I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

by Crystal Zevon

  The next call was several hours later. I was worried because it had been so long, but he called and he said, “It’s not good.” When he told me, I fell to my knees. I couldn’t talk. It’s like his voice went away, and I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t deal with it. What happened was I got this image of something that had happened about a year earlier…I was getting my mail, and I had this premonition about speaking at his wake. It came right back to me, that image, that feeling. I just couldn’t speak.

  YVONNE CALDERON: Jorge was so speechless that he fell on the floor, he fell on his knees on the floor, and handed me the phone. I’m going, “What? What? What?” and I’m on the phone: “What is it, Warren?” He told me what he told Jorge, “I have cancer.” So, I had to speak to Warren. Oh, God, I had to be the strong person at that moment because Jorge could not speak, and I had to pull myself together and be okay and say, “Warren, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

  Whatever you say at those moments…what you are doing is stringing out time, you know, you’re there on the phone and you want to connect with love and you don’t know what to say. Everything you do say is the most banal stuff. Then, Jorge got himself together and I said, “Your brother’s here. He’s okay now.” I put Jorge on the phone, but I’ll never forget that. I’ve never seen my husband react in that way for anything or anybody.

  BRIGETTE BARR: On the day Warren called me, I had just gotten my ex at William Morris to take a meeting. I was really excited to tell Warren. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him the reality that they didn’t really want to take him and they were doing Irving and me a favor. So, I left this very excited message on his machine…because he’d been really down. He called me from the doctor’s office. I started, “I’ve got really good news. I set up the meeting for Monday.” And he’s like, “Brigette, I have to tell you something.” And I said, “Okay,” and I thought he was going to tell me he had pneumonia, because I kept going, “Maybe you’ve got walking pneumonia.” He said, “No, Brigette, it’s really, really bad.” I’m like, “Okay.” And, he said, “I have cancer, and there’s nothing they can do about it.”

  I didn’t know what to say. He started to say what this idiot doctor told him, you know, you have three months to live and don’t do any treatment. Because my first thing is, “We’ll get you the best doctors. We’ll get everything that we have to do. There’s good treatment out there.” He said, “No, this doctor says no.” So, I started to get emotional and, of course, Warren goes, “Don’t go there now. We can’t go there now.” I said, “Okay, okay. We’ll talk about it later.”

  CRYSTAL ZEVON: Ariel called to tell me her dad had been to the doctor. She knew it wasn’t good, but she had no idea it was terminal. We were all so used to Warren’s headaches and hypochondria that at first, I think, we went into “oh-right-he’s-sick-again” mode. But I called him right away and he told me the whole story. I just went numb and silent.

  JORGE CALDERON: When I spoke to him again I said, “Listen, that’s the last time I’m going to do that to you. You don’t need that. You need to be with people who can show you a good time and be here and living instead of, like, sobbing about what’s happening to you. So, I promise that I will do it behind your back if I get to that.” So, I promised him that, and I kept my promise.

  MITCH ALBOM: I was with him by coincidence two days after he had found out that he had cancer. We had set up that we were going to get together because I was coming out to L.A. again. I had never been to his place before because he would always come down and meet me. I was amazed at how many books and books and books and books…everywhere. Russian this and that. It was astounding, and I’m sure that Warren read most of them. He wasn’t the kind of guy to just collect books without reading through them.

  That apartment was reflective of Warren’s priorities: reading, knowledge, recording studio upstairs, and the kitchen and the bedroom were almost an afterthought. Like, oh, yeah, yeah, you also have to eat and sleep, but you mostly have to make music and read. We walked from his apartment to a restaurant, which was about four blocks away, and we had a long lunch.

  Of course, because I had written Tuesdays with Morrie and gone through that whole thing of watching my old professor die, and, of course, have heard a million stories since about people who deal with terminal illness, Warren was asking me questions about how people dealt with it. I remember particularly he used the phrase, “So, am I supposed to die with my boots on? Is that my fate? Is that how I’m supposed to approach this?” He was asking more rhetorically than for me to answer him.

  He said that ironically he was in the most creative period of his life. All of a sudden these ideas were rushing out of him. So, I said, “What do you want to do? How do you want to handle it?” He said, “I want to make as much music as I can possibly make before I go. I’ve got all these ideas, and it’s coming better now than it has in twenty years.” I said, “Well, then do it.”

  He described to me this terrible day when he went in thinking he just had bronchitis or something. He just needed to clear up his chest a little. And they sent him to one doctor, then another doctor, and by the end of the day they were telling him, you know, he had a couple months, maybe, left to live and there was nothing they could do about it. Then, he said to me, “You know what’s really weird, they’re offering me all these drugs I used to have to fight to try to get illicitly. Now they’re just handing them to me.” I was always a little bothered by that because I thought before just saying “Here, you can medicate yourself,” maybe they should have explored more ways of fighting it and taking it on.

  Warren was, I think, scared of a fight he was destined to lose.

  CRYSTAL ZEVON: For the first few months after his diagnosis, Warren and I talked several times a day. He hadn’t told Ariel the terminal part because she and Ben were leaving for Portugal the day after his doctor’s visit and he didn’t want to ruin their trip. While Ariel was still in Portugal, he asked if I would consider coming to L.A. and caring for him when “it gets real ugly.” He said, “It seems right that my wife should be the one to come.” Complex as Warren was, in his paradigm some things were obvious and simple. The twenty-some years we’d been divorced were inconsequential. I was the one he married, which made me the one who should come.

  There was a lot of laughing in our early conversations, but the main focus was on what, from a spiritual perspective, he should do. We talked about going to India, where he would die a romantic death after which I would sprinkle his ashes in the Ganges; then Danny Goldberg sent a limo to take Warren to meet with Deepak Chopra to see if he had the answers. He called me from the limo after the visit and said he figured he had a choice…“Spend every cent I have going to Deepak’s ashram, or leave a college fund for my grandchildren.”

  A Catholic girlfriend took him to meet with her priest, but he didn’t have enough time left to convert. He talked about spending time in Florida fishing with Carl. Finally, he called one day and said, “My job is music. It’s all I can leave the kids and people I love, so I’m going to stay in L.A. to make a record.”

  ARIEL ZEVON: When we got home from Portugal and he told me, I was devastated, of course, but through a lot of it, I convinced myself that it wasn’t really that bad. It was denial. I didn’t really believe that he was going to die.

  JORGE CALDERON: That whole Deepak thing was so ridiculous. I told him, “Are you kidding me? All he gave you was a whole bunch of books? He didn’t even sign them?” He says, “Nope.” I said, “Are you kidding me? He didn’t, like…talk to you for a long time or something? It’s, like, go read these books? Is that what you want to do with the rest of your days? Read those books?” Warren was saying, how could he waste time reading when he only had months to live? I like Deepak Chopra, but I was like, oh my God. You know, Warren did the right thing. He went knee-deep into his music.

  CARL HIAASEN: He seemed indestructible to me. That, I guess, was my own wish. If I saw him twice a year, that was a lot just because of our
schedules and living on opposite coasts. But, we talked all the time, and every time I did see him, he was in great shape. He would get in great shape for the tours, of course. Vanity being one of his more endearing traits.

  But, he had an unholy fear of going to the doctor. I was always the one, if I had a twinge in my chest, I’d go. He always took great delight in my hypochondria, or my fears. He goes, “They all lie to you. Don’t trust anything. Anything they tell you, don’t believe it.” That was one of the bleakest ironies of the whole deal, I guess.

  CRYSTAL ZEVON: Warren told me he’d asked Carl Hiaasen why I would want to care for him after all these years. He said Carl answered, “So she can write the book.” I told Warren the thought had never occurred to me, but to the day he died, he didn’t believe that. In the ’70s we’d talked about it, but never after that. But, following his diagnosis it was like a done deal; I would write the book.

  BRIGETTE BARR: He called and said, “I know what I want to do. I want to make music until I can’t make it anymore.” He said, “Do you think we can get some money from Danny?” “Absolutely.” I honestly was nervous that I wasn’t going to find the money, but I thought, well, if I don’t find it at Artemis, I’ll find it somewhere else.

  Then we talked about how we wanted to do this, and Warren said, “We have to go into showbiz mode. I’m giving you permission to use my illness in any way that you see fit to further my career right now.” I said, “Warren, I can’t exploit it.” That’s when I had to call Danny Goldberg. I said, “They’ve given him three months. I don’t know if he’s going to be able to make a record, or two or three songs. I don’t know.” Danny just said, “Brigette, whatever you need. I’m here.”

  DANNY GOLDBERG: I never thought he would have the strength or focus to do a whole album, but I was happy to pay for whatever he wanted to do. I knew it was going to be good, and I knew it was going to be the last work. All the way through, I kept being amazed that he was still writing and that he was still doing it. Every time another song would come it was like a miracle.

  THREE

  OURSELVES TO KNOW

  Now if you make a pilgrimage I hope you find your grail

  Be loyal to the ones you leave with even if you fail

  Be chivalrous to strangers you meet along the road

  As you take that holy ride yourselves to know

  You take that holy ride yourselves to know

  Many friends collaborated on Warren’s farewell album, but it was Jorge—with the help of the young engineer who had made Warren his mentor, Noah Snyder—who would steer the project through some very troubled waters.

  JORGE CALDERON: When we said, okay, we’re going to make an album, he said the first thing he wanted to do was to write that song for Annette [“El Amor De Mi Vida”]. At that time he thought he only had a couple months to live, so his motivation was “Even if we don’t write anything else, there are two or three songs I want to be done.” He wouldn’t have done this last album with me if he didn’t trust me. He knew I would be able to be with him in whatever shape or form he was in, and I’m not talking only about his illness. I’m talking about his state of mind, emotions, and everything. He knew I wouldn’t betray that, or leave the project, or judge him.

  NOAH SNYDER: One time, when we’d just started doing The Wind, he could tell something was weird with me. He says, “What’s the deal today?” I said, “You’ve got cameras following you. There’re movie stars stopping by. It just seems weird how a year ago it was just me and you doing a record together in your apartment.” I wanted to say how all of a sudden people were jumping on the bandwagon, and I was the guy who was there all along. Whatever. It wasn’t really true, but it’s how I felt at that moment. What he said was, “Oh, I see. It’s an ego thing.” I’m stumbling all over myself: “No, it’s not about my ego…” Warren goes, “It’s alright. It’s okay if it’s about your ego. Sometimes it’s got to be about your ego. Just know that it is.” I use that all the time.

  BRIGETTE BARR: We were also finishing the Genius record. The Rhino people were horrified because here they had skulls all over and they said, “Does Warren want to change this? We don’t want to be disrespectful.” Of course, no, he wanted to keep them. I said to both record labels, we’re going to have to do a press release because it’s better if we spin it so people won’t misinterpret what’s wrong with him.

  Unfortunately, we had very little time, so we had to set up a strategy. He was willing to do some interviews, but our time was very limited. Soon after he was diagnosed, the press release went out, and I was bombarded from every which way. All of a sudden people wanted to jump on the bandwagon and be part of his life again. People who he hadn’t talked to in years.

  DANNY GOLDBERG: Once he found out he was sick, the level of clarity was something; not only have I never seen anything like it, I’ve never even heard of anything like it. Before that, I don’t know how much was conscious or unconscious or coincidence, but once he got sick, man, he was focused like a laser. I remember after he’d given a couple of interviews saying he was sick, he went out of his way to mention me in a couple of pieces. Then when I saw him, he went, “Good press, huh?”

  Within days of the public announcement, Warren routed his phone through his manager’s office and gave out his fax line to a select few. The result was that Warren’s manager and anyone named Zevon who had a listed phone number got flooded with calls.

  CRYSTAL ZEVON: I lived in Vermont; people there don’t have unlisted numbers. So, I heard from friends, fans, lovers, and collaborators—most of whom I’d never met. Laura Kenyon, Cybelle, was one of the people who called. When I asked Warren if he wanted to talk to her, his response was definitive, as it was in most cases, but it was also so very Warren…“Violet?! Jesus, Crystal, I could be dead tomorrow. Why would I want to talk to someone associated with the color green?”

  BRIGETTE BARR: The thing that kept me going emotionally was being able to make all these wishes come true—give him good news as much as possible. In the meantime, I was getting the calls not only from his close friends like Hunter and Carl and his cousin Sandy, but also from everyone wanting to know how he was, because he literally stopped taking calls. So, every day I would have to talk to people, giving a report on him to people who hadn’t seen him for a long time, but who definitely knew him. One of the hardest things was having to just tell it over and over again.

  MICHAEL WOLFF: A lot of our relationship over the years was day-to-day. We met at Hugo’s all the time. When he was all fucked up at the end, I got him out of the house, and we went to Borders. That was the last time I saw him. He withdrew from me a lot at the end, and it kind of pissed me off. But, I had just talked to him the week he died.

  DUNCAN ALDRICH: He wrote me an e-mail after I found out he was sick, and I wrote him. He wrote me that he made it very rough on me, but I made it very fun for him, because of my tolerance or whatever.

  JORDAN ZEVON: People look at the album and what Dad did in the last months of his life and just think, like, how could he do it? The strength and the courage. But the part that people will never really understand is that beyond the strength and the courage, which is undeniable, there was this incredible, intuitive savvy of marketing. He just…like…“Okay, I’m going to die but I’m not going to go out John Prine–style with the record that sells ten thousand copies.” He knew what he was doing.

  He’d been in the business for his entire life, and he hit it right on the head. I mean, there are gold records, the things keep selling, people keep talking about him. It really proves that even though he made music that wasn’t geared toward instant commercial success or trying to conform to something…and though he may have had times when he was frustrated by the sales or poor attendance at concerts, when it all came down to it, he knew what he was doing more than anybody at any of these labels did.

  BRIGETTE BARR: He used to say, “I’m not in pain.” But, he would take the pain pills. The first time I went to pick up his prescrip
tions, I was shocked. It was like a pharmacy of drugs. Then he started drinking. At first it was not too terrible, but it progressed. The hard thing was he didn’t want anyone to know. He would make me hide it. When we were at the studio, he would leave his Mountain Dew container for me to put some in. In the beginning I was so torn because I thought, well, the doctor gave him permission, and how do I tell him “Are you sure this is good?”

  CRYSTAL ZEVON: Warren started talking about how these doctors would give him “the Elvis drugs.” He was calling me about it a lot because he knew I wouldn’t be the one to encourage him to take them. He’d say, “You know, I’m not in any pain. But, they keep saying they’ll give me anything I want.” Most of the people around him, with the exception of Jorge, had never known him as a drunk. They didn’t know what it did to him, so they basically encouraged him. I mean, the natural thing to say is, “Hell, if I got your diagnosis, I’d take a drink.”

  Unfortunately, in Warren’s case, he didn’t ever take a drink, and he knew his kids and Jorge and I knew that. So, once he started drinking, he hid it from us for quite a while. I tried to deny what was happening, but the temperature of his calls changed. Suddenly, he was mad at everyone and everything, and not like he’d just reached the “anger” phase of dying. He was mad, then maudlin, then grandiose like a drunk. The idea of me coming to take care of him quickly slid into the background.