The Reenactments: A Memoir Page 13

  IMAGINE you’re in an airplane, looking out the window at whatever it is below. Sometimes you can’t tell if you’re looking down on the tops of clouds or mountains—each housing development could be a graveyard, each river could be a pulse. Someone on the radio just said that one-quarter of the earth’s land is now so polluted as to be unable to produce anything—can that be true? One-quarter of the earth? The universe is now believed to be made up of 83 percent dark matter, and we don’t know what it is. We can only describe it by what it isn’t, by the light it takes in and never releases. There will always be days like this, when you have to exist in uncertainty for longer than seems bearable. My friend Alix knows a bankrobber who did time in solitary—Joe . He went into the hole and lay there alone for a month, for two. When he first entered that darkness he was angry—murderously angry—and as he lay there all he could feel was that fuse of rage. As the days passed he lay there and he felt it and at some point he began to follow it, inside him, like a rope leading out of a well he’d fallen into a long time ago, and as the days passed he was able to trace the origins of his anger back to its source. He saw where it began, he held it, and as he lay there in the dark longer it lost its power, it began to fade, until it dissolved in his hands. His own mind had created his own hell, all these years. If it’s true that we create the world by the precise level of our attention to it, or if it exists all along with or without us, I still don’t know. More than likely it hovers, like everything, somewhere between these poles.

  A year from now, after our film has come and gone from theaters, I’ll make the trip to Boston to show it (on DVD) to my father. It’s one hundred degrees when I pull in to Roscommon, I find my father in the day room, with the rest. The woman in charge of activities (Iris) asks my father if he knows who I am. He looks at me blankly. Do you know who Nicholas Flynn is? she asks. Nicholas Flynn? That’s my son. That’s me, I say, and he turns and takes me in. I have two sons, he tells me. I know, I say, I’m Nicholas. The woman across from us recognizes me, and I recognize her—her name is Mary. Mary rolls her eyes when my father tells me my own name. You look like my cousin Brenda, she tells me. Three other women are at my father’s table, I recognize them all—Dorothy, Josephine, Carol. It’s two in the afternoon, everyone gets popsicles, but not my father (special diet, aspiration danger). I ask Iris if we can put the DVD on the flat-screen, which is turned up very loud. We turn off Oprah, slide the DVD in. I point to the screen. That’s De Niro, I tell my father, he’s playing you—my father looks confused. I remind him about the time they met. O, yes, he says, I remember. A few minutes later Paul Dano appears, lying in bed. His voiceover tells us, I’m just trying to wake up. I look over at my father, to tell him that Dano is me, but my father has nodded off to sleep.

  I return the next morning, at ten o’clock, when I know he will be awake. He is back in the dayroom.

  Today is

  FRIDAY

  JUNE 22, 2012

  I sit down next to him, ask, Do you know a Nicholas Flynn? Tricky Nickie, my father says. He’s my son. The television is loud. I offer my hand, tell him to give me a firm handshake. I’m your son, I tell him. O, he says. What’s your name? Nicholas Flynn, I tell him. You’re Nicholas? I ask Iris if we can turn down the television, but today we cannot turn it down. We’re about to have a sing-along, Iris tells me. I set up my computer on the table in front of my father and slide the DVD in. Iris hands out xeroxed packets of songs, and the sing-along begins: Birds are singing, for me and my gal. I pull the computer closer to us, lean into my father, point to the screen. That’s Robert De Niro, playing you when you drove a taxi in Boston. He’s a hot-looking shit, my father says. Dressed well. America has produced only three classic writers, De Niro’s voiceover tells us—Mark Twain, J. D. Salinger, and me. I’m Jonathan Flynn. Everything I write is a masterpiece. I repeat what De Niro just said, and my father nods. The other fourteen people in the room sing, In love-land, for me and my gal. I lean in closer, plug in my earbuds, try to put one in my father’s ear, but he bats it away. What are you doing? he barks. We are put on this earth to help other people, Dano parrots, and a few moments later he gets punched in the face. I just got punched in the face, I tell my father, pointing to the screen. Seriously? my father asks. I point to each actor, say, That’s Nick Flynn, your son. he says, Nicholas Flynn, That’s my son. I say, I’m Nicholas Flynn, and my father glances at me. O yes, he says. I point to the other actors as they appear: That’s Jody, your wife. That’s you. This is Al. O, yes, my father says, each time. Five-foot-two, eyes of blue, everyone but us sings. Diamond rings and all those things.

  The season is

  SUMMER

  Many are in wheelchairs, one woman’s hair is dyed bright red. Has anybody seen my girl? Now Olivia Thirlby is reading the letters my father sent me from prison. That’s Jessica, I tell my father, and he says, Jessica? She was always kind, he says. Olivia reads, Punch drunk, dead drunk, mean drunk. . . . What is this? she asks. A poem, Dano tells her. When Irish eyes are smiling, our chorus sings. It’s shit, Dano tells her, no one will ever read it. Sure to take your heart away. I just did, Olivia mutters.

  The weather is

  HOT and [a drawing of the sun]

  This is you, I tell my father, you have been evicted from your apartment. You were sleeping in your cab, and now this is your first night sleeping outside. De Niro is in a library, writing a letter. The poor and the hungry are our constituents, De Niro’s voiceover tells us. Then the library closes, and De Niro is in a coffee shop. That’s you having a cup of coffee, I tell my father. Now? he asks. In the movie, I tell him. You have no place to sleep, you’re going to have to sleep outside tonight. That’s not unusual, my father tells me. Tiptoe through the tulips, the room sings. Bare feet, my father says. What? I ask. He’s looking over at Iris, who is singing, Tiptoe through the tulips, her shoes kicked off. Beautiful legs, my father says.

  The next holiday is

  FOURTH OF JULY

  [a drawing of a flag]

  Now De Niro walks through the snow to the blowers. Here’s the blowers, I say. Behind the library, remember? You’re going to spend the night on the blowers. Recently? my father asks. A few scenes later we are in the shelter. This is Pine Street, I tell him. The Pine Street Palace, he sneers, leaning in closer to the screen. Where is the shelter kept? he asks. I look at the screen. Fake snow is falling. You slept outside for a couple months, then you went to the shelter. To get a bed. That’s where you and I will meet. That’s nice, my father says. We watch for a couple moments in silence. Our chorus sings, You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. Where did you get this thing? my father asks. You mean the computer? He looks back at the screen. Is this the one in the South End? he asks. Is it still open? It’s still open, I tell him. Now Dano is talking to De Niro through the mesh of the cage. He works at Pine Street, I tell my father, he’s upset that his father is staying there. I would think so, my father says. Why? I ask. It’s a tough situation, he says. These few words are more than we have ever spoken to each other about what those days were like for him, for us. You slept in the shelter for a while, I remind him, then you slept outside. That was bad, my father says, all bravado gone. You make me happy when skies are gray. What was bad? I ask. Sleeping outside, my father answers. But the shelter wasn’t exactly paradise.

  When it’s over I stand, close the computer, take his hand. I have to be somewhere, I tell him. I’m already pushing it. Where will you go? my father asks. Rhode Island tonight, I tell him. I’m doing a reading. What will I do? he asks. In his mind he’s back on the streets, back in the years he slept outside, I know this. You’ll stay here, I tell him. Lunch is coming. When? my father asks. Right now, I say.

  PHANTOM limb pain is pain someone feels over something that is no longer there. (Let’s return to the scene of the fucken tragedy, at least we all know how it turns out, instead of this endless uncertainty. . . . ) The one way, the only way (so far) we’ve found to relieve this pain is through a resurrecti
on—you step into a mirrored box, which makes it look like your missing arm has come back. The mind has had such a hard time understanding—the arm (my fucken arm?) is gone—it might never understand. But inside the box the body is whole again, and the mind can understand. Once the mind sees the arm returned, resurrected, it can then, slowly, let it go.

  After eight takes it all dissolves—I look at the screen and it isn’t her at all. This isn’t my house, there is no second chance, nothing, no one, is coming back. Where’s my baseball glove? I ask her, and she answers sweetly, like she always does, If it was up your ass you’d know where it was. ACTION. We are in the kitchen, holding our breath, I am writing these notes, I am in prison, I am making a movie of being in prison, the brain can contain anything, in its little hall of mirrors. We watch the way Julianne’s mouth forms the words, I tried so hard, though there really is only one way to say snake, to say flower, to say gun. But we need someone to say it to us first, to point into the cage, to point to the sky, to say the word.

  CUT.

  I finally get to change out of these wet jeans, Julianne whispers, as she passes by me. Without thinking I reach out and hug her.

  THE night we filmed Dano finding De Niro sleeping beneath a bush (the imaginary night I take my father inside) was bitter cold. We did not start filming that scene until after midnight, and once De Niro was in place, wrapped in his blankets, a hat pulled down over his ears, he did not rise again, not for the three hours it took to film the scene. For the first hour the camera was on Dano, shielding his eyes with his burning palm, saying, Hey, come on. Then the crew worked for forty-five minutes to turn the shot around, so the camera would then be on De Niro’s face (bammo). De Niro could have gone to his trailer between takes, he could have gotten warm, but he chose to stay on the ground, for three cold hours. For some of the takes it seemed he was actually asleep, his breath heavy, Dano standing over him, softly calling his name. With each take De Niro’s face, his voice, subtly transformed, as the cold, as the earth, seeped into him.

  Next fall, before the movie comes out, as the anniversary of my mother’s death once again approaches, someone I hardly know will ask, Are you going to see your family over the holidays? At first I’ll be confused, because all I can think is that I live with my family—Maeve, Lili—I see them every day, but then I’ll realize that he’s speaking of my family of origin (Mom, Dad), and I’ll smile. No, I won’t be seeing them this year.

  A year from now, in the first few weeks after the film opens, we will do a handful of benefit screenings for various Housing First organizations. I will invite David Eagleman to the screening in Houston, and a few days afterward I will go to his lab, talk about my experience of seeing my life reenacted. I propose he hooks me up to an fMRI, study which parts of my brain light up as I watch Julianne empty her pill bottle. Will it be the same area that lights up when I see the crane shot of De Niro curling up on a heating grate for his first night sleeping rough? Will a different area light up when Dano smokes crack? As we talk I notice a dead bird on the sill outside of the window beside us. We talk about birds for a moment, how they sometimes don’t see the glass. Eagleman says, In a year we will remember almost nothing of this moment.

  A few months later I will give a public talk with the cognitive psychologist (William Hirst) who specializes in trauma and group memory. We are at the Rubin Museum in New York, surrounded by Buddhas. Our talk is part of a series called Brainwave, the focus of which is memory. One of Hirst’s experiments has shown that people’s memories, especially flashbulb memories (trauma, violence, death), are notoriously unreliable. At one point Hirst will propose that soon—if it hasn’t happened already—whatever memory I have of my mother will be replaced by Julianne Moore. I won’t even be aware it has happened. The talk, up to this moment, has been utterly engaging, yet I can’t help but laugh—I love what Julianne did, but I just don’t see that happening. I’m not that far gone.

  I send Eagleman a note the next day: I still remember that bird.

  THREE times in our film (which ends up called Being Flynn) my real-life wife (Lili) will lightly touch my twenty-seven-year-old screen self (Dano)—I don’t believe any of these gestures are in the script. The last time is at the end of the movie, as Dano leaves the shelter, when Lili reaches through the cage and hugs him, grabbing fistfuls of his leather jacket, as she says goodbye. Paul told Lili, before one of the takes, that she is about to go out—to relapse, on cocaine, or maybe she is already dabbling, chipping (this is her motivation). Maybe she holds onto Dano so tightly as a way to pull herself back from the edge of the well. The second time Lili touches Dano is when De Niro has been in the shelter for a while and has begun to act out, to cause trouble, and his behavior is being discussed in a change-of-shift meeting. As a new worker recounts the story of Dano’s (my) father’s erratic behavior, Dano snaps at him, What are you looking at? This isn’t me we’re talking about. Lili reaches over and touches Dano’s knee ever so lightly, as if to say, I understand, or, It’s going to be all right. The first touch is as Dano sits in the office, early in the movie, reading a letter my father wrote me, just days after he first showed up at the shelter, requesting a room. We hear De Niro’s voice: Writers, especially poets, are especially prone to madness. Lili touches Dano lightly on the shoulder as she walks past, asking, How you doing, babe? Dano jumps, and I jump, watching it. Here is the future, tapping my younger self on the shoulder, saying, I will be here for you, if you can find your way to me.

  [SOME NOTES, SOME INSPIRATIONS]

  ONE

  —José Saramago, Blindness.

  (Note: the actual quote is: There being no witnesses, and if there were there is no evidence that they were summoned to the post-mortems to tell us what happened, it is understandable that someone should ask how it was possible to know that these things happened so and not in some other manner, the reply to be given is that all stories are like those about the creation of the universe; no one was there, no one witnessed anything, yet everyone knows what happened.)

  —Antonio Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens.

  —In this it resembles: Robert Hass, “Meditation on Lagunitas.”

  —V. S. Ramachandran, A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness.

  —Anne Carson, from “Screaming in Translation,” the introduction to her translation of Sophocles’ Electra.

  —Genesis 1:26.

  —Franz Wright, “The Only Animal.”

  —Géza Vermes, The Authentic Gospel of Jesus.

  —Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, via Annie Dillard, For the Time Being.

  TWO

  —Cells that fire together: Carla Shatz (on Hebbian learning).

  —Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life,” in The Collective Memory Reader.

  THREE

  —Yasmin Anwar, “Scientists Use Brain Imaging To Reveal The Movie In Our Mind,” UC Berkeley News, 22 September 2011.

  —David Eagleman, Incognito.

  —Virginia Woolf, Moments of Being.

  —Stanley Kunitz, in a conversation with Mark Katzman, American Museum of Natural History, 2003.

  —Marcus Raichle, “The Brain’s Dark Energy,” Scientific American, March 2010.

  —Mario Livio, interviewed by Krista Tippet, On Being, NPR, 2011.

  —Drill one hole after another into it: Samuel Beckett, in a letter to Axel Kaun, 9 July 1937.

  FOUR

  —Nietzsche, ibid.

  —Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene.

  —Walter Benjamin, “The Storyteller and Theses on the Philosophy of History,” in The Collective Memory Reader.

  —Damasio, ibid.

  FIVE

  —James Frey, A Million Little Pieces (fake memoir, sold millions).

  —Margaret B. Jones, Love and Consequences (fake memoir, pulped).

  —It is night: Nick Flynn (NF), “Father Outside.”

  —Susan Sontag, On Photography (1977), Regarding the Pain of Others (2002).


  —Michael Patrick McDonald, All Souls.

  SIX

  —Leopold Blaschka, letter to Mary Lee Ware, 1889.

  (Note: the rest of the Glass Flower information in this chapter is from various sources, including Wikipedia.)

  —The Sistine Chapel of glasswork: Susan Rossi-Wilcox, ResearchPennState, 1999.

  —Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking.

  —Ernst Jentsch, “On the Psychology of the Uncanny,” 1905.

  SEVEN

  —Maurizio Cattelan: All (2007), the Menil Collection, 2010.

  —I was cheered: W. C. Williams, “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower.”

  —And god forgive me: Denis Johnson, “Poem.”

  —Kevin Young, from his introduction to The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing.

  —Paul Levy, “God and the Imagination.”

  EIGHT

  —Edgar Morin, “Le cinema ou l’homme imaginaire.”

  —Simone Weil, “To Desire Without an Object,” Gravity and Grace.

  —To see how far: NF, “You Ask How.”

  (Note: the actual line is, to know how far . . . )

  —And the world become a bell: NF, “Sudden.”

  NINE

  —The emptiness of the bowl creates the bowl: a basic teaching of Buddhism (see also the concept of Interbeing).

  —Maurice Halbwachs, from The Collective Memory, in The Collective Memory Reader.

  —Damasio, ibid.

  —Hugh Everett III, 1930–1982 (though perhaps he still exists in a parallel universe).

  —Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself.”

  —Henry David Thoreau, Walden (last paragraph).

  TEN

  —Guy Maddin, My Winnipeg.

  —Absolute unmixed attention is prayer: Weil, “The Allegory of the Cave.”

  —If you find yourself lost: NF, “Elsewhere, Mon Amour.”

  ELEVEN

  —Dr. Harold Edgerton, .30 bullet piercing an apple, 1964.