Thirty Rooms to Hide In: Insanity, Addiction, and Rock 'n' Roll in the Shadow of the Mayo Clinic

Phone Calls from the Dead

245 PHONE CALLS FROM THE DEAD 6 July 2, 1966, Saturday Mom, writing to her parents eight days after my father’s death, July 11, 1966 The last time I saw him was the morning I took him to the airport, June 28th. Roger leaned in the car window to kiss me goodbye and heaven must have been watching over me, for my last sight of him was one which filled me with tenderness and the old love. His first stop was Newport News. Mark Coventry phoned later that first week to say the Newport News doctors had called to say Roger was arriving for interviews intoxicated and irrational. A three-way effort was made by Mark, me, and the doctors in Virginia to get him to come home or go back to Hartford. But the expected result was an intensified, hysterical denunciation of all of us—Mark for following him across the country to “give him the ax,” me for my willingness to believe everybody but him, the Newport News doctors for being s.o.b.’s he wouldn’t work with anyway. So he went on to New Orleans—with much the same result: arriving full of confidence, leaving because the men there were discourteous or incompetent. During this time I was in a constant state of confusion and distress. The money was draining away fast—with hotel bills, transportation, and constant phone calls. I was getting too much advice—Mark saying, “You’ll have to start commitment proceedings,” Dick Steinhilber saying it couldn’t be done, Tony pressing me to get funds frozen, the lawyer protesting his inability to do much till Roger’s return. In the midst of all this, Tony and Mark Coventry were pushing to have the Clinic put Roger on a disability basis, which resulted in me getting phone PHONE CALLS FROM THE DEAD 246 calls from the Board of Governors, from the head of Psychiatric Department, Clinic insurance men, and the Orthopedic section heads. Even brother Jimmy called me during that last week—till my head was finally spinning. Dr. Tony Bianco, 2007 Mark Coventry and I went to the board of governors and said, “Please, you can’t fire Roger. He’s sick.” We asked that he not be fired, that he be reinstated so he could be committed and then put on full disability. And the board was very agreeable; they said yes. So we were ready to commit him when he returned—even against his wishes if necessary. Mom’s July 11, 1966, letter Whenever the phone rang I was braced for bad news. Through all this was the dread certainty that doom was near. I feared he would meet with a fatal accident—or involve himself with the law since he always rented a car wherever he was. The Thursday and Friday and Saturday nights of July 1st through the 3rd were horrible. He phoned as many as eight times in one day—usually to berate me with all the old vituperation. I finally told him Friday night not to call again—that I’d hang up the moment I knew it was he. Those were my last words to him—a knowledge that will haunt me for a long time. Kip, 2006 I remember Dad calling home from Georgia late the night he died. I answered the phone. His voice was weak and drunk. It pissed me off to hear it. I made small talk with him but only for his benefit. He asked to speak to Mom. She was upstairs and said, no, she didn’t want to talk to him. I told him this and tried to end the conversation . When I said good-bye I wasn’t sure he said good-bye back. So I waited a second, said good-bye again, and hung up. That was less than an hour before he died. Mom’s July 11, 1966, letter At 12:45 a.m. I heard the phone ring. Kip and Jeff were down in the study and they answered it. He spent ten minutes complaining PHONE CALLS FROM THE DEAD 247 to them about what was wrong with me. Kip says Roger fell silent many times and they had to speak to him several times before he began again. Then he drifted away and didn’t even answer when they said goodbye. Kip came upstairs to tell me about it...