Christopher Hitchens has died, and although this was expected, it’s still a demoralizing shock. Weirdly, his death seems almost contradictory to me. He was not a man to bested. Cancer, even late stage cancer, hardly seemed a match for him. His back would stiffen, he’d stare it down, outthink the disease, take a sip of whiskey and deep drag from his cigarette and then make a withering and terribly perfect remark, which would send cancer slinking off to the shadows.
But no, no, of course not.
His words were goddamn bullets made out of razors, always speeding mercilessly to the truth that called him. His erudition and eloquence were as intimidating as a Mike Tyson blow to the throat and I am going to miss reading him like hell.
I have little doubt that if I had actually known the man, I probably would have disliked him. He seemed made of fire, born to the contrary and provocative. His always firing and unforgiving mind, never giving or taking quarter, moved relentlessly forward, indifferent, even pleased with the carnage it left behind.
A beautiful monster, an event more than a man, he was truly awesome to behold.
I think that his last appearance in Toronto was at the Munk debates when he went at it with Tony Blair over whether religion was a force of good in the world or not. It was a bit of a dog and pony show, but the charisma radiating out of the event was unbelievable. It was sold out, of course, and tickets cost a fortune, so Rachelle and I and a bunch of friends went to the library to watch a live simulcast of the event with a few hundred other people.
On the big screen in front of us, Hitchens, bald and pale from his treatments, looked like a man who didn’t feel well. But he was still incandescent, his voice rich and sonorous, he bullied and charmed his way through the debate with apparent ease, and it was almost as if we were watching the Harlem Globetrotters playing the Washington Generals.
Seeing him shine, I imagined him returning to himself, stepping away from and outside of his illness and becoming the man he always was. There was one moment, so small and poignant, when Hitchens was really enjoying himself and forgetting that he was ill. He had a made a devastating point and satisfied, reached back to run his hand through his hair, a reflex action. His hair had always been a kind of lion’s mane, and he took a touching pride in it, always seeing it as a flourish of virile masculinity, but it wasn’t there. He seemed surprised for a moment to be running his hand over a smooth, bald head, the weight of his mortality which his words had carried him free of, settling on him and all of us, once again.