by Bill Hayes
I asked him what he was reading. He showed me the cover: Moonwalking with Einstein. “It’s supposed to help you remember better,” he said.
I nodded as if I understood, but I didn’t, not really. Remember what? I wondered. Moments in his baby’s life? Passages of poetry? Facts, numbers, figures that would help him make more money? Or maybe even nights like this?
I left him to his book and his cigar and said good night.
As I walked away, I pulled a pencil from my pocket and made some notes for my journal.
Good Fella
NOTES FROM A JOURNAL
7-11-15:
Woke at 2:30 A.M. to O’s restlessness in bed and whispered, groggily, “You okay? What’s going on?”
“Hot! So hot!”
His skin was indeed hot to the touch and damp, even though the room was cool.
I pulled back all of the bedclothes, helped O remove his pajama trousers and T-shirt, went to the bathroom and got a cold, wet washcloth, put the cloth to his brow, then used it to cool and wash his naked body. I put a dry bath towel on the bed, changed his pillowcases, got a glass of water. Then I split a Xanax in two, and gave him half.
“Here,” I said, “put this under your tongue.” I didn’t ask, I told him. He did so, and I gave him some water to wash it down. We got back into bed, cuddled.
“Is this what you did with Steve,” he asked, “when he had night sweats?”
“Yes,” I whispered, “yes.”
This morning: A bowl of blueberries for breakfast. “Each one gives a quantum of pleasure,” O says with delight, then reconsiders, “if pleasure can be quantified.”
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7-13-15:
Very, very tired, I did the dinner dishes quickly, gathered my things, and earlier than usual, told Oliver I was heading to bed and said good night. He agreed, he was exhausted, and we kissed. But then as I headed for the bedroom, O called to me from his desk, “Do you know why I love to read Nature and Science every week?”
I turned. “No,” I shook my head. I was almost confused; this seemed such a non sequitur.
“Surprise—I always read something that surprises me,” he said.
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7-15-15:
O no longer wants any visitors to the apartment unless he expressly invites them: “I don’t have time to be bored!”
When he is not resting, he is working on new pieces nonstop.
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NOTES ON A PAD:
7/17, THURSDAY: LaGuardia to Durham, depart @ 2:29 P.M.; arrive @ 4:20 P.M.
7/19, SATURDAY: Durham to LaGuardia, depart @ 11:05 A.M.; arrive 12:39 P.M.
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7-18-15:
Visiting the Lemur Research Center at Duke University this afternoon.
We slept okay, though O woke at 3 A.M. with terrible cramps in his calves and feet, his feet fixed into a painful dorsal flexion, so hard and rigid it took half an hour to massage them smooth. Is this from dehydration? His urine, dark again.
Evening:
“I think that is the most wonderful sight I have ever seen,” O said quietly as we drove away from the Lemur Center. “It is the vitality of the lemurs that is so beautiful … and the dedication of those who care for them.”
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7-25-15:
In the country: O is finishing one essay, working on two others—at least two others. “How’s the writing going?” I ask, waking from a nap.
He smiles mischievously. “I meant to stop, but I couldn’t.” And he goes back to it. I watch. He doesn’t have a fancy desk here; it’s just a folding table. All he needs is a pad and his fountain pen and a comfortable chair. Completely immersed, he whispers to himself as he writes—consciousness half a step ahead of the nib of his pen.
Later, we go for a swim. The water in the pool is a bright emerald green, caused by an excess of copper and iron in the well.
“You are swimming in the elements,” I tell O, “swimming in a pool of copper.”
“Lovely,” he murmurs, doing his backstroke.
Studying Bach, August 2015
8-1-15:
He plays Beethoven—he never used to—long, haunting pieces, complex pieces—whereas he used to only play Bach preludes, and in stops and starts.
He reaches for my hand when we walk, not just to steady himself but to hold my hand.
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8-4-15:
Back from the hospital:
The surgeon implanted a catheter in his abdomen to help drain off the fluid accumulating from the tumors: O, in pain, uncomfortable, terribly nauseated. Doctors say he must eat and drink to keep his strength up. The only thing he can think of that he’d like to eat is gefilte fish.
We order from Russ & Daughters, and decide to try others for comparison.
I take the subway to Murray’s Sturgeon Shop on the Upper West Side. It could be delivered but I am frankly relieved to get out of the apartment, though it’s a grim, rainy, humid August day.
A woman waiting in line overhears me say that I am picking up an order for Oliver Sacks.
“The Oliver Sacks?” she can’t help asking.
I nod.
“He’s a very great man. I’m so sorry that he’s ill.”
The old Jewish man behind the counter nods and murmurs, “Yes.” I try to pay the bill but he refuses to charge me.
My eyes fill with tears, and I say thank you.
I cry on the way to the subway, glad for the rain.
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Undated Note:
I find O lying on the bed, eyes closed: “Letters to various people are writing themselves in my mind,” he explains—farewell letters to friends and family members. He later begins dictating these to Kate and to me; it’s almost hard to keep up, he has so many he wants written. Each one is thoughtfully personalized, and of course soon he begins receiving letters back.
I feel very self-conscious about this: Should I write a letter to him, too?
One day I simply blurt out, “I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t write you a letter.”
“Is that the start of a letter?” O says, smiling.
“Yeah, one in which I don’t know what to say. How do I ever say everything you mean to me?”
“Come here,” O says, and hugs me.
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8-10-15:
O is working on a new piece: “Sabbath.” Every now and then, a little request comes, always phrased politely: “If you would be so kind: Look up something for me on your little box?”
“Little box” is his name for an iPhone, a name he finds too ugly to pronounce, to speak—“It’s not even a word,” as he points out, “it’s a brand.” Sometimes he calls the phone my “communicator,” as if out of Star Trek.
Today, he wants me to look up the meaning of the Latin “nunc dimittis.”
As is almost always the case with O, it wasn’t necessary: He’d had the definition exactly right in the first place: nunc dimittis is “the final song in a religious service.”
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8-11-15:
I, sleeping on the floor right outside the bedroom (so as not to disturb him), wake to the sound of O yawning—such a sweet sound, like a puppy’s.
“I had a beautiful sleep!” he says—a rare thing for an insomniac like him to say.
It is 2 in the morning. He needs to use the bathroom.
“Hug me,” I instruct. He wraps his arms around my neck, I pull him toward me, get him seated on the side of the bed, then stand him up, wait a moment to make sure he is stable. I kiss his neck. “This is my favorite part of the day,” I tell him.
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O is increasingly letting go, letting things fall away, the inessential: Just days after he was devouring gefilte fish with such relish and delight, now it is only the jelly he likes—“No more fish balls.”
Even swimming no
longer appeals—“The ratio of risk and unpleasantness far outweighs the benefit at this point,” mostly because of the catheter, the risk of it getting infected.
_____________________
More and more, unconsciously, he keeps his eyes closed all the time. His eyes are closed when he eats, when he talks, when we read to him, as if he saves his eyesight only for writing.
And yet, also, all is not grim.
Last night, I went in to say good night:
“My love,” he says as I lean over to kiss him.
“Sleep well,” I say.
Pause.
“What did you say?” O asks.
“Sleep well.”
“Oh, I thought you said, ‘Wow!’ I didn’t know what you were referring to but it seemed a very positive thing to say.”
We giggled.
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8-15-15:
O can no longer read easily—it’s too difficult to hold the magnifying glass and book—so he has asked us—Kate, Hallie, Hailey, Orrin—any of us who are with him—to read to him. He does not like professionally recorded audio books—not at all.
We are reading H. G. Wells stories, Men of Mathematics, Sherlock Holmes, The Odyssey…
“I love it, I love reading to you,” I tell him. “I feel very close to you.”
He nods. “It becomes another form of intimacy.”
_____________________
8-16-15:
3 A.M., walking into his room to check on him:
O: “How did you know …? How did you know I’d be awake?”
“I could hear you smile,” I say.
_____________________
He woke twice last night. The first time, we go to the kitchen. I get him seated in a chair, and he eats orange Jell-O (“Refreshing!” he murmurs) and sips some protein-milk. Later, his second waking, I bring the Jell-O to him as he sits on the bed. He is sweetly groggy. I sit across from him. He pauses, looks at me quizzically: “We’re not going to catch a plane anywhere, are we?”
“No,” I reply quietly.
O smiles, then proceeds to tell me about a “mad, ferocious dream,” involving trying to get an Edsel car, improbably, through a too-small doorway—finally, people had to knock down the whole door to get the car through.
“Have you ever seen an Edsel?” he asks me.
“Only in pictures.”
“An absurd car,” he says, shaking his head.
Karen, Fourteenth Street
8-16-15:
“I say I love writing, but really it is thinking I love—that rush of thoughts—new connections in the brain being made. And it comes out of the blue.” O smiled. “In such moments: I feel such love of the world, love of thinking…”
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8-22-15:
O, this morning: “You can throw away my swim things, and keep for yourself what you think you can use.”
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Suddenly, from bed, telegraphic: “Manuscript! I want to look at the manuscript. And a pencil! My reading glasses!”
My heart breaks.
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8-23-15:
“What are your wishes, Dr. Sacks?” said the hospice nurse. “How would you like to pass?”
“At home,” answered O in a clear, steady voice, “with no pain or discomfort, and with my friends here.”
What bravery it took to say that, I thought to myself—bravery that must go unremarked upon because of course it must. But bravery that I will remember nevertheless.
“Okay, good, I’m going to make sure we honor your wishes,” the nurse said.
“Thank you,” he said.
_____________________
8-28-15:
O, who has had no appetite, suddenly asked to have smoked salmon and Ryvita for lunch. He insisted we get him out of bed, into his “dressing gown,” take him to his table, and “to see my piano.” We brought a plate to him: With incredible dignity, and slowness, he carefully cut a single piece at a time. He could only eat three bites. And when I suggested something sweet—some ice cream? He said, “No, a pear.” He had one slice then asked that we take him back to bed.
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8-29-15:
I am at his side, in his bedroom, where Kate, Maurine (our hospice nurse), and I have been keeping a special watch since 5:30 A.M. That’s when Maurine woke me in the other room, “Billy, come now—his breathing has changed.”
It has slowed to just three or four breaths per minute—long silences in between. He is no longer conscious. He is stretched out on his bed diagonally and looks comfortable. Maurine, who has been at the side of many patients as they die, tells us this is the last phase, but that it could go on for many hours, days maybe.
A little while ago, I looked around the room, crowded with bedsheets, towels, Depends, pads, medications, an oxygen tank and other medical equipment, and I began clearing it out, all of it. First, I brought in stacks of all of O’s books, cleared a bedside table, and put them there. I brought in a cycad plant and a fern. Kate joined me, and we cleared more space, making room on another table for some of O’s beloved minerals and elements, his fountain pens, a ginkgo fossil, his pocket watch. Elsewhere, a few books by his heroes—Darwin, Freud, Luria, Edelman, Thom Gunn—and photos—his father, Auden, his mother as a girl with her seventeen siblings, his aunts and uncles, his brothers. We brought in flowers, candles.
I am heartbroken but at peace.
Last night, before getting some sleep, I came in to see if he needed anything. I tucked him in and kissed his forehead.
“Do you know how much I love you?” I said.
“No.” His eyes were closed. He was smiling, as if seeing beautiful things.
“A lot.”
“Good,” O said, “very good.”
“Sweet dreams.”
Oliver’s Periodic Table
HOME
Two men from the funeral home got to the apartment at around four A.M. on Sunday morning. They were both very stocky and looked very strong, tough somehow, yet emanated gentleness, quietness. They went into the bedroom and took care of Oliver. They could not have been more respectful and polite. At that hour, there was no one on the sidewalk or street when we brought Oliver’s body down on a gurney, and they carefully placed it inside a waiting van. I felt grateful for that: the lush cover of darkness and warmth, not unlike the velvet blanket they had placed over him.
I tidied up a bit in his apartment and then went back to my place. I got into my own bed for the first time in more than a month; it seemed too large for me. By now, it was about six o’clock. I closed my eyes. I felt tired, grateful, peaceful, battered, sad, wise, old. I felt like Odysseus reaching shore.
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I left my apartment for the first time that evening. It was absolutely pouring rain, a drenching summer rain, the kind that cleans the sidewalks. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I went to see Ali at his shop. He asked how I was. “Oliver died today,” I said.
Earlier, I had sent some e-mails to friends and family, but this was the first time I had actually said those three words aloud.
At first Ali looked like he didn’t understand what I’d said—he had always known him as The Doctor, not Oliver—but then he knew. He expressed his sympathy, tenderly, and said he would pray for us. I thanked him. I stood there awkwardly for a minute, and then Ali came from behind the counter to stand with me. There was no one else in the store. We looked out at the rain.
“Ten percent chance of rain, they say!” Ali exclaimed. “Ten percent! And this? What’s this?”
“It’s Oliver,” I said to Ali, “Oliver letting us know…”
I didn’t really believe it, but it felt good to say anyhow.
Ali nodded. “Yes, he saying, ‘Everything good now.’”
Cars zoomed by, cabs, a police car, then another, red lights, sirens roaring. Ali shook his head, dismissively, and went on to tell me a story: �
��One night, I hear sounds—sirens—lights—and cops pull up right in front of shop. Right here, right there,” he emphasized, pointing out at the curb. “I think, ‘Nothing wrong, I don’t call cops, what’s happening?’ But then police get out of their car and just walk into shop, and the policeman—she say to me—”
“It’s a policewoman?”
“Yes, woman policeman, and she say, ‘I want to buy lottery.’”
Ali explained that it was one of those days when the jackpot was really high. Then he grinned and shook his head, like that was the end of the story.
“So, wait, let me get this straight: There was no emergency? Nothing wrong?”
Ali was blasé. “Right, nothing wrong, I do nothing wrong, I never do. She buy a bunch of tickets.”
“So then what happened?”
“She played her badge number—won $200, and split it with her partner.”
“Didn’t even give you a tip?”
Ali looked at me like, Did you just move here? Are you crazy?
“No! Nothing! They get in their car, put sirens back on, and go.”
I laughed for the first time in many days. “Thank you, Ali.”
“You’re welcome, my friend.”
POSTSCRIPT
I once met a woman who was an astronaut—she’d been an engineer aboard the space shuttle and completed five missions. She told me that the coolest thing about life in space was not weightlessness or the incredible speed with which you travel, but the view of Earth from hundreds of miles away. You cannot imagine how beautiful it is. And when you’re in orbit, the sun rises sixteen times a day.
That pretty much sums up how I feel about New York. I found I had to leave it in order to get a clear perspective on my life here and to write this book—most of which I did in Rome in a single five-week period less than six months after Oliver died.
One evening, I took a walk by the Tiber. I was going to take my usual route—across the Ponte Sisto and through the Palazzo Farnese—but changed my mind when the light turned green and headed west instead. I took a right on the Ponte G. Mazzini and stopped mid-span. Some people say Rome is a big, tough city, gritty, but I don’t find it this way at all. (Have they been to New York?) I find Rome gentle, magical. The sun had just set, and the light was extraordinary—smoky-rosy-golden-violet, light that cannot be captured in a photo or, for that matter, in words.