\nI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\nwas in the coach car of an Amtrak train headed west. In my\nburied-down-soul there were beatnik possibilities but in my head\nthere was a hangover throb of dehydration and a resoluteness not to\nbe sick in the onboard lavatory. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\nthe duffle I\u2019d smushed into the overhead rack there were enough\nclothes for a week, a bottle of red wine with an origami duck on the\nlabel, a baseball glove, three books of poetry by Czeslaw Mislosz,\nPhillip Levine, and Kathi Aguero, a notebook in which I\u2019d only\nscribbled a few large-print proverbs while I was smoking some dope,\nand other things. Socks probably, underpants, a DVD history of\nprofessional wrestling I wanted to watch with my girlfriend\u2019s son.\nSundries. And a sweat-stained Red Sox cap I bought in 2001, when I\ngraduated high school, rekindled my love of baseball, divorced the\nSt. Louis Cardinals and swore a lifetime allegiance to the worst team\nin baseball not based in Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d\nboarded in St. Louis at the Gateway Station downtown. Kansas City,\nwhere my partner Lisa lived, was a six-hour jostle down the track.\nAboard the train there were electrical outlets and free Wi-Fi, though\nthe coverage was spotty on account of how deep into the woods and\nbluffs of central Missouri the line sometimes wound. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\ntried to sleep from the time we slogged out of home until the\nstation-stop at Washington, where Trump-Pence signs were still firmly\nstaked in the front yards of houses and where Old Glory was muraled\non brick buildings. I tried to sleep and I couldn\u2019t so I tried to\nread; my brain was a ball of rubber bands bouncing off my skull\nsides. With reading and sleeping out of the\nquestion, I connected my phone to the Amtrak internet and tried to\nlisten to music. Even the tracks I\u2019d downloaded from Spotify\nwouldn\u2019t play, with precious few exceptions. Eventually I found a\ncover of Third Eye Blind\u2019s \u201cHow\u2019s it Going to Be\u201d that would\nplay consistently. It was spare, haunting, a totally-acoustic\nrendering by Jack and White. I put it on loop and listened until I\nwasn\u2019t listening anymore. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nI\nthink it was Robert Bly who wrote men often find their most poignant\npoetry inside of loneliness. I found myself feeling a loneliness on\nthat train. A loneliness with mass, volume and atomic weight. A\nloneliness with a calendar date. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anthony\nMichael Bourdain died on June 8, 2018. My father died on June 15,\n2007. For a whole week and then a few days I mourned for these men.\nI put them away after that. Death is supposed to be final. In some\ncultures you don\u2019t speak the name of a dead person after seven\ndays. Death is a respite for the deceased, or so it\u2019s theorized. I\nwanted Anthony Bourdain to rest well but I was getting stirrings of\npissed-offness toward my father. I was starting to dislike him, to\nwant to hug him, to miss the smell of his Kelly-green aftershave, to\nthink about the way he\u2019d give me a bedtime benediction of God\nand Daddy will watch over you this night <\/em>instead\nof reading me a story. I was starting to think about Dad\u2019s grind of\nworking full-time at the post office and part-time as a security\nofficer at a hotel. I was starting to wonder if he\u2019d really had the\nmoney when he bought\nme an electric guitar and an iPod for the same Christmas. I was\nstarting to think about my mother and myself and how we might\u2019ve\nbeen to blame and how we. How we. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nengineer came over the public-address system and said there was a\ndelay up ahead. He explained: Amtrak shares this line with the Union\nPacific Railroad and the UPR in their boundless mercy sometimes\ndemands passenger trains make way for heifers, coal and the\naccoutrements of democracy. He didn\u2019t say that. I made that up. But\nthe PA system did announce we were lucky to share track with the\nUnion Pacific and happy to make way for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\nhad a few more delays. Once around Sedalia, another time around\nWarrensburg. I didn\u2019t care, I was contentedly miserable in my body.\nMy nausea was subsiding and I even nodded off a few times using my\nbackpack as a pillow on the tray table in front of me. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n By\nthe time we got to Independence I was ready to be done with the\ntrain. Kansas City Union Station is, on a slow day, about thirty\nminutes past the town Harry Truman was born in. I started texting\nLisa:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pulling\ninto the last stop before you. Miss you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Slowing\ninto Independence, won\u2019t be long now.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m\nsweating like a motherfucker and the a\/c on this train won\u2019t run\nwhile we\u2019re sitting still. Can\u2019t wait to get chugging toward you!<\/em>\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n While\nI was napping, someone had boarded and taken up residence in the seat\nin front of me. They\u2019d decided to recline said seat, leaving no\nroom for setting up my laptop and trying to do any work. I slid out\nof my seat and took my backpack to the dining car. There were plenty\nof empty tables, so I sat at one and set up shop. I opened my machine\nand started to freewrite about Bourdain, my old man, how hard it was\nto quit smoking, the rain in Spain and the plain on which it fell in\nthe main. I was choking on something I wanted to say. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow\u2019s\nit Going to Be\u201d is a sad song and it only gets sadder when you\nwallow in its subliminality for several hours. How\u2019s\nit gonna be<\/em>,\nthe song asks,\nwhen you don\u2019t know me? When I\u2019m not around? When you find out\nthere was nothing between you and me?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nwas in tears before I could process that we were moving backward. The\ntrain, I mean, the train was physically in reverse. Some kind of\nmechanical issue was rerouting us along Union Pacific\u2019s\notherwise-freight-only tracks. We\u2019d be at least forty minutes late\ngetting into K.C. I took out one of my earbuds and asked the\nconductor at the cash register if he had any coffee brewed. He\ndidn\u2019t. I put my earbud back in and kept crying. Soon the scenery\nwas a flashback to things I thought I\u2019d been through and left\nbehind: the car dealership with the inflatable dinosaur in its lot,\nthe day my father killed himself, the look on Lisa\u2019s face when she\ntold me Bourdain was dead, the billowing and blustering of grass in a\nfield that could have been and could still become a cemetery, the\npain in Lisa\u2019s mouth when she told me Bourdain killed himself, too.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nwas sobbing and looking out the window when the train began to slide\nforward again. I hoped progress would make me happier or at least not\nso glum, but I was without recourse; I just kept crying. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nforgot I was wearing my hat in the dining car. I\u2019d forgotten about\nbaseball altogether, in truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A\nboy and his mother came into the car for a hot dog, a premade salad,\na couple sodas and a beer. On their way past, the kid seemed to look\nat me but not see me. On their way out, the kid had me and the faded\nred calligraphic \u2018B\u2019 on my cap fixed in his sights. My face was\nswollen, my voice phlegmy, everything about me adjective-modified and\nundesirable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nlittle boy stopped, looked right at me, and said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t\ncry. You\u2019re going to win the World Series.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And\nhe toddled away into what I hope was a happiness unknown to most\npeople. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re\ngoddamn right we\u2019re gonna win,\u201d I said to his echo. \u201cYou\u2019re\ngoddamn right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tI\ntexted Lisa that I had a story for her when I finally got to town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tCan\u2019t\nwait<\/em>,\nshe answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tI\nopened a new document and began to type.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nII.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Celebrity\nchef Anthony Bourdain has died at 61. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s\nthe headline. There are going to be more, I know, with their\nattendant variations on the theme of reporting a fact. Some will be\npithy incomplete character studies: \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bad-boy\nchef dies at 61<\/strong>.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Culinary\nrebel dead at 61<\/strong><\/em>.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tv\nfood star and recovering addict dies suddenlyat 61<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All\nof these capture a fractional fraction of what\u2019s really gone down:\nAnthony Bourdain, a chef, TV personality, essayist, novelist, father,\nex-husband, boyfriend, philanthropist, curmudgeon, drunk, former\njunkie, tattoo collector, depression sufferer, haunted soul, spoken\nword artist, inspiration to millions of hipster home cooks and\nsnowflake liberals, traveler, and total fucking mystery committed\nsuicide by hanging himself. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s\nnot all, either. I\u2019m not immune to catching only the gist of who is\nliving and what is happening and what their death might mean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Others\nwon\u2019t be headlines, per\nse<\/em>,\nbut Facebook statuses, Tweets, and Instagram posts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n OMG,\nR.I.P. Anthony, you beautiful man! #neverforget #noreservations\n#allthethingstheinternetsayswhenyoudieandwerefamous<\/strong>\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Totally\ngutted at the passing of @AnthonyBourdain. You\u2019ll be missed!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n [Photo\nof the Deceased] captioned <\/strong>My\nhero. <\/strong><\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nsocial media shitstorm is the most insipid of all the fragmented\nmemorial barrages. It begs the question of whether reality and TV are\ndivergent, convergent, consubstantial, convivial, or something else\nentirely. Begs the questions of whether we can ever know anyone else\nand whether we should endeavor to try from so great a distance as\nacross the gulf of renown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eventually\nit happens. They all stop obsessing about Bourdain\u2019s age and the\nchronological closeness of his death to Kate Spade\u2019s. They stop\nobsessing about the countless hours they intend to spend watching and\nrewatching Bourdain\u2019s food shows. They turn their attention, as I\nknew and feared they would, to suicide as an entity. They generalize\nand pontificate, turn omniscient and didactic. My favorite one is an\nInstagram post from a pogonophilia group:<\/p>\n\n\n\n [Generic\npicture frame with a yellow ribbon pinned to the lower-left corner] <\/strong>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n SUICIDE\nIS NOT A DISEASE OR A CRIME! <\/strong>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n DON\u2019T\nJUDGE WHAT YOU CAN\u2019T POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \nIt\nstops being a non-comprehensive study of one man\u2019s passing and\nbecomes a propagandist ignoramus symposium on public health. Everyone\nseems to channel Schopenhauer and say a person\u2019s life is theirs and\nif they choose to end it that\u2019s fair play. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Quit:<\/strong>\nphonetically, kwit; verb: to leave a place, usually permanently; to\nresign employment; to give up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suicide\nis quitting, whether we attach judgment to that word or we don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When\nI quit watching No\nReservations<\/em>,\nAnthony Bourdain was drinking less but couldn\u2019t give up the smokes.\nI get this; when I was twenty-one my grandmother died of a rare blood\ncancer that\u2019s a second-cousin of leukemia and it scared me into a\nfrenzied desire to give up cigarettes ASAP. Cold turkey was too\npainful, physically and emotionally. I smoked because I enjoyed it\nbut also because I was hooked. Nicotine withdrawal made me furious\u2014my\nroad rage was worse, my left jab was better, my self-hatred was\ndoubled, and my patience got halved.\t\t Nicotine gum was effective but\ntasted like feces crusted with black pepper and the directions for\nuse required knowing, more or less, when you\u2019d be craving a smoke.\nLozenges were an option that came in black cherry or spearmint. Both\nburned my tongue; the cherry variety gave me unpredictable flatulence\nand the spearmints skipped the foreplay and made me shit like mad.\nHypnotism was too close to voodoo for me to even consider. There are\nalmost as many ways to quit smoking as there are to commit suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tIt\nwas the patch that finally helped me unhook. There were two different\nnicotine patches to start out on: 2mg if you smoked your first\ncigarette more than a half-hour after waking up; 4mg if you smoked\nwithin the first half-hour. I remember wishing there was a 5 or 6mg\noption for people like me who lit up within the first thirty seconds\nof their day. The patches didn\u2019t stick very well to my arm so I\nbought a roll of athletic tape and strapped the fuckers on. I found\nmyself also slapping my left bicep throughout the day not only to\nmake sure the patch was still there but to hopefully jar loose a\nlittle extra chemical goodness. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n From\nthese first ones I graduated to a second-phase dose that was not only\nweaker but physically smaller. I still taped it to my arm and swatted\nit like the bottom of a ketchup bottle to get every last dollop, but\nI noticed twinges of wanting to cheat from time to time. And cheat I\ndid. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nfirst time I forgot to wear a patch I thought I could tough it out;\none day cold-turkey, no problem. False. I was upset, anyway, from a\nfight with a girl I thought I wanted to marry. Coupled with bad\ntraffic on my freeway commute and a fresh wave of withdrawal, I was\nfucked. I bought a pack of Camels from the cigarette machine in the\nemployee smoking lounge and burned three before I knew what had\nhappened. I smoked four more before the day was out, but that was it.\nI put my patch on the next day and was back on the wagon for three\nmonths. After that booze, anxiety, boredom, and the na\u00efve, Nick\nAdams-esque certainty that I would never die derailed my attempts to\ngive up the habit. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those\nwho quit smoking and those who die by suicide generally try several\ntimes before they succeed. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suicide\nand quitting tobacco have another thing in common: the hotline. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n In\nMissouri the number to call when you wanna quit smoking is\n1-800-QUIT-NOW. (It might be the same nationwide; I\u2019ve never called\nit or quit smoking in another state.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In\nMissouri the number to call when you want to quit being alive is\n1-800-356-5395. (It\u2019s the same over 25 counties, but it doesn\u2019t\ncover St. Louis City, where I live. The coverage area that includes\nSt. Louis City doesn\u2019t have a number listed on Suicide.org) The\nNational Hotline is 1-800-273-TALK. I\u2019ve never called either\nnumber. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n So\nthere are hotlines for when you want to stop smoking and when you\nwant to kill yourself. Fundamental differences: the person on the\nother end of the former fiberoptic lifeline wants you to stop smoking\nbecause they don\u2019t want you to die and the person on the other end\nof the latter lifeline doesn\u2019t want you to kill yourself because\nthey don\u2019t want you to die. Not on their shift, anyhow. This goes\nfor both operators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Object\nseems the same: Preserve life. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Smoking\nand Suicide both have a stigma. They\u2019re bad. Unclean. Socially\nunacceptable. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n My\ngrandmother died of polycythemia vera. It\u2019s a cancer that causes\nyour body to make too many blood cells and therefore turn your blood\ninto sludge that puts pressure on your brain and causes dementia and,\neventually, death. She was skeletal by the time she left us but she\nwas also a funny old woman. She\u2019d forget my name and remember it,\nthen forget it again. She\u2019d smile at me while she tried to\nrecollect how it was that I was related to her. I\u2019d come into her\nroom and hoist her body out of the bed while my mother changed the\nsheets, wiped my grandmother\u2019s ass and nether regions, and pray for\na few more days with her mom. We called my grandmother Maw. Maw would\ngrin at me as I cradled her in my arms and made her promise I hadn\u2019t\nhurt her in the process of lifting her up and that we\u2019d see one\nanother tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nShe\nwas 82 when she died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cancer\nis what kills us if nothing else gets us first, or so my doctor tells\nme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People\nwho consider or complete suicide are a diverse demographic There are\nthose who talk about it incessantly but never do it, like those who\nswear they\u2019ll quit smoking every New Year\u2019s Eve but don\u2019t.\nThere are those who try, but don\u2019t succeed, like me. I tried\nslitting my wrists a few times but could never take the pain or the\nsight of all that blood. Like my buddy Omar who sat in his garage\nwith a pistol in his mouth but couldn\u2019t pull the trigger. Like\ninnumerable people who have gotten drunk and driven away from their\nhomes with no intention to return but who come back, park, and crawl\ninto bed willing to wake up at least one more time. Quitting life and\nquitting smoking have a resolute commonality: You have to really want\nto do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For\nBourdain, it was the rope-and-tree. He hung himself. He didn\u2019t\nactually use a rope and a tree; that\u2019s a metaphor. Unlike other\ncessation methods there are a bunch of ways to hang yourself. Kate\nSpade used a scarf. My cousin Stanley used his prison-issued\nbedsheet. All of them really wanted to quit. They all wanted, more\nthan the alternative, to die. For my father it was three decades of\nsleep apnea, a quarter-million-dollars in debt, one last fight with\nmy mother and a pistol in the mouth. That\u2019s how Pop quit. It seems,\nnow, neither more nor less reasonable than it did eleven years ago. I\nam on a train today, Westbound. There is sun on the grass and\ngrey-white horses eating said grass. There is agony and ecstasy\neverywhere. There is also an abundance of nothing. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why\nanyone quits their habit, whether it\u2019s smoking or breathing, is a\nmatter of semantics. Everybody thinks it\u2019ll be better when they\nstop. So they try. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anthony\nBourdain is dead. My father is dead. My cousin Stan and Kate Spade\nare dead. That was their choice. I haven\u2019t smoked a cigarette in\nten years and I am still alive. That is my choice. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rectitude.\nWe attach it to choosing life. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n William\nStyron\u2019s memoir of depression paints a portrait of the\ndecision-making process in a light very few of us see, at least on\nthe page. He sympathizes with those who, as he calls it,\nself-destruct. I am not here to judge but to mourn. I am not here to\nmourn but to testify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nday Anthony Bourdain hung himself I was sleeping. The day I found out\nhe had hung himself I could not sleep. This much is true. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\ndon\u2019t know how many times or in how many ways Bourdain tried to\nquit. I don\u2019t know his reasons. But I know he wanted to quit badly\nenough that he did. I was angry when I learned of his death. And sad.\nI wept for his daughter, his girlfriend, myself, my buddy Hawk who\ncalls Bourdain a visionary, and my mother who is nearly inconsolable\nevery time anyone dies by their own hand. I watched tributes on\nYouTube and on TV. I read articles about the ways in which Bourdain\nhad touched lives. I waited for the toxicology report to be made\npublic, much as I waited for my father\u2019s autopsy report. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\ncan\u2019t hate Anthony Bourdain. I can\u2019t hate my father. How can I\nhate suicide?<\/p>\n\n\n\n This\nis the question I take to bed: how to respond to the answerless. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\nare more ways to kill yourself than there are to quit smoking. Maybe\nbecause smoking will kill you eventually anyway. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just\nlike living will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nIII.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tGame\n5 of the 2018 World Series. Red Sox closer Craig Kimbrel is throwing\nsmoke. I\u2019m half-lit on yard beer and I\u2019m yelling at the TV in my\nliving room. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cC\u2019mon,\nKimbrel! You big sexy ginger! Blow it by him!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tEleven\nyears ago I was doing this same thing, more or less, only Jonathan\nPapelbon was pitching for the Sox that night. I was similarly\nintoxicated, similarly vocal, still tensed-up and wearing the first\nBoston ballcap I ever owned. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThe\nyear my father shot himself, the Red Sox won the World Series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThe\nyear Anthony Bourdain hung himself, the Red Sox won the World Series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tNobody\nwarned me Dad and my favorite celebrity chef were going to die young\nand by choice. But that kid on the train, the minor prophet with the\nbig eyes, he told me the Sox would win it all. I would\u2019ve hated him\nif he\u2019d been wrong. I can find it in me to believe that much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Andy Smart lives in St. Louis, MO and is a candidate for his MFA in the Solstice Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program at Pine Manor College. His essays appear in the anthologies Show Me All Your Scars (In Fact Books) and Come Shining: Essays and Poems on Writing in a Dark Time (Kelson Books). His poetry has appeared in Two Thirds North and Red Fez, and is forthcoming in Lily Poetry Review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Putting It Out I. I was in the coach car of an Amtrak train headed west. In my buried-down-soul there were beatnik possibilities but in my head there was a hangover throb of dehydration and a resoluteness not to be sick in the onboard lavatory. In the duffle I\u2019d smushed into the overhead rack there … <\/p>\n