Tragedy Plus Time

by Adam Cayton-Holland

  It was impossible to put it all together in real time; it was impossible to prevent. Anna and I often console ourselves that way. We tell ourselves that if Lydia hadn’t killed herself when she did, she would have done it some other time. Who knows how soon, but she would have done it just the same. And who knows what her life would have looked like then? Who knows if she would have been strung out on heroin or missing, leaving us playing the where’s Lydia game for weeks, months, years. Christ, she could have had a child in the middle of all this. A motherless child.

  My mom once shared her perspective with me. The way she saw it, she explained, modern science barely understands the human brain. All the studies, all the advancements, all the tests and pills and breakthroughs, it’s all bullshit, she said. They still have such a rudimentary understanding of why the mind work the way it does. In a hundred years, doctors, scientists, psychiatrists, psychologists, they would look at Lydia and say, “Oh, this girl is clearly suffering from X, Y, and Z.” And they would prescribe her the proper regimen, whatever it took to fix X, Y, and Z. Then off Lydia would go to fulfill her potential, to find a sense of worth, of happiness. But of course science isn’t there yet. So all we’re left with is the clumsy knowledge that Lydia suffered from . . . something. Something we were powerless to stop. It was mental illness—a real disease, as legitimate as any of the others. That’s what got Lydia in the end. Not our ineptitude or lack of perception, the disease.

  It helps to think this way, to view it as an inevitability that was neither Lydia’s fault nor our own. It’s the only way to free yourself from a prison of anguish. The only way to realize that despite all the suffering, even though she’s not here anymore, you are.

  L’ISLE-SUR-LA-SORGUE

  I got back together with Katie. I had this sneaking suspicion she was the one, that I had tossed aside something amazing to focus on something awful. She met me for coffee downtown. I apologized. She was hurt, but she understood. I asked her to give our relationship another try. It took some convincing, but she finally agreed. I was so grateful. I missed her.

  I can’t imagine dealing with the emotional yo-yo that I had become. I needed someone to hold my hand and reintroduce me to the notion of joy. Katie did just that. At the same time, she was also demanding in the exact way that I needed. Comics are vain by nature. Add to that mix the depression that I wore like a burial shroud, and there wasn’t much thinking that I was doing outside of myself. But Katie wouldn’t tolerate that. She insisted that I show up, that I act like the partner that she needed. She reminded me that a relationship is not a one-way street, one I get to walk down obliviously while she tries to cheer me up. Time may have stopped for me the day that Lydia died, but Katie was there to remind me that the world kept turning. And if I wanted it to turn with her by my side, I needed to be present. I could be broken, devastated, haunted, and she would be there to help me through it. But the one thing I couldn’t be was absent.

  She was like my shrink, the one that broke through: sympathetic but never pitying.

  Her earnestness cut through me like a knife. I had become so nihilistic. I had doubled down on being the caustic smart-ass since Lydia’s death. Katie wouldn’t allow me to be that person. She wasn’t interested in him. She was attracted to my better qualities.

  She was unlike anyone I had ever gone for. So genuine and uncynical. So unassuming. She made me feel hopeful. When I looked at her I saw our children’s crayon drawings beneath the magnets on our refrigerator. I was so grateful for the optimism she inspired in me.

  Plus, she looks a lot like Nancy Kerrigan. Same big teeth. Same great legs. I really didn’t have a choice.

  Things kept looking up. I got booked to do Conan, a dream come true for the high school nerd who obsessed over The Simpsons; many of my favorite episodes were written by Conan specifically.

  My whole family came with me. What remained of it. We made a real occasion out of it. My dad booked us at the Sunset Plaza, a fancy hotel for the stars. We saw Vince Vaughn and Tilda Swinton at the restaurant in the lobby. We were more impressed with the hotel literature, which informed us that when John Wayne lived there for a period, the hotel let him keep a dairy cow on the premises so he could have fresh cream for his morning coffee. The fucking Duke. That’s the kind of celebrity I aspired to, I thought: folksy and insane.

  When I got to Conan’s studio on the Warner Bros. lot in LA they walked me through the motions. Here was the curtain behind which I would wait until Conan introduced me. There was the X on the floor where I was to stand, my mark. They instructed me on where to look during the taping, to not stare directly into the camera like a fucking creep; mostly they just urged me to have fun. To treat the room as I would any other comedy club and enjoy myself. The whole experience was so relaxed. I couldn’t help but feel at ease. Until the show itself started, and it wasn’t a dry run anymore. Then it was the real thing, replete with a live studio audience and LaBamba leading the band and Andy Richter walking around backstage, then suddenly Conan himself, tall and lanky and in total command. This was real. This was happening. No turning back now. Game face.

  I sat there in my greenroom with a few comedy buddies sweating bullets. I took off my show-shirt so I wouldn’t get pit stains and waited there in an undershirt, watching the show unfold on the closed-circuit monitor: Dax Shepard; some telenovela bombshell making the crossover into American TV. Then it was my turn.

  “Mr. Cayton-Holland, we’re ready for you.”

  I put my show-shirt back on and they led me over to the spot they had previously shown me, the X on the floor. There were two stagehands there now, one on each side of the curtain. They couldn’t have been more over it. I nervously tried to make small talk but they weren’t having it. They wouldn’t even make eye contact, they just stood there completely silent, bored and surly.

  Congrat-u-fucking-lations, kid. I swear to god, if this shoot goes overtime I’m calling my rep.

  I’m usually pretty cold-blooded when it comes to performing, but something got to me in that moment. The enormity of the situation. All that I had been through. The nerves took hold. Suddenly I didn’t want to do it. A cavalcade of worst-case scenarios ripped through my head. What if I was so nervous I stuttered? What if I forgot a joke? What if the jokes didn’t work? What if I passed out? What would Conan think if I blew it on his show? What would everyone back in the Denver comedy scene think? What would my parents and sister think? As they sat there in the audience, cringing through five minutes of dog shit, their son and brother wilting beneath the big studio lights?

  I started talking to Lydia. I needed her. I needed to talk comedy right then and there. How I wish I could have run my set with her in the weeks leading up to that moment, tweaking every little wording, every tag, figuring out the perfect opening few words. But I didn’t have that luxury. So she for damned sure better guardian angel me. I don’t like to go to that well often. To put pressure on my dead sister to see me through something difficult. Because what if she doesn’t? Does that mean she’s not there for me? But in that moment I didn’t care. I was panicking. I started talking to her.

  Lydia, I need you with me, right now! Watch over me during this set. Make this go smoothly. Help me get through this, Lee. Please. I can’t do this without you. After all you’ve put me through, you fucking owe me this one. Call in a favor, ask whoever you report to to help me with this one. Do whatever you have to do.

  I looked up. Both stagehands were staring straight at me. That got their attention. The one on the right farted. Go time.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, Adam Cayton-Holland!”

  It was a hell of a set. YouTube it. Sure, there’s a certain feral-ness in my eyes until I get that first laugh, a desperate deer-in-headlights kind of look. But after that first laugh, you can see me lock in. I’m no longer scared; the confidence takes hold as I plow through my jokes, garnering multiple applause breaks.

  Oh, this is it? Just tell jokes in front of a room ready to laugh? I can do th
at! This is my wheelhouse.

  “Great job,” Conan said as he shook my hand. “Really funny stuff!”

  It was the first we had spoken. I geeked out. I was on such a high. My late-night stand-up comedy debut! I did it. I fucking did it. It felt like a culmination; like everything I’d ever done in comedy led to that set and this was the moment I became a professional stand-up comic. Sure you could say I was one before that; I earned my living doing it, declared it on my taxes, all that. But Conan felt significant. I could die. I could never tell another joke again, that set would never go away.

  They weren’t sure if they needed another minute or two to fill out the episode so Conan invited me over to the couch. Back in the day, when a set on Johnny Carson meant a legit shot at superstardom, the couch was the most coveted prize in all of stand-up comedy. While telling jokes in front of that iconic curtain meant every eye in Hollywood was on you, being invited over to the couch meant Johnny was a fan. So much so that he wanted to talk to you more; to see what made you tick and give you more of a chance to shine. It was the gold stamp of approval. There was no higher honor.

  Of course, those days are long gone. Today, a late-night clip amounts to nothing more than a banner day or two on social media, another credit to tattoo on your poster hanging in the lobby of a comedy club. But it still felt fucking cool. I sat closest to Conan, next to the telenovela minx and Dax Shepard, and Conan and I chatted about The Simpsons. I told him that my two favorite episodes were written by him.

  “ ‘Monorail’?” he asked.

  “That’s one of them,” I said. “But also ‘Homer Goes to College.’ ”

  “That’s a deep cut,” he said. “No one ever says that one.”

  I told him my favorite line. Homer is working on his college admissions package. He’s glued a picture of himself to his essay: he’s in a birthday hat, shoving an entire cake into his mouth. He writes the last line, reading it aloud:

  “It was the most I ever threw up, and it changed my life forever.”

  Conan laughed at the memory. “Thanks, man,” he said. “That’s really cool of you to say.”

  They didn’t use any of the footage. Just a shot of me with the other guests and Conan waving to the camera as the credits scroll. But it didn’t matter. High school Adam would have shit a brick.

  My dad and I took a trip to France a week later. My dad’s been all over the globe, but Paris remains his favorite city. And he wanted to get back to it. He wanted to travel, to take in some of the world’s beauty. My mom wasn’t up for it yet; she was still hurting too bad. Anna couldn’t get away because of work and her family. There wasn’t a reason in the world I couldn’t go. So father and son headed to France.

  We spent five days in Paris splurging. We ate at fancy restaurants, checked out museums and shopped like the son and grandson of an art dealer that we are. Le Bon Marché, Forum des Halles. My dad bought expensive gifts for my mom; I bought jewelry for Katie. I called her one night, standing outside our hotel on the street.

  “I love you,” I said toward the end of the call.

  It just came out of me. I had never told her that before, but as soon as the words came out of my mouth I knew that they were true. She paused and a pregnant silence lingered in the air, across an ocean and many states.

  “I love you, too,” she said.

  We took a train to Provence, made our way through Avignon and Aix-en-Provence, then to Arles where I made my father go because it was the last place poor little Vincent van Gogh lived. My dad followed me around the city as I told him all about Van Gogh’s tragic ending: his cohabitation with gruff Gauguin, who was not only a dick but a successful one, selling paintings and swaggering, while the true genius of the duo poured brilliance into the canvas unnoticed and borrowed money from his brother Theo, his mind slipping further and further away. Such a sad, desperate ending for the greatest of the impressionists in that tiny yellow house. My dad knew all the details of the story as well but seemed slightly concerned at my fascination with it, wondering, no doubt, what exactly he had done to encourage such morbid children. It wasn’t his fault. It’s just in our DNA.

  On the second-to-last day of the trip, before we checked into a hotel in Marseilles for one night and caught an early morning flight back to the States, we stopped into L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, a small village known for fine antiques. We parked the rental car in the central public lot and then milled about town for a few hours. When we came back to the car the rear windshield was smashed. And our luggage was gone. Both our suitcases, both our carry-ons. All the jewelry and clothing and fancy accoutrements from a lavish trip through France, stolen. My laptop and wallet and cell phone. Gone. Fortunately, we both had our passports on us, and my dad had his wallet. It was shocking. We went to the local police station and filed a report, my father speaking in broken French, the cop in broken English. We asked if there was any chance of recovering our items and were told quite bluntly that there was not. That stuff was probably on a boat by now, heading off to who knows where. The thieves had targeted our car because we had rental license plates. The police acted like it was our fault. Shouldn’t drive a car with rental plates. Certainly not one loaded with all your luggage. We drove to Marseilles in silence, the wind howling through the nonexistent back windshield.

  We stopped at a gas station for toothbrushes.

  I was so mad. Here we were on this father-son trip to France, an attempt to celebrate life a little bit and put the death of our sister and daughter out of our minds, and what did we get in return? Fucking robbed. Had we not suffered enough? This just seemed cruel, a little extra slice of fuck-you. My dad didn’t have any answers. He seemed equally distraught. But he offered enough positivity to pull me through it. We were fine. We had not been hurt. Insurance would cover everything. It was just a pain in the ass, nothing more. Those thieves probably needed the money they would get for selling our stuff more than we did.

  He was right. But it was hard to stomach. We were both walking an emotional tightrope. We felt violated. When the situation switched and my father became despondent, I propped him up. Parroted the same things he had said to comfort me. We yo-yoed like that all afternoon until we came away with the only conclusion one could come away with: this is life. The good goes hand in hand with the bad. One minute you’re shaking hands with a childhood idol, the next moment you’re getting kicked in the dick in France.

  That night we walked down to the port, in the rain. Our hotel was close. They loaned us two umbrellas. The city was dead. But we kept our eyes peeled for imaginary pickpockets and thieves. We were once-bitten, and paranoid. None surfaced. The streets were empty, and safe. There was hardly anyone at the port either, just a few tourists like ourselves. Yet all the restaurants were open, one after another, all eager for our business. We chose the one that felt the least touristy and sat in an outdoor tent with clear plastic windows that allowed us to gaze out at all the boats bobbing in the port.

  Marseille is known for bouillabaisse, a traditional fish stew. We ordered a pot of it. It took forever so we sat there eating baskets of bread, listening to the rain pelt the tent as the storm picked up. Every few minutes a violent gust of wind would blow open the entrance flap, sending napkins and paper place mats flying. The waiters scurried to secure the entryway but it was futile. The flap would open, debris would fly everywhere, and the few customers inside would get soaked with a blast of rain. There was nothing any of us could do about it. So we ordered a bottle of wine to keep us warm. Fuck the early morning flight. We could have a little bit of a hangover. Not like we had any bags to check. When it was done we ordered another bottle. And we laughed every time the flap to the tent burst open, right in the face of the storm. Finally, the bouillabaisse came. And we devoured it. We didn’t leave a drop. We took a cab back to the hotel instead of walking. We collapsed into our side-by-side twin beds and slept like the dead, father and son, safe and sound. The next morning, at the airport, everyone marveled at how lightly we travele
d.

  THE BENCH BY THE LAKE

  The sadness, it never leaves you. The best you can hope for is to control it. Which I’ve mostly done. I’ve tried to channel my grief to appropriate times, and places. At the therapist’s office, hikes in the mountains. Mostly I take it to the bench we got Lydia in City Park. We never buried her. We cremated her and she still sits in an urn on a closet shelf in my parents’ house. But I needed a place to mourn, so I suggested we get her a bench. It’s right by Bird Island, near a colony of black-crowned night herons that we used to laugh at, the way the white plumes on the backs of their heads stick up and make them look like little Einsteins. I thought getting the bench would be harder than it was, that the demand would be higher, but it was surprisingly easy. A few thousand bucks to Denver Parks and Recreation and we got to choose the location. A simple plaque reads, “IN LOVING MEMORY OF LYDIA ANN CAYTON-HOLLAND.”

  When I’m feeling sad and missing Lydia I go there to tell her about what I’ve been up to, what the family has been up to. I let my grief out. I try to force myself to feel everything. But sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes I don’t feel anything. And I’ve learned that’s okay. It’s a gradual acceptance. Her death is a part of my life, it can render me incapacitated or roll right off my back. My reaction can differ by the minute. And so on those days when I feel nothing I pick up the trash around her bench, I polish her plaque and make sure it’s as pristine as possible and then I head on my way. I go back out into the city I love to work on a script at a coffee shop, or visit my older sister and my nephews and niece, or help my mom run some errands, or hang out with my dad at his office or listen to records with Katie in our living room. I take it all as it comes. I do my best to live my life without her.