American Prometheus

by Kai Bird

After more than one drink, he rose and announced that he was retiring upstairs to the guest bedroom. A few minutes later, Anne, Herb and Kitty heard a “terrible crash” and Anne was the first to the top of the stairs. Robert was nowhere to be seen. After knocking on the bathroom door and then shouting his name, with no response, she tried to open the door. “I couldn’t get the bathroom door open,” she said, “and I couldn’t get a response from Robert.” He had collapsed on the bathroom floor and his unconscious body was blocking the door. The three of them together gradually forced the door open, pushing Robert’s limp form to one side. They then carried him to a couch and revived him. “But he sure was mumbly,” Anne recalled. Robert said he had taken a sleeping pill, a prescription drug Kitty had given him. Anne called a doctor—who said, “Don’t let him go to sleep.” So for an hour they walked him back and forth, coaxing coffee down his throat until the doctor arrived.