A DAY WITHOUT SUNSHINE
One of the things that made Larry such a tremendous public information officer was his ability to shine during a stressful situation, keep calm when everything around him was chaos and keep panic at bay. So it wasn’t a huge surprise that when he fell ill in the fall of 2016, he downplayed it. He simply told me he wasn’t feeling well, had decided to give up drinking, and was having some blood tests run. Nothing alarming, apart from the bit about giving up drinking.
It was left to his wife Marianne to tell me the real story. The years of alcohol use had caught up with Larry and his liver was failing, which would eventually cause him to die. Nothing short of a liver transplant could stop that from happening, and he thought liver transplants should be saved for younger, more deserving people. Larry’s father had died when he was a child, so I don’t think he expected to last that long anyway. Luckily, he had his mother’s constitution and just felt privileged to have lived a wonderful life.
There are some characters who loom so large in your life that it never occurs to you what you might do if something bad befalls them. That’s how I felt about Larry. I wasn’t sure how to process the idea of losing him, because he had always seemed so strong. I couldn’t imagine a world without him in it, and I did my best not to try. I carried on just as I always had, calling him every now and again, sending him funny text messages. For years he’d joked that his liver probably resembled a smoked oyster, and now I was quick to remind him that he’d been right all along. When Marianne told me he was asking for all sorts of funky food in the hospital, I sent him a message reminding him that he wasn’t on death row and therefore not required to request 12 fried eggs, three pork chops, a pint of ice cream and a cheeseburger. In one message he told me he “should have smoked dope and left the booze alone,” which sounded like a pretty good title for a country music album.
He seemed mildly irritated that he’d had to sell his Japanese hot rod, but genuinely excited about this book and anxious that we didn’t leave any good stories out. He even suggested a title: “A day without an execution is like a day without sunshine.” He was, of course, being ironic. He even had the energy to aim a few jabs at TDCJ, telling me he hoped he lived to see the day that Jason Clark loses his job and “is forced to go into precious metals… picking up cans along Interstate 45.”
All the while, Larry was getting weaker and weaker, not that I knew it. Occasionally, he’d mention in passing that he wasn’t feeling well, but again, it was up to Marianne to fill in the blanks. In March 2017, I visited Larry at his home in Austin. He had lost so much weight that his withered body was drowning in an oversized flannel shirt. He was confined to a wheelchair, too weak to walk around freely on his own. His voice, once loud and clear, was mostly a whisper. We spoke for a few hours about executions, me recording his thoughts and recollections. And the entire time, the clock kept moving forward to the moment I most dreaded, when I would have to say goodbye, knowing it would most likely be for the last time.
I made it through the day without crying, until I stood up to leave. When I bent down to give him a hug, I couldn’t keep my tears at bay any longer. As I sobbed against his shoulder, he told me simply, “You’ve always been a good kid.” And with that, I left. There were more texts, but the time between each one grew longer and longer. Finally, he stopped answering at all. He lived on for a couple more months, but spent most of that time sleeping, until he finally died in June.
Larry’s memorial was held on a hot Friday afternoon in the community center of his suburban Austin neighborhood. Me and a few friends of Marianne arranged a reception and dozens of people came, bearing all types of savory dishes and desserts and, of course, wine and beer. It was a casual affair, just as Larry would have wanted. Marianne and their two kids, Kelly and Kevin, mingled with old friends and colleagues, and a couple of reporters who had managed to sneak away from deadlines dropped by to pay their respects. Then it was time for some stories.
An old room-mate from Larry’s bachelor days told us that Larry got them kicked out of four or five apartments for doing all sorts of crazy crap. One time, Larry was running a bath when a couple of cute girls from down the corridor invited him out for drinks. He returned to find their soaked belongings strewn over the front lawn, along with an eviction notice. Then it was my turn. I told them about the time Larry marched me past the naked inmates; the time he made me eat food loaf; the fact he called me “Little Larry” and made fun of me for my woefully inadequate vocabulary. And just as I was starting to settle in, my voice started to shake, as it had when I left Larry that final time. Just as then, I didn’t know how to say goodbye. But I did manage to say, “There will never be another like him,” which is the absolute truth.
When the memorial was over, an old colleague from our prison days produced a small bottle of Scotch—one of Larry’s preferred brands—and poured us all a shot. We toasted our dear friend and then it was time to go home. It was my dad who summed it up best, likening Fitzgerald’s death to a famous line in the classic American movie The Big Lebowski, which he and Larry both adored: “It’s good knowin’ he’s out there.” That’s how we all felt about Larry. It was just good knowing he was out there, and it hurts knowing he’s not.
Larry Fitzgerald’s obituary, by Larry Fitzgerald
Born in Austin, Texas on October 12, 1937, Larry Fitzgerald touched the third rail on June 12, 2017.
Larry was a graduate of Austin’s McCallum High School and the University of Texas. He worked for numerous Texas radio stations as a newsman, gatherer and news director, before becoming director of communications for the State Bar of Texas. He worked in political campaigns for Lt. Governor Bill Hobby and Governor Ann Richards.
Larry perhaps was best known for his role as public information officer for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (the free world’s largest gulag) in Huntsville, Texas. In that capacity, Larry witnessed 219 executions, allowing him to meet many state, national and international media types. Big whoop. He won some awards—some merited, some not. He was a regular blood donor, often said to have a very rare blood type—the only one that could be used to jump-start a wino. He volunteered at Meals on Wheels and the Bullock Museum and was recognized as Volunteer of the Year at KUT Radio.
Upon his official retirement from TDCJ, Larry was hired as an expert witness to testify on behalf of the defense during the punishment phase of more than 30 capital murder cases. He was successful in some cases and in others, not so.
Larry’s departure from TDCJ was not the end of his state service. Larry worked for the Texas Division of Emergency Management, advising on the response to floods, fires and hurricanes, and he also enjoyed working for the Texas Secretary of the Senate during each legislative session from 2005 to 2013. He was hired to conduct location shooting for the now-defunct Texas Department of Commerce in an ambitious effort to lure major movie-makers to shoot their productions in Texas. It was an interesting job that allowed him the opportunity to see miles and miles of Texas, a state he dearly loved.
Larry is survived by his long-suffering wife Marianne Cook Fitzgerald, who he always lovingly referred to as his “Child Bride”, as well as his daughter, Kelly Anne Fitzgerald, his son Kevin Lane Fitzgerald and his spouse Lorraine Fitzgerald, and all of Austin. He also is survived by his shepherd/heeler rescue dog, Charlie, who was a comfort provider and travel companion.
Larry was preceded in death by his father, Clyde Jackson Fitzgerald of San Marcos, and his beloved mother, Dorothy Tillman Fitzgerald of Smithville, Texas.
Larry worked diligently to support the economies of Kentucky, Ireland, Great Britain, Scotland and Mexico. He never met a bartender he didn’t like, which is why his liver looked like a smoked oyster. He was proud that he kept one particular promise he had made to himself: never vote Republican.