“No one ever overdoses on purpose,” she said.
• • •
When my parents got to LA, my mom reported that Harris seemed empty, sad, and lonely. She cried a lot. The three of them spent a lot of time that weekend sitting in the dark with the curtains drawn, watching the giant television. My mom made a huge Thanksgiving dinner from scratch for Harris on Friday. He loved Thanksgiving food, and she loved him. She said he seemed grateful, as grateful as someone who was dead inside could be.
She also reported that Harris didn’t seem to be in any physical pain or experiencing any symptoms of withdrawal. “The Suboxone must really be working,” she concluded. My fear was that he wasn’t detoxing at all. My fear was that he was shooting up while my parents slept down the hall in the guest room.
That weekend, he and my mom had a candid conversation outside on his back patio. He was smoking, as usual. My mom told him she was on a merry-go-round with him and didn’t know if she could hang on for another relapse. It was killing her. “I’m an addict,” he said. “I’m gonna relapse. That’s what addicts do. But you’re my mom. You’ll always be there for me.” It scared the shit out of her. He was basically saying he was going to relapse again and again and again. He already had. He was telling her he wasn’t ever going to get better.
She begged him to come back to Houston and stay indefinitely. She said he needed to get away from this place and clean himself up and be with his family. Harris said he wanted to come home but had to finish up blah blah blah thing first. Granted, he was busy. He’d done so well in his career up to this point because he was reliable and hardworking. And funny. Very funny. However, his career wasn’t our priority—he was. He promised that when he wrapped things up in LA, he’d buy a one-way ticket home. It shouldn’t be longer than a week or so. He wanted to come home. He was on board with our plan.
• • •
I wrote him a letter that weekend that still sits in the drafts folder of my email, a letter that said exactly how I felt. The truth. How angry, hurt, betrayed, sickened, scared, and anxious I was about him every minute of every day. How I was terrified he was going to die. How I wanted my brother back. But I got scared and sat on it. I didn’t want to rock the boat. I didn’t want to make him angry or push him farther away. I just wanted him to come home. I figured if we could get him home, maybe we could make him stay. Maybe we could look into his eyes or hand him the baby and inspire him to change. Maybe we could save him. Sometimes, I look at this letter and wonder if things would have turned out differently had I sent it.
26 Nine Months, One Week, Four Days
I have an expansive digital record of our relationship for which I am grateful because my long-term memory is shit. When I type your name into my Gmail history, I can instantly pull up page after page of authentic samplings of you: your thought process, opinions, moments of weakness, moments of triumph, jokes, anecdotes, typos. I do it often.
I do it again when Aziz contacts me the first week of December about a piece he’s writing for the New York Times Magazine called “The Lives They Lived.” It’s an annual In Memoriam, and they’re going to honor you. His idea is to highlight some of the most Harris-ish digital interactions you had with the people to whom you were closest: texts, emails, chats, etc. There’s so many from which to choose. You really shined electronically.
Our G-chats date back to 2007. Eight years of mostly meaningless and meandering conversations about girls (you) and boys (me); work drama; daily stressors; parents’ birthday gifts; houses we should or shouldn’t buy; dreams we had; nightmares, too. It’s like a trunk of old letters buried in the backyard that I dig up, crack open, and spend hours exploring.
Harris: hey lemme run this thing by you
asked a girl out via facebook who we have a mutual friend, but i’ve never met
she seems cute and funny
well here
im gonna cut and paste the convo
“ya id be down for that. always open for a nice chat. cant this weekend going on a vacay haaaaay. maybe next week/weekend. talk to you soon.”—her
“Fuck off, it’s this weekend or never. Just kidding. Talk to you next week. Lookin forward to it and what not.”—me
was the “fuck off” too strong? she hasnt responded
thought it was funny
Me: that’s totally funny
Harris: ok cool
anyone would get it
Me: did you send it, like, an hour ago?
if she doesn’t get it, she’s an idiot and fuck her
Harris: word!
• • •
Me: ok so real quick tell me—are you in love?
Harris: i mean i dunno. its still nascent
but we are happy yes
Me: i can’t believe you just used that word
but you feel like it’s clicking?
good job on that word
Harris: it is clicking.
• • •
Harris: did i tell u i’m gonna be on the real world?
(We both loved The Real World, so this was a huge deal. This was a huge deal for both of us.)
Me: What? No
Harris: i talked to this girl at a bar all night and there were cameras on us and i signed a release form and she wouldn’t tell me what it was for
and she gave me her phone number and told me to call the house tomorrow
and as she was leaving she whispered that it was the real world
so im gonna be the guy on the phone
and the guy in the bar
Me:
