Inside Moves
From movie to memoir - the kernel of an idea
When I was a teenager, my friends and I played a lot of basketball in the driveway. So when a basketball movie was released, we decided to go see it.
Inside Moves is a largely forgotten movie from 1980 directed by Richard Donner (Superman and Superman II, and the Lethal Weapon movies) with a great cast at the beginning of their careers - John Savage, David Morse, Diana Scarwid, familiar faces.
The opening scene haunts me. (TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE ATTEMPT)
Here’s the scene:
A suspicious, nondescript-looking man walks into a skyscraper in a busy city, trying not to be seen. He takes the elevator to the 10th floor and walks into an office keeping his back to the workers so he’s not noticed. He opens a private office, goes to the window, looks out, climbs into the window frame and launches himself. There’s a slow motion shot of him falling before bouncing through a tree and landing on top of a screaming woman’s car. You see him next wrapped up on a hospital gurney.
He’s permanently crippled by his unsuccessful suicide attempt. The rest of the movie is of him finding fellowship and friends in a bar. The man’s name is Roary, and throughout the movie, they call out “Heyyyy Roarrrry!” to him when he enters the bar that is to become his home, and he’d call back, “Heyyyy Jerrrry!”
The bar is tended by Jerry, a tall, affable barkeep with a gimpy knee who wants to get an operation so he can try out for a position as a pro basketball player. It’s a bar for people on the edge, on the fringes of society, outcasts, people with demons. It’s also a “you can do anything you set your mind to” kind of movie.
But that opening scene . . . haunted me for years.
As I sat in the Owl Shop cigar bar in New Haven, CT in 2018 thinking about my life, I thought intently about my brother, the hippie turned Assemblies of God preacher suffering from Major Depressive Disorder for 13 years with a history of suicide attempts. On August 16, 2004, he jumped from the Fremont Bridge in Portland, Oregon. He was 51 years old.
I thought, what did he feel when he climbed the Fremont Bridge in Portland? Was he cold? Did he feel anything? Did he cry? What was his last thought? Of his kids, his wife, his God? Did he curse? Did he dive? How did he know he had climbed high enough? Did he worry about the pain? How long before had he written his suicide note?
I wrote as if I were him on top of that bridge, trying to answer those questions. Or at least trying to ask those questions knowing I will never have an answer to them. And I thought about “Inside Moves,” a movie I hadn’t thought about in years.
That’s when I realized that I hadn’t known my brother, not really, for about 30 years. He was 10 years older than me. He joined the church and separated himself from our family. I’m not a church goer. I saw him once on a family trip in 1988 at Mount Hood. I think I saw him in 1990. And then I think I saw him only once more when he was ill in 2004, a month before he died.
We had been very close, and I was the best man in his wedding when I was 11 years old. I was often confused for him through much of my life, a major theme of my book.
As I wrote, I realized that I didn’t know that much about him. I wrote letters to his psychiatrist, some of the people he knew, his old church friends. I no longer had access to my own family so I couldn’t find out more about him, though I did have some contact with my sister Lisa and she provided some information to fill in the gaps.
I took stock of the memories I had of my brother. I dredged up only 12 or 15 solid memories of my time with my brother. That doesn’t seem like very much for our 41 years living as brothers. He was 10 when I was born, and he died when he was 51. Since I don’t have memories until I was about 4, that’s really only 37 years of time when I could possible have memories of him alive.
What that means is that there’s an element of fiction to what I write. We lost touch in a major way when he joined the church. We talked even less when he became depressed and started down his suicidal path. My parents kept me informed about him, but I didn’t have any direct contact with him except for a couple of occasions speaking on the phone and for a family reunion right before he died.
I was fascinated about what I could learn. I tried to get a hold of his psychiatry records. But since he has two surviving children, they are considered next of kin and have to release those records. I’m not in touch with either of my nieces to ask them for that release. I think having open access to those records could help our family with its strain of mental illness.
So, while my brother looms large in my memoir, I learned early on that my factual knowledge of him is limited.
My imaginative knowledge of him, however, is boundless. So I started writing his/my story.
Happy Birthday to my sister, Lisa.
Next time: I’ll tell you about my brother and the uncanny similarities between us.
I will also have an update about my editing progress.
I’ve kept the comment threads open. Please tell me what you would like to read about or ask any questions you may have. Let’s be friends. :)
Have a great weekend!