The death of Sonny greatly affected his brother. Sonny was on the verge of releasing a collection of jazz music recorded by he and his musician friends, when his brother received a phone call that Sonny had died of a heroin overdose. SonnyÆs brother is then filled with depression and conflicted emotions over his brotherÆs death. He had just learned how to communicate with Sonny, despite the barrier drugs had put between them for years, and now Sonny is gone forever. Upon hearing of the death of Sonny, his brother can only think of the words one of SonnyÆs friends once told him when he wondered why Sonny had such a death wish; ôHe donÆt want to die. He wants to live. DonÆt nobody want to die, everö (Baldwin, p. 121).
SonnyÆs brother walked through SonnyÆs funeral as if he were in a coma. He had only lately begun to communicate with his brother, on the verge of understanding the role jazz played in SonnyÆs life. Despite his troubles with heroin, his brother knew Sonny needed the drug to feel alive, to be able to affirm life through his music. Despite this knowledge, he was miserable that just as he and Sonny began to understand each other, his brother was gone forever. How he wished he could see SonnyÆs face one more time, to see that look of fire in it that he had never before noticed until he watched his brother consumed with the fire of music and creation, ôàthe face I saw on Sonny IÆd never seen before. Everything had been burned out of it, and, at the same time, things usually hidden were being burned in, by the fire and fury of the battle which was occurring in him up thereö (Baldwin, p. 131).
SonnyÆs brother moped around for days, unable to console himself in the absence of his brother. As a schoolteacher, he could never understand why Sonny always had to escape from the pain and tragedy of life through drugs and alcohol. His head was filled with images of So
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