I was back in L.A. about a week and a half. It was night. The phone rang. It was Cecelia, she was sobbing. “Hank, Bill is dead. You’re the first one I’ve called.”
“Christ, Cecelia, I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m so glad you came when you did. Bill did nothing but talk about you after you left. You don’t know what your visit meant to him.”

“What happened?”

“He complained of feeling real bad and we took him to a hospital and in two hours he was dead. I know people are going to think he o.d.'d, but he didn’t. Even though I was going to divorce him I loved him.”

“I believe you.”

“I don’t want to bother you with all this.”

“It’s all right, Bill would understand. I just don’t know what to say to help you. I’m kind of in shock. Let me phone you later on to see if you’re all right.”

“Would you?”

“Of course.”

That’s the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.

As sick and unhappy as he was, Bill just didn’t look like somebody who was about to die. There were many deaths like that and even though we knew about death and thought about it almost every day, when there was an unexpected death, and when that person was an exceptional and lovable human being, it was hard, very, no matter how many other people had died, good, bad or unknown.

I phoned Cecelia back that night, and I phoned her again the next night, and once more after that, and then I stopped phoning.