The Pursuit of Happiness (2001)

by Douglas Kennedy

  As it turned out, the two weeks passed in a delicious blur. On the night before we left, Eric and I planted ourselves on the beach to watch the sun dissolve into the Sound. As the beach was bathed in a malt whiskey haze of fading light, Eric said,

  ‘At moments like this, I think to myself: it’s cocktail time.’

  ‘At least you’re still here to see moments like this.’

  ‘But moments like these are much better with a gin martini. In the coming weeks, I know I’m really going to miss alcohol.’

  ‘Everything will be fine.’

  ‘No. It won’t. Four days from now, I face that fucking committee.’

  ‘You’ll survive it.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  The next morning we returned to the city. We reached Penn Station by noon and shared a cab uptown. I dropped Eric off at the Ansonia.

  We agreed to meet for breakfast tomorrow at nine - after which I was going to accompany him downtown for a meeting with Joel Eberts.

  ‘Do we really have to do this Eberts thing?’ he asked me as the Ansonia’s doorman took his bag out of the trunk.

  ‘He’s your lawyer. He’s going to be with you when you face the committee on Friday. So it’s best if he runs through with you some sort of strategy beforehand.’

  ‘There’s no strategy involved in taking the Fifth.’

  ‘Let’s worry about this tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Now go upstairs and call Ronnie. Where’s he playing tonight?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve got his tour schedule buried somewhere.’

  ‘Go find it - and make that call. I’m sure he’s dying to hear from you.’

  ‘Thank you for the last two weeks. We should do this more often.’

  ‘We will.’

  ‘You mean, after I get out of jail.’

  I kissed him goodbye. I climbed back into the cab and rode the four blocks north to West 77th Street. I spent the afternoon sorting through my accumulated mail. There was a substantial package from Saturday Night/Sunday Morning - containing twenty letters from assorted readers, all of whom saw the notice in the magazine of my so-called sabbatical, and wished me a speedy return into print.

  ‘I’m going to miss you,’ a Miss M. Medford of South Falmouth, Maine, wrote me. I felt a sharp stab of loss when I read that. Because - though I’d never say so in front of Eric or Jack - I desperately missed being in print.

  Around four, I left the apartment and ran out for groceries. I was back just before five. Then minutes later, I heard a key turn in the front lock. I pulled open the door, I pulled Jack into the apartment. Within a minute, I had him in bed. Half an hour later, we finally spoke.

  ‘I think I missed you,’ I said.

  ‘I think I missed you too.’

  Eventually we got up. I made us dinner. We ate, we drank a bottle of Chianti, we went back to bed. I don’t remember what time we fell asleep. I do remember waking with a jolt. Someone was ringing my doorbell. It took me a moment or two to realize that it was the middle of the night. Four eighteen, according to the bedside clock. The doorbell rang again. Jack stirred.

  ‘What the hell … ‘ he said groggily.

  ‘I’ll deal with it,’ I said, putting on my robe and heading into the kitchen. I picked up the earpiece of the intercom. I pressed the talk button and muttered a sleepy ‘Hello.’

  ‘Is this Sara Smythe?’ asked a gruff voice.

  ‘Yes. Who are you?’

  ‘Police. Could you please let us in.’

  Oh no. Oh God, no.

  For a moment or two, I was rooted to the spot, unable to move. Then I heard the gruff voice again in my ear.

  ‘Miss Smythe … are you still there?’

  I hit the button that opened the street door. A moment or two later, I heard a knock on my own door. But I couldn’t bring myself to answer it. The knocking became louder. I heard Jack getting out of bed. He came into the kitchen, tying his robe around him He found me standing near the intercom, leaning my head against the wall.

  ‘Jesus Christ, what’s happened?’ he said.

  ‘Please answer the door,’ I said.

  The knocking was now insistent.

  ‘Who the hell is there?’

  ‘The police.’

  He turned white. He walked out into the foyer. I heard him unlock the door.

  ‘Is Sara Smythe here?’ asked the same gruff voice I heard on the intercom.

  ‘What’s going on, officer?’ asked Jack.

  ‘We need to speak with Miss Smythe.’

  A moment later, two uniformed policemen entered the kitchen. Jack was behind them. One of them approached me. He was around fifty, with a large soft face, and the vexed look of someone with bad news to impart.

  ‘Are you Sara Smythe?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Do you have a brother named Eric?’

  I didn’t answer him. I just sank to the floor, crying.

  Nine

  THE POLICE DROVE us downtown. I sat in the back of the car with Jack. My head was buried in his shoulder. He had both his arms around me. He held me so tightly it felt as if he was almost restraining me. I needed to be restrained - because I was on the verge of coming apart.

  First light was creeping into the night sky as we headed east on 34th Street. No one in the car said anything. The two cops stared ahead at the rain-streaked windscreen, ignoring the crackling static of their two-way radio. Jack was doing his best to be silently supportive - but his sense of shock was palpable. I could hear the hammer-blow pounding of his heart against his chest. Maybe he was frightened I might start howling again - which is what I did with uncontrollable anguish after they told me the news. For around half an hour afterwards, I lay on my bed, the sheets gripped tightly against my chest. I was inconsolable. Whenever Jack tried to comfort me, I screamed at him to go away. I was so out of control - so desolate - that I could not bear the idea of anyone offering me comfort at a moment when I was beyond comfort, beyond solace. Eventually one of the cops asked me if I needed medical assistance. That’s when I somehow managed to pull myself together, and got dressed. Jack and one of the cops each took an arm to help me out of the car - but I politely shrugged them off. As Eric himself would have said (wickedly imitating Father): a Smythe never falls apart in public. Even when she has just been given the worst possible news.

  Now, I was too incapacitated to cry. The grief I felt was so infinite, so incalculable that it went beyond mere tears, or howls of anguish. I was devoid of speech, devoid of reason. All the way downtown, all I could do was lay my head against Jack, and try to force myself to remain contained.

  We turned south on Second Avenue for two blocks, then headed east again on 32nd Street until we pulled up at the side entrance of a squat brick building. Chiseled above its front door were the words: ‘Office of the Medical Examiner of the City of New York’.

  The police escorted us through a side entrance, marked: ‘Deliveries’. Inside, there was an elderly black gentleman sitting behind a desk. He was the morgue’s St Peter. When one of the officers leaned forward and said, ‘Smythe,’ the gentleman opened a large ledger, and ran his finger down a page until he stopped at my brother’s name. Then he picked up a phone and dialed a number.

  ‘Smythe,’ he said quietly into the receiver. ‘Cabinet fifty-eight.’

  I felt myself getting precarious again. Sensing this, Jack put his arm around my waist. After a moment, a white-coated attendant came into this waiting area. ‘You here to identify Smythe?’ he asked tonelessly.

  One of the cops nodded. The attendant motioned with his thumb to follow him. We trooped down a narrow corridor, painted an institutional green and lit by fluorescent tubes. We stopped in front of a metal door. He opened it. We were now in a small room, as refrigerated as a meat locker. There was a wall of numbered stainless-steel cabinets. The attendant walked over to Cabinet 58. One of the officers gently nudged me forward. Jack stood by my side. He tightened his grip on my arm. There was a long silent moment. The off
icers glanced awkwardly at me. The attendant began to absently drum his fingers against the steel door. Finally I took a long deep breath and nodded at the attendant.

  The cabinet slid open with a long whoosh. My eyes snapped shut. After a moment I forced them open. Eric was lying before me - covered from the neck down by a rough white sheet. His eyes were closed. His skin seemed bleached. His lips had turned blue. He didn’t look at peace. He simply looked lifeless. An empty shell that once was my brother.

  I stifled a sob. I snapped my eyes shut again - because I couldn’t bear to see him. Because I didn’t want this final glimpse to be the one that haunted my thoughts forever.

  ‘Is this Eric Smythe?’ asked the attendant.

  I nodded.

  He pulled the sheet up over Eric’s face, then shoved the gurney back into the cabinet. It closed with a thud. The attendant reached for a clipboard, hanging from a wall by a nail. He flipped through a few forms, found what he was looking for, and handed the clipboard to me.

  ‘Sign at the bottom of the page, please,’ he said, pulling a chewed-up pencil out of the breast pocket of his grubby white coat.

  I signed. I returned the clipboard to him.

  ‘What undertaker are you using?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ I said.

  He pulled off a perforated edge of the form. It had the name Smythe on it, followed by a serial number. He held it out towards me.

  ‘When you know who you’re using, tell ‘em to call us and quote this number. They know the drill.’

  Jack pulled the slip of paper out of the attendant’s hand.

  ‘Understood,’ he said, shoving the slip into his jacket pocket. ‘Are we done here?’

  ‘Yeah, we’re done.’

  The cops escorted us out. ‘Can we drop you home?’ one of them asked.

  ‘I want to go to the Ansonia,’ I said.

  ‘We can do that later,’ Jack said. ‘What you need now is rest.’

  ‘I’m going to the Ansonia,’ I said. ‘I want to see his apartment.’

  ‘Sara, I don’t think …’

  ‘I am going to his apartment,’ I said, barely containing my anger.

  ‘Fine, fine,’ Jack said, nodding to the officers. We got back into the police car. I managed to keep myself contained on the drive uptown. Jack looked exhausted and deeply preoccupied. Though he held my hand, he seemed absent. Or maybe that was because I felt as if I was in some sort of horrible reverie; a walking nightmare from which there was no escape.

  At the Ansonia, Joey the night porter was still on duty. He was immediately solicitous. He found someone to cover for him at the front desk - and brought us into the bar.

  ‘I know it’s kind of early, but could you use a drink?’

  ‘That would be good,’ I said.

  ‘Whiskey?’

  Jack nodded. Joey brought over a bottle of cheap Scotch and two shot glasses. He filled them to the brim. Jack downed his in one go. I took a sip and nearly gagged. I took a second sip. The whiskey burned the back of my throat - like harsh, essential medicine. By the fourth sip the glass was empty. Joey refilled it, then topped up Jack’s drink.

  ‘Was it you who found him?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Joey said quietly. ‘I found him. And … if I’d known, I’d never have allowed the delivery guy to …’

  ‘What delivery guy?’ I asked.

  ‘A guy from the local liquor store. From what I can work out, your brother called the store late yesterday afternoon and asked them to deliver a couple of bottles of Canadian Club to his room. At least this is what Phil, the day man, told me. He was on duty when the guy from the liquor store showed up, asking for the number of your brother’s apartment. If it’d been me at the desk, I would’ve called you right away - ‘cause, after what happened a couple weeks ago, I knew he had problems with booze. Anyway, I came on around seven. Didn’t see or hear from your brother until just after midnight, when he called me, sounding completely out of it. Like he was so gone, he was slurring his words. Couldn’t understand a thing he said. So I got someone to cover for me and went upstairs. Must’ve knocked for around five minutes. No answer. So I went downstairs, got the pass key. When I opened the door …’

  He broke off, sucked in his chest, exhaled. ‘I tell ya, Miss Smythe. It wasn’t pretty. He’d collapsed on the floor. Blood pumping out of his mouth. There was blood all over the phone too, which means he was hemorrhaging pretty bad when he called me. I was gonna phone you - but the situation was so bad I really felt like I had to wait for the ambulance. It didn’t take ‘em long to get here - ten minutes max. But by the time they arrived, he was gone. Then the cops showed up - and they took over. Telling me I couldn’t call you - ‘cause they had to break the news to you themselves.’

  He reached for a glass, filled it with Scotch. ‘Think I need a drink too,’ he said, throwing it back. ‘I can’t tell you how bad I feel about all this.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Jack said.

  ‘The two bottles of Canadian Club … were they empty?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah - completely,’ Joey said.

  My mind clicked back to that morning in Roosevelt Hospital, when I told Eric that the doctor said he’d never be able to drink again. He took the news philosophically. Though he didn’t articulate it, he seemed quietly pleased to be back in the land of the living. During our two weeks in Sagaponack, he really started putting himself back together. Hell, when I dropped him off here less than twenty-four hours ago, he was …

  I stifled a sob. I put my head in my hands. Jack stroked my hair.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said softly.