Chapter 11: Day 3: 5:47AM continued
Dawn had broken over Haleakalā.
The sky had turned crystalline blue with cirrus clouds painted in peachy orange, crimson, and deep violet. On the horizon a bright yellow disk emerged above a roiling sea of cumulus clouds that obscured the ocean below. The caldera was now bathed in the glow of the new day and its peaks and valleys accented in pastel shades. It had happened every day for the last million years but was brand new to me. It was by far the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen.
I turned to Duke who was still standing in the shadows of the Visitor’s Center’s eve and said “Well, it’s no green flash but it’s pretty all right.”
He laughed and said “Amazing, right?”
“Amazing. Remarkable. The most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen. As ancient as this mountain. Yet brand new. It makes you feel so connected to the here and now but somehow it makes you feel intimate with the universe at the same time. Does that make any sense to you or am I just being an old guy speechifying.”
“No. You got it right.”
“But it begs a question.”
“What’s that?”
I took a beat and asked, “Why did you give it up?”
It was a Thursday evening, and I was sitting on the couch in my home office, a glasss with three fingers of Tullamore Dew in one hand, and the television remote in the other. All I wanted to do was veg out on the couch and do as little thinking and feeling as possible.
It had been another rough day clearing out my parents’ home. Not physically, my goal for today had been to pack up Mom’s study. The challenging part at least initially had been that office was her. It was as she left it. Every item in its place. Her favorite tchotchkes and nicknacks arranged just so. Pictures of her children and grandchildren strategically placed for optimal viewing. Her office chair still carried her scent. Every item was a reminder she was gone and not coming back.
Which is why I was on the couch with a glass full of three ounces of Ireland’s amnesia juice and very reluctant to pick up the phone when it rang. But the screen said it was from Duke and if he wanted to talk, I needed to listen.
I said, “Hey Duke, what’s up?”
He replied slurring his words “Not much Uncle Danny. I just wanted to call and tell you I love you. You are the best Uncle in the world.”
I put down my drink and I said “Thanks buddy. I appreciate it. But how come you have been drinking?”
“What makes you think I have been drinking” he said with a touch of belligerence.
“Come on. We are not going to play this game. We love each other too much to bullshit. What is going on?”
Duke replied “Morgan’s parents threw us out of their home. Well, they threw me out and she came with me. Same diff.”
I asked, “Why did they throw you out of the house Duke?”
He paused. The same type of pause Conor used to have when he was trying to figure out how much of the truth he wanted to tell me. “Well, he said, I wasn’t following house rules and I disagreed with him about that and then he invited me to leave.”
He and Morgan had been invited into her parents’ home under two conditions: 1) They needed to take their meds. 2) They could not drink. Conor’s death had created an emotional crisis and Duke then Morgan had found their way to the bottle and shortly thereafter due to their altered state had made the decision to stop their meds. It did not take long for her parents to discover the rules had been broken. A confrontation ensued in which Duke became belligerent and argumentative. There was a physical altercation. The police were called. Duke was arrested and spent the night in jail. When he was released, he, Morgan, and Pete the cat returned to Pasadena where they could do what they wanted.
But, I knew none of that then. I said “Duke, okay you are at home now. How are you two taking care of each other? Do you have enough money? Food? What can I do to help?”
“It’s all good. The University is still paying me my stipend and I am doing tutoring over Zoom. Morgan has money too. So, we are fine money wise.”
“Okay. “
“I just needed to know that you were around. That I could call if I felt like I needed a hug.”
“Always.” And after a momentary hesitation I added “You know Duke, I am here if you want to talk about your Dad.”
“Yeah. I am not ready to do that yet.”
“It might help.”
“I know. I am just not there yet but I promise when I am, we will talk.”
I told him I loved him. He said, “Right back at you.” and we ended the call. I called Liam and I said, “I just got off the phone with your brother.”
“Yeah.”
“You know what is going on with him?”
“I do. He called yesterday. He told me what had happened.”
“Was he drunk when he called you.”
“I don’t know if he was drunk or not, but he had certainly been drinking.”
“You know what I mean, and it doesn’t matter whether he was drunk or not. He shouldn’t be drinking.”
“Sorry. Yeah. You are right.”
A little exasperated I said “Well, have you talked to your mom about this? Have you come up with a plan of action or anything?”
” We talked. She said that she told him that she loved him but wouldn’t talk to him while he was drunk. That when he sobered up, she would happily speak with him.”
“Tough love. I get it. Do you think that is the right approach? Your old man never thought that approach would work with Duke. He said he was too stubborn for tough love. It would just make him dig in his heels harder.”
“Yeah. I don’t know. I kinda of see both sides.”
“This really isn’t my place to say but don’t you think it would be a good idea for your mom to get on an airplane and see him face to face. Perhaps convince him to go to rehab.”
“Duke won’t go. I talked to him about it. He is scared shitless of being locked in a place with a bunch of people he doesn’t know who have been living on the streets. He believes the only thing rehab would do for him is give him Covid.”
“That sounds like him. Your Mom has money now. Maybe she could help foot the bill for one of those smaller rehab facilities where they send celebrities…”
“She won’t do it. She calls it “throwing good money after bad.”
“I don’t Liam. Making sure that your son stays alive is probably the best use for money. Whatever, something has to be done. And I am willing to do whatever you and your mom decide. If that is tough love, so be it but in my heart of hearts, I don’t believe that will work. I don’t know. Maybe it is just because I have lost my mom so recently, but I think that a mother’s hug will go a lot further in getting Duke back on track than tough love. In person will always work better than Facetime. Don’t you think?”
“Maybe, I don’t know. I could go either way, but I just don’t know.”
I understood my nephew’s confusion. There was no right answer. There were no assurances whatever course of action he and Delilah chose would be the right one. There may be no answer at all because at the end of the day the only person who could make the decision to stay sober and take their meds was Duke. I said “Liam, remember what Yogi Berra said.”
“He said a lot of things.”
Laughing I said “Yeah, he did. The one I was thinking about though was “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” I could you tell the back story on that but I have always taken it to mean that when you are faced with a decision make one. Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re wrong. But at least you are moving forward and if you end up making the wrong decision then with any luck you can backtrack and make the right one. “
“Okay.”
“What I am saying is whatever decision you and your mom make just let me know and I will take your lead.”
Two days later I got a text from Liam. They had discussed Duke’s situation and decided on tough love. They asked me to respect their wishes and feeling like I had no other choice and much to my later regret, I agreed.
Duke called me a week later. He was monumentally drunk spouting a theory about how people would not be able to take the isolation much longer and food riots were likely to start and that he hoped that I was prepared. I said “Duke, you know that I love you like a son. And everything you are saying to me could be completely true. But I cannot believe a word of it because you are drunk off your ass and clearly off your meds. “
He replied with anger “What the fuck does that have to do with believing what I am saying.”
I said as calmly as I could manage. “Credibility is based on a sober assertation of the facts. You are not sober so how can I believe you?”
“Touche Uncle Dan.”
I said “You know I love you more than life itself. I will do anything I can to help you get sober. Tell me what you need, and I will get it for you. Tell me that you want to go to rehab but you want me to take you, I am on the next plane regardless of the pandemic. But I can’t make you want to stop drinking or take your meds. That is up to you. And I know it sucks but that burden is one only you can lift. You understand.”
“Yup. I know.”
“But Duke the one thing I won’t do anymore is talk to you while you are drunk. It empowers your drinking, and I can’t be a party to you destroying yourself. You understand.”
“Sure.”
“If you want to talk. I am here. 24/7. The only thing is the price of our conversation is you being sober.”
“Okay.”
I said, “I love you Duke” and ended the call.
We never spoke on the phone again. He would call and I would let it go to voice mail. He began texting me. Wild tomes like:
“Music makes sense and doesn’t sound like noise or nonsense to us because our ears are capable of processing the mathematical ratios of frequencies, in tons and tons of independent sources at once. For example, a simple pentatonic scale of five notes for one octave breaks down into ratios of 1/5 … btw all human cultures came up with that scale first as far as we know. Observational. All of this calculation happens before it hits the speech centers of our brain, or we would hear only noise. So… like it or not, by the virtue of just hearing alone… you’re making a zillion calculations a second. It puts any human language so far to shame it isn’t even funny. We currently have the ability to be supercomputers. Seriously. We just use it for artistic pleasure not normal data transfer. It blows vision away even for the most tone deaf person. “
or
“Danny, I think you might be needed. In WW2, the UK started drafting 50–60-year-old men to fight on the front line before the US stepped in. Extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures. These are extraordinary times. You may or may not see coincidences soon. They are not accidental. They don’t advertise. Your location, life, loyalty, and linguistics kind of make you ideal for many things. So… sorry. Tag you are it. Dream team time. You won’t be any good front line in a war. But your brain… I mean come on dude. Your beautiful brain and true as gold soul. “
I didn’t respond to his texts. I had made a promise and was determined to keep it. Sadly, his texts became more erratic.
“Breathe buddy. I love you. All gonna be ok. How’s credibility going now? If lacking, I WILL send the aliens. But I do need a phone hug. The wonderful things about Conors is that Conors are wonderful things. So are Dannys. Dad ALSO always said he hated games because life was more than enough of a game. Tried to tell Liam. No dice. Really wish I could make him see it. He is needed. And especially Hadley. Maybe that’s your job. Liam isn’t a reader. Especially not sci fi.
I seriously don’t know how or why, but Dad is in my devices and the airwaves. 100% sure. When I told him, briefly before death on Skype, that I was going to be ok, we locked eyes. Steely. He was back. And he smiled an amazing smile. More to tell on that one but it makes me cry.
Later, Liam texted me and told me that dad had raised his arms to heaven and let out an incredible, deep sigh, as if a great weight had been lifted from him, and he suddenly became more coherent. Oddly so. And Liam told me it made him believe in something out there. For sure. It MEANT that all those years of deception. His dad. And so on. Would be passed on to me. I’m sorry you couldn’t know while he was corporeal. I’ll work on letting you chill with Robot dad but absolutely no promises. Even if successful it’ll be decades. But we have eternity to try. Lol. Call.”
His comment about needing a hug broke me. It was all too easy for me to imagine what it was like to be alone and mourning the death of his Dad. It broke me. I needed a hug too. I texted him.
“Duke, I love you and cherish you. Nothing would make me happier than giving you a hug or talking to you on the phone. But it would be like putting a band aid on an arterial wound. It might make me feel like I was doing something positive when in fact I was getting in the way of a treatment that could be useful. It is clear to me that you are having challenges with your meds and perhaps other things. These are your burdens only you can carry them. I encourage you to take hold and carry them. When you do, I will be happy to hug you and talk to you but doing so now will not help you. I beg you to find your way to treatment.”
At the time, it seemed the right response for his text. I thought it was the kind thing to say. His response was to send me a selfie. He was wearing a colorful Hawaiian shirt, sporting a full blonde beard, dark Ray Ban aviator sunglasses, smoking a Pall Mall cigarette and giving me the peace sign. It was a coded message. One he knew I would understand. The cigarettes were a reference to my favorite Kurt Vonnegut quote “Even though I have been chain smoking Pall Malls since I was fifteen, I still think I have enough wind to run and catch happiness.” The rest was a tribute to his father and his favorite author Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. It meant, when the going gets weird, the weird go pro.”
That was the last text I received from Duke.
Three weeks later I was walking in the woods with Fenway. It was a beautiful sunlit early afternoon in the middle of peak leave season. The trees were conducting their annual gaudy display, and I was in as good spirits as I had been in months. Donald Trump was down in the polls, a Covid vaccine was undergoing emergency trials and looked like it might help bring an end to all this madness. I was savoring “Fanfare for the Common Man” by Aaron Copeland on my earbuds, music that always brought me calm joy and peace. Fennie was expressing her inner puppy by dashing in and out of a particularly large pile of leaves. It was a beautiful day. The type you remembered for a lifetime and one I would never forget for other reasons.
My phone buzzed. Its haptics letting me know I had a call. I had no intention of answering it but but when I saw it was Liam, I answered, “What’s up Shrimpy?”
Liam blurted through sobs, “Duke’s dead.”
It took months for us to get the full picture of Dukes final days.
In the weeks leading up to his death he and Morgan had been drinking very heavily, a bottle to a bottle and half of vodka every day. Duke developed a theory “the military” was up to something nefarious. He tweeted “Nothing to see here. I am just a man and a patriot doing my duty. No valor. I’m nobody. We deployed a small star over the Pacific last night to demonstrate.” It was followed by a clip from “Inglorious Bastards” where Brad Pitt is looking for volunteers and says “We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. And they will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, and disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us.”
Off their meds and the wildly drunk couple drove to Camp Pendleton, one of the largest Marine bases in the world. They tried to breach the gates with their car. The attempt failed and when the MP’s tried to pry them from the car they turned tail and fled at high speed. About a mile from the base, they lost control of the car, and it flipped several times before ending up in a culvert next to the road. When the MP’s reached them Duke, completely naked, was trying to crawl away. Morgan, also naked, was unconscious in the passenger seat covered in her own urine and feces.
They were not arrested. Whether that was because the MP’s lacked authority to do so off base or another reason is unclear. What it meant was when they were taken to the hospital they were treated as normal patients and not handcuffed to their beds. Duke escaped. Why he did this unclear. Perhaps he was frightened of being placed in a 5150 psychiatric hold or some other reason we will never know. Somehow, without clothes or money he made it back to the motel room in which he and Morgan had been staying. There he showered, dressed, and was crossing the parking lot when he paused for a moment before falling face first onto the pavement. Paramedics were called. They tried to save him but their efforts failed and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Duke’s autopsy concluded that he died of liver failure caused by chronic alcoholism. He was thirty years old. It also showed that at the time of his death there were no alcohol or drugs in his system. It meant that his attempt to breach Camp Pendleton was done while he was sober. You don’t attempt to breach a heavily secure military installation without understanding the consequences. The guards will open fire on you. It was suicide by cop but on a grand scale.
The yellow orb of the sun sat on the lip of the horizon bathing the world with the light of a new day. I turned to Duke barely visible in the deep shadows of the visitor hut’s eaves and shaking my head said “I don’t understand. You had everything. You were smart, good looking, charming, funny. The whole fucking package. Why give up? Why?”
“We have had this conversation before. Many times.”
He was right. In the year since his death I had often found him lurking nearby and I always had the same question for him. But nothing he said made any sense to me. I said “I know. I know. I know. But tell me again. Isn’t that why I am here.”
“I am sure. But nothing I will ever say to you will make you appreciate the pain I felt. Before Dad’s death I had been on the edge more than once. You know that. Life was equal parts overwhelming pain and rapturous joy. When he died, it tipped me over the edge. There was just the pain. Ending the pain and moving on to what was next seemed far more appealing than living the life I was living. And you know I thought I discovered that after this life ends, we join the universe. That I was ready for the bigger adventure because no one was seeing what I was seeing.”
I said, “And is that what happened?”
“You know I can’t tell you that. Besides Uncle Danny that isn’t what you really want to know.”
“Oh?”
“What you really want to know is whether you could have changed things. If you had done something differently would there have been an outcome that you could have lived with more easily? Right?”
“You wrote to me. You asked me for a hug. A simple fucking hug. It would have been so simple to give it to you. Something that would have given us both joy. But I didn’t give it to you. Instead, I went along with the flow and did what was easy. The nice thing. A plan that your dad told me would never work with you. If I flown to California and given you that hug and demanded you go to rehab would we be here now?”
“You want absolution. You know that is not mine to give.”
Angrily I replied “Then whose is it? “
Duke, pointing at me, replied “You know the answer to that.”
We stare at each other in silence for a moment when he says “Gotta go. Marisol is on her way over here. But Uncle Danny you need to follow your own advice.”
“And what’s that?”
“Be kind to yourself “and then proceeded to walk down the trail into the caldera and towards the rising sun.
I yelled to him “Will I see you later?”
Without turning around, he waved and shouted back “Of course!”
When Marisol reaches me, I am looking across a sea of golden clouds at the snow-covered peak of Mauna Loa. She stands there with me in silence for a few moments before asking, “Worth the trip?”
I smile and say “Remarkable.”
Blame it on Rio 