Twenty Five

 

2019

On the subway the other day I sat across from a fellow wearing a peculiar tee shirt.  He was a normal looking young man otherwise.  I’d guess about 30, maybe a few years older.  Black hair, a bit of a beard that could have used some more attention, but not wild.  Little bit of a smirk on his face; the kind of look that makes you think that this is the way his mouth is set most of the time. Normal looking jeans and shoes. But the tee shirt...

It was gray and had two arrows and four words on it; the arrows and words in black. One arrow started out near his heart and pointed up toward his head. The other arrow was beneath the first, pointing in the other direction, down toward his crotch.  

The words, “the man” were written underneath the arrow that pointed toward his head.   Adjacent to the other arrow, the one pointing toward his crotch, were the words, “the legend.”

What makes someone wear a shirt like that?   I’ve been to tourist areas that attract those who push the limits of convention: Las Vegas, New Orleans, Key West for examples.  I see shirts hanging in novelty stores in these locales that are amusing.  Some messages are subtle, others anything but.  I might laugh at some that I think are clever, but I nearly always wonder who would ever wear such a shirt.  

The man and the legend. Okay, maybe you wear this as a joke to sleep, once, because you think your lover will get a kick out of it.  Maybe.  But waking up on a regular day and saying to yourself, “what shirt should I wear today. Well, I know. I’ll wear that one.”  This is tough to get my brain around unless I consider that the wearer is short on something.

Once in a Buffalo library, a dour looking woman came in, placed her books on the long table, and took off her windbreaker.  Her top was bright red.  In large letters, were the words, I am so horny, with the word horny written in all caps.  

I think that people who wear such duds have a gap somewhere.  There is some piece of the foundation that is loose or just never was installed and the building just grew up around it.  We kid every once in a while, and refer to people saying their elevator does not go up to the top, or that they’re one card short of a full deck.  

My sense is that what is missing is not in the head, but in the heart.  You walk around with a shirt that brags about “the legend” on public transportation you either are very short on shirts, or short on emotional nourishment.  Sure, you could just have a quirky sense of humor.  I certainly know people who find jokes hysterical that I consider not funny at best, and at worst, offensive, or mind bogglingly stupid. Some popular tv shows include bits that apparently are funny to enough people to attract advertisers.  I catch glimpses of these shows when the funniest parts are used in advertisements.  They seem to me to be so unfunny that I wonder how any appreciative audience could be wired.  But this is a matter of taste. 

Wearing a shirt bragging about your sexual prowess or announcing your horniness is something else. Either you lost a bet and were compelled to wear the shirt for a day, or you’re missing a piece in the middle of your chest.

And while the offense is not egregious, the source of the offense is in greater or lesser degrees the same fuel for behaviors that most societies consider reprehensible.  My traveling companion on the subway is not necessarily or likely to be a mass murderer, but he is missing the same floorboard that creates a fragile existence for those who, at some point, decide it is rational and high time to kill.

Twenty Four

1974

In the 1950s my aunt and uncle made a decision that was courageous even if illogical.  My mother’s sister and her recently wed husband were not making a ton of money in New York.  They decided, two children off the hard streets of Brooklyn, to travel across the country and go into the chicken business.

My aunt knew nothing about raising chickens. My uncle knew next to nothing, only that a cousin of his had also set off across the continent to raise chickens.  So they set off, with a child, along a non-interstate developed country driving to California.  They put down stakes in a town sixty miles north of San Francisco which now has three exits on highway 5, but then was a sleepy burg a little too far from San Francisco to be a bedroom community.  Not only did they decide to live in this very unBrooklyn like burg, they moved to a part of Santa Rosa that was way on the outskirts of a town that did not have much in the way of skirts to begin with.  They built and lived in a tiny house and when two new cousins came along, they built another larger home on the same land renting the first one to supplement income from the chicken business.

A few rides after I left Pacifica I was at an exit for Santa Rosa called Todd Road. All I had was an address for my aunt and uncle who were expecting me at some point, though not just five days after I had set off from Buffalo.  The driver dropped me off at a gas station. This was, of course, before GPS systems or smart phones or sophisticated street maps. In those days a gas station was a place to check for local directions.  The first fellow with whom I spoke had never heard of Walker Avenue and wondered if I had the right address. I’d been writing to Walker Avenue at my mother’s urging for years, so I knew I had the address right.  He called over Billy who had lived in Santa Rosa his entire life.

Billy was oiled up.  It was late in the afternoon and he had spent the day, apparently, underneath cars. His glasses were dirty and his hands did not get much cleaner after he wiped them for a good while on a rag that was gas station filthy.  His hat was oily as well. Guy is probably cleaning up forty plus years later.  You could read Billy on his shirt.

Billy asked where I was going.  I told him.  Billy shook his head and told me what I already knew. He had lived in Santa Rosa his whole life. And then, like his coworker, said he’d never heard of Walker Avenue.  I insisted I had the correct address. He suggested maybe the street was in another town and threw out some names none of which were familiar.  Getting to my aunts was the end of the way out here and I was anxious to complete this leg of the journey not so much because I was tired of hitch-hiking but to be able to say I finished the ride out.  It was now the fifth day since I had kissed with Becca at exit 50 by the New York State Thruway.  Billy asked me if maybe my aunt lived in New Mexico because there was a Santa Rosa there. This question I could not believe and likely had my mouth open when a woman who had used the restroom overheard the question and joined the conversation.

She knew where Walker Avenue was.  She had a friend who lived on Walker Avenue in fact.  Billy asked the woman to point it out on a map of Santa Rosa that was posted on one of the gas station walls. She did.  Walker Avenue was several miles west of where we stood on a parallel road to the interstate truly in the middle of nowhere. 

“That’s Walker Avenue?” said Billy.  “We call that the old country road. That’s Walker Avenue.” He squinted through the filthy glasses and said it again. “Walker Avenue. Huh”

The woman seemed very upbeat, new agey, as if she had just finished a seminar on how to be happy and the joys of extending a helping hand.  She said it had been a while since she visited her friend and would be glad to take me to my aunt’s house.  I would, as it turned out, not only make it to California but get as a final ride, a door-to-door lift to my mother’s sister.

The woman, I found out, was the co-author of a book that I found out later was a self-help best seller. I’d not heard of it at the time, but she was telling me without sounding boastful that it had freed her up both financially and emotionally.  I read the book years later and my recollection of her was that, at least then, she was living the lessons endorsed in her book.  Now she may be grousing that her co-author is getting more than her share of the loot, and upset that her husband has been snuggling with a woman twenty years younger.  But that day she was upbeat. And her friend, remarkably, was the woman who at that time, was renting my aunt’s first home.  The driver did not know my kin, just knew of them as the landlords of her buddy.

And so, I was dropped off at the very house I’d been writing to for years. I knocked on the front door and out came my aunt, crying like a child.  I had not seen her or my uncle in a dozen years.  I renewed my acquaintances with my California cousins. Then my aunt asked me to do her a favor.

“Call your mother.”

Roth and Roth

I've read a number of Philip Roth's books including the exceptional memoir he wrote about his father called Patrimony.   (I strongly recommend Patrimony for those who have had a positive relationship with their dad).  

When I like an author I follow her or him. While it may seem from what is below that I've read many of Roth's books, remember I've been around the track enough times to collect social security and I tend to regularly follow certain writers. 

For what it is worth, my take on his novels are as follows:  

• I thought American Pastoral was brilliant, I also liked When She Was Good, Indignation, Goodbye Columbus, The Human Stain, The Counterlife, The Plot Against America, and Portnoy's Complaint. 
• I was not a big fan of the Zuckerman trilogy or Letting Go, and thought My Life as a Man and The Great American Novel had their moments but were not the kind of book you wanted to tell your reading friends to go get.  Our Gang--the book ridiculing Nixon--was clever but it got tired after a while.
• I Married a Communist was clearly a vindictive book getting back at his second wife.  And, while it was hailed as brilliant, I thought the main character in Sabbath's Theatre, Mickey Sabbath, was beyond slimy. While I have, I think, a healthy attitude about sex, and am typically not offended by those who think about sex in ways that are unconventional, even for me, Mickey Sabbath was too much, and yet Roth did not present Sabbath as a reprehensible character.  I mean masturbating on the grave, while visiting the grave, of his now dead lover--really.
• The dozen or so others I either did not read or I don't remember much about them.   

I was very interested in reading the new biography about Roth. So much had been written about Roth's books being autobiographical. Also, he had been called a self-hating Jew--largely because of Portnoy's Complaint and Goodbye Columbus. Finally, the guy wrote 31 books.  Some of them just brilliant.  I can remember reading American Pastoral and thinking that while I believe I can string words together fairly well, I could never tell a story as well or as powerfully as he did in that book. So, I wanted to know who was this person who was regularly reviled and, alternately, saluted.

I often am disappointed by long biographies.  Truman comes to mind. A big fat book with just too much detail.  The biography of Roth is a long book, 810 pages--yet it is excellent.  I do not like the man Philip Roth based on what I read, but I thought the biographer did a good job of dispassionately describing the life so that readers can draw their own conclusions.  My conclusions: Roth was an outstanding prolific author as well as a selfish man.  He may not have been as perverse as Mickey Sabbath, but he certainly pursued sexual activity aggressively. The depiction of Roth in the biography reminded me of characters I knew in college who pursued sex less for the physical excitement and more to support what would otherwise be a flagging self-concept.  Roth's novels often are about people he actually knew and lovers he knew without regard to how they would feel when depicted--often negatively--in his books. I did not know until I read the biography, that the family described in Goodbye Columbus and the Brenda Patimkin character from that novel, was a real family and a real person.  When She Was Good and My Life as a Man were about his first wife, and I Married a Communist was about his second. Many of his other lovers are described if somewhat disguised in other books. It was interesting to read that the guy had a thin skin, and could dish it out as it relates to criticism of people but could not take it. A good deal of the book discusses Roth's reaction to reviews of his books which were negative.  I don't think Roth was antisemitic, but his outrage at those who called him antisemitic is disingenuous.  He would have to know that the way he depicts the Portnoys in Portnoy's Complaint would upset the Jewish community. So his "they just don't get it" incredulous reaction to criticism of the Jewish community seems bogus to me.  

The biographer does an excellent job of presenting the facts and not offering much in the way of opinion. He does refer to Roth as a great writer, but leaves it to the reader to examine the rest of his personality.  If you are not a reader of Roth books I would pass on the tome, but if you were, like me, a fan of many of his books you will find the many pages of this book not a burden. (except for its heft if you carry it around).

After I read the biography, I thought I should reread what is likely his most controversial book, Portnoy's Complaint. I'd read the book in college shortly after it came out in 1969, and then in graduate school when it was an assigned reading.  But that was in 1972.  Long time ago.

So I reread it.  My recollection had been that this was a book about an oversexed kid who felt he was victimized by his upbringing.   What was novel about the novel is that he discussed in detail sexual behavior that, prior to its publication, was absolutely taboo to discuss.  So many, including myself, glommed onto the sex parts and the take aways were about his prurient activities and, also, his unfavorable depiction of Portnoy's parents, especially his mother.  Jewish mothers throughout the land were not pleased by the book. Nor were Jewish organizations that, because of the book and other writings, considered Roth a self-hating Jew.  My reread of the book suggests that the notion that this was an antisemitic book is a misreading. The book is a rant spoken to a psychologist. Portnoy is emptying his guts about his past and why, one could deduce, he has unravelled to the point that he had had a breakdown of some sort and needs to explain how it came to pass to a shrink.  The book is very funny at times, but if you can pull away from the novelty of speaking so candidly about sexual activity and attitudes towards his parents, you--or at least I--come away from the book not thinking that Portnoy was victimized by his parents, but was messed up (fakakt to use a term that Portnoy would have used to describe it) because he himself just was incapable of dealing with the slings and arrows we all face.  And he blames others for it.

The biography and Patrimony, the memoir, makes it clear that Roth's parents were not the same sorts of folks that were Portnoy's.  Roth's parents were fierce defenders of their famous son, not offended by his writing. Roth's dad was a tough guy, not the mollusk described as Portnoy's dad.  Yes, his father sold insurance, and yes Roth grew up in New Jersey, and I would bet many of the incidents Portnoy experienced were drawn from Roth's own, but I hold Portnoy accountable for Portnoy's condition.  Not sure Roth does, but I do.

I also hold Roth accountable for Roth's condition. At the end of the biography he is alone and lonely.  At the very end when he knows he is going to die, many of his former lovers come back--despite his mistreatment of them--to tell him they loved him. But the guy made a bunch of enemies. Yes, his first wife was certifiable, but his second-I can't tell from the book-who deserved whose ire.  And the young lovers he had, particularly as he aged, seemed more interested in being associated with a famous person, than being with Roth, an old man. When their affairs ended, regardless of how they ended, the women often found their lives in intimate detail depicted in a Roth novel

In sum, Roth from the bio was not the kind of person I could befriend or would want as a friend.  But while I would not want to hang with Roth the person, there are many of his books I would want to reread or am glad to have read, including Portnoy's Complaint.

Not So Fast Dubinsky

Old joke.  A navy official has been reprimanded for being insensitive to sailors when he has to relay bad news. He has been particularly insensitive when informing sailors that a parent has passed away.  Having been so scolded, the next time the admiral has to tell a sailor that a parent has died he promises to be more diplomatic.  A few days later, the admiral is notified that Albert Dubinsky's mother has died.  The admiral gets on the horn and calls for "all Hands on deck."  When the sailors arrive he relays the sad news the following way.

"All those who have mothers who are still alive, take one step forward...Not so fast Dubinsky."

On Friday I had my stress test to ensure the cardiologist that I was healthy enough to go through with hip surgery. The cardiologist had, upon examining me in his office, said that I was likely "home free."  I felt fine on the stress test.  However, when I got home there was a note from the cardiologist indicating that there was a mild irregularity and that I need to take another more sophisticated test.

This stunned me. I feel great and figured that I would get the kosher go-ahead. And, also, this was precisely what occurred prior to my first surgery. An irregularity caused another cardiologist to suggest another test.  That time the second test indicated a problem. This time, though, the doc emphasized that the irregularity was mild and that, in his words, there was nothing "at all" alarming about the results.

Still it was jarring news.  I did not get the it is "not at all alarming" correspondence until Saturday morning. So Friday night was not joyful.  

I'm fine now. Had some more exchanges with the doc yesterday and he knows I am going away for a week. (Again precisely the scenario as last time when I had the equivocal results. Then, as now, I was heading for Florida for a week and had the second test when I returned). The doc is not concerned and even suggested I might stay off a medication I've been taking for two years which you take if you have a problem.  And I walked my five miles yesterday and did not feel anything approaching pain or shortness of breath.

Still Friday evening was a "not so fast Dubinsky" moment.  I have a friend who is dying. We all are of course, but she has only weeks or days left.  I've had contemporaries leaving us with sobering regularity.  I do not want to join the parade.  (I was so fakakt on Friday night that I went to make sure I had declared my beneficiaries accurately on the accounts I have).

Count your blessings. I figure I have twenty more years to go at this ultimate amusement park. Seize the day.

Twenty-Three

 

2019

I was on the subway when I was finishing the book, Presumed Innocent.  I had not sleuthed out who had done the killing, and I was nearing the part where the killer would be revealed.  I was so engaged that I decided that if the doer was not revealed by the time I got to my stop, I would keep on reading to make sure that I could finish and find out who did it, uninterrupted by the commotion of exiting and then needing to find a spot to read.

And I didn’t finish when I got to my stop, so I let Kenmore Square come and go and was down by the Park Street stop when I bolted upright.  

This killer I had never considered.  I’d wondered if the narrator had, as accused, been the perp and had wondered about several others—the judge, another prosecutor, a former lover—but this person, the doer—certainly presumed innocent by all—I’d not imagined.  Then when it came together after the explanation, I likely gasped out loud.

 It was not only that the perp was the perp, but that someone, besides the killer, had known nearly from the beginning that the perp, presumed innocent by all, was the perp. And that person-- also, at least nominally presumed innocent--had a strong reason to identify the killer but a stronger reason to remain silent.  

I stayed on the train for three more stops, Government Center, Haymarket, and then North Station. All the while I gazed at the riders on the subway who looked innocent and unlikely to commit murder. And then I thought that every person on that train, under the right conditions, could be a murderer.  When I saw my reflection in the dark window, I knew that I too was not exempt.

I figure there are different kinds of killers.  You have your certifiable crazies like the Son of Sam who heard voices telling him to kill.  Then you have the political crazies, people who think they are killing for a cause like the cowards who flew planes into the world trade center or who drive dynamite loaded trucks into buildings.  Of course, there are rotten eggs who are not certifiable or political--thieves or hitmen--who consider killing their trade of sorts—something one does if they are in a particular line of work.  Gangsters of various stripes.

But then there are others, people who are not legally insane or motivated by a cause, or just taking care of business.  You have people who when a certain confluence of events occur can become killers-- temporarily insane perhaps—but motivated by a logic fueled by emotion as if a short circuit in their wiring triggered what seemed, in a particular moment, justifiable.   

And when this happens we all can become killers.  Some of us are wired so well that it would be difficult for us to short circuit. We have, most of us, insufficient emotional damage to spark sudden irrational violence.  Like a decent road we don’t easily buckle even with heavy traffic. But we all, trust me, can think for a moment that it is right to pull a trigger.   A composite of fear, rejection, bruises, sense of inadequacy, and emotional hunger can make just about anyone believe that murder is a right thing to do.   

 

Twenty Two

 

1974

Maurianne was up when I awakened. It is very unusual for me to sleep later than someone else. Typically, I am a very early riser, even when I go to sleep late, or have had an exhausting day. But there she was in the kitchen trying to stay quiet moving about my sleeping self on the couch.

She said she would fix us breakfast but had almost nothing in the house, so she asked if I wouldn’t mind going to the grocery for a few items.  She started to give me money, but I told her that after she saved me from a charged wire in Utah and drove me close to 750 miles I could spring for eggs, bread and milk.  

Pacifica, as the name suggests, is right on the Pacific Ocean and this grocery was only about 50 yards from a beach, not more than a half mile from Maurianne’s home.  I bought the eggs, milk, bread and a sweet treat from a bakery section.  It was a charge to see Jack Daniels and all forms of alcohol on display next to the animal crackers and boxes of Cheerios.  In New York groceries could carry beer but the hard stuff was sold in dedicated liquor stores.  Not in Pacifica. Pick up a liter of Johnny Walker, the pancake mix, and a Hershey bar on your way out.

Maurianne made breakfast and we sat around schmoozing over it and coffee for the entire morning.  She and I had become fast friends in 24 hours so much so that she offered to lend me her car to drive out to my aunt who lived in Santa Rosa about 60 miles away.  She said she didn’t need it for the next few days.  I am not sure if I would have taken her up on this largesse even if I could have driven a stick.  Still it was a kind gesture and I gratefully thanked her. 

She brought up Shel and Barbara again. 

“In Elko. Something about that visit with Barbara was not good. Something was not good. Something was off.”

“I didn’t sense anything.”

“What about the kid neighbor?” Said Maurianne.

“I thought nothing of it until you mentioned that Barbara thought there was an affair going on.”

“An affair? Hah. You call it an affair?”

“Well, you’re not even sure if it was anything going on, but if there was...I mean what do you call it.”

“I call it taking advantage of a kid. I call it pissing on your wife and rubbing her face in it.”

“Barbara wasn’t sure.”

“Something wasn’t right. The kid seemed surprised when she saw us. Then got fidgety. And it was like the visit was planned.”

“She would have been surprised seeing us.” I said. “We don’t live there. What do you mean like the meeting was planned?”

“Mail is delivered on Saturday. Why didn’t she bring the mail over on Saturday?”

“Maybe her mother didn’t mention it to the daughter until Sunday.”

“Well, why didn’t the mother bring it over?”

“Could be lots of reasons.”

“No.” said Maurianne. “Barbara was supposed to be away.  At that meeting she was supposed to attend. She didn’t go because I called.  Shel could have told the tattooed kid that the coast was going to be clear.”

“I guess that’s possible.”

“And what’s with that bathing suit top.” 

“It was hot. Maybe the kid was sunbathing or going swimming later.”

“Maybe.  Maybe just showing off that tattoo.”

“It was hot.”

“It was hot, alright. I told you about my brother didn’t I?”

The shift to the brother seemed like a non sequitur. “Your brother? All you said was that he, like you, was angry at your dad. He, even angrier. What’s that got to do with Shel and the kid?”

“Nothing. Never mind. Forget about my brother.”

“I can listen.”

She waved her arm.  “Never mind. Not important. You’re leaving.”

"Try me."

Then I heard a bit about her brother.  Like the beginning of Anna Karenina. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Maurianne drove me to a road in Pacifica where she thought I’d have a good chance of getting a lift and dropped me off.  She gave me a piece of paper with her phone number on it in case I needed a place to stay in San Francisco. We hugged more meaningfully than I had with Becca forty years later.  I started getting some ideas about maybe Maurianne being someone I could have gotten to know beyond a hitch-hiking companion, but I’ll never know since I did not see her in the flesh again.  

I told her good luck with her kids and family.  She thanked me and gave me a little kiss before turning away abruptly.  She got back in her car pointed in the direction where I had to go and waved goodbye-a stiff wave, what in another context could have passed for a salute--while driving away.

I was back again on the road looking for a ride. I was not standing long before a young couple, probably not out of their teens, stopped and drove me all the way over the Golden Gate Bridge.  I started singing, “Open up that Golden Gate, California Here I come” as we drove over. The couple laughed at me.  

“You’re excited for an older guy.” Said the girlfriend; her head was facing mine having turned around in the passenger seat using her knee as a pivot.

Older guy. Now I am an older guy. Then I was a not yet 25 year old--and I knew from nothing.

 

Home Free

Yesterday I met with my cardiologist.  I am in need of a hip replacement and wanted to make sure that my ticker was sufficiently healed to endure the operation. His office is in the city and I scheduled the appointment for 840 am, so I first tested my heart by stressing with rush hour traffic. I left Waltham in plenty of time, particularly given the relatively non congested highways of the COVID era, but still ran into traffic on what we call The Exit from Hell.  For those who live in the Boston area you will likely identify this as the city exit on the left off the Mass Pike that can lead to Storrow Drive.  Always a blast to take that exit, but it was necessary yesterday given my destination.  Still got to the doc with ten minutes to spare. I was glad I did so because in the waiting area was a person truly trembling because he had arrived late and was told he would have to reschedule the appointment.  That would have made my day.

Some background may be necessary for those who do not know me.  Two years ago I had hip replacement surgery scheduled.  My annual physical coincided with the examination needed before the surgery. At that check-in, I reported some uncharacteristic fatigue when I exercised on the elliptical machine. The doc suggested a stress test. That test's results indicated I needed another more sophisticated stress test. That test indicated that I probably needed a stent or two.  When they went to put in the stents, they saw that I was too blocked for stents to do the job, and I needed bypass surgery.

So, instead of taking care of a limp that makes me--in my assessment--look like Grandpappy Amos from the old tv show, "The Real McCoys",  I had bypass surgery instead.  Under normal circumstances I might have mused about the metaphor of a blocked heart, but at the time I was focused on preempting my demise.  They cracked me open, inserted three new highways, and told me I did fine.  The scar which was a beaut is now nearly gone, and I feel pretty good.  What remains debilitating is my hip.

And that is why I was being examined yesterday morning--to see if my heart is strong enough. The bottom line is that the prognosis is life and that I am likely fit to be opened again and receive a new hip.  To be sure I have to now take a bona fide stress test and wait for the results. Positive results, when coupled with my primary care physician's thumbs up, will allow me to make an appointment so that I can walk sans limp.

I came to the appointment yesterday with several questions.  One question was about my diet and whether the new highways that were put in two years ago, have given me some license to enjoy foods that, for two years, I've avoided. I have not had a red meat meal for two years.  No steak or ribs or meatloaf.  I am crazy about american and muenster cheese. In the last two years, I've consumed less than 1 % of my pre heart surgery intake on that front.  

The doc asked a number of questions and concluded that I did not need to refrain entirely from meat or cheese. He said given the medication I am on, coupled with the very good results of the surgery, and-assuming the upcoming stress test goes well--there's no reason why I could not have, say, some ribs now and again.  He asked me how old I was.  When I told him, he smiled and said, "You should be home free."

That was an interesting comment. My translation was that I am sufficiently long in the tooth such that I will no doubt kick from something else, before any detrimental effects from having a cheeseburger now and again would do me in.  

Home, is an interesting euphemism for death.  I've been consulting a financial analyst to ask about moneys I have saved and how much I can take out.  She did some study and came up with an amount that would exhaust my income at "end of plan."  "End of plan?" I said. "Well, yes", she chuckled. "Kind of when you won't need the money any more."

I rarely think about Home. I figure when you start thinking about Home you accelerate the rate at which you get there. And when you get to that Home, I don't think you are free--though I know the doc did not mean it that way.  When you get Home, you are dead. End of Plan.