Eddie was a very close friend.
Eddie was a guide, what he had seen and known I could only guess but he saw fit
to lovingly steer me through when I needed him, always. Eddie could only ever
be Eddie, outlandish and savvy and true.
Slightly more than a month ago, my friend Eddie
died. He was 54.
I loved him, I learned from him, I
leaned on him. We laughed like hell. When I woke to the news, when I swung my
feet to the floor and stared at the planks to think that my friend was gone, I
wanted to feel shock. Shock seemed vast and fitting. But it wasn't there to be
mined. The hollow and lethargy of sadness, yes, but no shock. Eddie had been
ill, more than he let on, and his world had constricted. With his
beloved Ruben, their cats, their pre-war rooms in Queens, Eddie closed out his
life precisely where he would have chosen, if not when. Too soon, far too soon.
There were so many happy hours left unwritten.
One revisits the last few
encounters. At the end we had only some scattered phone talks, an hour-long minimum.
With him being the world-class life-liver between us, I was ready to shut up as
tales unfurled. They always did, an unspoken arrangement. Eddie
would regale and gossip and rave. I chuckled or roared and memorized, but
mostly held the phone and grinned. Sometimes I’d groan mid-laugh because the punch
line was so foul. Then he’d snicker, and through the phone I’d hear the sliding
tinkle of ice cubes in his glass of vodka as he sipped in the pause. Masterful
timing, Eddie had.
I suspect only one thing could be
more delicious to Eddie than living itself, and that was weaving the story for
a captive audience over a drink and a smoke. Half the fun was in the doing, the
other half in the telling. That gentleman always told, and for the record, so
does this one.
If that rings tinny and anecdotal,
it wasn't. Eddie's stories were like a vintage cocktail shaker that has a hard
dent in it. Elegant, if a bit worn? Yes. Pristine? Never. The dent was the
point.
Still as I type this, there is
Eddie's bray in my ear… that cheerful, flat-vowel holler of an Astoria
housewife. So too is his cackle, rapid-fire, shot down the barrel of a
Marlboro. Cut the bullshit, he says. Keep it REAL, he says. Truth, style, a
little obscenity to offend the weak-stomached. That’ll tell them everything
they need to know.
True enough.
We met having both been cast in a
production of 'Company'. I was living in Jersey. I’d retreated after city life
got to me. Fled was more like it. I made some new, excellent friends, and we were all
in some of the same shows. This show was staged in a dump that was a theatre
the same way a methadone clinic is a spa. But it was a damn fine show.
Somehow Eddie commuted every
rehearsal and show day from Astoria. That meant traveling by multiple trains,
two hours, one way. He was letter and note perfect. The job was a labor of
love, it paid nothing. But for him I suspect the dividends were quite rich: out
of the apartment, creative muscles flexed. Here was a task now that he had
retired and was on disability. New faces dotting his view, something at stake
and vitality in the veins. No one lit up a rehearsal like he did.
I often drove him to and from the train station.
That was where our talks began. Eddie was quitting smoking then. I remember
more than once pulling into the train station and finding him on the platform:
a cig jutting from two bony fingers of one hand, and in the other, a book whose
jacket screamed 'QUITTING SMOKING NOW!!' How he read it through the haze of
tobacco, I couldn't tell you.
What did we talk about? As I said,
mostly I listened and laughed, prompted him now and then with a question. Not
that he needed prompting. A generator connected to Eddie’s jaws could have flared
the Eastern seaboard like the goddamn Rockefeller Christmas tree.
Topics on those train station
drives? Asbury Park in the freewheeling, dangerous days. The West Village in
the freewheeling, dangerous days. His tenor notes before smoking. His vital
role in opening the famous restaurant, Jean-Georges. His brief flirtation with
corporate work, his office and suit and demeanor, all of which he called his ‘days
in drag’. How he lost his virginity, fell in love and had his heart broken, all
in one summer afternoon in Midtown. Remarkable stories.
Rehearsals and hard work and
laughing and drives to the train station. Fast friends have traction before they’ve
any right to. Maybe I enjoyed listening to this half-gentle, half-raucous man
and his careening life. Maybe he saw that I was floundering and shouldn’t be.
Eddie was that rarity of both superb talker and listener. Few manage the trick.
I played Bobby and Eddie played
Larry, one of the husbands. My favorite song in
the show was Eddie’s: ‘Sorry-Grateful’. Now that’s a song. Unadorned,
contradictory, but above all wise. I still think of it as Eddie’s song. It
makes glorious sense if you’re heart, not head, logical.
And I was. The show opened, and a
girlfriend at the time had bolted on me. I was heartsick in ways that were cute
only because I was under thirty.
She and I reunited, oh Christ, a
bunch of times. Eddie was back in Astoria, calling me up, calling me ‘Kiddo’,
sweet enough to pretend to be surprised. He’d met her. He’d seen how I looked
at her. Trust me, he wasn’t surprised.
Yet Eddie never lectured, never
lorded. If he foresaw the months ahead for me as plainly as he might skim the Sunday Times, he never let on. And I’m certain he did. We talked a lot, and his
replying ‘mm-hmms’ brimmed with patient humor and knowing. I smile now to think
of it.
One summer, maybe late July, I was
at her condo's block party. Swarms of roasted pink strangers, and their hive
was a large turquoise pool. Full sun, glaring white concrete striped by rows
of metal lounge chairs. Jersey summer, humid air soaked with the scent of
grilling beef. I grew up by the ocean, so choosing this landlocked weenie
roast on an otherwise beautiful beach day was really a testament of love.
Eddie called. I wandered off a
distance to take his call, for quiet and shade, pine trees I think. We launched
headlong. This time he was focused. He kept on urging me to move
back to the city. It was time to get back to work, he said. Beyond I heard screaming kids,
splashes, Bon Jovi’s Greatest Hits.
Somehow he was adamant while never
telling me what to do. Quite a feat, if you think about it. He leveled about
neighborhoods and rents and utilities, all the realities of cost. He glowed
about the mayhem and fun, but really what he was doing was more than clever: he
was awakening me to possibilities. Eddie was projecting better, busier
days, tougher challenges and unimagined rewards. All that while letting me
think it was my idea. He was one hell of a Pied Piper. Eddie thought that it was
time I stood up to be counted. It scared the hell out of me.
I had a choice: a woman I loved beyond reason, a life with her, children immediately, and turning my back on the city and path I dreamed of. Or this city, this path, this gamble, and without her or that possible future. Couldn't have both.
Heart or head logical?
I remember looking back at that
block party around the pool. I remember feeling alien. Not above it, not at
all, but not of it. I was under those pines for a while.
When she and I parted for the last
time, I called Eddie that night. There was steel in his sympathy. He didn’t
baby me, but didn’t smack me around for my choices. It was time to move back
and get to work, he said, and very kindly. And I did.
How the hell would I have done it
without him? Living in New York again, this ultimate playground for children
who don’t play nice with each other. A lot of phone talks. My progress and mistakes gave him equal pleasure. It always sounded
as though things that I thought were dire… like bills or roommate troubles or
auditions or dates gone wrong… instead to him, these were thrilling. I kept
thinking I’d fuck it all up. Eddie saw it as an adventure, unfolding and writ
large. Only a selfless man could do that.
And then? I found myself getting
much busier, then more so.
And then? Eddie and I connected
less. He might call while I was performing, or tearing out the door, late for a
job usually. Eddie ventured out less then. It was getting harder to see each
other.
The talks became more important,
and much as I missed him, I was less available to have them. It breaks my heart
to admit it, but it’s the truth. I felt, and still feel, as if I had returned
his selflessness with selfishness.
Then one night he called me while I was on
a train to a gig out of town. By luck it was at the
beginning of my hour-long trip, and he kept me madcap company the whole way.
But at the end, before I had to step off onto the platform, he asked something
of me: could I gather the gang for some laughs because he missed
everyone terribly, only it felt a little starker than that. He said I had to do
it, that he couldn’t, and with enough time to plan, maybe he’d be able to make
it. He said he was counting on me. He made me promise. And I did promise.
I never saw him or spoke to him
again.
Oh I relayed the message to the
gang, we started to look at when and how and all that feeble shit that ‘busy’
people do. Whether he could have actually met with us at that point isn’t what
matters. I broke my promise.
So this is directly to you, Eddie. ‘Sorry-Grateful’.
Sorry, to-my-bones sorry, I let you
down when you needed me.
Grateful, because our friendship was
one I will always treasure, pull from, boast of, smile about.
Well, Kiddo, you might have said.
Here we are. Whaddya say we ring down the curtain…?
Eddie, I have a feeling that at a
moment like this when your friends’ eyes brim with tears, you’d be the first to
make a fearless joke, some bawdy zinger, a theatrical exit line. The kind of
line a pro knows will have him coasting on the audience's laughter from the
wings out to the dressing room.
You had those chops, that style.
You did leave this life a month ago, but sonnovabitch, you didn't leave one
single drop of life left untasted. You gorged on it, what you wanted you tried
and wrung every bit of pleasure from... and unless our conversations led me
awry, you knew too well the flip side of that gamble. But no regrets, never one.
I marvel at your courage still.
You idealized this city you lured
me back to. I roam it and am reminded of you often, how kindred a place and man were. And I meet a lot of people, Eddie, you knew that too well. But
you were the sort of man whose departure makes the whole damn city a little
blander. I happen to think you and those select few like you are
hearty stock, and lately this city brews its characters by bouillon cube. One
can see right through them and their flavor is forgettable. Not you, Eddie.
Oh and one last thing, one detail
that I prize.
You made me give you a promise once
before, a long time ago. You might even have forgotten.
Eddie, you told me, “Have your fun,
I’m not tellin’ ya to be a fuckin’ nun, so do what ya gotta do, okay? And God
knows, you do! But don’t fuck around so much that you get a shell over your
heart. Protect your heart. Get with too many people that don’t mean anything to
you and you lose something. Something you can’t get back. Promise. Me.”
I’ve tested that promise, but so
help me, I’ve kept it. You were telling me to never relinquish just that little
bit of innocence. I see that now.
I refuse to say that you were a
gift, Eddie, because you still are.
© Eric Yves Garcia, 2014
