Excerpts
He gathered the entirety of his strength to first hold my face as I had his, and then, while tears flowed thickly down his face, grabbed my hands and squeezed them to the most of his weakened ability. He wept as he pushed his words through a forced smile of desperation.
“And we’ll laugh about this in time? Right? You promised.”
Pamela cried quietly as she held back any reaction that might worsen his emotional torture while she witnessed his last moments, and after Sebastian let out another fragile smile, he released his hold of me… at last… forever.
I could have had doubts until that very moment. But his oblivious smile was all the justification I needed – that exhibition of the childish contentment that comes with endless possibilities. His eyes already closed, I kissed him one last time on the top of the head while Pamela consolingly massaged the back of mine.
What seemed to be a young man, with a full life ahead of him, was but a cadaver wearing a Bernie Williams pin-stripe jersey. Sebastian wasn’t a fan; he was a son of the team. He had substituted the family he never had with an entity that would never leave him behind – a personified institution that would be there for him unconditionally. When David Cone threw his perfect game, when Derek Jeter dove into the stands for the famous foul ball, when Tino Martinez caught Scott Brosius’ throw to first base to seal the World Series win, during every roll-call, well, for a split second, they all looked at him, they all pointed to him, they all thanked him, they all tipped their cap to him.
- From ‘The Punchline of History’
“Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows.”
Well that’s Leonard Cohen.
“If God doesn’t practice what he preaches, then why the fuck should we?”
That’s what he said to me before he died. Not Leonard Cohen... the other guy. He put the barrel in his mouth, the other guy, and with his eyes locked into mine, and whatever amount of a smile he could present with the steel obstruction between his lips, BANG. His brains flew from the top of his head and splattered gracefully on the already filthy white wall. The room was a satanic hot. The ceiling paint cracked from its central point, a single frying light-bulb, like rays from a sun of a contained micro-universe. The heat and humidity from the torrential summer downpour outside had me sweating heavily.
“And everybody knows that the plague is coming
Everybody knows that it’s moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman”
- From ‘Swan Dive’
I spent the rest of my workday in a laborious daze, with a touch of undesired perspective. That I didn’t care to sell was one thing, that I didn’t care to seduce, was another. For the moment, Sebastian’s news had taken away my Greece.
I left work just after six and met Pamela at a café on West Broadway. I guess she had just left the gym. I stopped right past the door before she saw me. I don’t think anyone could wear loose Knicks sweatpants and a white tank top like she could. The mix of dried sweat with blushing dry-winter cheeks made the room disappear to her glow. She looked like she was listening to Brahms’ Hungarian Dances. Her earphones led to a small baby-blue backpack while she subtly conducted the symphony with her Mont-Blanc as a baton, cutting the air with tender violence. Her eyes roamed the blank page of her notebook. I walked to the table, sat across from her, and we kissed – her eyes closed, mine open as always. I jokingly asked her if it was the pen or the blank page that served her as a muse.
- From ‘The Punchline of History’