My Friend Kenneth
By Michael Woyan
Page 8
He never made eye contact with me, but I'm
certain he felt the weight of my message.
As his eyes fixed to a distant point, I'm
certain he absorbed every word.
Tension built during the week as Bernard
had not been heard from, and the rapid flurry
of phone calls back and forth between relatives
ensued for several days until one of Kenneth's
brothers was able to enter Bernard's south
side apartment only to find him dead of an
apparent drug overdose. Later it was determined
that Bernard died of Respiratory Arrest,
just as Jim Morrison of the Doors had. This
was of great comfort to Kenneth and his devoutly
Catholic family. The coroner had determined
that the time of death was approximately
10:00pm Sunday night. It is entirely possible
I was the last person to speak with Bernard
alive.
Upon receiving the news, Kenneth taxied directly
to Bernard's apartment and spent the following
days with his family. I did not see or speak
with him during this time. I never knew if
Kenneth somehow felt responsible; that he
should have done more. I think we all wonder
things like that at one point or other in
our lives. In an act of leadership, compassion,
self-preservation, penance or possibly all
of those motives at once, Kenneth claimed
full responsibility for making the difficult
and tedious final arrangements. The price
of Kenneth's freedom in America was now to
be paid by the hideous and horrifying nightmare
of bringing the body of his lost brother
back to his parents in Ireland. Of course
he never spoke of it in these terms, but
the terror in his eyes did.
The days that followed were a blur of manic,
frenzied detail of announcements and condolences
extended to relatives, price quotes, travel
arrangements, planning of services, gracefully
accepting clumsy tokens of respect from friends,
and all the endless minutiae that can be
one's salvation or one's undoing in such
times of trial. That entire week, Kenneth
was surrounded by his friends from the Exchange
at all times, in a litany of shifts, listening
to him chatter without end. He hardly slept.
He hardly ate. He didn't drink. He just rattled
on and on until it was time to make the dreaded
journey home. I just watched over him from
the other room that entire week. It was all
I could do. We hardly spoke. He was not interested
in making any sense of this just yet. There
was a graceful sense of God at work to watch
his perfectly suited emotionally unexpressive
friends knowing their limitations in these
matters to just look after him and show that
they cared for him. He certainly didn't want
to be alone to think beyond the linear during
this time and they demonstrated the honor
he deserved. I always suspected that Kenneth
was waiting to have his epiphany on his home
sod. I knew when he left that he would only
be returning after Christmas for a month
to settle his affairs here and return home
for good.
During Kenneth's month away, my own brother
showed up on my doorstep, he too, in the
throes of advanced alcoholism. He was in
tears, uninsured, homeless, penniless and
jobless. I was unable to turn him away having
witnessed Kenneth's ordeal, leaving myself
with the daunting task of sobering him up,
getting him employed and into a single room
occupancy hotel within thirty days. He stayed
in Kenneth's room without his consent, but
I felt I made the choice I had to and hoped
that Kenneth would understand in time. Kenneth
was very firm about not bringing the world's
troubles into our home. I never knew if any
of this had to do with Irish superstition
or not, but he, in spite of his universal
compassion for other's circumstances, was
quite against my liberal whims of bringing
home strays. For the short term, I was successful
in my brother's mission, but it was a long-term
failure because the only job that I could
get him was in a bar that would pay cash
quickly enough for him to secure lodging
after taking almost two weeks to dry him
out. It was also during this time that my
Mother's chronic illness took a turn for
the worse and we checked her into the hospital
on December twenty-third from which she never
returned. She passed away not quite two months
later.
The month following Kenneth's return weighed
heavily on me because, in addition to the
above trials, I was in messy relationships
with two ex-girlfriends, one of which was
a school teacher who wanted to get back together
with me, but I didn't; I only wanted to remain
her friend to help her through the difficulties
she was attempting to overcome with depression
and drug abuse. The other woman was someone
I wanted to get back together with, but since
she had lost a significant amount of weight,
found her prospects elsewhere more interesting.
Truth be told, I was afraid of being alone
at the time and continued seeing both of
them much longer than I should have.
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Written By Michael Woyan
Thank you for reading my story