Brother & Sister

by Diane Keaton

  And there was this.

  Mother gave me his shoes for my birthday saying she had no use for them. They are white Reeboks with long laces and thick off-white soles. They fit me perfectly. When putting them on, I think of my father’s feet; Yellow cracked toenails, callused heels. It feels strange to walk in his shoes. Each step echos like a bone striking the taut skin of a drum; each stumble is a forewarning. Yet I continue to wear them, believing a gift is some kind of—any kind of love. Perhaps one day I will nurse the love we never bonded with the love that was always there.

  * * *

  —

  As for Hall and Foreman, Dad’s legacy, it continues on as a division of David Evans & Associates. At his memorial service, Hugh Foreman described Dad as having “a great impact on the development of Southern California, especially to the development of Orange County. We shared thirty-five years together as very close friends and associates. It’s a sad moment. Losing Jack was like having a right arm cut off.” Hugh Foreman said, “You couldn’t ask for a more honest partner and associate.” Hugh had it right.

  CHAPTER 9

  THREE SISTERS

  After our father’s passing, Dorrie became an antiques dealer specializing in Monterey furniture. Robin married, moved to Atlanta, and adopted a baby girl, Riley. Five years later, she adopted a baby boy. She named him Jack. Following Robin’s example, I adopted my daughter, Dexter, in 1995, and then my baby boy, Duke, in 2001. One day, over lunch, my friend Nancy Meyers told me she was going to make a movie, and I was going to star in it opposite Jack Nicholson. I told her point-blank she’d lost her mind. Jack Nicholson in a chick flick? No way. Nancy was right, though, and with that lunch my professional life took a turn for the much better, reversing the sharp turn it had recently taken for the worse. In 2001, I starred in a couple of TV movies. In the aptly named On Thin Ice, I played Patsy, who turns to dealing drugs and becomes addicted to crystal meth. If that wasn’t enough, in Crossed Over, the teenage son of my character, Beverly Lowry, is killed by a drunk driver. As she sinks into a deep depression, she forms an unusual friendship with Karla Fay Tucker, the first and only woman executed on death row. Both films proved to be notable failures.

  Mom worked at Hunter’s Books while volunteering at various charity-owned thrift shops. With her beloved cat, Cyrus, in the backseat of her car, she enjoyed driving to her getaway home in Arizona. She had slowed down quite a bit, but she was still writing in her journals. And she missed Dad. In 1997, she wrote him a letter on Valentine’s Day:

  Dear Jack,

  I regret the things I’ve learned too late, but I can’t live with regrets. You wouldn’t want me to. I look at couples bickering about some small matter and I want to say, “Don’t take your living time fighting & fussing over nothing—be happy you have one-another.” I still feel your presence with me, and when that feeling comes I look up to the sky (as if that’s where you are) and think if I feel you so intensely you must have a sense of me also. If that’s true you know that I am feeling old. I hate to confront the fact that I’m slipping in my mental capacities too. It bothers me. My eyes are weakening even with my recent surgery. I haven’t gone to the dentist for two years and I know what you would say about that. I am so grateful to you for the life you gave us, all the comforts and material things. I am more grateful than I can say. I’m trying to keep it all going the way you wanted. You know, of course, that 3 months after you left me I bought a 535 BMW, black and beautiful. I do like everything about it, and I do thank you on this Valentine’s Day—Feb. 14. I still have the red heart you gave me last year full of See’s Candy Chocolates. Or was that a few years before? Oh God Jack, you see what I mean. It’s all slipping away.

  I would like to request a favor from you. Please be with me for I am very much in need of you, only you. Force your way through to me when I need you, please. I am lonely. I don’t know why it was so hard for me to tell you how much I loved you when you were sitting across from me on the bar stool, drink in hand, music playing, dinner cooking, all things working? Maybe you know all the answers now that you’ve gone to the other side. I LOVE YOU JACK HALL.

  Your Dorothy

  * * *

  —

  Mom took care of Randy financially. He did not work. He continued to drink too much. He wrote, collaged, and saw his therapist, Dr. Markson, four times a week for fifteen-minute sessions.

  On a visit to Randy’s rental in Laguna Beach, where he’d moved after the Tangerine Street house, Dorrie recalls walking up the stairs to his unit over the garage. The place was, as expected, an all-too-familiar mess. When he asked her if she minded the way he kept spitting chewing tobacco into a glass filled with brown fluid, she shrugged. His clothes were grimy. His skin was soft and flabby. In the middle of an awkward conversation about the possibilities of working at a bookstore, he walked out and didn’t come back. But not before he’d shown her collages of women, their body parts cut from magazines and photographs.

  The longer Randy lived, the more he became that Boo Radley character who lived down the street. The man the neighbors gossiped about in whispers…I imagined what they said: “Does he ever change those greasy clothes? What does he do all day?” “He doesn’t even have a job.” “He’s always alone. Sometimes his mother or one of those sisters comes by. But that’s it.” “He never fixes that damn van he keeps parked on the street. It’s an eyesore. And that smile, he always has that smile plastered over his face.” “It’s so weird. It’s too weird. I keep my doors locked even in the day.” Randy, the predator that never was.

  At the beginning of filming Something’s Gotta Give, I took little Dexter to meet her uncle. When the door opened, a bloated, gray-haired Randy, looking much older than fifty-four, missing a front tooth and sporting a long ponytail, ushered us in. As expected, a musky heaviness filled the air inside.

  I was surprised when he took Dexter’s hand, brought her to the kitchen area, and told her the secret of how he’d made his last night’s meal. “Number one: put a chicken breast in a cup of orange juice inside a microwave. Number two: after zapping it to perfection, chop the orange-flavored chicken, add shiitake mushrooms, dill, salt, and pepper. Number three: introduce the lettuce last. It’s delicious.” Dexter stared, dumbstruck.

  He went on to describe his routine of watching TV until twelve noon every day. In the early afternoon, he’d hit one of several supermarkets he frequented, driving the old VW van. Once there, he’d stock up on the cheapest generic beer.

  At some point in the conversation I asked Randy how he was doing.

  “Living actually makes me sick sometimes. I tell you, Diane, I get emotional over the weirdest things. People’s lives just kill me. It’s strange. It’s like we’re living on a razor, and when we fall we split in half. I feel like I’m eight years behind with my anger.”

  As he rambled on, I couldn’t help but think that, were it not for Mom’s generous if ill-defined efforts, Randy would be on the street, abandoned, drunk, or even dead.

  Still talking, he went on: “Recently, I’ve thought of suicide, but came to the conclusion that it’s inherently wrong. It’s better to hurt, because when you hurt you learn. I think I’m learning. I still believe a small, personal life can produce heroes.”

  I agreed. Taking Dexter’s hand, I left Randy sitting inside his apartment drinking a beer, while watching Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers discuss man and myth on PBS.

  * * *

  —

  Mom called a few weeks later. “Diane, Randy came by in the van. Honest to goodness, I can’t tell you what I thought. He did come here, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t know, Mom; you tell me.”

  “I think he was here. Anyway, gosh, I hardly knew him. He’s older. He looked a lot different. It’s the age thing, the movement of time. I was so happy I went to bed in tears. I’d like to hear what he thought of me. He has the same laug
h, and that same humor I love so much. But I have to tell you, I didn’t recognize him at first.”

  Scattered and troubling conversations like this were beginning to become more and more frequent. She’d begun to leave open cans of Cyrus’s unfinished cat food inside the kitchen cabinet. She’d drop her clothes on the floor and forget to pick them up. A couple teapots had to be replaced because she’d turn the burner on and forget it.

  When she called about a visit to Randy’s, I begrudgingly agreed to drive her. As he slowly opened the door, we were greeted by a pale phantom with a distended belly who didn’t invite us in.

  “Here’s Mom, Randy.”

  His response was “Yeah.”

  Between the two of them, I didn’t know what to do. Somehow, I managed to convince Randy to let us enter.

  Soon after, I found myself filling out one of his insurance forms. “What’s your Social Security number?” He didn’t know. “Okay, don’t worry about it. We’ll get it later.” Mom stood there, oblivious.

  Later, as I held her hand walking down the stairs, she whispered, “He looks worse for the wear.”

  Several weeks later, Dorrie called to describe an afternoon she’d spent with Mom. “Of course, the only way to get her out of the house so her housekeeper could clean was to promise a visit to Randy. It broke my heart, how up for it she was. All I had to say was ‘We’re going to see Randy.’ She burst into tears of joy, then promptly forgot. Once there, I noticed his hands shook, while she wandered around. He complained that his feet didn’t work. She gave him her shoes. When I dropped her off, she took my hand in hers and said, ‘Are you sure I live here, Dorrie? Are you sure I live here alone? Can’t somebody come live here with me?’ ” After that, Dorrie, Robin, and I decided to take over all of Mom’s affairs.

  * * *

  —

  In February 2003, I was in the Hamptons with eight-year-old Dex and three-year-old Duke, taking a few days off from filming Something’s Gotta Give, when Randy called and left a message on my answering machine. “Diane, I gotta get my car fixed. I’m waiting for the Triple A guy. Then I got to go to the DMV and get my license. But I feel dizzy. I get confused. The confusion is getting worse. I don’t know….I jumble things. I can’t talk to people over the phone. I’m not eating a lot. I don’t have the fat legs like I had before. Anyway, why doesn’t this Triple A guy show up and get my car towed so I can get a battery?”

  Dorrie drove down to his apartment, where he stood before her, looking like an apparition from a Grimm’s fairy tale. He showed her the fluid that was oozing out of his stomach. Apparently, he’d taken a needle and pushed it into his belly button, figuring it was the only way to get the stuff out. He was hobbling like an old man. His shirt was drenched. His mattress was soaked. He wasn’t making sense.

  She told him to weigh himself. He came back and said he weighed eighty pounds. She told him it was impossible to weigh eighty pounds, and he should go back into the bathroom to try again.

  When he came back, he said, “I weigh one eighty; that means without clothes I’d weigh one eighty-five.”

  In a panic, she drove him to nearby Mission Hospital in Laguna Beach, where they waited for hours in the emergency room. After they admitted him, the doctors told Dorrie that Randy’s problem was not only the fluid that had built up as a result of his drinking, but also that the needle he’d pushed into his belly button to relieve the pain could have killed him.

  With Robin in Atlanta and me still at work, Dorrie was left to bear the brunt of responsibility. I called Randy at Mission Hospital to hear how he was doing, and he did nothing but complain. “Before they threw me in the hospital, I went to Ralphs. I was leaking when the cashier said I had to leave. I was leaking all over the floor, Diane. They thought I was a drunk. Fuck them. I’m never going back there.”

  When I called Dorrie about his condition, she said she highly doubted he was up for the battle. He would have to pass a battery of tests, quit drinking, and apply himself to a rigorous routine. If Randy wanted to live, he was going to have to fight hard. But fighting had never been his preferred method of dealing with difficult situations.

  A couple of weeks later, Robin and Dorrie called. Randy’s lung had collapsed. The doctors at Mission felt our only chance was to try to get him evaluated at UCLA, where, if we were lucky, they might consider taking Randy as one of their patients. It was suggested that I personally get in touch; they felt it might be more effective.

  But before I could do so, Dorrie called, sobbing, as Frida, my hairdresser, was blow-drying my hair. Randy had been diagnosed with end-stage cirrhosis of the liver. “Mom can’t ever know, Diane. We can’t ever tell her. It’s too sad. Too sad. It’s too sad.” When she checked in with Dr. Markson, Randy’s longtime psychiatrist, his response was “You didn’t know? Randy never had a chance.”

  Feeling responsible, but also guilty, I called several surgeons at UCLA. After introducing myself as Randy Hall’s sister, I gave them a highly revised version of his life. I talked of his artistry, his sensitivity, even a little bit about his drinking issues, which our family knew we could get under control with help. Their response seemed accommodating. Dorrie, Robin, and I were hopeful.

  After three weeks in Paris and a brief stay in the Hamptons to complete filming of Something’s Gotta Give, my on-location gypsy life was over. The movie was finished. Back in L.A., Dorrie and I were lucky enough to meet with a highly regarded surgeon at UCLA. “Randy is a very sick man,” he said. “The problem is whether he’ll be able to withstand the intense procedure required to receive a liver transplant.” The conversation ended with a warning that, certainly, Randy could never drink again—not ever. We were grateful for his time, and reassured him that no, no, of course Randy would never drink again. It was painfully clear that a transplant was the only way to save his life.

  That night, I dreamt my brother was walking down dark alleys, cutting deals with crooked men in black overcoats who were hoarding livers in briefcases to carry to various UCLA surgeons. The next day, we were told that Randy hadn’t met the criteria for a transplant. The recommendations included: (1) six months of sobriety, (2) therapy, (3) documentation of the therapy, (4) continued psychiatric care. He would also need a re-evaluation to determine whether he was competent enough to undergo such a risky undertaking.

  For UCLA to confirm Randy’s worthiness to receive the rare gift of a liver transplant, we’d need two letters. The first had to come from Randy’s day-to-day doctor in charge, the second, we hoped, from the doctor who would be assessing Randy. According to the assessor, because of Randy’s record of extreme alcoholism, he would be required to complete the intensive Genesis Alcohol Rehab Program. But we knew Randy was wholly incapable of taking on that task.

  Dorrie called Dr. Markson, who wrote a letter to the head of the liver-transplant department at UCLA, asking if Randy could be given the opportunity for a new beginning, even though it was alcohol consumption that had caused his lethal cirrhosis of the liver. Dr. Markson described Randy as a highly imaginative artist who had a good heart and many continuing gifts to share with the world. Without this doctor’s help, I doubt Randy would be alive.

  In addition to Dr. Markson, our father, the man who’d toiled his way to success, came back from the dead to save the day. One day later, Mom’s accountant, Terry Ward, sent a large check as a contribution to the Department of Surgery, Liver and Pancreas Transplant Division, at UCLA. Soon after, Randy was secured a place on the list. Jack Hall, his mound of ashes scattered on a rock pile underneath a wooden cross in Tubac, Arizona, bequeathed Randy his transplant number. It was thirty-eight.

  I never questioned whether his inclusion on the list was justified. I conveniently avoided pondering the morality of why he was chosen over someone who was more deserving but couldn’t write such a check. He was my brother. The experience—the way it played itself out, the all-too-familiar,
painfully sad choices that brought Randy to UCLA—was overwhelming. As Randy waited to be reborn, I wondered if he had it in him—morally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, even genetically—to be a grateful recipient of a second-chance gift of life.

  I’ll never forget the day I found him lying on a bed in Room 601, which he shared with three other failing liver patients. There was one Mr. Avery, Edward, and an older Vietnamese gentleman whose bed was by the window. Randy, nearest the door, had pressing reports from the field: “I had a total relapse. Last night, everyone started turning into paintings. They had fangs—I’m telling you the truth.”

  In the middle of his next sentence, one of the nurses walked in, handed me a menu, and told me to figure out what John Randolph wanted for his next three meals, because she was tired of putting an “X” for him beside coffee, grape juice, pasta with marinara, Cheerios, scrambled eggs, and pudding. She said he didn’t have a clue what he liked, and he never cooperated.

  Without pausing, Randy interjected: “There are so many fucked-up people around here. It’s always this way. You can’t change a thing. Maybe it’s for the best. I don’t know. It’s hard to tell.”

  As the nurse handed me his iced tea, she insisted I at least try to make him understand that he was in a hospital. Randy took a sip, then threw back the covers, revealing his bone-thin purple arms and yellow fingers. “Diane, could you loan me five dollars?”

  Suddenly a loud voice over the intercom called for backup, while a nurse shouted, “Mr. Avery, are you all right?” An attendant rushed over to a neighboring bed and screamed, “Mr. Avery, we need to get you oxygen.”