My youngest brother’s health suffered a precipitous decline in 1995. The experimental drugs had failed to stem Michael’s ruthless aliment’s advances. I received a telephone call from my older brother in Boston. I was running a nightclub in Beverly Hills. He told me the bad news. The next day I was on a plane to Logan. My family was waiting at the hospice on the South Shore. I had seen friends die of AIDS. None of that prepared for the sight of my brother. His only nourishment was a morphine drip.

I guessed his weight to be 120. His family sat by his bedside. My mother patted his hand. My sisters wet his lips. My father met the tragedy with a noble stoicism. He had done his best. Tears were for another day. My older brother read from the Bible. My youngest brother responded to none of this.

One night I entered Michael’s room and my younger brother was playing FREEBIRD on his guitar. Paddy was a kind soul, but my youngest brother was more into show tunes and disco than southern rock. I mentioned this to my brother.

“You’re right, but in his state I figure that he would hear this song and know it was me.” My youngest brother strummed his guitar and I joined his singing the song. I was more a punk than anything else, but I knew every word. FREEBIRD had been a huge hit in 1972.

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be travelling on, now,
‘Cause there’s too many places I’ve got to see.
But, if I stayed here with you, girl,
Things just couldn’t be the same.
‘Cause I’m as free as a bird now,
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can’t change.

Bye, bye, its been a sweet love.
Though this feeling I can’t change.
But please don’t take it badly,
‘Cause Lord knows I’m to blame.
But, if I stayed here with you girl,
Things just couldn’t be the same.
Cause I’m as free as a bird now,
And this bird you’ll never change.
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can’t change.
Lord help me, I can’t change.

My younger brother put down his guitar and kissed his emaciated brother on the forehead. I kissed the other side. His skin was waxen. Michael had only a little further to go.

“Let’s take a photo.”

“Now?” Paddy knew how vain Michael was. It was a family trait.

“If not now, then it will be never.” Michael had hours left in his heart. I positioned my camera on the bureau. The timer ran for thirty seconds. The camera snapped a shot of Paddy and me with my baby brother between us. He died a day later. We buried him in the town cemetery. I fled the sorrow to Asia and mourned my brother at the holiest temples in the Orient.

Upon my return I developed the roll of film from Michael’s last days. I didn’t show the shot on the bed to anyone but Paddy. He shook his head.

“What? You thinking about how thin he was?” I asked taking the photo back from his hand.

“No, just thinking about how fat we were.”

I looked at the picture and laughed at the truth. Michael would have laughed someplace in the afterlife too. We were such good friends, but I’m sure that he curses us for sticking FREEBIRD in his celestial ears for the rest of eternity.

It is a lot better than FLY LIKE AN EAGLE, because that’s what I have in my head.

To hear FREEBIRD please go to this URL