CHAPTER FIVE

The next time I saw Doug would be at my mother’s house, two Christmases later. I was doing well with my transition to stand-up, already headlining in some of the B rooms.

Meanwhile, Doug had just been offered the number two position at SSL, which meant relocating to their headquarters in England. He’d packed up his office and apartment, and was staying at Mom’s while getting the move together.

But as the family gathered for the holidays, the excitement over Doug’s promotion didn’t last long. All of us knew that he’d been having some mysterious health problems, which Doug’d chalked up to fatigue from his globe-trotting for the company. But the way he looked at Christmas, all of us began to suspect something far worse.
I should mention that “all of us” at that point no longer included my father, who died of cancer in 1982, several years after divorcing my mom and re-marrying a wealthy socialite.
Which was probably just as well in this situation, since Dad was the one person in the family who’d've been totally unable to deal with the news we were about to get. Just knowing Doug was gay had struck enough nerves. Having one of his sons dying from “the gay plague”, right there in front of Ronald Reagan’s Washington … Forget it.

Doug waited until after the holidays to get the diagnosis that confirmed our fears. He told Mom first, and they both agreed he should stay on at her house. Then he called the rest of us, one by one.
The year was now 1987, which was the high point of AIDS hysteria in America. With the caseload exploding, no cure in sight, and not even a single drug approved for treatment, everyone was freaked.
But as intense as the AIDS stigma was in 1987, it had virtually no impact on Doug. It meant nothing within our family. His friends and colleagues didn’t abandon him, either.
In fact, when Doug told Colin Sanders, the President of SSL, Colin not only put him on paid leave with full medical benefits, he also gave Doug a large cash bonus for his key role in building the company.
That was huge. Not just as a measure of respect, but because it wiped away Doug’s biggest fear: that he’d become a burden to the family.

In March, the FDA approved AZT – the first AIDS drug. Doug’s doctor put him on it immediately. But after six weeks, the drug’s side-effects were making him sicker with no signs of remission, they both agreed he should stop taking it.

Over the next couple of days, Doug discussed with each of us about a very Doug-like decision he’d made: That when the time came, he wanted to be the one in control, not the doctors. He told us there was no way he was going to spend his last days doped up and hooked to a room-full of machines. He was determined to die as consciously as possible.

Doug also promised us that he had no intention of cheating himself out of even one minute of living. But he insisted that he alone would know when it was time to go.

We all agreed, including Brad, who was still Doug’s best friend, and was the only non-family member he let in on this decision.

Now the United States has got to be the easiest country on earth to kill yourself. We’re the most heavily armed, the most heavily medicated. And we have the most tall buildings.

But the details of such an act affect the living far more than the dead. Doug knew he couldn’t just put a gun in his mouth one day and leave cash for the cleaning crew.

My sister Diane had heard about an organization called The Hemlock Society. They put out a handbook detailing what combinations of presciption drugs are likely to result in the fastest, least traumatic and most reliable death. It also covers how to deal with a number of potential glitches. Good light reading.

Three calls to three doctors, and we had the prescriptions, in quantities that could be accounted for by our personal use well before Doug would need them. With that done, we spoke no more about it.

The months passed. Doug was in and out of the hospital twice with pneumosistis pneumonia. He almost didn’t make it the second time.

I kept trying to imagine myself in his position, knowing death was closing in.
The worst part, it seemed to me, would be knowing I’d lost the chance to do all those things on my “Later” list – the stuff we promise ourselves we’ll get around to, jjust later.
Finally, after his second bout of pneumocisitis, I asked him: Was there any unfinished business I could help him out with? Anything at all that I could do on his behalf?

Doug took a second, and then quoted me what he claimed was an ancient Sufi poem: “Many things in our lives matter. Fortunately, none of them matter very much.”
Then he continued:
“But I’ll tell you Chris… I’ve been reading your letters these last months, and here’s what you can do for me: You can write. I think you’ll be great at it.”

I was taken aback. I’d gone there to offer what I thought was the ultimate gift – to carry on for Doug. And he answers that the best way for me to do that … is to develop my own gifts.

Soon, my visits to Washington were spent mostly sitting by his bed, often while he slept. That’s where I was one evening, in the middle of July, when suddenly Doug started thrashing around, : “No, no, no, NO! NO!!!!”
Then he stopped. His opened his eyes, and turned to me: “It’s time.”

I got chills. I knew I’d just witnessed my brother wrestle with the angel of death, and surrender. So naturally, I pretended not to understand: “What? Want some water ?”

Doug ignored me: “Go get Mom.”

I went downstairs and got Mom, telling her what had happened. We hurried back to Doug’s room. By then, he was sitting up calmly in bed. But his eyes were still wild.
“Mom, call Diane, tell her to get here as soon as she can. I’m ready.”

For the first and only time, my Mom lost it: “Are you sure? Maybe we better call the doctor. Chris says you were hallucinating.”

Oh, thanks a lot, Mom.

But Doug wasn’t having it “Look at me, Mom. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life.”

She did manage to convince him to wait until morning before calling Diane. By then, Doug had one concession for her. Now that he was ready, there was no reason to rush. On the contrary, he needed some time, to work out the details, arrange a few last visits. He figured three weeks would be about right.

The Hemlock Society recommends choosing a Saturday for the big day – because officialdom is closed and there’s less chance for accidental intervention. That brought the date to August 8th.