sweet.
Goodbye.
Don't let me bend for nothing.
You need this, Don. Drink it. I want you to drink it.
I'll get you some more. I'll get you all you want.
What kind of talk is that?
It's just that I'd rather have you drunk than dead.
Who wants to be dead?
Stop lying to me.
Give it to me.
All right. Now go!
No fuss, please. No calling the neighbors.
It won't do any good, I promise you.
I won't. You've made up your mind.
But could you tell me why? Why?
Because it's best all around, for everybody.
For you, for Wick, for me.
-But that's not true. We love you, Wick and I.
-All right. Then for me.
Selfish again.
That's a sad final word, Don.
Look at it this way, Helen. This business is just a formality.
Don Birnam is dead already.
-He died over this weekend.
-Did he? What did he die of?
Of a lot of things.
Of alcohol, of moral anemia, of fear, of shame, of D.T.'s.
Oh, that Don Birnam. And now you want to kill the other one.
What other?
There were two Dons. You told me so yourself.
Don the drunk and Don the writer.
Let's not go back to a fancy figure of speech.
There's only one Don, he's through.
Don.
I'm all right, I have enough strength left...
I know you have. I can see it.
Don't waste it on pulling a trigger, Don.
No, let me get it over with or do you want me to give you
another one of my promises that I never keep?
I don't want you to give me your promise,
I don't want you to give your promise to anybody but Don Birnam.
It's too late. I wouldn't know how to start.
The only way to start is to stop.
There is no cure besides just stopping.
-Can't be done.
-Other people have stopped.
People with a purpose, with something to do.
You've got talent and ambition.
Talent. Ambition. That's dead long ago.
That's drowned.
That's drifting around
with a bloated belly on a lake of alcohol.
No it isn't. You still have it.
Quit trying to stall me Helen. It's too late.
There's no more writing left in me,
it's gone. What do you expect, a miracle?
Yes,
Yes, yes! If I could just make you...
-Who is it?
-It's me, Mr. Birnam.
-What is it, Nat?
-I got somethin' for you, Mr. Birnam.
-I hope I ain't intrudin.
-What is it?
You know when you had that accident?
Afterward I found this floatin' around on the Nile.
She writes pretty good. I oiled her up a little.
And I didn't oil her up so you can hock her.
-I'll take it, Nat.
-Hello, Miss.
Thank you, Nat.
How are all them lilacs in Ohio?
Well Don, here it is. What do you say now?
-Say about what?
-This.
Someone, somewhere, sent it back.
Why? Because he means you to stay alive,
because he wants you to write.
I didn't ask for a big miracle.
Write! With these hands?
And a brain that's all out of focus?
It'll clear up again. You'll be well.
And I'll be sitting there staring at that white sheet, scared.
No you won't. You've forgotten what it feels like to be well.
-What am I gonna write about? What?
-What you've always wanted to write.
Where was the page I found?
"The Bottle. A Novel by Don Birnam,"
What was that to be?
About a messed-up life. About a man and a woman and a bottle.
About nightmares, horrors, humiliations,
all the things I want to forget.
Put it all down on paper. Get rid of it that way.
Tell it all, to whom it may concern.
And it concerns so many people, Don.
Yeah.
I'll fix us some breakfast.
We have quite a supply of milk.
You'll notice I didn't even find a first line.
Course you couldn't write the beginning
because you didn't know the ending.
Only now...
Only now you know the ending.
I'm gonna send one copy to Bim,
one to the doctor who loaned me his coat, and one to Nat.
Imagine Wick standing in front of a book store.
A great big pyramid of my books.
A Novel by Don Birnam.
"That's by my brother, you know."
That's by my fellow. Didn't I always tell you?
I'm going to put this whole weekend down, minute by minute.
Why not?
The way I stood in there, packing my suitcase...
Only my mind wasn't