’s was more developed than most, I think most of us would feel boosted by landing one of the top jobs in our profession.

I also knew from our almost daily phone calls that he missed the perks that came with corporate life:  big salary, ridiculous expense account and worldwide first-class travel. All the things he used to have and had lost when, after a series of corporate mergers, he had lost the adult version of musical chairs and was forced out of the company he had been with for 20 years. He had received a great package and he ventured out to set the world on fire with his business and investing acumen. Not only because he felt he had the skillset for it but also, as he once put it “to prove something to those motherfuckers.” He had not failed in that goal. He had survived. But he hadn’t succeeded either. His years in the wilderness of entrepreneurship had fueled his competitive fire to prove something to those who had set him adrift. The new job would go a long way to settling that score.

If our high school yearbook had a category “most likely to move to California” Conor would have won in a runaway. He was blonde, handsome, glib, charming and with a near constant horniness that sabotaged any effort he would make towards more serious relationships. He also worshipped the sun, the beach, and the water in the way an acolyte would a deity. He loved nothing more than going to the beach,  slathering on Coppertone dark tanning oil (despite his Irish pale skin) and dreamed of spending his days body surfing, and admiring bikini upholstery.

The chance to live in California, by the beach, and live the life he always dreamed of I knew would be irresistible.

I felt, like he did, that it was his destiny to be here.

“Bullshit”

“What is bullshit.”

“The green flash is bullshit. It is in the same category as green sparks from wintergreen lifesavers chewed in the dark. A modern fairytale. Doesn’t exist. A myth created so people feel justified in watching the sun set into the ocean.”

“I have seen it.”

“Sure you have…show me a picture.”

“I am sure I can find one on the internet.”

“Yeah, and everything on the internet is certainly true.”

At this point, we were both chuckling. He with the deep belly laugh that he had inherited from his father and my own laugh come from that deep inside place where real amusement grows. Our exchange was a summation of our relationship where neither one of us took each other so seriously that we would accept without question what the other said. In fact, it was more likely to be the contrary, where we would find a way to poke a hole in the balloon of our pretension. Not out of meanness, but to remind us that we each knew each other too well to try to bullshit each other. Or at least that is what I thought.

Besides busting balls is what men of our generation do to show affection.

“What are you two boys laughing at?” Conor and I both turned to see Delilah standing at the sliding glass doors that separated their apartment for the deck. I immediately stand up to greet her. She had not been at home when I arrived an hour ago, which, if I were to be honest, I was grateful. Once we had been great friends but that ended years ago.

Delilah and I met shortly after I had graduated from Syracuse. We were both in IBM’s legendary sales training program. It was everything a recent college graduate could hope for then. A salary way above what our peers were receiving in their first jobs, training that would be useful regardless of what path we took in life.  Initially, the largest part of the job was sitting in a classroom learning the IBM selling technique and memorizing the FAB (features-advantages-benefits) of the products we sold. For a borderline ADHD guy like me It provided a lot of time to daydream, a skill which I was particularly adept at especially when it came to contemplating the few women who were my class. The selection process, which while enlightened for the day, still had a long way to go as far as rooting out sexism. The women in our class were selected not only for their businessmen acumen, they were all aggressive and smart, but for their looks. In both areas, Del was top of the class. Tall and slim with the Nordic features and flouncy shag cut hair that seem to define that era, I imagined I could sense a “wildness” underneath the modestly cut, shoulder padded, business suit with matching pirate blouse that was the women’s business uniform of the day.

 I made it a mini mission to take her out on a date. I was not particularly slick in my attempts. Asking women out was not my most developed skill set. But what I lacked in style I made it with sincerity.  This allowed me to have a lot of women as friends but very few who were more than that. My ploy was asking her stupid questions about material we had in class or ridiculous questions about the future of the technology we were using (Fax machines were in their infancy and the first home PC’s were still a few years away.)  Delilah knew what I was up to or at least that is what she told me later. Eventually I wore her down and she agreed to go out for drinks. 

We went to a backgammon bar near our office and played a few games while quaffing overpriced beer.  I still recall the exact moment that I knew that there was not going to be a love or for that matter a lust connection. I had just won two games in row, and we were getting to know each other. Telling our origins stories. Where we had grown up. What kind of mischief we had gotten into to college when she told me “how she had been saved” and about her “personal relationship” with Christ. I am not against religion. I am not against Christianity, per se. However, I am the son of a Holocaust survivor and had a strong animosity against any who proselytized too fervent a belief in God. Most of the “born agains” I had met were condescending (my god’s better than your god”, sanctimonious (Jesus wouldn’t want me to do that)  and hypocrites ( I know it is wrong, but Jesus will forgive me.) With Delilah, it poured ice water on any lusty notions I was erecting. Eliminating the sexual tension allowed for a relaxed evening of conversation and backgammon. At some point it struck me that this woman was just Conor’s cup of tea. This was more an emotional leap of faith than some magical check list. I felt, instead of knowing that the two of them would click.

My hunch was spot on. The two hit it off practically on introduction and within weeks were a “couple.”  Delilah  became a regular at the beach house Conor and I had rented in Spring Lake New Jersey where we would party and sun ourselves into submission on weekends.  Con all but moved into Del’s apartment.  When Conor’s father died of lung cancer, and he fell apart, she and I helped him up. When he developed a taste for cocaine that he could not control we helped him confront his addiction and move beyond it. When they fought or hurt each other’s feelings I was the one each turned to as mediator and confidant. While likely not the healthiest of ways to manage relationship, it worked forthem. And for me. We became a family of sorts.

They were engaged twelve months after being introduced and married just six months after that.

When Conor’s job transferred him to the UAE, they married and Del quit her job and followed him. I would send them the latest videotapes ( pre streaming technology that required an advance degree to master recording the correct shows) and exchanged frequent letters (things people used to send each other before email, Zoom and texts) When they would get leave, I and whomever I was dating at the time would meet them at some foreign destination and party and play until we needed IV’s and oxygen to recover. When they returned to the states a few years later and started their family I became Uncle Danny. As Con put it at the time, no doubt quoting someone else, “There are three types of families. Those we are born into. Those who are born to us. And those we let in.”

As I had during their courtship I often served as a counselor to both and a mediator when necessary.  For example, when their oldest son, Conor Jr or Duke, was born Delilah unilaterally decided not to go back to work. It created a crisis in the family. Con hated the idea of shouldering the financial burden by himself. He told me that one of the reasons he had married Delilah was because she would be a financial partner as well as domestic. This changed everything. He resented it immensely. Delilah felt that the price of day care combined with the separation from her oldest child was too heavy a cost for the family. I understood both points of view and had conversations with both that eventually led to an understanding between the two of them. Con would become the primary breadwinner in the family and Delilah would manage the business of the family. With the twenty-twenty hindsight of chroniclers this was the original sin of their family. Mine as well. For them it buried a resentment buried so deep that when it emerged years later it had mutated from a benign disagreement to a cancer that would end them.

My sin? I thought that I was kind in helping them. I wasn’t. Instead of helping them develop a tool set that would allow them to confront their issues as they developed, I had given them a work around that was not only unsustainable but allowed resentments to fester and grow. I am not self-flagellating. My intentions were good. Even nice. But looking back on it, I had provided them with not a cure, but a palliative, to the challenges of their marriage.

Life went on for the Kennedy’s. They seemed to be living the American dream. Con got promoted and transferred first to Chicago, then Atlanta. Along the way, their second child, Liam was born. And Uncle Danny was along for the ride. When Delilah was ordered to bed rest before Liam was born,  I used a weeks’ vacation to help around the house. I devoted myself to being the best uncle I could be. When I discovered that the boys had never had a hot fudge sundae, I threatened Con and Del with calling children’s protection services, and immediately took them out to Cold Stone Creamery to remedy the situation. As they got older, there were expensive dinners and trips to Yankee Stadium. I shared with Duke a love of books and learning. With Liam a sense of play, fun and humor.

Looking back I was there for every major point in their relationship. A family member, friend, confidant, godfather and consigliere.

It was all good until it went bad.