Blue Genes Read online

  The deep core of both our jealousies (mine of him, his of other writers, such as Halberstam) went back to childhood. As with many siblings, there was bound to be rivalry. I felt that Dad favored him over me, while he was sure that Dad did nothing but criticize him. If asked, I might easily have said, “Dad loves you more,” and he might have said the same. This common, though unnerving, set of emotions usually gets ironed out as children grow into adults. My two grown daughters, with adulthood, have become close, confiding friends.

  When traumas occur, however, no one makes the effort to sort out the conflicts, the negative feelings, the jealousies, the suspicions. In our case, neither of us raised these issues with the other. I, like Tony, continued to suspect that I had been the “outsider.” Neither of us was able to look at relationships and family dynamics closely or correctly, or even honestly.

  Tony felt competition more vividly, more dangerously than I. While I eventually took these matters up with psychoanalysts, Tony took them up with no one.

  As Tony’s depression deepened, there never seemed to be a way for us to examine the rift between us, or to heal it.

  “WHY ARE YOU SO OBSESSED WITH DEATH?” Tony asked me one day out at Sag Harbor as we walked across the excruciatingly hot sand on the way to a refreshment stand. In 1982, at the age of forty-nine, Tony had wed Linda Healey, an editor at an important New York publishing firm, and they had bought a house on the eastern tip of Long Island. That weekend Susan and I joined them. He was referring to the kinds of television programs I was making about end-of-life care, and the books I was writing.

  “I’m not,” I retorted. “I’m obsessed with living.”

  He didn’t get it, which was surprising, because he had understood why I wrote Silent Grief. On that occasion he had sent me the most moving communication I would ever receive from him and given me a publication party at his home, for both of which I was extremely grateful.

  Dear Kit:

  An hour ago, I read the last page of Silent Grief. I sat for that time, with tears tickling the corners of my eyes, thinking back over 54 years of life . . .

  Your lucid—and eloquent—prose has stirred in me feelings which I’ve long repressed. As you know, I do constant battle against silent grief, sometimes succumbing to it as I did last year, sometimes holding it at bay with an arsenal of defenses I’ve assembled over the years. I’ve fled from the pain of our youths—and the melancholy which it has bred in me—by funneling all my energies into the written page, often at great cost to the rest of me . . . Now, the authenticity of your experience, and your determination to grapple with it openly, has brought us this brave and moving book. You have done what all true artists do with the pain of living—transformed it into something purging and redemptive. You have worked through your pain in such a way that it will allow others to see their lives more clearly and honestly.

  You have helped me too, Christopher, through your love and loyalty over the years, through the generous warmth of your response to my crisis last year, and now with the bravery of this response to your own grief. I salute the courage of this book, I respect the skill of its execution, and I love the man who could write it.

  The reference to “last year” was to that point in time when Tony was in desperate emotional straits. Having finished Common Ground, he was searching for something else to write. In the meantime, he wrote magazine articles as a freelancer, one of which had been syndicated nationally. Unfortunately, the article resulted in a libel suit. With no future income in sight, and with his reputation on the line, Tony went into a series of anxious and depressive fits that threatened to undo him entirely. On the phone, his voice was deep, slow, devoid of any life. Susan and I worried about him constantly.

  One evening after work, I suggested we have dinner. We went to an Afghan restaurant on Manhattan’s West Side. This was a modest place, with the cookstove in the front of a narrow store-front space. It specialized in spicy meat broiled on skewers. Tony and I had always relished this kind of exotic but simple place. That evening, however, Tony could not enjoy his meal. He told me how badly the suit was going; that the lawyers were botching the job; that he wasn’t going to do what they told him to—he knew better. Just before dessert, he stood and said, “I have to get out of here!” His anxiety had reached such a level that he couldn’t stay cooped up in this claustrophobic space. He went out to the sidewalk to wait for me. I paid, and we took a cab uptown.

  By now, Susan had begun practicing as a psychotherapist and social worker. I asked her what we could do for Tony. She said his anxiety was probably an agitated depression, in which feelings of anxiety and irritability, even some mania, may predominate, rather than the lethargy and other kinds of symptoms we associate with a depressed person. A good psychiatrist and medication were called for.

  When I visited with Tony again, his anxiety had lessened, but he seemed overwhelmingly sad and down. I asked him if he thought he might harm himself. When the answer was not immediately forthcoming—we were crossing Broadway at the time—I said that I would take him to a hospital right then if he couldn’t assure me that he wasn’t going to try to kill himself. He said he wouldn’t. I took leave of him with some reservations. He prevailed in the lawsuit, but I kept at him to seek help for his depression. He did go to a psychiatrist and started taking antidepressants. Soon afterward, he signed a two-book contract with Simon & Schuster for a substantial advance. His mental health markedly improved.

  I felt relieved and gratified that I had been able to help him. Tony’s gratitude to me for seeing him through that particularly upsetting and dangerous episode was a sign of our love and his apparent well-being.

  I hoped that things would go well for Tony, but he found it difficult to settle on a topic for either of the two books. He came up with many ideas and then discarded them. He worried that he would never find a subject that would allow him to follow Common Ground with another big hit. He felt he needed yet another Pulitzer, another best seller to make him feel alive.

  ON RETURNING FROM MY FORTIETH REUNION AT PUTNEY IN 1992, at the age of fifty-seven, I too faced a challenge: I was diagnosed with lymphoma.

  After twenty-two days of radiation, the doctors pronounced me in remission. I was painfully aware that Tony had not come to the hospital, or volunteered to do so during any of my treatment. Perhaps now his fear of illness, blood, and death applied not only to himself but to others. Or perhaps fear of one more loss in his life kept him away, but I fervently wished that he had spent more time on the phone with me—reassuring me, offering and giving love and support. I came to see the absence of his support as one more piece of evidence that our relationship had changed permanently. We were no longer brothers in arms—more brothers at arm’s length. I wondered why my “loyalty” did not seem to be matched by his.

  Tony’s moods were increasingly volatile. Meanwhile, he had discovered a story that fascinated him: a town in Idaho and the murder of a governor named Steunenberg. The book would be called Big Trouble. He researched a long time and began writing, but found the book a struggle. It didn’t have a neat ending, and that bothered him. If he wanted to be true to himself, he felt he should abandon the project. Linda tried to reassure him, as did I. He had had doubts before. Wasn’t this just another depressive episode? He asserted it wasn’t. Visits to his editor got him going again. It looked as if he’d finish the book within a year or so, and it was now going well.

  By the mid-1990s I was again out of work. Tony was supportive. I remember him saying, “Hey, you shouldn’t be depressed; that’s my act.” Then, to my great surprise, he offered me financial support. “Listen,” he said, leaning forward in that earnest way I had come to know over sixty-two years. “I’ve got plenty—well, I don’t mean plenty plenty—but I’ve got enough for the two of us”—indicating himself and me—“so don’t worry. If you need any money, just ask me.”

  I marveled at these words. Whatever else Tony and I had been to each other, we had not been financial safety nets.
I was moved: now, at last, my big brother was going to take care of me. I never did need to take Tony up on his offer, but I felt his warm hand on my back, holding me up at a time when I really needed it.

  Looking back, I think it should have occurred to me that his concern about the artistic success of Big Trouble and his cheerful offer to help me financially were signs of something badly askew. Cheerfulness in a depressed person can be a sign of bad things to come, of the decision to end it all. With the decision made, depression miraculously lifts. I didn’t pick up on the possibility.

  In mid-May 1997, Megan, Linda, Susan, Tony, and I went to see Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in a stunning production. Tony bought the tickets and took us all to dinner. Gabriela was studying around the clock for the bar exam and couldn’t join us. After the play, the women walked behind us as Tony and I talked about how much we enjoyed the play, how many times we had seen plays together, and how important drama had been to our lives.

  I felt a difference in our relationship. This was a Tony who seemed very pleased to be with me and my family. This was a Tony who was finished with a big book and showed none of the anxiety that he had exhibited only a few months earlier—that the book wasn’t good enough. This was a Tony more relaxed than I had seen him in years. Again, in retrospect, I should have worried. But I didn’t. I was too happy to be with him, to see him enjoying himself, to go to brilliant theater, and to talk about it with him.

  Three weeks later, we returned home from a party and to the phone message from Linda.

  THE ELEVATOR RISES much too slowly to the tenth floor. I don’t recognize the man running it. Perhaps he’s just a night-shift replacement. When we told him what floor we wanted, he mumbled something that sounded like commiseration. I thanked him, but he looked surprised. Perhaps I misunderstood. Maybe he just wanted to say hello.

  The first thing that occurs when a person gets fatal news is emotional shock, blocking out the catastrophic events and feelings. Unlike physical injury, when the body goes into potentially lethal conditions, emotional shock can cause a peculiarly clear and uncluttered state of affairs. Numbness and a lack of elevated feelings can result. The mind may not be able to operate cleverly and quickly, but often the tears and grief and physical trembling that we think of as hallmarks of bad news wait their turn. So it is with me. As the elevator rises, I go back and forth between past and present. Even at this moment, today, as I write this, time fluctuates. Sometimes I am there, sometimes in the here and now.

  Susan, standing close beside me, touching my flank, seems calm, but I wonder what turmoil is going on inside her head. Is she also in shock or, as often happens when crises come, simply thinking long and hard before reacting? Is she wondering how to approach Linda? How long it will be before I start crying or shouting? What to do if I go berserk? On the way in from the country, she asked me several times if I was okay, but how do you answer such a question under such circumstances? Still, I knew how I was going to feel: anger, physical pain, guilt, frustration; needing both retaliation and succor. And, possibly, the desire to kill myself, too.

  I had taken this elevator ride many times over the past twelve years. Sometimes alone, often with Susan. It is my brother’s building. It is 10A, my brother’s apartment, that we were seeking. Normally, when we arrived, he would open the door quickly, combing his fingers through his black tousled hair—for which I envy him, mine having gone gray and missing years ago. His lopsided smile, paired with oversize lips, would greet us.

  Normally, too, Steunenberg would bark. Tony named the little terrier after the governor who was the subject of Big Trouble. I can now hear Steunenberg’s little feet join Linda’s on the other side of the door, but like his master, he is quiet tonight. I am dreading this. (Linda was dreading it, too. Over the phone, she said to Susan, “Are you sure Kit wants to come? Can he do this?”)

  Inside, there are four people, friends of Tony’s and Linda’s, people I may have met before, though tonight I cannot accurately place anyone. I notice a fifth person: a young policeman stands nervously by the bedroom door, which is shut. He turns quickly away when I look at him. Everything is in pieces. Is my brother still here? Is he in that bedroom, lying on the bed? Has the medical examiner been here? Will there be questions for us? For me?

  This apartment has never appealed to me, tonight less than ever, though I can see they have done attractive things with the living room since we were last here. There are long bookshelves down each side, painted a bright red, and the couches have new covers. The large coffee table has a bottle of vodka on it, almost empty. There are glasses, too. Susan and I decline.

  Linda and I go off to a corner of the room, away from the others. We sit on a small sofa.

  “What happened?” I ask. Of course, I know what happened, but not the details. And I do need to know everything. Linda seems eager to tell me.

  “He went off to Idaho with that woman from the Boston Globe. They were doing a story—Simon & Schuster wanted it for publicity for Big Trouble. When he got there, he became depressed and didn’t want to do any interviews. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. So they came back.”

  I had last seen my brother three weeks earlier, when we all went to the theater. Before that, when the book was just about to go to press, his editor had asked for a few additional cuts. The final draft had been very long, but Tony didn’t want to make the changes. His whole life, he had never wanted to make other people’s cuts, no matter what he was writing: a book, an article, a magazine piece. No matter how long the piece was, it was his, and he wanted to keep decisions about it to himself. In this case, Linda said, he’d made some cuts to make everyone happy.

  “And . . .” I prompted.

  “He was terribly depressed,” Linda said. “I thought he’d get over it like he always had. But this time history failed me. When he came back from the psychiatrist yesterday, it was worse.”

  For some years, Tony had been taking antidepressants, originally at my suggestion. His depression never disappeared, but it was markedly lessened. He was pleased with the psychopharmacologist. We had all been relieved by that.

  Linda was still talking. What was she saying?

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” I said.

  “I said she was surprised. At his depression. She wondered if she had done anything wrong.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  Linda looked at me strangely.

  “The Boston Globe writer,” she said.

  “But what about the medicine?”

  “He was supposed to increase it. But he didn’t. Or if he did, it didn’t work fast enough. I called him from work several times today. We were going to meet at a party. I went, but he didn’t show up. I got worried. Came home. About seven o’clock. And when I came in . . .” She stopped, gesturing to the other room.

  We went back to the uncomfortable group around the coffee table, where Susan was trying to stay in the conversation. It was, at best, desultory. The phone rang, reminding me that we had to call our daughters. We had to let them know. One of the others came out of the kitchen. “It’s the New York Times,” he said. “They want to talk to you.” He meant Linda.

  When Linda went into the kitchen to take the phone, I learned that she had already called the Times to tell them that Tony was dead. I had a question I had to ask, but I didn’t want to do it just yet, so we talked about how the others had learned about the event . . . biding time. The people began to look more and more familiar. Yes, of course, I had met them all before. One was a protégé of Tony’s.

  Linda came back.

  “Do they know it’s a suicide?” I asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “I think that’s a mistake,” I said.

  This is a big thing for me. Given my family’s history with suicide, I always want suicide out in the open.

  Linda was angry. “Tony was an accomplished artist, a writer. I don’t want people to remember him for this!”

  “But they’ll find out,” I said.
“Then they’ll think it’s been held back from them. They’ll think . . .” I left it unfinished, because this was not the time for this argument. She was right, but I was also right.

  I decided it was time to face my brother. “Will you go with me?” I asked Susan.

  “I don’t know if I can,” she said.

  “Let’s do it,” I pleaded. “Then we’ll call the girls.”

  We approached the policeman. It was an unusual sight in this living room. Here, we were more accustomed to family gatherings or literary discussions. In fact, I had never had a uniformed cop in my home before, or in that of any relative. Police were for domestic violence or robberies. We’d been burgled twice when we first moved to New York, but they sent detectives—in plain clothes—and there was nothing sinister about them. They stayed but a few moments. We never got our stuff back.

  This cop had apparently been told to stand guard here until the medical examiner came to probe into this suspicious death, suspicious only because all apparent suicides are questionable until verified. I wondered what his orders were. Could I even enter the room? Could I touch my brother?

  As we came up to him, I saw how truly young and fresh this boy-man was. I’m used to the bulky cop on the beat, covered with badges and ribbons, laden down with truncheon, handcuffs, Mace, a Taser, an automatic. This youngster didn’t have any of these, as far as I could see. Perhaps he left them in his pack somewhere, or a patrol car. Perhaps he was far less accustomed to violent ends than I. Maybe this was his first deathwatch. What was he to do with the body of a stranger that was only a few hours away from life, whose last moments had been a desperate pull of a bathrobe cord around his neck as he lay on his bed?

  The cop moved slightly toward us, and I thought for a minute he was going to bar the way.

  “It’s his brother,” Susan said, and we slid past into the bedroom.