The Pursuit of Happiness (2001)

by Douglas Kennedy

  ‘He said you left him some money …’

  ‘Yeah, around thirty bucks.’

  ‘But you went off on tour ten days ago. He must be broke. He’s got to accept my money.’

  ‘He won’t - out of guilt for what happened to you at Saturday/Sunday.’

  ‘But he knows they’re paying me two hundred dollars a week as a retainer. And I’ve got no mortgage, no dependents. So why shouldn’t he take fifty? It still leaves me plenty …’

  ‘I don’t have to tell you how your brother works, do I? The guy’s got a huge conscience and a lousy streak of pigheadedness. It’s a bad combination.’

  ‘Would he accept the money from you?’

  ‘Yeah - he might. But there’s no way I could come up with fifty bucks a week.’

  ‘I’ve got an idea.’

  That afternoon, I walked down to Western Union and wired fifty dollars to Ronnie at his hotel in Cleveland. The next day, he wired it back to Eric at the Ansonia. I called Ronnie that night in his next port of call: Cincinnati.

  ‘I had to feed Eric some crap about Basie giving everyone in the band a raise,’ he said, ‘but he didn’t seem particularly suspicious. I think he really needs the cash. Because he told me he’d go straight down to Western Union with the wire and pick up the cash.’

  ‘Well, at least we know that he’ll now have enough money each week to keep himself fed. Now if I could just get him to see me.’

  ‘He’ll want to see you when he’s ready to see you. I know he’s missing you.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because he told me, that’s how.’

  As instructed, I kept my distance. I made my daily phone call to check up on his well-being. If I was lucky, I reached Eric when he was sober and reasonably lucid. Usually, however, he sounded either drunk or hung over, and basically dispirited. I stopped enquiring about whether he’d been exploring other possible work options. Instead, I listened to his monologues about the five movies he’d seen the previous day. Or the books he’d been reading at the Forty-Second Street Library (he’d become one of the habitues of its Reading Room). Or the Broadway show he’d ‘second-acted’ last night:

  ‘Second-acting is such an easy thing to do,’ he told me. ‘You stand near the theater until the first intermission. When everyone comes pouring out for a cigarette, you mingle with the crowd, step inside and find yourself an empty seat at the back of the orchestra. And you get to see the next two acts free of charge. What a ruse, eh?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said, trying to sound cheerful, trying to pretend that sneaking into Broadway shows was a perfectly acceptable activity for a man crowding forty.

  What I really wanted to do was to intervene - to run down to the Ansonia, bundle Eric into a car, and take him up to Maine for a few weeks. I’d actually broached this idea with him on the phone - arguing that some time out of New York would be beneficial, and would give him some perspective.

  ‘Oh I get it,’ he said. ‘After a week of walking along an empty beach, my equilibrium will be repaired, my faith in humanity restored, and I will be in tip-top shape to parry with all the delightful folk on the UnAmerican Affairs Committee.’

  ‘I just think a change of scene might prove beneficial.’

  ‘Sorry- no sale.’

  I stopped begging to see him. Instead, I found a desk clerk at the Ansonia - Joey - who was happy to keep me informed about Eric’s comings-and-goings for five bucks a week. I knew this was a form of surveillance - but I had to somehow keep tabs on his general mental and physical condition. Joey had my home number, in case of an emergency. A week before his HUAC appearance, the phone rang at three in the morning. Jack - asleep next to me - bolted upright. So did I. I reached for the receiver, expecting the worst.

  ‘Miss Smythe, Joey here at the Ansonia. Sorry to call you in the middle of the night, but you did say I should phone anytime if there was a problem …’

  ‘What’s happened?’ I said, genuinely frightened.

  ‘Don’t worry - your brother’s not hurt. But he showed up here around fifteen minutes ago, bombed out of his head. I tell you, he was so gone that myself and the night detective had to carry him in from the cab. As soon as we got him upstairs, he was sick everywhere. He was bringing up a lot of blood …’

  ‘Call an ambulance.’

  ‘It’s already been done. They should be here in a couple of minutes.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  Jack and I were dressed and out the door in an instant. We grabbed a cab down to the Ansonia. An ambulance was parked out front. As we raced into the lobby, Eric was being brought downstairs on a stretcher. In the last three weeks since we met, he’d aged around ten years. His face seemed emaciated, skeletal. He had a scraggy beard, currently dappled in blood. His hair had become flimsy, his hands bony, his fingernails ravaged and dirty. He looked undernourished, cadaverous. But it was his eyes that scared me the most. Red, bloodshot, glassy - as if he had been permanently shellshocked by life. I took his hand. It felt so thin, so devoid of weight. I called his name. He just stared blankly at me. I started to cry. Jack - white with shock - held me as the ambulance men rolled him outside and loaded him into the back of their van.

  We were allowed to ride with him. The ambulance took off down Broadway at speed. I held Eric’s hand during the five-minute ride to Roosevelt Hospital. My eyes were brimming. I kept shaking my head.

  ‘I should never have left him on his own,’ I said.

  ‘You did everything you could.’

  ‘Everything? Look at him, Jack. I failed him.’

  ‘Stop that,’ he said. ‘You’ve failed nobody.’

  At the hospital, Eric was rushed straight into the emergency room. An hour went by. Jack disappeared to an all-night coffee shop around the corner and came back with doughnuts and coffee. He smoked cigarette after cigarette. I kept pacing the floor of the waiting room, wondering why the hell we hadn’t heard anything. Eventually, a tired-looking doctor in a white coat emerged through the swing doors of the ER. He was around thirty, and had a lit cigarette in a corner of his mouth.

  ‘Someone here waiting for a Mr -‘ he glanced down at the chart in this hand ‘ - Eric Smythe?’

  Jack and I immediately approached the doctor. He asked me my relationship to Mr Smythe. I told him.

  ‘Well, Miss Smythe - your brother is suffering from a combination of malnutrition, alcoholic poisoning, and a ruptured duodenal ulcer that would have probably killed him in another two hours if he hadn’t been rushed here. How the hell did he get so undernourished?’

  I heard myself say, ‘It’s my fault.’ Immediately, Jack jumped in:

  ‘Don’t listen to her, Doctor. Mr Smythe has been having some serious professional career problems, and has essentially allowed himself to go to hell. His sister has done all she could …’

  The doctor cut him off. ‘I’m not trying to apportion blame here. I just want to know what brought him to the state he’s in now. Because we’ve had to rush him up to operating theater …’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said.

  ‘When the duodenal gland ruptures, it’s either surgery or death. But I think we got to him just in time. The next couple of hours will be crucial. Please feel free to make yourself at home. Or if you give us a number, we’ll call …’

  ‘I’m staying,’ I said. Jack nodded in agreement.

  The doctor left us. I sank into a waiting room seat, trying to keep my emotions in check. Jack sat down next to me. He put his arm around my shoulders.

  ‘He’s going to make it,’ he said.

  ‘This should never have happened …’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘Yes, it is. I shouldn’t have left him to his own devices.’

  ‘I’m not going to listen to you beat yourself up …’

  ‘He’s everything to me, Jack. Everything.’

  I put my face into his shoulder. After a moment I said, ‘That didn’t come out the way I meant it to …’
>
  ‘Sure. I understand.’

  ‘Now I’ve hurt you.’

  ‘Stop,’ he said softly. ‘You don’t need to explain.’

  By seven that morning, there was no further word on Eric’s condition - except that he was out of the operating theater, and had been transferred to the intensive care unit. Jack offered to call in sick to work, but I insisted that he go to his office. He made me promise that I’d call him every hour with an update - even if there was no news.

  As soon as he left, I stretched out on a sofa in the waiting room and passed right out. The next thing I knew, a nurse was shaking me. ‘Miss Smythe, you can go see your brother now.’

  I was instantly awake. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘He lost a lot of blood, but he pulled through. Just.’

  I was escorted through the emergency room to a dark, crowded public ward at the extreme rear of the hospital. Eric was in a bed at the end of a row of twenty beds. The noise was deafening - an endless discord of distressed patients, brusque orderlies, and people shouting to be heard over the ward’s cavernous acoustic. Eric was groggy, but lucid. He was lying flat, a sheet pulled up to his neck, two large intravenous tubes of plasma and a clear viscous liquid disappearing under the covers. He said nothing for a moment or two. I kissed his forehead. I stroked his face. I tried not to cry. I failed.

  ‘Now that’s stupid,’ he said in a thick, post-anaesthetic voice.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Crying - as if I was dead.’

  ‘A couple of hours ago, you looked dead.’

  ‘I feel it right now. Get me out of here, S.’

  ‘In your dreams.’

  ‘I mean … get me a room. NBC will pay …’

  I didn’t answer him - as it was pretty damn obvious that he was delirious.

  ‘Get me a room,’ he said again. ‘NBC …’

  ‘Let’s not bring that up now,’ I said, continuing to stroke his forehead.

  ‘They never canceled my insurance …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In my wallet …’

  I nabbed a porter who found Eric’s wallet (it had been locked away in the hospital safe after he was admitted - along with his watch and the seven dollars in cash that was his current net worth). In the wallet there was a Mutual Life card, on the back of which was a phone number. I called it - and discovered that Eric was still on the NBC corporate health and life plan.

  ‘Yes, I have been able to dig out his file,’ said the Mutual Life clerk with whom I spoke. ‘And we are aware of the fact that Mr Smythe is no longer an NBC employee. But under the terms of this policy, his medical and life benefits remain in force until December thirty-first, nineteen fifty-two.’

  ‘So I can have him moved to a private room in Roosevelt Hospital.’

  ‘I’m afraid you can.’

  Within an hour, Eric was relocated to a small, but reasonably pleasant room on an upper floor of the hospital. He was still deeply groggy.

  ‘What? No view?’ was his only comment about his new surroundings before he passed out again.

  At four that afternoon, I called Jack and assured him that Eric was out of danger. Then I went home, and slept until morning. When I woke, I found Jack asleep beside me. I curled my arms around him. Tragedy had been averted. Eric had pulled through. And I had this extraordinary man in bed beside me.

  ‘You are everything to me too,’ I whispered. But he just snored on.

  I got up, showered, dressed, and brought Jack breakfast in bed.

  As always, he lit a cigarette after taking his first sip of coffee.

  ‘How are you bearing up?’ he asked.

  ‘You know, the world always looks better after twelve hours of sleep.’

  ‘Damn right. What time are you heading to the hospital?’

  ‘In about a half-hour. Can you come with me?’

  ‘I’ve got this early meeting in Newark …’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘But give him my best. And tell him I’m here if he needs me for anything …’

  On my way down to the hospital, the thought struck me that Jack had worked out his own way of dealing with my brother. Ever since the blacklisting, he’d been scrupulously correct (and generous) towards Eric - but from a careful distance. He avoided having to deal with him face to face. I couldn’t blame him … especially as he well knew that the FBI had his name as the man in my life. And I hugely admired the fact that he had, in his own quiet way, stuck by Eric throughout this crisis … whereas many people would have been terrified to even be vaguely associated with him.

  Eric was awake when I reached the hospital. Though still gaunt and haggard, a minor hint of color had returned to his cheeks. And he was a bit more lucid than yesterday.

  ‘Do I look as bad as I feel?’

  ‘Yes. You do.’

  ‘That’s direct.’

  ‘You deserve direct. What the hell were you trying to do?’

  ‘Drink a lot.’

  ‘And not eat at the same time?’

  ‘Food takes up valuable boozing time.’

  ‘You’re lucky that Joey at the Ansonia was with you …’

  ‘I really wanted to go, S.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘It’s the truth. I couldn’t see a way out …’

  ‘I’ve told you over and over, you will get through this. But only if you let me help you through it.’

  ‘I’m not worth the price you’ve paid …’

  I rubbed my thumb and forefinger together.

  ‘Know what this is? The world’s smallest violin.’

  He managed a smile. I took his hand. And said, ‘What else do we have except life?’

  ‘Booze.’

  ‘Maybe - but I’ve got some bad news on that front. According to the doctor I spoke to on the way in here, your drinking days are over. Your duodenal is now hanging on by a thread. Given time, it should repair itself. But even after it heals, your stomach won’t be able to handle booze anymore. Sorry to tell you this …’

  ‘Not as sorry as me.’

  ‘The doctor also said you’re going to be in here for at least two weeks.’

  ‘At least NBC has to pick up the tab.’

  ‘Yes - that is rather gratifying’

  ‘What about my little appearance in front of HUAC next week?’

  ‘I’ll get Joel Eberts to postpone it.’

  ‘Permanently, if possible.’

  As it turned out, Mr Eberts was only able to get a month-long postponement of the HUAC subpoena. During that time, Eric managed to dry out and recuperate. After his two-week stay at Roosevelt Hospital, I convinced him to let me rent us a cottage in Sagaponack. Back then, that corner of Long Island was still completely undeveloped. Sagaponack was a tiny fishing village - a real briny, ungentrified community of lobster boats and spit-on-the-floor bars and leathery-looking fishermen. Even though it was only three hours by train from Manhattan, it felt completely remote. The place we rented was a simple weatherbeaten two-bedroom structure which fronted a vast empty beach. At first, Eric could only manage to sit in the sand, and stare out at the breaking waters of Long Island Sound. By the end of our two weeks there, he was walking a mile or so on the beach every day. Though he was on a strict bland diet (I became an expert at making macaroni-and-cheese), he still managed to put on a little weight. More tellingly, he started to sleep eight to ten hours a night. We did as little as possible during the day. There was a shelf of cheap detective novels in the cottage - which we devoured. There was no radio, no television. We didn’t buy a newspaper during the entire two weeks of our stay. Eric let it be known that he wanted to cut himself off from the world beyond this beach. I had no objections to this plan. After the past few weeks, I too wanted to slam the door on that jumbled disorder called life. Of course, I missed Jack terribly. I’d invited him to come out for a few days - but he said he was currently overwhelmed at work … and the weekends were out because those days were sacrosanct for Dorothy and Charlie.
There was no phone at the cottage. Instead, I would walk in to the village twice a week and wait in the post office for a call from Jack. The agreed time was three in the afternoon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He was always prompt. The local postmistress also ran the switchboard, and struck me as a deeply nosy type - so I was careful not to mention anything about the blacklist or Jack’s family on the phone. If she was listening in (and I’m pretty sure she was), all she heard was two people missing each other terribly. But every time I suggested he try to pop out for just a day and a night, Jack was adamant that he was under far too much work pressure right now.