Then Again - Diane Keaton [66]
Mom was starting to lose it. “You know, I think I should drive him to Santa Monica, so he can put his feet in the sand and look at the waves. He needs it. I’m worried, Diane. They’re frying him raw. And what are those pills doing to him? He doesn’t say a word. He just takes it. He’s going downhill fast. He orders shakes at Arby’s, but I can’t get him to drink them. He doesn’t eat. The doctor is alarmed. But how alarmed can he be? Anyone can see that Jack’s an experiment that’s destined to fail? I think the ‘alarm’ is centered on the experiment, not Jack.”
To watch my father analyze his toothbrush in the bathroom of his suite at the Palace or wait patiently with Rocco Lampone and the other cancer patients was unbearable. He would say things like “Life is transitory. We’re just traveling through.” And “It’s like the circus, Diane: If you’re going to go to the damn thing, you should see it all the way through.” After another couple of weeks Dad’s head was red, as red as a robin redbreast, brighter than a red-winged blackbird, and even brighter than the brightest of all the red cardinals.
On April 13, Dad prematurely flunked the “program” and was driven home in an ambulance to be more comfortable. “It’s the quality of life, not the quantity,” his doctor told us. An air of disbelief prevailed. He might get better. Right? At the same time, Dad was looking more wounded. His failure to live up to the program’s requirements was obvious.
It was the afternoon of Christ’s ascension when Dad dispersed six legal pads in front of six chairs surrounding the dining room table, and it was the last time the entire Hall family would gather together. He passed around six pencils and presented what looked to be a thickly bound notebook, sealed with dozens of rubber bands. We looked at his chronicle of financial accomplishments, including the evaluation of the estate, the estimate of the property taxes, the holdings in real estate—in short, the net worth of Jack Newton Ignatius Hall. He informed us the estate taxes would amount to approximately 55 percent. We nodded in unison. “I want to talk to you kids about the living trust and how to brace yourselves for the future.” He picked up one of the yellow pencils and held it to the light of the sun. He ran his fingers across each crease. It was almost as if the pencil knew secrets. Slowly (what was the hurry?), Dad put the pencil down, rolled it across the table, then rolled it again, and again, and again. “Any questions? Randy?” Randy shook his head. “Randy, any questions?” Randy’s face froze in the smile he always wore when Dad confronted him. And that was it. Randy got up and left. Our meeting adjourned without so much as another word.
We ate lunch on the patio while Dad faced the ocean without his Johnnie Walker Red. Robin told Mom to be prepared for possible seizures. She itemized her own to-do list just in case. “Turn him on the side so he can’t swallow his tongue. Don’t worry, you can do it. Put your knee under his head so he can’t bang it against something hard.” Dad’s faraway look was farther away than ever. “So much nothing, right, Dad? So much nothing, and then the big nothing.”
The next time I spoke to Randy, I asked, “What happened? Why did you leave so abruptly?”
This is what he said: “I called Dad last week. After all that’s gone on, I wanted him to know I loved him. You know what he said? He said, ‘What’s gone on?’ He just couldn’t go there. You know what I mean, Diane? Couldn’t go there.”
Dad never let go of his big plans for Randy. They were classic. John Randolph would carry on the Hall family business. Instead, he sat in his singles condo on Tangerine Street, writing poems about the journey of underground birds. Like Grammy Hall,