James Hart - Lucky Jim

LUCKY JIM

LUCKY JIM

JAMES HART

FOREWORD BY CARL BERNSTEIN

Copyright 2017 by James Hart

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by Cleis Press, an imprint of Start Midnight, LLC, 101 Hudson Street, Thirty-Seventh Floor, Suite 3705, Jersey City, NJ 07302.

Printed in the United States.

Cover design: Scott Idleman/Blink

Cover photograph: Courtesy of Peter Simon Photography

Text design: Frank Wiedemann

First Edition.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Trade paper ISBN: 978-1-62778-214-2

E-book ISBN: 978-1-62778-215-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

The Keys of the Kingdom by A.J. Cronin (Copyright A.J. Cronin, 1941) Reprinted by permission of A.M. Heath & Co Ltd.

The Keys of the Kingdom by A.J. Cronin (Copyright A.J. Cronin) Reprinted by permission of Hachette Book Group.

Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait By Dylan Thomas, from THE POEMS OF DYLAN THOMAS, copyright 1943 by New Directions Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas, from THE POEMS OF DYLAN THOMAS, copyright 1945 by The Trustees for the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Carly Simon lyrics courtesy of Carly Simon

For Eamon

F O R E W O R D

To my mind, the memoir is the most problematic and unforgiving of non-fiction forms for both author and reader: To succeed it requires authenticity, unsparing honesty (but not overloaded by bathos or self-pity), near-perfect pitch, a compelling story (free of self-indulgence in conception) and, usually, a quiet sense of irony. Without those elements, tuned in harmonious balance, satisfaction eludes the tale, both for writer (as many of us have learned) and reader. My friend Jim Hart has written a remarkable and brave memoir and he has done the most difficult work of all: used the experience of writing it to come to understand himself. In the process, the reader is the beneficiary of a beautifully wrought story of a life lived in revelation. That Jim has been a seminarian, poet, and insurance agent (and spent twenty years married to Carly Simon) contributes to the fact.

Struggle, of course, is at the heart of memoir, at least the great ones. Without itand the ability to stare fear in the face, including the defeats and to find meaning thereinthe spine of the project collapses.

For many years, I was witness to parts of Jim Harts stunning and harrowing tale, so wonderfully told in these pages. And then one day I wasnt. He disappeared. Twelve months later, I got a phone call from Jim. He had been living a secret life. I was surprisedand then I wasnt. A twelve-step program guru with twenty-one years of sobriety, as he writes, he had turned to crack cocaine to stop the painbut not the revelation.

I had been a bit of a magician in the lives of many people and yet I had lost the magic myself. I had delivered the deep belief I had in recovery to them, and they had watched me deal with my own addiction, my sons handicap, my loses, and my unusual life around fame, and now, in spite of my best efforts, I had lost the battle.

There are two other characters who define the arc of this narrative: Carly, the singer, Jims wife for twenty years when he disappeared; and, even more so, Eamon Hart, his beloved son from a previous marriage (to another marvelous woman) born with a serious seizure disorder that resulted in profound disabilities. Jims love for Eamon, and Eamons for his father, is the touchstone of Jim Harts lifeand his story. And the gift of revelation.

Lucky Jim is not a clichd or sentimental book. It looks unsparingly, doesnt blink. Its not a book of answers but rather the response to a complex man in a truly complicated life, and how he barely survived it.

This is not a father and son story, but it is. This is not a spiritual story, but it is. This is not an addiction story, but it is, not the story of parenting a disabled child, but it is, not the story of fame, but it is, not the story of gay and straight. but it is. As Edna OBrien has noted, Jim is a serious and observant witness of the amazing narrative of [his own] life. It is a life that has never strayed far from goodness (though the narrator might sometimes argue otherwise) even as it has rubbed against hellish circumstance.

Happily for the reader, Jim is capable of expressing matters in both lyrical and plainspoken voice, a tough trick. Ultimately, his is a memoir about love and the nature of love.

The best memoirs take us on a journey of pursuit and struggle and passionto find oneself. From the train ride of the opening Chapter, Jim Harts Lucky Jim. rivets the reader as it hurtles down the track: There is grace, crack, straight sex, gay sex, bold-face names, heartbreak, and triumph in almost impossible circumstancesthe kind of life-stuff that suggests we are in for a major ride, and then delivers. Throughout, the character of the author and the indelible portraits of those he loves mostdifficult and beautiful characters allcarry a rare and special tale along a breathtakingly perilous route. At its destination, we emerge much the luckierand inspiredfor having been aboard. And there is revelation.

Carl Bernstein

C H A P T E R

O N E

I HAD TAKEN THIS trip so many times, it felt as if I should be collecting the tickets. I first rode the New York Central when they still had those elegant old trains like the Lake Shore and the Twentieth Century Limited. The train disappeared, and a moment later light swept across the Hudson. It reemerged gleaming: a silver ribbon speeding up the eastern bank of the river.

I wasnt going to make this trip at all, but Alannah, my ex-wife, insisted. She had badgered me all week until I agreed. Eamon, our son, was going to be in an equestrian event for handicapped kids in Chatham, New York, near Hudson, thirty miles southeast of Albany.

It had been ten years, and I still couldnt handle his disability and its worst symptom. It often began with a moan, followed by Oh No! but mostly it began in silence. Around three in the morning, the first spasm would begin, and all I could do was hold him. I prayed to God and anyone I thought I knew in a heaven that didnt exist, or I would curse at Him, screaming, You mother fucker, but no one ever seemed to hear. I held Eamon and told him how much I loved him. With each jerk of his body, I tried to remind myself that this was not about me. It wasnt just the seizures that were so difficult; it was everything. The last time I had him, as the door of my Stuyvesant Town apartment closed, hed ripped off his pants to reveal that his underwear and thighs were smeared in his own shit. It took all my strength to hold him under the spray of the shower. He wasnt fond of forced cleanliness. Next came giving him an enema to avoid a repeat of the accident. Then he sat on the toilet and unloaded, and I listened as he gleefully shouted,