despite what his note said.
& i am mortified to say that
only now does it occur to me
that david might have written
what he did to let his readers
off the hook, convince us
he never had a chance. that
both the notes he left behind
were about protecting
the living.
how early does the brain
subsume its fundamental
truths, begin to grow
around them like the knife
plunged into the heart
of a tree? what if he had
told someone besides his
wife? what if this person
had dragged him to a doctor
right away & what if
that doctor had made
david speak, confess
all, & then convinced
him that there was no
shame in it, made my
brother take pill after pill,
tweaking medicines &
dosages until the roiling
ocean of his brain chemistry
settled into steady three
foot swells or shimmering
placidity? what if this person
had been me?
the last time the world’s
greatest drummer ever
drummed, i was there.
elvin ray jones had been in
hospital for six months,
his liver & kidneys shutting
down, avenging past
abuse, when keiko, his
wife & manager, my
former boss, called me.
she had pulled veen out,
against the doctor’s orders,
& they were coming
to oakland to play yoshi’s
& needed help. i’d left
new york a year before
& hadn’t traveled with
them since, knew he’d
been sick but little more.
when i arrived i found veen
sitting alone in the dark
greenroom, forty pounds
lighter & already partway
somewhere else. he gave
me a papery hug & muttered
hard shit. dying, i think he
meant. the band was mostly
new cats, hastily assembled.
the only people who had
known him long were
delfeayo & me. elvin was
barely talking, but keiko
told me that in the hospital
he had spoken frequently
of john, whose name seldom
passed veen’s lips in normal
times, the loss too raw despite
the years. when reporters
asked, veen fed them platitudes,
said john had been an angel
sent from heaven. i always
took this to mean that elvin
was the demon in their
partnership, elemental &
propulsive, the churning
ocean atop which coltrane
balanced as he searched
for god. there was an
oxygen tank now,
backstage at first & then,
as the week unfolded,
on it, tubes snaking from
behind the floor toms into
elvin’s nostrils. the audience
did not know what to make
of what they saw. one night
the doctor who supplied
the tank got caught in traffic
& the tip of veen’s right stick
came up half an inch short
of the golden ride cymbal
every time he tried to hit it.
every time. the fans were
in agony, doubled forward
in their chairs, willing the wood
to find the hammered metal.
i heard an old man say let him
go home & get some rest!
as if veen had been rousted
from the sickbed against his
will. but keiko knew exactly
what she was doing. elvin
had allowed her to see him,
in all his naked fullness,
& so when the time came
here he was, dying at home
on his drum stool. his purpose
had never been in doubt.
he was on the planet to
offer the gift of his music
to a world that needed
all the love & majesty those
songs contained. seldom
did a gig pass in all my years
sitting backstage with keiko
that she did not tell me
as much, restate this thesis,
eyes widening over her cup
of tea, bright painted lips
pursed as she nodded in
somber agreement with
herself. his job was to play
& hers was to make sure
that nothing stopped him,
to sweep away impediments
& master details, belay
danger no matter the source
or the toll it took. i saw her
throw musicians bodily
out of nightclubs when
they showed up on that
shit, because nobody high
was going to be alone
with keiko’s husband ever
again. they were heroes to
each other, or perhaps figures
from one of the japanese
myths she turned into
songs for him to play:
the monk & his sworn
warrior protectress.
elvin’s certitude sat at
the precise center of him,
radiating an electric peace
that, by the time it reached
his four extremities
& passed into the bass
& hi-hat, snare & toms
& crash & ride, became
a storm. the very last night,
keiko stood behind him
as he played the final
song of the first set,
arms wrapped around
his chest as if he were
her mask. the tune was
dear lord, one of john’s.
when it was over, veen sat
motionless behind the trap
kit while we waited for
the room to clear. delfeayo
& i had to carry him
offstage, lift elvin beneath
the armpits & press our
hands against his back
as he labored to move
the same legs that had just
powered the pedals, his
smell still sharp & clean,
his forehead & medallion
glistening & the people
didn’t need to see that.
but this time, as the house
lights rose, veen picked
his sticks up & began
to play. the crowd turned,
surged back inside, massed
before the stage. the sound
was thunderous, exalted,
the equal of any solo
i had ever heard hi
m play,
& i had heard hundreds.
i wonder if it is possible that
what that solo was for elvin,
loosing those two gases &
allowing them to become
one & opening his lungs
was for my brother.
one day when he was
ninety-five, & eighteen
months into retirement,
my grandfather, being of
sound mind & body,
came to believe that he
would die tomorrow.
he told his home health
aide, whose name was
also david, that a statute
enshrined in massachusetts
state law mandated
the demise of any citizen
who reached an age
of ninety-five unless
he filed contravening
paperwork. ben had
neglected to do so, &
unless immediate action
was taken, he would not
survive the night. i arrived
to visit, & told him such
a thing could not be possible.
he explained that the statute
was unusual & began
describing it further,
employing the exquisite
phrasing for which his legal
writings were celebrated:
it was intended to curtail
the vitality of persons attaining
a certain advanced longevity.
i attempted to advance
some legalistic retorts
but knew i was outmatched even
before he waved me off,
a characteristic gesture,
said it was hard to explain
& i was not a lawyer,
a characteristic dismissal.
at this point an old colleague,
a fellow judge, chanced
to drop by, & he took up
the matter, tried to assuage
the old man’s panic by
citing cruzan v. missouri,
the constitution itself,
issues of state & federal
jurisdiction, the quandary of
enforceability—opening
& abandoning fronts at
a fantastic rate but never
seeming to question
the precept that we had to
defeat this delusion on
legal grounds. my grandfather
acknowledged every point but
remained steadfast, terrified.
his inability to engender
belief seemed to puzzle
the old man, whose word
had always & often literally
been law. finally the other
judge rose, defeat hanging
from him like a scarf, &
took his leave. i reached
for ben’s hand, told him
that i would fix this. my
throat tightened around
the words. in some strange
way, i believed my grandfather,
felt his life had become my
responsibility, welcomed it.
i left the room & returned
a few minutes later claiming
to have spoken to his lawyer
& been assured that all
the papers had been filed
with the court. ben narrowed
his eyes & my heart surged.
then he shook his head,
told me the lawyer was
mistaken. it was all i
could do not to scream
but these are your rules!
i withdrew to his study to
regroup. the air was heavy,
the clutter on the broad
mahogany desk that had
once been his father-in-law’s
frozen in time. ben would
never pen another opinion
there, perhaps never so much
as set foot in this room again,
even if he lived another
decade. it was full of his
strength, his brilliance,
the strength & brilliance of
his generation. in this room,
he was already dead.
i sank into the low chair,
looked up at the leather
bound law books filling
the inlaid floor to ceiling
shelves. there had never
been a ladder, as if
all these volumes were
simply duplicate records
of the knowledge my
grandfather carried inside
him. the belief that i was
the man for this job had
vanished so thoroughly
it seemed remarkable i’d
ever held it. i had been
wrong to offer him false
hope, to try to help ben
litigate his way out when
the thing he was trying
to confront was that he
couldn’t. i put the old man
to bed, told him i’d see him
in the morning, & went home.
i should have stayed. i should
have held his hand until
the statute took or spared
him. what might ben have
told me if i’d sat up with
him & waited, if both of us
had given up the fight,
accepted what was coming,
readied ourselves instead
of readying some feeble
defense? did i leave him
alone because i did not
believe i could be of any
solace, just as david
believed of us all, or
because i could not bear
his suffering, as david
could not bear his own &
could not bear to let us see?
it turned out to be
a urinary tract infection.
in the elderly, the bacteria
often beelines to the brain.
we got him on antibiotics
& by the next day
ben was immortal again.
he lived four more years
& never found a better
way to reckon with
the coming of the end.
when death arrived my
grandfather was no more
ready than he had been
that night, & the old man
did not go in peace. david
was ready, wholly &
horribly ready, but nor
did he. or did he? i cannot
know, & do not know
which one is worse.
they say the voice is
the first thing you forget,
but i can close my eyes
right now & hear david’s
wobbly baritone on my
voicemail. hey, it’s your
brother, or sometimes
hey champ, an inside
joke we’d borrowed
from our cousins without
ever bothering to understand.
i remember his weird outgoing
message, you’ve reached
david. how are you? he was
an awkward dud
e, not hard
to love but hard to feel
close to, hard to reach.
questions intended to elicit
feelings brought back
bloodless recitations of fact.
asperger’s crossed my mind.
he adopted the traits &
eccentricities of relatives,
wove them jaggedly into
himself: my mother’s exact
way of talking to dogs, my
taste in music, matthew’s
taste in music, jeanette’s
expressions, the angle
at which ben crossed
his legs. even the
appropriation of hey
champ was him, was
typical. he sometimes
seemed less a discrete
individual than a collage
of foibles, scotch-taped
together. the borrowed ones
were small. those unique
to david were outlandish,
out of proportion, shadow
puppets mimicking a
personality’s volume & form.
in my fiction workshop they
would have been derided
as lazy, an end run around
character development: this
guy is the guy who wears
shorts even in a blizzard.
this guy is the guy who
insists he is a year older
than he is because his first
birthday was the day he
was born, & is not kidding,
& won’t drop it. this guy
is either a brilliant &
twisted performance artist
deliberately boring you with
endless drivel about the settings
of his bread machine to
see how long you’ll listen
or else he is not, & you can’t
tell. all this is true & yet
unfair. my brother had
a core, & it was kindness,
learning for the sake of
learning, shoveling neighbors’
driveways, volunteering as a
hospital translator, mailing
care packages to the nuns
he’d befriended in nicaragua,
a gringo village saint. they
still write letters to my father.
i think we sent them all
his clothes. but in between
the bones & skin, the skeletal
system & the integumentary,
it sometimes seemed there lay
only a slurry of shredded masks,
a mulch of mirror shards, a tk
notation such as you might
find typed on the dedication
page of a bound manuscript
whose author cannot decide
who all this has been for.
vivien still does not know
I Had a Brother Once Page 5