One Fine Day You're Gonna Die (2 page)

“O-kay,” I say.

“There's an introduction on your computer screen,” Nova says. She holds up five fingers and counts down. “And you're on the air.”

Our theme music, “Ants Marching” by the Dave Matthews Band, comes up. When the music fades, it's my turn. Like everyone in my business, I've created a voice that works for my audience. My radio voice is soothing, deep and intimate, but tonight I take it down a few notches and open with the sepulchral tones of the villain in a horror movie.

“Good evening. I'm Charlie Dowhanuik
and you are listening to ‘The World According
to Charlie D.' It's October thirty-first, the
Day of the Dead, and our topic is—DEATH!
How do you see it? A bony guy carrying a
scythe rasping out your name, or a heavenly
choir robed in white calling you home? Do
you fear it? Do you welcome it? What do you
think about the way we, as a society, handle
death? Where do you stand on funerals—
do you want to be torched and scattered
to the four winds, or do you want the full
meal deal with incense, prayers and all the
bells and whistles. Our lines are open. Give
me a call at
1-800-555-2333
or email me at
charlie d at nation tv dot com.

“I'm joined tonight by Dr. Robin Harris,
medical doctor, sociologist and expert in the arts
of dying and grieving. Welcome, Dr. Harris.”

“Thank you for inviting me, Charlie D.”
The warmth and fullness of her voice are extraordinary. The network guys for whom she's auditioning must be creaming their jeans. She adjusts her notes.
“The
questions you raise are complex, and as
a thanatologist, I believe I can contribute
specialized knowledge that will be helpful to
your listeners.”

“We're in your debt,”
I say
. “Now tell me,
in words that make sense to us all, what exactly
does a thanatologist do?”

“In words that make sense to your audience,
I study how people in varying cultures at
varying times have dealt with death. I believe
there are lessons there that can help people on
the most vulnerable days of their lives.”

“And those days would be…?”

“The day when they themselves are about to
die or when they learn that someone significant
in their life has died.”

I remember the exact moment when I heard that my golden, glowing Ariel had died. She was twenty-eight years old. When she was thirteen, she made a tablecloth out of midnight blue velvet and appliquéd it with gold and silver satin cut-outs of suns, moons, stars, buds, blossoms, fruits, birds, fish and animals. Ariel's world encompassed everything, and then she was gone. We used the cloth she sewed to cover the box that held her ashes. Suddenly I can't speak. Through the glass that separates us, I see Nova's worried eyes and the quarter smile that she offers when I need encouragement.

CHAPTER THREE

O
n talk radio, dead air is the enemy. Spotting her chance, Doctor Harris leans in to her microphone. People from the unnamed network are listening, assessing how Dr. Harris can handle situations on air. But people for whom I am a lifeline are also listening. I failed them once before. I'm not going to let it happen again. I dig deep for my cool and commanding voice, and it's there.

“So you deal with people who are about
to die or people who've just lost someone they
love,”
I say.
“Heavy stuff.”

Dr. Har ris's laugh is warm and self-deprecating.

“Heavy stuff indeed, but I teach people
how to do the heavy lifting.”

“You make it sound so easy—like doing
push-ups.”

“Handling death is like doing push-ups,”
she says smoothly.
“At first you think you
can't get past your weakness, but if you persist,
every day you get stronger. You simply have to
show your grief that you're its master.”

Everything about Robin Harris is without flaw. Her profile is classic; the lines of her neck are graceful; the deep plum polish on the perfect ovals of her fingernails matches the gloss on her lips. As she utters her insights, her voice is certain. I think of my listeners, broken and vulnerable, and of me, broken and vulnerable too.

“Where were you when I needed you?”
I say.

Her green eyes meet mine.

“You lost someone?”

“Yup.”

“And…?”

“And…I'll never touch her body again,
or smell the fragrance of her skin or hear her
voice. I'm like Eurydice in the underworld
when she stretches out her arms to Orpheus,
struggling to be grasped and to grasp him…”
My voice breaks.

Nova's voice comes through the talkback.

“Want me to go to music?”

I shake my head.

“And catches fleeting air,”
Dr. Harris says.
“I'm familiar with the story. Incidentally,
Orpheus didn't have to lose Eurydice. He could
have carried her back from the underworld if
he'd honored his promise not to look at her.”

“His fault,”
I say.

“Most of our suffering is self-induced,”
Dr. Harris says coolly.
“We have to be strong
enough to face that. And move on.”

“That would be a trick,”
I say. “
I'm sure
Orpheus would have benef ited from your
counsel, Dr. Harris—I'm sure you would have
saved the day.”

Nova runs a finger across her throat, indicating that I should stick a sock in it.

“I'm going to music,” she says through the talkback
.
“Info's on your computer screen. Then we'll take a caller.” She pauses. “Don't let her draw you in, Charlie. We'll get through this. Lunch tomorrow is on me.”

I read Nova's notes announcing “Manhã de Carnaval” from
Black Orpheus
. The music comes up and I meet Dr. Harris's eyes. “This is certainly going well,” I say.

“I don't like your tone,” she says.

“Neither do I,” I say. “Unfortunately, it's the only tone I have.”

I open the talkback, so I'm certain Nova hears the conversation. “Dr. Harris, why don't you and I park our egos and get on with this? When you have your own show—and I'm sure you will—the spotlight will be on you. ‘The World According to Charlie D' focuses on our callers. You and I got off to a bad start tonight. Let's just chill and listen to the music. When it's over, we'll start taking calls. Any questions?”

“None that you could answer,” she says. The melody has gone from her voice.

Until the music ends, Dr. Harris shuffles through her notes, and I watch her shuffle. We're like two people on the world's worst blind date. Nova peers at us over her wire-rimmed reading glasses and bites her nails. She's a committed nail-chewer and, lovely as she is, her hands look like a nervous six-year-old's. “And we're back,” she says finally.

I turn on my microphone.
“That was
‘Manhã de Carnaval' from the original sound
track for the film
Black Orpheus.
I'm Charlie
Dowhanuik, and you are listening to ‘The
World According to Charlie D.' Our topic on
this Halloween night is the big D. Death. So
how do you see ‘being defunct'? One of these
days all of us will head for the last roundup.
Yippee ai oh kay ay. Are you ready to saddle
up? Made your will? Filled out your donor card?
Made peace with your enemies? Made peace
with yourself ? Give us a call at
1-800-555-2333
.
Let us know what you've done to prepare for the
moment when you shake hands with Mr. Death.

“And for those of you who've just joined us,
we have a guest tonight. Dr. Robin Harris is a
thanatologist, a specialist who knows everything
there is to know about death and dying.
Dr. Harris is ‘professionally equipped' to advise
the rest of us on how to face our fears when the
Grim Reaper taps on our imagination.

“Our first caller is Louise, from Sudbury.
Greetings, Louise, what's on your mind
tonight?”

Words can lie but voices never do. Louise has the rasp of a woman who has enjoyed her whiskey, her cigarettes and her men. I like her.

“Hi, Charlie D,”
she says.
“And hello,
Dr. Robin…sorry, I didn't catch your last name.
Anyway, what's on my mind tonight is my
mother.”
Louise chortles.
“Dead or alive, it's
always about her.”

“So I take it your mother is no longer with
us,”
I say.

“You take it correctly, and I want to talk
about how pissed I am at the way she died.”

Our guest expert adjusts her mike.

“Louise, this is Dr. Robin Harris.”
She articulates her name with the care of someone attempting to teach a cow to speak.
“So you're calling because your mother
suffered greatly,”
she says.

Louise is huffy.

“She didn't suffer at all, Dr. Robin Harris.
My mother was ninety-two years old and she
died in her own bed with clean sheets, her own
teeth, a silk nightie with the price tag still on it,
and a smile on her face a mile wide.”

“There's something you're reluctant to
share,”
Dr. Harris says.

“I'm not reluctant. You just motored in
before I had a chance to finish.”

Our guest expert raises a perfectly arched eyebrow.

“Something about your mother's death
distresses you,”
she says.

Louise is a plainspoken woman with little patience for pretty words.

“It doesn't ‘distress' me, Dr. Robin Harris.
It pisses me off. As I was saying, I made sure
Mother was clean and sprayed down with
Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds; then I gave
her permission to die. I used the exact words
Oprah said to use. ‘Mother,' I said. ‘Your work
here is done. It's okay for you to leave. I'll be fine.'
After that, Mother's eyes got misty and she raised
her old arms and said, ‘I'm coming, Andrew.'”

Robin Harris finds the low, smoldering notes of her magnificent voice.

“And you were hurt that at the end of her
life, your mother didn't reach out to you. She
reached out to your father.”

Louise's exasperation reaches the boiling point and spills over.

“Doctor, I may not have degrees up the
wazoo the way you do, but I know how to
listen. My father's name was Walter. Andrew
was the name of the angel on that cheesy
tv
show,
Touched By an Angel
. You can catch
it in reruns. Mother never missed an episode.
Anyway, I'm sitting there bawling my eyes out,
and there's Mother on her deathbed, reaching
out to this actor who is now doing a commercial
for cat food.”

“And you want to know how to deal with
your anger toward your mother?”
Robin says.

Louise's laugh is infectious.

“I'm not angry at Mother. I just wanted
to get that off my chest, and now I have.
Jeez,
Touched By an Angel
. Thanks for being
there, Charlie D. Dr. Robin Harris, I hope you
learn a little something tonight about how to
listen to people.”

Louise's imitation of our guest's precise enunciation of her own name is deadly. As I take the next call, I see the pulse in Dr. Harris's white throat throbbing with anger. It's going to be a long night.

CHAPTER FOUR

F
or a person with an extraordinary gift for using her own voice, Dr. Harris seems remarkably tone-deaf when it comes to the voices of others. Our next caller is Garnet from Saskatoon. He wants to talk about respecting the dignity of the dead. He'd been at a friend's funeral the week before. The man was estranged from his family, and his ex-wife had arranged for an open-casket funeral with her ex-husband lying in state wearing his Ray-Bans. When Dr. Harris rattles on about King Tut being buried with golden chariots and a fleet of miniature ships, Garnet sniffs that she seems to have a special talent for missing the point. The good doctor is two for two.

Louise and Garnet were strong enough to deal with Robin Harris's empathy challenges. Our next caller won't be. Danny is a sixteen-year-old boy who was in a car accident at the beginning of the summer. He was driving, and his brother was killed.

Over the talkback, Nova warns me that because Danny is fragile, I must keep Robin Harris in check. There's another cloud on the horizon. The caller following Danny is Dr. Gabriel Ireland. Today is his fortieth birthday, and it's not shaping up to be a good one. Nova has decided against blocking his call.

Danny has agreed to let me paint the broad strokes of his situation for our listeners. I explain Danny's role in the death of his brother and his fear that he will never feel normal again. Then I turn it over to him. Danny waits a beat too long to begin, and Dr. Harris pounces.

“You wonder if you'll ever feel normal
again, Danny,”
she says.
“Each grief has its
own rhythm. In time you'll…”

I cut her off.
“Why don't we let Danny
tell us how he's feeling?”