The Pursuit of Happiness (2001)

by Douglas Kennedy

  The next morning, Roger Webb stood to the left of my brother’s coffin and addressed the sparse assembly of twelve mourners. He talked about choice.

  ‘Choice defines us. Choice forces us to confront our true nature - our aspirations, our fears, our ethical fibre. Often in life, we make the wrong choice. Or, in the case of Eric, we do something quietly heroic - we make the right choice, even though we know it is that choice which will undermine all that we have created in life. Eric was faced with an appalling decision. Should he harm others to save himself? It is the sort of choice that illuminates an individual’s conscience. Had Eric opted to save himself, his would have been an understandable decision - because, after all, the instinct towards self-preservation is a huge one. And personally speaking, I don’t know what I would have done if I had been presented with the choice Eric had to make. For that reason, I hope we can all find understanding in our hearts for those who have recently had to face such a choice - and, for whatever reason, could not sum up the same level of selflessness which Eric did. Forgiveness is one of the hardest things in life - and possibly the most crucial. Eric did something supremely courageous. But those who did otherwise should not be condemned outright. This is a curious moment in American life - and one which, I sense, will come to be viewed in retrospect as a foul, demagogic juncture in our collective history. I hope we can all find the courage to understand the moral pressures which have engulfed so many of us - to salute Eric Smythe’s bravery and mettle, yet to also show empathy for those who felt it necessary to make equally difficult, but more self-preserving choices.

  ‘Being a minister, I should probably underpin such a sermon with a line from the Bible. But being a Unitarian, I can also get away with invoking poetry - specifically, a few lines from Swinburne. “Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon, If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live; And to give thanks is good, and to forgive.”’

  Next to me, Jack buried his face in his hands. Meg started to sob. So too did most of the other mourners. But I simply stared ahead at the coffin, appalled that this was actually happening. Maybe it was the stark sight of that simple pine box - and the realization that my brother was inside it. Or maybe it was the knowledge that everything you do in life is reduced to this - that this is your ultimate destiny. Whatever the reason, I was too numb to cry; too deadened by the shock of the past few days.

  We said the Lord’s Prayer. We asked that our trespasses be forgiven, as we (allegedly) forgave those who trespassed against us. We sang a single hymn, ‘A Mighty Fortress Is Our God’ - chosen not because of its uplifting Lutheran message, but because Eric once told me it was the one hymn he could never get out of his atheistic head from all those Sundays that our parents dragged us to church. Roger Webb gave a final benediction, asking us to go in peace. The undertakers wheeled the coffin down the aisle. We followed, streaming out into a perfect spring day. There was much hugging and dabbing of eyes among the mourners as the coffin was loaded into the back of the hearse. People began to say their goodbyes. Only four of us - Jack, Joel Eberts, Roger Webb and myself - were going to accompany Eric to the crematorium in Queens. I wanted it this way - because I knew that all eyes would be on me as the coffin disappeared into the furnace, and I needed these final moments to be private ones.

  We traveled out in a long black limousine. It trailed the hearse. We got stuck in a massive traffic jam on the Queensboro Bridge. There had been an accident up ahead. Everyone began to lean on their horns. None of us had spoken since leaving the funeral home. Roger Webb broke the silence.

  ‘Looks like we’re going to be a little late,’ he said absently.

  ‘I think they’ll wait for us,’ Joel Eberts said, and I found myself giggling for the first time in days.

  ‘Eric would have loved this,’ I said over the din of car horns. ‘The perfect New York send-off. Even though he never really liked Queens.’

  ‘No one from Manhattan likes Queens, the Bronx or Brooklyn,’ Joel Eberts said. ‘The problem is, when you’re dead - Manhattan doesn’t want you anymore. So you inevitably end up being shipped to Queens, the Bronx or Brooklyn. I think that’s called “irony”.’

  ‘Did your brother specify cremation in his will?’ Roger Webb asked.

  ‘There was no will,’ Joel Eberts said.

  ‘Predictably,’ I said. ‘Eric was anti-efficient. Not that there was any estate to speak of. Even if there was, those bastards in the IRS would swallow it whole. No doubt, they’ll now try to put some sort of lien on the few odds-and-ends he left behind.’

  ‘That’s another day’s work, Sara,’ Joel Eberts said.

  ‘Yeah, I guess it is,’ I said wearily.

  ‘Joel’s right,’ Jack said, squeezing my hand. ‘One thing at a time. You’ve been through enough.’

  ‘And it’s not over yet,’ I said bleakly.

  ‘That was a hell of a good sermon, Reverend,’ Joel Eberts said. ‘But I’ve got to tell you something - though I think turning the other cheek is a noble, high-minded idea, putting it into practice is goddamn impossible … ‘scuse my French.’

  ‘I’m a Unitarian - so you can use “goddamn” all you like,’ Roger Webb said with a smile. ‘But you’re right. “Turning the other cheek” is a Christian idea. And like most ideals - especially Christian ones - it’s exceptionally difficult to live up to. But we must try.’

  ‘Even in the face of out-and-out betrayal?’ Joel Eberts asked. ‘Sorry - but I believe there’s a cause-and-effect to our actions. If you risk doing a, then b will inevitably happen. The problem is - most people think that they can dodge the consequences of b. They can’t. Things always catch up with you.’

  ‘Isn’t that a rather Old Testament view of morality?’ Roger Webb asked.

  ‘Hey - I’m Jewish,’ Joel Eberts said. ‘Of course I take an Old Testament line on such things. You make a choice, you make a decision. You live with the ramifications.’

  ‘So, in your book, there’s no such thing as absolution?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Spoken like a good Catholic,’ Joel Eberts said. ‘That’s the big difference between the Irish and the Jews. Though we both wallow in guilt, you guys are always chasing absolution. You’re always working the forgiveness angle. Whereas we Jews go to our graves blaming ourselves for everything.’

  The traffic eventually started moving. Within ten minutes, we were at the gates of the cemetery. We all fell silent again. We followed the paved road, past row after row of graves. Finally, after acres of headstones, we reached a squat stone building, topped by a long narrow chimney. The hearse bypassed the front entrance, and headed toward the rear of the crematorium. We stopped by the entrance. The limousine driver turned back to us and said, ‘We’ll wait here until somebody comes out and tells us they’re ready.’

  Ten minutes later, a greying gentleman in a dark suit emerged from the doors of the crematorium and nodded towards us. We went inside. The chapel was a small, simple room - with five rows of pews. Eric’s coffin was on a bier, to the right of the altar. We filed down to the front row. As previously agreed between us, Roger Webb did not offer a final prayer. Or a final benediction. He simply read a single passage from the Book of Revelations:

  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

  I didn’t believe a word of that Biblical passage. Nor did my late brother. Nor, I sensed, did Roger Webb. But I’d always loved the sentiment behind those lines: the idea of an eternity without anguish or adversity; a celestial pay-off for the vicissitudes of life. Roger Webb spoke the lines beautifully. So beautifully that I felt a small sob catch in my throat. A moment later, I heard the clank of machinery. A curtain behind the bier opened, and a belt beneath the coffin rolled it towards the furnace. Immediately, I stiffened. Immediately, Jack took my hand. And held it tightly.

  The curtains closed. The funeral director opened the chapel doo
rs. We left - and rode back to the city in silence.

  When we reached my apartment, Jack offered to stay with me for another night. But that would have made five nights in a row - and though he didn’t say anything, I was certain that Dorothy was getting rather anxious about his extended absence from home. I didn’t want to do anything that upset the equilibrium which had been established between his two households, so I insisted he return to his family.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘I’ll take the rest of the week off work, and be with you all day tomorrow.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ I said. ‘And you know it. You’ve already taken half of last week off.’

  ‘You are more important.’

  ‘No,’ I said, taking him in my arms. ‘I’m not. You’ve got a job to be getting on with. Don’t risk it for me. I’ll be all right.’

  He promised to call me twice a day, every day. The first call of the next morning, however, came from the Riverside Funeral Home. Eric’s ashes had arrived back from the crematorium. Would I be home this morning to receive them?

  An hour later, the doorbell rang. It was a gentleman in a dark suit and a Homburg. With a slight bow, he asked me my name, then handed me a small box, wrapped in brown paper. I brought it inside, placed it on my kitchen table, and stared at it for a very long time, not wanting to open it. Eventually, I got up enough nerve to tear off the paper. I hadn’t requested an urn - so the remains of my brother were returned to me in a square cardboard box. The box was painted grey, with a marbleized finish. A simple white card adorned its cover. On it was written: Eric Smythe. I admired the calligraphy. It was most impressive.

  I stopped myself from raising the cover and peeking inside. Instead, I stood up, grabbed my raincoat, and placed the box in one of its pockets. Then I left my apartment and walked down Broadway to the 72nd Street subway station.

  I knew where I was going. I had chosen the venue days earlier - when pondering (in the few lucid moments I’d had since Eric’s death) where he might like his ashes sprinkled. Though the Hudson River was convenient to us, I knew he’d object to the idea of ending up anywhere in the vicinity of New Jersey - as he made ceaseless jokes about the Garden State (once when I suggested an outing to Princeton and environs, he tartly said, ‘Sorry - I don’t do Jersey’).

  The East River was also struck off my list of possibilities - as it had no associations for him whatsoever. Nor did Central Park - because, at heart, my ultra-urban and urbane brother didn’t really think much of greenery or wide open spaces. He loved the jangled chaos of city streets, the snarled traffic, the edgy ambulation of crowds, the sheer manic brio of Manhattan. Part of me wanted to scatter him on 42nd Street - but that seemed just a little too bleak. Then the idea hit me. Though Eric had no affinity with verdancy or lush terrain, he did spend a considerable amount of time in that most citified and gritty of public spaces: Washington Square Park. During all those years he lived in the Village, it was his outer office: a place in which he’d loiter for hours on a park bench with a novel, or take on the chess hustlers who occupied the northeastern corner of the park. He often spoke about how much he loved the park’s egalitarian rough-and-tumble, not to mention the ragtag collection of New York characters who gathered within its confines every day.

  ‘I sit in this park,’ he once told me, ‘and I know why the hell I walked out of Hartford and never looked back.’

  So now he would permanently commingle with the habitues of his favorite open-air bolthole.

  Of course, I couldn’t take a cab downtown. Though Eric might have gotten very free and easy with money in his final years, he would have loved the idea of heading to his final resting place for a nickel on the subway. Nor was I going to bring anyone along to help me scatter the ashes. This was my last moment with my brother. I wanted it to be a private one.

  So I slipped a token in the turnstile on 72nd Street, and caught the No. I train south. It was ten o’clock. Rush hour was over - but it was still crowded. There were no seats, so I stood, holding on to a strap. Someone bumped into me. Instantly, my hand went down to my pocket. A wicked thought crossed my mind: imagine if it had been a pickpocket, and he had stolen the box. The poor thief would have suffered a coronary when he saw what he’d lifted.

  I stood all the way downtown. I got off at Sheridan Square, and started heading east. I made a detour down Bedford Street - the location of my first apartment in Manhattan. I strolled on to Sullivan Street, and walked past the door of the brownstone in which Eric had lived for over a decade. I thought back to those years in the Village. I wondered if Eric would still be alive if he hadn’t achieved such esteem. If he hadn’t been such a high-profile writer in such a high-profile new medium, would the Feds have ignored him? No amount of success was worth the price my brother had paid. None at all.

  When I reached Washington Square Park, the sun was at full wattage. There were a couple of drunks asleep on the benches. There were two young sharpies hustling chess. There were a couple of NYU students breaking the ‘Don’t Sit on the Grass’ rules. There was an organ grinder, with a pet monkey on his shoulder. As he cranked his machine, it churned out a honky-tonk version of ‘La donna e mobile’ from Rigoletto. Eric would have approved - both of the Verdi and the eccentric instrumentalist churning out this final musical send-off. I looked up into the cloudless sky, and was pleased that the wind had decided to absent itself today. I took the box out of my pocket. I removed the cover. I stared down into the chalky white powder. I started to walk around the little path that circumnavigated the entire park - a ten-minute journey at the absolute maximum. Every few yards, I took a handful of ashes and scattered them on the path. I didn’t look up to see if anyone was noticing what I was doing. I paced myself, making certain that I did the complete circuit of the park. When I reached the Fifth Avenue gate again, the box was empty. Eric was gone. Then I turned north and started walking uptown.

  I walked all the way home. The next day I walked down Broadway straight to Battery Park. A day or so later (my calendrical sense had vanished), I headed north, ending up at the Cloisters in Fort George Park. As promised, Jack called twice a day, deeply concerned about my emotional state. I told him I was fine. He had been called out of town to Wilmington and Baltimore - and felt guilty about not being there with me.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about me at all,’ I said. ‘I’m coping.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ I lied.

  ‘I miss you. Desperately.’

  ‘You’re the best, Jack. I couldn’t have gotten through this without you.’

  But I wasn’t getting through this, I’d stopped sleeping. My diet consisted of saltines, tins of Campbell’s Tomato Soup, and non-stop coffee. And I was spending eight hours a day walking, killing the rest of the time at double-features in the big picture palaces that lined Broadway. Like my brother in the weeks after he was fired, I too had become a professional drifter.

  A week after the funeral, I received a phone call from Joel Eberts. He sounded preoccupied.

  ‘You free this morning?’ he asked.

  ‘Since being suspended with pay, I’m a woman of leisure.’

  ‘Then drop by the office. There are one or two things I need to go over with you.’

  I was there an hour later. Joel seemed unusually edgy. He gave me a fast paternal hug, and told me I looked tired. Then he motioned for me to sit in the chair opposite his desk. He picked up a file marked ‘Eric Smythe’ and started rifling through it.

  ‘There are a couple of things we need to discuss. The first is - the matter of his insurance policy.’

  ‘His what?’

  ‘Eric, as it turns out, had his life insured by NBC. It was part of the medical cover which paid for his bills after his hospitalization last month. As we know, the network hadn’t canceled his medical policy after sacking him. What I’ve since discovered is that the bastards also never canceled his life cover. What’s more, last year, when every
one at NBC thought he was the best thing since sliced bread - and, more to the point, commercially valuable - they upped his life insurance to seventy-five thousand dollars.’

  ‘Good God.’