Book 2, Letter 16 To Rafael Antonio Roccisano

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Dear Rafael,

I have some things I need to say to you. Things that I couldn't say while you were alive. Some of it is not very kind, and some of it, well...

My last conversation with you was about a new beer you were brewing, with peaches. I didn't want to talk about booze with you, it seemed wrong to encourage you, but self destruction was all you knew of yourself in the end. Some months before, I badgered you to give me some of your writing, some little story from your South American adventure, but you brushed me off, saying something about the death cult over there who you fucked with, a gang who carried AK47's and were involved in prostitution. You were scared they were watching for you online, keeping an eye on you to make sure you didn't talk. Also you were suffering from the effects of the brain damage you received from a beating, or a drunken fight, or many drunken fights....you explained that you couldn't really write much, your head wasn't right, it was hard for you to think, and to remember.

Why did we all love you so much Rafael? Why does it feel like such an insult that you wanted nothing more for yourself than to die? You were a beautiful, expressive, poetic man with a sensitive heart and an creative mind – but all you did was drink away that beautiful life you were gifted with, spitting on happiness and rejecting all offers of kindness, of help.

You were so often ready to help others, but no one could help you. No one could reach you in the hell of your soul...hell....what do I know? Compared to others I hardly knew you at all, yet you were my brother.

It was twenty years ago I guess, we were both high on mushrooms and wandering along the moonlit beach before dawn, each of us in our own thoughts and simultaneously linked with that beautiful sense of psychic/empathic communion that psilocybin provides. We stopped for a moment and you dug your feet into the sand and stared out to sea, out to the full moon as I recall, and I was overcome by that hand of magic and power that commands me sometimes. I walked three times in a circle around you, chanting in my mind.

You are my brother. You are my brother. You are my brother.

No matter what you do, no matter what happens in our lives, I will always love you and always support you and always speak to you with kindness and treat you with camaraderie and forgiveness.

We went back to the house where the party had collapsed into sleep, and we fell down too, upon that hard floor and slept. I remember dreaming...something.

Now, I am dreaming of you, dear brother.

You never made it easy, but then, you never made anything easy for yourself either.

I asked you once why you hated the world so much, why you thought people were so horrible and why you had no faith in change or growth or goodness. You told me an oblique tale of a satanic cult of some sort here in Australia that you became entangled with, not as a member, no, you rescued people from the clutches of evil. There were children involved I think. The things you saw and the things you had to do marked you permanently. The story was garbled, your memory was already a hazy mess, or perhaps you just didn't want to remember anything of the details. I don't know if what you said was true, I should take you at face value and simply believe that you believed it. You had been through something, whatever the truth, and the outcome was every bit as messy and ruinous as the fact of your own uncontrollable alcoholism.

I keep thinking that for all the years I knew you, you had been trying to destroy yourself. Charles Bukowski said that drinking and smoking are the only forms of honourable suicide left to modern men. I can't see your death as anything other than suicide by poisoning. You struggled with demons I can never know of. You lived a life gasping for air in a stormy sea.

And we could never reach you.

I hope that your writing has survived. I hope that the glimmers of your brilliance were marked down and kept safe. I hope that those you hurt can forgive you. I hope that your selfishness and cynicism will fade in our memories and that instead we will remember the good things you gave to us. You wanted to love the world, but there was always something in the way.

I love you Raff. My brother. You finally destroyed yourself and I hope that means that you got what you wanted. We wanted so much more from you...I don't want to be angry, I don't want to be hurt, but God damn it Raff, you threw it all away. You threw away all the love and kindness we tried to show you and now I'm sitting in bed crying over the useless death of another brilliant, beautiful man.

I don't want to be angry with you. I want to forgive you and forget the bad days. I want to believe in that brilliant brother who I made a moonlit pact with to always love, always support, always speak to with kindness...

I am going to feel a lot of things in the coming weeks, months and years. Your death will not be easy on anyone who knew you. There was something about you that burned like a magnesium flare, a glaring brilliance than could never be extinguished no matter how much you drank.

Except, now you are gone, and that beautiful spark of light is submerged in the ocean of sorrow, and you have slipped beneath the waves forever.

Goodbye Raph. I will see you on the other side.

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The Bluebird

Charles Bukowski – from The Last Night of the Earth Poems

there's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I'm too tough for him,

I say, stay in there, I'm not going

to let anybody see

you.

There's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I pour whiskey on him and inhale

cigarette smoke

and the whores and the bartenders

and the grocery clerks

never know that

he's

in there.

There's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I'm too tough for him,

I say,

stay down, do you want to mess

me up?

You want to screw up the

works?

You want to blow my book sales in

Europe?

There's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I'm too cleaver, I only let him out

at night sometimes

when everybody's asleep.

I say, I know that you're there,

so don't be

sad.

Then I put him back,

but he's singing a little

in there, I haven't quite let him

die

and we sleep together like

that

with our

secret pact

and it's nice enough to

make a man

weep, but I don't

weep, do

you?

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