There is some discussion about whether or not there should be food, and Basil decides that food is fine. Wine would be good, though he’s against beer or liquor, which might make the crowd too boisterous. But wine would be mellowing, he decides. Red wine, a cash bar.
There was that story of the Roman, Petronius, who was Nero’s party planner. He had to come up with a better event every night, had to make each one more elaborate, bizarre, unforgettable. The story goes that one night he placed a tub in the middle of the festivities, and put himself in the tub. He then slit his wrists, letting the blood drain slowly into the tub. Periodically he would wrap his wrists, temporarily stanching the bleeding, to talk to a guest or two. But slowly he did die at that party, for those people.
Basil knows this story, and wants to make sure his is not like that. Helen agrees, and brings up an interesting point: for this to work, to have any dignity — to allow dignity to Basil and those watching — it has to be about Basil, not the audience. There can’t be any motives in watching outside of Basil’s asking them to be there, and their wanting to be present for an important moment in a stranger’s life. Much like people cheer for those passing in a parade, though they don’t know them.
Basil can’t decide if this should be a daytime or nighttime event. During the day, it would seem more open and festive and light, and he would be able to see people’s faces, if he chose. But at night, it could certainly be more beautiful, with everyone holding candles and the stars above. Ultimately he decides to compromise: it will be dusk.
There is a rich and melancholy undercurrent between Basil and Helen. They haven’t been in contact for many decades, but now find themselves having great fun together, making each other laugh — Helen laughs with her stomach, her shoulders, and her face runs crimson quickly — and marveling at the other’s strength and will. It’s unfortunate that they came together again while she was essentially helping him to die. There is some hint that they might have a brief fling, but they decide not to bother. Basil’s bones feel hollow, seashells stitched together with wire. Instead they can only shake their heads about the fact that they might have had many years of happiness together, alas. She also collects cacti.
Basil’s older brother is either very sharp and feisty, or has lost his lucidity and lives in a constant-care facility. Probably the latter.
Someone, one of the daughters, proposes that the death could be on closed-circuit TV, allowing anyone to see it (though limiting the potential for public humiliation). This idea is rejected. It’s not about the number of eyes watching from afar, Basil and Derek explain, it’s about being in the company of many, feeling their heat.
Interesting sidenote: Basil only has so long to live, but his longevity depends to a certain extent on a relatively low-impact existence. But when he starts running around, planning this, making phone calls and getting into his car to scout locations and meet with people, he’s stuck in a paradox. His very planning for the event is taking days off his life, which means he needs to work even harder, because his final day keeps moving up.
At some point Basil should have some doubts about it. After the preparations have been made. Maybe in the middle of the planning. Better: he calls it off when it’s seeming too difficult. They haven’t had much success with the arrangements, and he feels awful that it’s taken Derek and Helen so much time to even get this far. He calls it off and Helen and Derek are actually somewhat relieved. They’d believed in him, and in the project, but are relatively happy to move on. A quiet death is a good death. It can be beautiful that way.
But about a week later, while watching the induction of a new Filipino president, he gets inspired anew. He calls them, asking to begin again. Or better than that: he starts doing it himself, not wanting to bother them. Derek finds out when Basil collapses one day from exhaustion, while looking into renting the deck of an aircraft carrier.
More people begin to help out. Friends of Derek’s and Helen’s, neighbors, friends, acquaintances, strangers. They operate out of Helen’s guest house or a barn on her land, and the whole enterprise begins to have the flavor and feel of a movement, something inspired and with its own unstoppable momentum. Of the newcomers there’s a strange mix of people — hospice workers, young idealists, grey hippies with wild brittle hair, a few people who wish they’d done more for their own family members. These people are the most fervent.
Basil becomes attached to the idea that he will walk into the stadium, if it’s indeed a stadium. For the purpose of argument, let’s say it’s a stadium, and Basil begins to feel that he shouldn’t be wheeled in or driven in on an ambulance or on a golf cart. That, instead, he should walk in, and then assume a position on a couch. Not a bed. A divan would be best, Helen says.
When they go to get permissions from owners, administrators, councilmen, vendors and the like, some people immediately understand it, and others are aghast. This part could involve the police, and an injunction, and some religious organization that doesn’t approve and tries to stop the entire thing. Then again, this shouldn’t be that kind of story. We’ll suspend our disbelief a bit, have it all go smoother than it might in real life. We only have eight thousand words.
In the end, he is in an unplanned place. There is a break in the story, and instead of the stadium we’ve pictured the entire time, it’s something different — a riverside amphitheater for example. Or in the middle of a NASCAR track. He is spirited through a crowd, who all touch him. He feels the burn of every hand. Or he’s parachuted into the venue, attached to a professional jumper. He dies on the way down. No. Back to the original idea: he walks in, in a procession, much like the Olympic athletes when they walk in during the opening ceremonies.
People applaud. The day has come. There are about four thousand there. It’s the minor-league ballpark in the middle of Memphis. Helen has arranged to have all the advertisements covered in white cloth. Actually, everything is covered in white. She’s gotten the local housepainters union to loan all of their unsplattered dropcloths. The ballpark is white like heaven. Basil is stunned.
He walks in and everyone cheers. He waves. He is with his son Derek. His daughters have come, but are in the stands, drinking heavily so the details, whatever elements might be unpleasant when recollected later, are less clear. The scene is stirring; goodwill is everywhere. Who are these people? Some have traveled from very far, out of curiosity. Most are from the area. Basil has delivered many babies in his life, thousands, and many hundreds of those babies are here now, grown up and wishing Basil well.
He sits on the divan; he is tired from the walk, the excitement. The music plays; the Russian conductor has been convinced, as has most of his orchestra, though absent are the woodwinds. They play a mixture of Brahms, Mozart, Lizst, Ellington, the Commodores, Sam Cooke. They play the theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark, a favorite of Basil’s. The sun is fading. It takes almost two hours before he settles down, becomes accustomed to all the people around him. He sees individual faces, eyes and heads and little arms and hands that he can take with him. There is a teenaged girl, entirely clad in denim, who is nodding intensely, twisting her hips to a rhythm of her own. She is wearing makeup everywhere, and her flesh spills from below her shirt, and her large painted eyes close for long periods of time, when she is alive to music made by troubled people, and she is here to say goodbye to Basil.
There are periods when they all sing along to a given song, like “You Send Me.” Helen, Basil’s most true love, sits beside him and watches his contented face. She worries that he will not want to leave now. What have we done? she wonders. He is staring now at a group of men and women who have brought their babies. He loves babies and he’ll want to stay forever now; this is bliss, how can he pass from this? She begins to see the point in dying alone, in cold spare rooms in hospitals in suburbs — these rooms would not be missed, making the transition so much easier…