Rehab was the solution, the cure-all that would resurrect him from the living dead. Even my dad, the medical professional who wrote actual textbooks, was certain this would do the trick. The thirty days would conflict with Iris’s baby naming, which sucked, but we had to act fast on his willingness to go to treatment. Getting sober would make all sorts of future family events possible. It would keep him alive. We would just lie to everyone and say he had a work commitment. Easy.
I hugged him tightly before he headed back to LA. Although I was stranded in my own canyon of sadness, it had been comforting to look up and see my brother sitting there with me over the last few days. I was relieved he was finally willing to take action and confident it would work. Harris was a golden boy. He could do anything.
10
Three Months
I just want somebody to tell me what the fuck happened the night you died. I want some fucking answers. When did you decide to use? Did you plan it all day, like right before breakfast, or was it a last-minute moment of weakness? Did you have any second thoughts or did you just plunge right in? What happened right before you did it? Who did you talk to? Had you relapsed prior to leaving sober living or did it happen after you got out on Tuesday? This question plagues me the most.
I go to the storage unit to drop off some baby stuff. Baby stuff takes up so much room—it’s astounding. The last, and only other, time I was here was to open it up for the movers when they arrived from LA. The halls are still and quiet. I think: This would be an effective place to commit a murder. The motion lights click on as I turn each corner of the winding hallway. Row after row of boxes stuffed with people’s shit. I open the heavy, metal garage door, breathe in, and sob. Sometimes if I inhale too deeply, it pushes some internal button and tears come pouring out of my face when I exhale. It happens all the time. Having a conversation with the pediatrician. Checking out at the grocery store. Opening the big garage door to a storage unit. Looking at all your furniture and boxes full of hoodies and cool artwork crammed into a ten-by-ten-foot, climate-controlled box.
Lying in bed that night, binge-watching Parenthood and feeling sorry for myself that I’ll never have a big family like these fictional characters on this television show, I remember that your cell phone has been sitting in the drawer of my bedside table, untouched, since we unpacked from our trip to LA over two months ago. I plug it in, and it’s so dead that it takes several moments to wake up. Like coming out of a coma. The Apple logo flashes on the screen, followed by your favorite picture of Iris in her pink, animal-print footie pajamas sitting on her little pink chair with Iris embroidered on the back. She is looking directly at the camera with a look on her face that says Enough with the pictures already, lady. It feels like I’m powering up a portal to another dimension.
I open the Notes app and scroll through your brain, some complete—but mostly incomplete—set lists, thoughts, jokes, ideas. The set from your last show at Meltdown the night you died is at the top:
I tell ya, I walk around this city now and I don’t know what is and what isn’t a banksy. That’s exactly what banksy wants.
Vampires can’t die unless their heart is stopped. But like, same with humans? just havin some fun with thought experiments, iono
It always kinda bums me out when I see a band play a show and none of them have on a wedding ring.
If conservative idiots consider life to begin at conception, then why do they all celebrate their birthdays as the day they were born?
I’ll never not be surprised at how far back the vagina is.
Genuinely enjoy Keith and Harry Connick’s banter. Great guys with fun tudes.
When a car starts going a little before the light turns green, Im like “oh shit they’ve been to this intersection before.” I like that move.
I wonder what vibe I carry when I walk into a room. Lord I hope it’s chill.
2 legitimately 2 quitimately
I’ll never be at 69 followers again. Wait! UNLESS I say the n-word a bunch of times and LOSE enough followers!… but is it worth it…?
You hear about the fat guy who created a dramedy? He got an Emmy nom nom nom.
Serious question: If you could suck your own dick, would you cum in your mouth? I think I’d try to finish on my tits.
In trailers, I love when they cut right in the middle of someone saying “motherfucker.” Hell yea I’m gonna see it! Gotta see if they say it!
I had AIDS once
Aw man, when eye boogers turn sharp, forget about it
Instagram’s good for seein what people are up to.
Bummed I never tried white rice with barbecue sauce when I was making poverty meals in college.
I looove lettin someone else handle the small talk on an elevator when a new guy gets on. Prob my biggest passion.
Sorry to bum you out, but those two otters that held hands broke up and don’t even speak anymore. There’s kids too. It’s a whole mess.
When two people have the same birthday that shit is crazy and deserves to be both noted and freaked out about.
To reiterate, when not one but TWO people share a birthday, for my money, doesn’t get any more insane than that.
I just blew a 0.28. His name was Frank.
Waldo asked me to spot him at the gym. Couldn’t do it.
When I search for something obscure, I feel bad for making my computer “work hard.” Then I remember it’s a computer. Then I give it a raise.
Wheat thins
Egg basket
Freud
Therapist inward and I was like you dont have to censor yourself, dawg! I’m chill!
Frozen dinners over how much wattage of microwave
Wish I was gay
Dentist
Scaffolding
Mcdonalds Taco Bell
OxyContin poisoning
Orange hair old guy
Google car pigeons
Lohan doc
That guy Plutonium
Jerk off high school hook ups
Lizard escape dog Harriet Tubman
I hate smoking sections unless we are talking about the movie the mask with Jim Carrey. The smoking section is my favorite part.
Pineapple cum
I can hear you saying each and every word in my head so clearly, inflection and all. It’s comforting to hear your voice. Also this: “I just blew a 0.28. His name was Frank.” So good, Harris. I mean, truly good.
I close the Notes app and stare at the screen, hoping to conjure up more of you. The little green phone icon catches my eye, and it hits me that I never checked your outgoing call log. How did I miss that? It’s like one of those detective shows where the case is closed and the innocent guy is locked up for life without parole, but there’s a tiny clue stuck under the cushion of the couch that the dog digs up and starts chewing on and, all of a sudden, everything finally makes sense and the detective realizes he had it all wrong.
You didn’t check out of sober living until February 17, but looking at your call log, I see you called your dealer on February 10. Your friends mentioned his name when we were in LA after the funeral, and I recognized it immediately—it’s not a common name. I know the rehab had been allowing you to come and go freely to work on Master of None, so barring the possibility of an afternoon coffee date with your dealer, I conclude that you’d been using heroin for an entire week before checking yourself out.
I get out of bed and head to the box containing the rehab journals and worksheets that I couldn’t fully comprehend the week we cleaned out your house. I thumb through the pages and discover that you relapsed the day you got out of rehab each time you got out of rehab. But this time, it appears you’d relapsed a full seven days before you got out.
No one could have saved you. Not a girl. Not a sponsor. Not a mother or a father. Not a sister.
No one.
11<
br />
Before
February 2014
Harris finally went to rehab the day before Iris turned one month old, nearly a year to the day before he died. It was also my thirty-third birthday, but I wasn’t feeling particularly festive. My baby had permanent hearing loss, my brother was in rehab, my nipples were cracked, and my body was starved for sleep. Still, Mike gave me a card. He’s great at cards. This one had two little porcupines on the cover, giving each other Eskimo kisses. Inside were a few lottery tickets and a note that said:
My love: Well everything seems to be going perfectly to plan—PSYCHE! While the past few weeks have been—at times—chaotic, sad, stupefying, depressing, unrelenting, and unfortunate—in the big scheme of things they have been wonderful: we started our family in earnest and got one beautiful child whose future is much brighter than the din of our recent moods would suggest. It might be right to say that this is a real “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times” moment in our lives. And while it is hard, there is no one else I can imagine who I’d rather have these “worst of times” with; or best of times. In light of our recent hardships, I’ve decided to put my faith in lotto games to turn our luck around. Knowing how the past weeks have gone, there is a small chance I chose the scratcher game where you end up having to pay the lottery commission. Take caution. Love You, Husband
I sat with him on the edge of the bed as I read his beautiful words then cried into his shoulder.
Later that afternoon, Mike, my mom, and I toured the Center for Hearing and Speech, the place where, a year later, I’d get a call while changing the baby’s diaper that would cause me to fall to the ground and pound the floor. I don’t know it at the time, but this is the place where my life would forever change.
The center was great. It had a dedicated preschool for kids who were deaf and hard of hearing, audiologists and speech therapists, and you didn’t even have to pay for parking, which was really the biggest selling point for us. It was my first glimmer of hope since the baby was born. This is where we need to be, I thought. We scheduled Iris for her first speech therapy session at five weeks old. I wasn’t sure what an infant could really do in speech therapy, but they said it was critical, so we complied.
Harris wasn’t allowed to use his cell phone at rehab—no texting, social media, or private phone calls—but he could call us from their landline and email freely. So, the next day I emailed him a photo of Iris posing for the one-month photo that I posted on Facebook. I’d propped her up on an armchair wearing a onesie with cupcakes all over it and snapped the photo before she toppled over.
Subject: Iris is one month old today!
And she loves you and is very proud of you. Xoxo
He responded:
she’s cuuuute!! thanks for writing. write often if you can. I don’t have much other connection to the outside world. I heard you’re living with mom and dad. iris probably doesn’t care where she is, so whatevs.
love,
uncle harris
Good news: He was still funny!
Bad news: We had been displaced to my parents’ two-bedroom condo with a newborn baby. And a dog. And a bassinet and a baby tub and a bouncer and diapers and wipes and various creams and hearing-aid accessories and ample changes of clothes for daily blowouts and a suitcase full of favorite books and toys. The day after Harris flew back to LA, I found mushrooms growing out of the carpet in the baby’s room—in the home we’d purchased just five months before. Once they tore out the sheetrock to get to the toxic poison, the house was rendered uninhabitable, especially with a baby in the mix.
If this was fiction, and I was the author, I’d think it sounded too far-fetched to be believable. Yet there we were. At my mom’s. Indefinitely. I was starting to understand that I’m not in charge and nothing is in my control.
Iris got fit for her first pair of hearing aids a few days later. I emailed Harris another photo of her, this time with pink bubble-gum putty stuck in her ears. I told him how terrible it was to watch. She was so mad—screaming, crying, and bright red. I told him my doctor put me on Zoloft, albeit a small dose because of the breastfeeding. I’d gone in for a routine checkup and they gave me this 32-question test on an iPad to determine whether I had postpartum depression. The test concluded that I was a fucking mess. I hoped the meds would help. I needed them to help. I told Harris how relieved I was that he was also getting help. “I was afraid we’d lost you,” I said. Then, I told him how much I loved him. “Love, Sister.”
He replied with a favorable rehab review: “When you meet someone in rehab, your very first conversation is ‘I stabbed a guy on meth’ or whatever. Just very open here.” He seemed content overall. He liked the people, the food, and even the sobriety. He sounded enthusiastic about the journey. I was confident that he was finally in good hands and headed in the right direction.
We talked on the phone later that week during a rare sleeping-baby moment. And I mean rare. Harris and I seldom talked on the phone, but he called often in rehab. He seemed eager to reconnect with the family, to rebuild. My mom and I were both struck by the literal tone and pitch of his voice. It was different. He sounded awake for the first time since all this madness began. We talked for a long time that night. He admitted to taking twenty Oxys the night before he went to rehab and not even feeling high. “Okay, I have a problem,” he finally admitted to himself. “Rehab is the only option or I will die.” He vomited in the cab on the way to the facility.
Harris asked a ton of questions about how I was feeling and coping and really listened to my answers. He was unbelievably present. It was sort of unfamiliar. When I described how terrified I was about all of Iris’s upcoming medical tests, he coached me to stop future-tripping. “Today is all we have for sure,” he said. Maybe I should go to rehab, I thought.
I was sitting on the sofa in my parents’ living room as we talked, staring at the framed needlepoint picture that hangs above the doorway in their kitchen. It says: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” My mom made it long ago, before we were born. It hung on the wall in our breakfast room when we were growing up, directly across from where I always sat at the table, right above Harris’s head. It was always there in my line of vision, but I never really saw it until now. On the other end of the line, my brother told me they say this prayer at the end of every meeting.
I was bludgeoned by a notion that hadn’t struck me until now: we were the same. We both had to surrender to our shitty circumstances and “accept the things we cannot change.” We both agreed that we had to at least try to take it one day at a time.
Neither of us had any idea how to do that.
12
Four Months, Two Weeks, Six Days
Getting rid of your things is difficult. Most of the furniture went to the Upright Citizen’s Brigade green room in LA. They also took the piano that came with the house. The kitchen stuff went to Goodwill. Your massive DVD collection went to our friend Johnny. The drums went to our friend Danny. Various friends took the T-shirts. The Phish posters went to Matt Marcus, who drove the BMW back to Houston, where Mike and I traded it in for a Subaru. We sold the two ridiculously large televisions and stereo equipment to friends of friends. Iris got your vintage Happy Meal toys, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Simpsons characters, and other plastic action figures from childhood. She also swiped a large rock from outside your house. She collects them.
The actual house is the last big thing to go, and it happened today. As we slept, the funds were transferred into our account via direct deposit—just like that. All your toil, sleepless nights, and parasitic stress compressed into a series of numbers on a screen, a screen that didn’t even belong to you. One time when I was guilt-tripping you about getting sober, you jokingly said, “Hey, if I die, you’ll be rich!” I told you it wasn’t funny. While we’re certainl
y not rich, we can now afford to look at houses in central Houston that are zoned to our first-choice elementary school. Ambivalent doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel.
My father-in-law, a real estate agent who lives in Long Beach, took care of the sale. He made the repairs, staged it nicely, and put it on the market. He handled the closing, while we remained back home in Houston. It’s a nice house in a desirable neighborhood, so it didn’t take long to sell. And now it’s gone. New residents—retirees—who likely don’t have a print hanging in their foyer of naked Kristen Stewarts floating around the cosmos on raw steaks.
I wonder if they know what happened in this house.
I remember when you started house hunting in 2011. We spent hours chatting about the process online. You’d send me listings, I’d scrutinize them, and we’d compare notes.
Me: WOW
that is gorgeous
i love that house
Harris: the problem with that one is no backyard really.
Me: less work for you
Harris: it was owned by a gay dude so it is beautiful
Me: there are still outdoor spaces
Harris: and this next one i truly love and there is this huge backyard where i could do whatever i want. put a pool in, whatever.
but its up a TON of stairs
but look at that insane view
Me: that is a shit ton of stairs
but very pretty
you have traditional taste
Everything Is Horrible and Wonderful Page 7