Lawrence Egbert has lived somewhat under the radar for years. After this piece, that will change, and yes, just when we finally laid Jack Kevorkian to rest.
After the death of Jack Kevorkian, Lawrence Egbert is the new public face of American assisted suicide
Dust speckles shelves up on the third story. Wood floors creak. Walls and cabinets in the cramped office, tucked into a red-brick Baltimore rowhouse, channel a generation’s worth of sloganeering.
“We shall overcome Reagan”
“Nuclear Free Zone”
“Don’t buy war toys”
Lawrence Egbert comes here almost every weekday, taking calls on an old white push-button phone with a handset darkened by years of smudged newsprint and perspiration. He climbs the stairs, slower now since a bicycle accident two years ago cracked his pelvis, but steady and resolute.
Amid the kaleidoscope of distractions, a lumpy white garbage bag slumps on the floor against a metal bookshelf. Egbert doesn’t object when I ask to peek inside.
I pull the yellow drawstrings, and the bag sags open. A muddle of plastic lies before me. Long plastic tubes twine around each other, refusing to let go, like stubborn tendrils of ivy clasping tree branches. more
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