by Brad Willis
I now have two recurring dreams that torment me. Their symbolism is obvious. The first is still the one where I am in a bustling newsroom, sitting at my desk and making no contribution, feeling guilty, and certain I’ll be discovered any moment and fired immediately. The second is more frightening. I’m standing at the edge of a cliff, looking down into a dark abyss. Suddenly, the ground gives way beneath my feet and I slip over the edge. As I fall, I reach out and grab a twisted tree root protruding from the sheer face of the precipice. I lack the strength to pull myself back up and can barely hold on. I feel the abyss pulling me down while I struggle to climb out. Finally, I lose my grip and plummet into the darkness, awakening with a muffled scream just as I’m about to hit bottom.
MONDAY, JULY 26, 1999
Morgan, you wanted to go outside and blow bubbles on the lawn this morning. For the first time in months, I couldn’t do it. My throat was bleeding and my spine was on fire. So I drew a little flower with my finger on the back of one of your hands and a happy face on the other. You hugged and kissed me, and softly said my favorite word, “Da-eee.” I can sense you know what is happening in some innocent, intuitive way, and the ache in my heart eclipses the pain in my back.
I’ve always had a need to feel like I’m in control. I think most people feel this way, especially men. We like to be in charge. Push forward. Win victories. Prove our strength. Save the day. I felt worthwhile, in charge of my life, and victorious as a journalist. Now I feel powerless. Totally helpless. The feeling gets stronger every day.
There’s no doubt why I drink so much and am so dependent on the drugs. I’m scared to death. And I know the reason I can’t face myself: I would abhor what I see. Sometimes friends come by and I watch myself start arguments with them. I want to stop myself in the middle of it, but I can’t because my emotions are so out of control. How did I become so pathetic? So angry? Such a coward? Always the victim? Where did this person come from? Where is the man I used to be? If my son were mature enough to see who I am, would he be proud or ashamed? The answer is so obvious to me that it makes me want to crawl into a dark hole and never come out again.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1999
Your second birthday is two months away, but Morgan you are already getting so talkative and understanding so much. Your favorite word is “Da-eee,” and you are crawling all over me every chance you get. I’m amazed at how fast you are growing and even now realize a parent’s biggest challenge is just trying to keep up. I hope I can keep up with you forever.
This is my last entry in the journal. I never pulled it together to make a video. I no longer have the physical or emotional strength to continue. It’s a muddle anyway, with notes to Morgan and ramblings to myself. Still, I print everything on parchment paper, design a cover, and make a little book for him. I tiptoe into his room during his nap and place it on a high shelf in his closet.
Walking to his little bed, built to look like a convertible roadster, I gaze at him as long as I can before standing becomes too painful. Then I struggle to kneel down and manage to kiss his forehead. Morgan’s eyes softly open, so I hug him and remind him of our covenant, that I won’t let cancer take me from him. I mean it from the bottom of my heart, but I have no idea how to make it happen, and I really don’t believe it’s possible.
CHAPTER 20
Get Up, Daddy
IT IS AUGUST 27, 1999. Just less than one year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. Today is my fiftieth birthday. People from near and far have arrived at our home in Coronado to celebrate. There are former colleagues from the news business, relatives, and both recent and longtime friends. I’ve been in another mute period with a bleeding throat and can barely talk. What little voice I have is, of course, raspy and harsh. I have to make do. I’m too embarrassed to wear the Chattervox and let anyone hear the Darth Vader croak.
The party begins at one o’clock in the afternoon. By two o’clock, I’m lying on my portable lounge chair in the backyard, drinking a creamy stout beer. Wine burns my tender throat these days, stout beer soothes it. It’s my latest medicine, so I can rationalize drinking it whenever I want. I greet everyone as I sip away, acting like my life is fantastic.
“You should try Yoga,” a distant cousin of Pamela’s kneels down and tells me as I have another taste of stout. It’s the first time we’ve met. He can’t be much more than twenty years old. Says he’s a Yoga teacher. Unlike me, he looks fit and strong, lean and supple.
“Oh, sure,” I rasp with a little laugh, like fingernails on the blackboard again. “I can barely walk and I’ve always been the stiffest person in the world. Plus, I weigh a ton. Then there’s this broken back of mine. No chance, but thanks.”
“Okay, maybe someday, when it’s right for you.” He doesn’t push it and simply offers a gentle smile. There’s something different about him. I feel drawn to his presence. He’s calmer, more centered, and more serene than most people, especially for his young age. Still, the idea of Yoga seems as absurd as deciding it’s time to take singing lessons or run a marathon. I excuse myself, roll off my lounge with a great effort, push myself up with my cane, head for the kitchen, and pop open another bottle of stout.
Dinner is served outdoors on tables we’ve borrowed for the party. After we eat, it’s time for me to thank everyone and endure a friendly birthday roast before the sun goes down. We move my lounge to the front porch, where we’ve set up a microphone stand. When everyone’s gathered, I stand up to thank them.
“Thaann…Kuh…You…All for Be…Being…Ahum…here.”
My voice is gone. I try to swallow the blood that’s trickling into my mouth, but my throat is so swollen it’s almost impossible. I can’t get any more words out. I’m unsteady, leaning hard on my cane. Adrian, an African-American cameraman I worked with for years, jumps up and takes the mike.
“Don’t you love it? He can’t talk! I’ve waited all my life for this!” Everyone roars with delight.
I haven’t seen Adrian in years. He’s charismatic, witty, and irreverent. We were best friends when we worked together in Sacramento more than twenty years ago.
“I could never get a word in edgewise with him! Always talking, saying Adrian shoot this, don’t miss that. How about this angle? You in focus?”
Everyone is continuing to have a good laugh as Adrian glares at me and says with his famous attitude, “Now, brother, you just lie down and listen for once in your life.”
There are roasts and toasts, laughter and love. Adrian then closes on a personal note.
“I’ve always fought prejudice and had trouble trusting white people.” He glances at me with a smile, “But you did something that blew my mind and taught me a lesson I’ll never forget.” This is too kind. I know where he’s going and think I might cry at any moment.
“We were working together in Jamaica,” Adrian turns toward the crowd, “and we had a driver named Vernal who was so black he looked blue, made me look almost white.” Everyone laughs again.
“On our first day, we stopped at a fancy restaurant in the countryside outside of Kingston. The owners were also black, but much lighter in color. They told Vernal he couldn’t eat with us. He was too dark. We had a Jamaican government official with us who was also a brother and he informed us this was the custom in his country. The super-black folk were lower class and not allowed to mix. I was hungry and said fine, asked Vernal to go wait in the car, and told him we would bring him something when we were finished.” Adrian glances back at me now.
“You said no. You gave everyone hell, shamed them into seeing their prejudice. You went out to the car and brought Vernal back inside for lunch, set him down at the head of the table, and told him to order the most expensive meal on the menu.”
This was more than twenty years ago, and Vernal still writes me once a year to say thank you for the only steak dinner he has ever had.
“I realized then that my people can be prejudiced, too, and that I was blind to it. So thank you, my brother, thank you.” Adrian and I
are both crying now as he leans down for a hug. I’m incredibly touched by the story of Vernal, but it also reminds me that I was once a far better person than I am now. That I once had a life I will never recapture.
It’s an honor to see so many friends here. I want to walk around and thank every one of them, but when I try to stand up, I realize I’m stoned to the gills. I’ve had medications in my system for so many years that I wake up high. As I take my usual doses every few hours, I get higher throughout the day. With three or four stout beers during the party, I’m totally gone. In another universe.
The morphine has the strongest effect, especially with the alcohol. I still feel the pain in my back and throat, but there’s a sense of physical pleasure in all the places where I’m not hurting. It makes me understand how the villagers we filmed smoking opium in northern Thailand must have felt, and why they laid around all day with glazed eyes, doing nothing with their lives and having no concern for what the future might hold.
The party has ended and I’m in bed. Alone. Pamela often sleeps in her office guest bed these days, wisely avoiding me when I’m too stoned. Reviewing the party in my mind, I have more visions of the vibrant man I once was juxtaposed with the pitiful person I’ve become. They never seem to stop. I’m obese, bloated, swollen all over, and ghostly white with dark black circles under my eyes. I can’t sit up for a meal or walk without a cane. I have stage IV cancer. My throat is bleeding and I can barely speak. The obvious suddenly dawns on me. My friends came to celebrate my fiftieth birthday, but it wasn’t the main reason they were here. They were here to say good-bye.
It’s Friday evening, December 4, and only three short blocks to our favorite spot to watch Coronado’s annual Christmas Parade. This time it’s even more special because it’s the final parade of the twentieth century. Even though it’s a short distance, getting to our favorite spot takes almost everything I have. The last four months since my birthday have been a deeper descent into darkness and pain. My medications have deranged my mind. Add the endless stout beers and I’m fuzzy all the time. Sometimes I wake up and see seven or eight bottles in my bedside trash can. I swear I only remember drinking two or three. The only clarity I have is when I’m with Morgan. He remains the one thing in my life that makes it worth living.
Thousands of people are lining our main street for this kickoff to the holidays. Despite how early it is, I pop the cap off a bottle of stout to celebrate with them. Not because I want the alcohol, of course. It’s just to soothe my throat. The High School marching band is playing Christmas tunes. Colorful homemade floats roll by. Kids in karate uniforms kick at the sky. Cheerleaders shake their pom-poms. The Pop Warner baseball team struts along with bats on their shoulders. Little ones dressed like elves and angels wander back and forth as their parents guide them in the proper direction. Even our city garbage trucks are in the act, rolling down the parade route, their huge Dumpsters strewn with colored lights.
Morgan has climbed out of his stroller and is curled up on my lap. He’ll be two years old in a few days and is talking up a storm, giving me the full narrative on all the action. He goes crazy at the end of the parade when our city’s largest fire truck rolls past with sirens wailing and Santa Claus on the top chanting “Ho, Ho, Ho!” He wraps his arms around my neck, hugs me closely, and says, “Next year, Da-eee, let’s march in the parade together. Okay?”
I might as well promise to hike a mountain, but I hug him back and whisper, “Okay, sweetheart, we’ll do it.”
I read him the story of Pinocchio just this morning and now, as I make this promise, it feels like my nose is growing. It’s more than the discomfort of telling a white lie to a small child. I feel like I’m betraying him.
Morgan’s second birthday is on December 13. We throw him a party with all his little friends. Soon thereafter, we celebrate the first Christmas he’s been old enough to understand what’s going on. The living room is filled with gifts and, like all children, it makes him ecstatic. As I watch him tear open his presents with glee, tossing the ribbons and wrapping into the air with complete abandon, I’m filled with joy and grief. The sense that I’m slipping away from him is more palpable every day as I realize I have no control over my destiny.
With the new year coming soon, and with it, the dawning of 2000, my resolution is to spend what little energy I have each day with Morgan, but as we’ve grown ever closer, I’ve become more distant from the rest of the world. I can feel myself worsening daily. I’m always in pain, deeply depressed, combative and unkind to everyone but my boy. I’m tired of being the miserable, drugged, and often drunken person I’ve become and don’t think I can take a slow death with Morgan watching me waste away. So I’ve begun having serious thoughts of how to end it all.
I’ve stashed a large box of my heaviest drugs in the closet, thinking that when the time arrives I can make my exit on my own terms. It’s a dark vision, and a coward’s exit. I imagine leaving a letter for Pamela and flying off to some lavish hotel suite in San Francisco or Las Vegas, even if I need to be pushed everywhere in a wheelchair. I’ll check in, order the finest meal on the menu, request a bottle or two of the most expensive wines from their cellar, no matter how much the acidic taste burns my throat. I’ll have my “last supper” and then slip into a hot Jacuzzi bath, drink down all the medications I can, and drift off to sleep forever.
Suddenly, Morgan can say daddy instead of da-eee, and he’s growing more aware that his daddy is different. Always on the couch, the recliner, the portable lounge chair. Other daddies don’t need canes, body braces, or voice boxes. They can always talk. Sing little lullabies. Get on the swings at the park. Carry their children on their shoulders. Toss them in the air. Kick a soccer ball back and forth. Take walks on the beach.
The doorbell rings. A playmate is here with his father for a day in the park. Morgan scurries to answer the door, then scrambles back down the hallway to find me flat on my back on the couch. He desperately wants me to come with him, to be fully involved. I’m in such bad shape that I can’t even get up and walk him to the door.
“Daddy!” His voice is trembling, he’s wiggling all over, on the verge of tears. “Get up, Daddy!”
His three little words hit me in the center of my chest like a bomb. I wish so badly that I could get up, but it’s another ice pick episode and I’m stuck on the couch.
“You go have a good time, sweetheart,” I say, pulling him in for a kiss. “Daddy can’t get up right now.”
Morgan stands still for a moment and gazes at me, trying to process his emotions. He’s feeling something deeper than I think he’s ever felt before.
“Please, get up, Daddy!” He pleads again as he reaches out and tugs at my hand.
“I’m sorry, honey,” I whisper as my chest throbs. “Daddy just can’t get up right now, his back hurts too much.”
He starts to plead again but suddenly stops and stares at me. In this moment, he has come to a realization. Somewhere deep inside, he knows I’m breaking the covenant we made during the Christmas parade, that I’m not long for this world. Watching him disappear down the hall for his playdate, I free-fall into despair.
Get up, Daddy.
All night it plays in my head like a loop. Get up, Daddy.
But how? How can I get up from this nightmare? I have no idea. Get up, Daddy.
The next day, Morgan’s little voice continues to loop in my mind and pound in my heart. It’s still there the next day, and then the next, like an endless mantra. Get up, Daddy.
This morning I wonder why Morgan hasn’t come in to crawl on my lap in bed. When I finally get up, I check his room. It’s empty. Pamela’s office is also empty. I limp downstairs. There’s a note on the kitchen table. Pamela and Morgan have gone to spend the night at her mother’s home in San Diego. Pamela and I have been more estranged these days, and she’s received the brunt of my late-night tirades one too many times. I can understand how much she needs a break. We can talk about it tomorrow. But she and Morgan don’t
come home. I only get the message machine at her mother’s home and can’t find out where my family is. Another day goes by. Then, in the late evening, Pamela finally calls.
“I just can’t come home right now,” she says in a trembling voice.
“Okay, I understand,” I answer, “just bring Morgan here, please.”
“I can’t do that, either,” she says, firmer now. “He is going to stay with me.”
I start to negotiate, bargain, bully, and rage, doing all the things that drove her away, but she is unyielding and I finally realize I’m powerless to impose my will on her. Morgan has been my lifeline, the limb I’ve been trying to cling to on the cliff above the abyss in my recurring dream. Now he’s gone. I’ll do anything to get him back, wage any battle, fight any foe. At least that’s what my ego says, but it’s empty hubris from a thoroughly broken man.
As I lie in bed, loaded with enough medications to knock out an elephant, I can’t sleep. My heart is pounding. My body is aching. My stomach is roiling. My mind is screaming:
Get up, Daddy.
CHAPTER 21
Intervention
IT’S QUIETER THAN USUAL THIS MORNING. I think it was New Year’s Eve last night. Or was it two nights ago? A week? I’ve finally started to come alive after another late night of terrible mental torment. Pamela’s leaving with Morgan has forced me to start facing myself a little. I’ve been doped up, drunk, angry, rude, and out of control for how long? Months? A year? Longer? Not only have I been this way with Pamela, I’ve done it to my family and even with the few remaining friends who have dared to stop by lately. I’ve felt like such a victim and been so absorbed in self-pity that I never saw it in its fullness. Until now. There it is. Clear as day. I’m a total mess. I would have left someone like me ages ago, no matter how sick and broken they were.