Yesterday I made a phone call
that I did not want to make. I was afraid to make, actually. Afraid I would
screw it up.
I tried to talk myself out
of it, in fact. But as a man of some conscience, that was not an option. The
call was not about me, it was about the person I was calling. And it was
important to him. And I dared not postpone it.
So I called him that morning
and a relative answered and said he was temporarily unavailable. The person who
took the call stepped away from him and explained she would call me back after
some things had been taken care of that needed taking care of. She brought me
up to date. She prepared me. She said she would be in touch in a half hour or
so.
In the time between the
initial call and the return, I thought about the person I was calling. I tried
to remember details of the good times we had spent together long ago, but many
of those memories had faded. I had moved from the city where we both lived
almost 30 years earlier and I had not seen him more than once or twice in
person since. We had talked on the phone a few times, kept in touch through the
social media, exchanged funny emails and gossip every so often. He’d run
through another wife or two in the interim and I honestly could not remember
how many times he’d married and divorced.
Inevitably, I came back to
the idea of what might have happened had I not left the city where each spring
my friend and I and many others worked together for about six fun-filled weeks.
We literally helped put on a show for charity. He acted. I wrote. We all
laughed. Had I stayed, I am certain we would have remained in touch, stayed
friends, seen each other more often, laughed again many times.
It was more than an hour and
a half later when the return call came. The person I’d spoken with earlier handed the phone over to
my friend.
My friend was in bed, she
reminded me.
My friend was heavily
drugged, he might be difficult to understand, she reminded me.
My friend is dying.
He has terminal Pancreatic
Cancer. He had just been sent home for the end game. His family had gathered.
Then he said “Hi, John” in a
surprisingly strong voice. And it was my turn to talk.
So, what do you say to a
dying man, Mr. Glib? I'm pretty good at carrying conversations, but frankly, death
and dying is a lousy topic for chit-chat. It wasn’t like I was the bearer of
tidings. He already knew he was dying. He knew I knew he was dying.
He was weak, I could tell. I
did not know how long he would have the energy to speak. Ordinary
conversational topics like “How’s the weather?” sports, or gossip were not
worth getting into. I doubt he cared about the deteriorating situation in Iraq,
whether or not Hilary will run, or the Central American coffee rust crisis.
I asked him if he was
getting enough of the good drugs. He said he was. We spoke of mutual friends
and good times together ostensibly “working” for our charity shows but knowing
full well we’d had entirely too much fun to think of it as sacrifice. His voice
grew a little weaker and strained and at one point he had a violent coughing
spell. But trooper that he is, he
fought it down, and continued.
Soon we reached the point
when we had to say “Goodbye.” Not goodbye to the conversation at hand, but
goodbye forever.
I didn’t know how to say it.
I needn’t have worried. My friend did. He said it with words that do not pass
easily between men who are not relatives or in love with each other.
My friend said: “I love
you.”
I said the same thing back
to him. And I promised to call again soon which we both knew was probably an
unnecessary promise. We said our goodbyes, I asked the woman who was taking his
calls to call me if “anything happened.”
And then I hung up and it was over.
I fervently hope I said all
the right things to my friend I’ll never see again, and probably never speak
with again. I was careful not try to delude him—he would see through that. As
an actor he knew a false line immediately. A Paul Simon lyric occurred to me:
“No I would not give you
false hope
On this strange and mournful
day…”
I had feared making the call
and now I felt better because my friend enjoyed it and the sound of his voice
confirmed to me, someone who does not make friends easily, that I had chosen
well in his case.
I looked up the email I had
gotten from him telling me that he had just been diagnosed with this fatal
illness. In typical fashion, the subject line was “Not with a bang but a very
loud Fart” and the news that his
doctor had promised him “two more years.” Then I checked the date on the email.
It had been sent six weeks ago.
And then I went on with my
day.
