David McCord

It’s been over a decade since he died. I have a variety of angers about this.

On an artistic level, I am angry with him for killing himself- his stories were like nothing I’d read before; the ideas he had, and his raw turn of phrase showed the beginnings of promise being fulfilled. It was clear that he was suffering, and, unlike many people who attempt it, he was able to turn that into honest and good prose. It was exciting every time a little book came out- and I, who never cared for anthologies, would scrape together the pennies to buy one with one of his stories in it. I wanted to see where he was going, what his talent would bring, what would happen when he turned that corner into greatness. He was on his way.

I am angry that his mother died, and angry that she felt compelled to involve him in her death. I do not see how a mother could do such a thing, and yet, I do understand how a human being could be so ill, so much in pain, that sense abandons you and you ask to be put down. In this, my anger extends to medical practices and mores which forbid assisted suicide. How cruel a time and place, such cruel laws which put children into the position of killing their parents, and parents their children. In the name of “life”, they suck away any compassion, any future for those who have to take on the task unwillingly.

To the people who sold or gave him heroin…. There is rage there. There is too much rage. And for him, for taking it. For giving himself a deadline to stop which I sometimes wonder if he intended to meet, or if he intended to use as a period to get some things in order.

I am angry that Lisa has the memories of all this. I am angry that people still think of suicide as "romantic", that drug use it still - in some unhealthy circles - viewed as a "price we pay for genius".

For trying to bring Lisa along with him. For that, O, I am angry at him. I know he did not want to be alone. She loved him so - she did not want him to be alone- she would go where he went. It is one of the most unfair things in the world to ask someone to die for you who would willingly do it.

I am angry at me for not picking up the clues, even as they were laid right out there. “We’ll be with mother soon.” I almost laugh now- I did not know that she was in a vase on the mantle, did I? No, not until later that day. It was not too late then, but by the time I put it together, it was. Sitting on top of the hill in Oakland with him and Lisa, it just seemed an odd thing to say, but nothing so horrible, nothing so sinister, not an “Enjoy us while you can, though we are in extreme pain, because we’re going soon, because we’re in extreme pain”.