26 Years On

First published as a column in Scotland on Sunday under the title: The Gift of Laughter That Makes My Day on 2/6/2002

YESTERDAY was Marilyn Monroe’s birthday. She would have been 76. I often wonder, would she have gone gentle into the dewlaps, the crow’s feet and the dowager’s hump? Let out a great sigh of relief at no longer playing the dumb, beautiful blonde? It’s anyone’s guess. I can’t picture Marilyn older than her 36 years. 

My best friend and I rarely celebrated Marilyn’s birthday, but religiously marked the day of her death – August 5. We’d meet to drink Champagne and dream up new places to wear diamonds. At some point, Brian could be counted on for a very creditable rendition of ‘Happy Birthday Mr President.’ I don’t remember how or why this perverse little tradition originated. It will be tied, no doubt, to the lurid, indelible image of Marilyn, her hair dyed pillowcase white, naked and alone in a satin-draped bed. 

Brian had a funny attitude towards death. He could be shockingly cavalier when you suffered a bereavement, but even as a teenager, boasted that he wouldn’t live past 36. I remember once – it was the Seventies – when he planned an elaborate disco funeral, complete with a crystal coffin, an abundance of strobe lights and a Donna Summer soundtrack. When the time came, however, he had a traditional Catholic mass in a Greenwich Village church. Brian died six years ago today. His timing was slightly off – he was 37. 

Was his a self-fulfilling prophecy? I don’t think anyone sets out to catch a fatal illness. When the HIV test came back positive he started reading nutrition books, taking supplements and training at the gym. He carried on working like a Trojan and kept up a punishing travel schedule that took him to factories all over the Far East, supervising the manufacture of his shoe designs. He also volunteered with AIDS agencies, determined to stare the situation squarely in the eye. It terrified him. 

While his health failed, his sense of humour remained intact. He had two great fears: that he’d lose his mind, and that his lover wouldn’t inherit all his money. After a trip to the lawyers, he announced that he’d created a “violet trust.” Would that be something pioneered by Elizabeth Taylor for the sole benefit of homosexuals, I inquired, confused? “No, violet – it can’t be broken.” Ah, you mean inviolate, I said, like the pedant I am. “And violet, too – our lawyer’s gay,” he giggled. 

One of the terms of the trust was that Brian couldn’t take his own life. But I’d known him for more than 20 years and knew he was a control queen without peer. No suprise, then, when he rang to announce that he’d wandered down from his Hell’s Kitchen flat to proposition the street people on 11th Avenue. “I offered them money to kill me,” he said. How much? “Two hundred bucks.” Not nearly enough. “That’s what they said.” 

So he came up with a plan worthy of Heath Robinson, recounted in another call. “You know how I have all my suits in the closet in dry cleaning bags? I’ll take a tranquilliser, and ‘fall’ into the closet where the bags will suffocate me. It’s perfect: accidental death.” You’ve left out one detail, I snorted. You simply have to dye your hair pillowcase white. “Yes, it is a bit of a blonde plan,” he admitted.

And at the last, plugged into machines and surrounded by friends, Brian accosted a cute physician. “Are you married? Because if you’re single,” he pointed to myself and two others, “these three are unattached. They’re all nice Jewish girls whose mothers want them to marry doctors.”

The world has had death on its mind a lot lately. After September 11, the Queen said: “Grief is the price we pay for love.” Too right. There’s a Brian-sized hole in my soul that nothing can fill. But whenever tears come, they’re chased by a smile. Six years on I can hear Brian’s distinctive laugh as clearly as I hear my own voice. Often it arrives unbidden and lingers to lighten my day. While I’ve a house full of things he gave me, and a head full of memories, this glorious sound is the best gift of them all. 

Twenty-six years on now, and I can still hear his laugh. I place peonies at the top of this post to commemorate someone who died (he’d have loved this sly reference to Stage Door) and because they were his funeral flowers. I miss him every day.