Joe

Joe,

We talked, in no particular order,

-on a crumbling sandbox a previous dorm-master built outside of my dorm apartment

-in a tow truck

-under a tarp in the rain by the Rez the night before earth day

-walking along train tracks in the middle of the night

-in dorm apartments in three states

-in your car picking up McDonalds lunch for your kids

-in my apartment

-at Shenanigans

-in bars in Baltimore and Ohio, Illinois and DC

-on our way to raid the chapel

-on the Agee room floor

-on my patio after dinner and drinks

-in your apartment staring at the view from the space station

-on your fabled Marina Towers balcony

-at the truck stop


about, in no particular order,

-the south

-beer for boys, whiskey for men, brandy for heroes

-Jay McInerey’s greatest lines

-your kids

-Klingenstein and New York

-ice on trees

-a poem by Larkin

-smart people

-Luna and Mahler

-hearing a wolf howl at night

-a surprising evening in Guerry Garth

-favorite jazz

-the best final sentences of stories and novels

-sex, of course

-ironic views from windows

-whoever wrote Huck Finn

-returning the car you loaned me

-women, some in particular

-Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt testament

-favorite words

-choices, good and bad

-the California Zephyr

-avoiding the south at all costs, especially Texas

-moving to Texas

-bookshelves and arguing about what % we actually read

-the Army

-working in a bookstore

-death

-the Matterhorn

-children

-luxury properties in the NYT magazine

-Joseph Campbell

-former students and colleagues

-our parents dying

-real quality cursing

-Stanley Kubrick and John Huston

-wandering around India

-getting old

-one last time

-poetic prose

-Sewanee and SAS

-best moments of all time in movies

-c-words

-books and writers we liked, disliked

-vigils

-bliss

-making and listening to music

-Fred Flintstone

-disappointment and disillusion

-not answering my phone or texts

-squalor

-morons

-fading sepia glory of college

-living in a city

-teaching

-having and not having money

-Canyonlands

-the journey and the destination

-baseball teams finally winning the World Series

-curated music programs and edible dosages

-goddam regret

-the real thing

-Chicago

-a scary diagnosis

-worse things than chastity

-close shaves

-lacrosse

-a view vs distance

-writers one of us had read and the other hadn’t

-trips we never ended up taking together


while, in no particular order, 

-drinking beer

-making up epigrams or pun duels

-waiting for a show or train

-drinking coffee

-planning a raid on the chapel

-at the store

-looking through Agee’s papers

-you were waiting for a visitor

-skiing

-drinking whiskey

-loading and unloading a pick up truck

-watching the fire burn out


without realizing

-you were going to die before I was ready.


Steve

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