45 My Heart and Soul
FORTY-FIVE
My Heart and Soul
Jansen lived in an apartment in Nyack, which was just a few miles from Dad and his new wife, Mekdem’s house.
Dad was the first line of defense for anything related to my brother, so I had no other choice but to trust him and ask for his help.
The issue was, of course, that no one could control Jansen. He was a grown-up, just like me.
“Hey, what’s up?” Dad asked when I called him. “I’m at a CVS. Talk fast.”
I cleared my throat. “Dad, I know you can’t sit down, but I do need you to listen. Your son is using heroin. The shit has officially hit the fan.”
Dad was dead silent for a good few seconds. “Okay, that’s not good,” he finally said. “But is he just using heroin socially or is it worse than that?”
I started to laugh even though it was anything but funny. “Damn it, Dad. There’s no such thing as social heroin use. If you use heroin, you’re playing Russian roulette each and every time. We need to get him into treatment now.”
“I hear you,” Dad answered. “But he’s going to resist. I know it.”
“I’m sure he is. But as a veteran of treatment, I have an idea.
You need to take Jansen in for a drug test. I think if the fact he’s using hard drugs is known to you and the medical establishment, he’ll be more amenable to treatment.
I’ve been there. It’s one thing if you’re drunk in secret; it’s another if you’re drunk and everyone knows it. ”
Dad went quiet again.
“All right, I’ll call him. I’ll make him do it.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I answered, then I hung up the phone and looked around for a good luck tree to pray to.
Dad worked his magic, and a week later Jansen was scheduled for a drug test at a local lab.
His assignment was simple: pee in a cup, pay your copay, and wait a few days till the results came in.
Every drug in Jansen’s system would be revealed, and we could sit down with him and convince him to get help. Easy peasy.
“Call me when it’s all said and done, okay?” I asked Dad the day of the appointment.
“Of course,” he answered. “I’ll call you.”
Two hours later, I hadn’t heard from either of them, so I picked up the phone and called Dad.
“So… did everything go okay?” I asked.
“No,” Dad answered. “It most certainly did not. The nurse gave him the cup, and he went into the bathroom. He came out five minutes later saying he fell asleep on the toilet and forgot to pee in the cup. Somehow—and he thinks this is convincing—he expects us to believe he sleep-peed in the toilet instead of giving a sample for a drug test. Can you believe that?”
“Dad, that tells you right there,” I said. “When you’re using, the lies come easier.”
“Here’s the thing,” Dad added. “Jansen’s always been a little spacey, you know? Maybe that did happen.”
I wanted to scream, but instead, I got angry. “Dad, my God,” I pleaded, “stop making excuses for him. What he said isn’t even a good excuse. He’s just ashamed.”
But deep down, I knew the truth was worse than that.
For all his sensitivity, kindness, and pure, beautiful talent, my brother was manipulating us because drugs had a hold on him.
They were providing him an escape that only he could understand, and that meant it was up to him—and nobody else—to put an end to it.
No one in my family wanted to believe it, but we had to.
Otherwise, soon it was going to be too late.
In the winter of 2023, I was gearing up for the premiere of Scream VI, my big return to acting after taking four years off.
It was a role I felt lucky to get, to be honest. We were in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic when it was cast, and the film industry was about as unstable as I’d been.
But I was more than eager to get back on my feet and live up to the potential I knew was there inside me, buried deep in my foundation.
So I begged Radio Silence—the creative team behind the Scream franchise—for the part, calling them up and making it clear that if Kirby was still alive, I’d do anything.
“Look,” I said, “you never saw Kirby get killed on-screen. And every horror fan knows that if you don’t see a character murdered, they’re still alive.”
They agreed and wrote Kirby into the script.
Kirby Reed was back, baby, and she was all grown up, ready to outsmart Ghostface once again.
I showed up on set every day, on time, and loved every second of it.
Kirby was a survivor, just like me. Kirby had guts and heart and—pardon my French—balls made of steel.
That’s who I wanted to be. That’s who I am.
On February 20, my phone rang early in the morning, when the West Coast was waking up and New York had been moving for hours. I looked at the screen, and there was Dad’s name.
Sorry, Dad, can’t talk now, I said to myself, letting the call go to voicemail.
Ten seconds later, Dad called again.
“Calling twice, huh? What’s going on?” I asked.
“Uh, Hayden,” he said, his voice cracking. “There’s no easy way to tell you this. Jansen’s dead. My boy is dead.”
Panic flooded every inch of my body. “What did you say?”
“I said…” Dad’s voice began to rise, and then he began to yell. “Oh my God! Jansen is dead! My sweet boy is dead!”
I heard Dad gasp for breath, and I put the phone down as my knees buckled under me. This isn’t real, I thought. It can’t be.
“Dad?” I finally asked, listening to the sound of his sobs. “What happened?”
It took a moment or two, but Dad’s voice shook as he started to speak.
“Jansen had an appointment at 9:00 a.m., and he didn’t show up for it.
Someone called one of his friends, and that friend decided to go over and check on him.
He opened the door and found him, but it was too late. Jansen was already gone.”
“I don’t understand,” I pleaded. “Did he kill himself? Did he have a heart attack? Did someone break in and kill him? What happened?!”
“The police don’t know yet, baby. But there was no evidence of foul play. He was just sitting in a chair with a comforter over his whole body. It was like he’d fallen asleep there.”
My mind started to race in a million different directions.
I knew Jansen better than I knew myself, and none of this made sense.
Jansen never sat in a chair unless he had people over, I thought.
If he was alone, he sat on the couch. And when you’re taking drugs—and Jansen probably was—you run hot.
There’s no way in hell he’d need a comforter.
“Dad?” I asked, an eerie sense of calm suddenly washing over me. “Was anyone with him last night?”
Dad sighed. “I don’t know, Hayden. I just don’t know.”
I decided to switch over to an unavoidable topic. “Does Mom know?” I asked.
“No,” Dad answered, and I could hear him crying again. “Can you call her? I can’t do it.”
Sometimes, during an intense or overwhelming crisis, the rational brain kicks and helps you deal with painful situations calmly rather than emotionally.
This is the kind of powerful coping reaction that allows paramedics to save gravely injured people and allowed my dad to rescue kids from burning apartment buildings.
I can’t explain why the thought of calling Mom didn’t send me into a tailspin, but it didn’t.
I had a job to do, and I was going to do it.
My rational thinking wasn’t the calm before the storm—nope, that storm had come and gone and ripped apart my world—but it was the beautiful result of all my time in treatment.
Suddenly, I believed in myself. I could do hard things.
I could call my mother and tell her that her beloved baby boy was dead, and it would be the most difficult thing I’d done in my life.
I wasn’t sure what kind of agony I’d encounter on the other end of the line, but I had to do what I had to do.
“Sure, Dad, I’ll call Mom,” I said. “I love you. Talk to you soon.”
I dialed Mom’s number, and she answered on the fifth ring. “Helllooo, Hayden!” Mom said. “Sorry, I didn’t hear the phone ring. I’m in Venice Beach, and it’s gorgeous out. How are you?”
I’m not okay, Mom, I thought. And I’m about to ruin your life.
“Mom, I have to tell you something really hard. You should sit down.”
“What?” Mom asked. “It’s okay, I’m a big girl. Just tell me.”
I paused. “Jansen died sometime last night. We don’t know what happened, but his friend found him in his apartment this morning.”
There was silence on the other end of the line as I waited for Mom to start screaming. Five seconds passed, and she didn’t say a word.
“Mom?” I asked. “Are you still there?”
“I’m so sorry, baby, but I have to get off the phone now. I have some calls to make.”
“Okay, Mom,” I answered. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. More than you’ll ever know.”
I hung up the phone, and the calm that had helped me get through the call with Mom vanished. I burst into tears, crawled into bed, and didn’t get out for the rest of the day.