The last time I saw my friend Marc

[Gentle Giant]

I submitted this to the story blog Common Ties, though it wasn't published (not yet, anyway). Thought I'd share it here on what would have been Marc's 44th birthday. He died 13 days before 9/11 at age 38.

Thanks for indulging me.

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The Last Time I Saw My Friend Marc
By Jason M. Rubin

The last time I saw my friend Marc, he was tumbling down from a bridge onto the ground approximately sixty feet below. I had a good view because I was the one who caused his descent. I didn’t necessarily want to do it, but he insisted. And he wasn’t hurt by the fall, because he was already dead. You see, I was spreading his ashes.

It was a sunny March morning, and we were enjoying an early thaw. By we I mean an assortment of Marc’s friends, his wife, his two young daughters, his brother-in-law, and his mother-in-law. The location was a golf course not far from where we had grown up. We partied there in the evenings during high school as it offered space, freedom, and privacy – none of which we were enjoying in our homes at that time. In his final days, he apparently told his wife that should he not survive the open-heart surgery he was soon to face, his wish was to be cremated and for his ashes to spread on the golf course.

Marc and his wife were living more than two hours from the golf course, and his wife had never been there. “No girlfriends allowed” was an unspoken rule, although I had made love to one of mine on the cool grass of a fairway one summer night. As punishment for breaking protocol, I went home with more than a dozen mosquito bites on my ass. The point, however, is that his wife didn’t feel capable of fulfilling his final wish, and she told him so. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “Just call Jason. He’ll know what to do.”

Suffice to say this was nothing he had ever discussed with me. We were very close friends in high school and we stayed close during college years, although he never pursued higher education. Then life intervened and jobs and relationships created geographical and personal distance. We remained in touch but rarely saw each other. In the last two years of his life, we saw each other maybe once, spoke on the phone maybe twice, and sent maybe half a dozen emails to each other. I didn’t even know about his final operation until his wife called me three days later to tell me had gone into cardiac arrest in the OR and never recovered. The delay was because she couldn’t find my phone number and didn’t know where I lived.

Surprised by the honor and obligation thrust upon me, and still grieving not only his loss but also the distance that had forever kept us apart, I set about performing my duties. First, I had to call our other friends and tell them the news and plans. There were two camps of friends: there was a core foursome comprising me, Marc, Andy, and Larry; then there were others who had been in closer contact with Marc, yet not with me.

The core foursome came together in high school as we all discovered two key things we had in common: an obsession with music and an enjoyment of marijuana. We did everything together: concerts, trips to used record stores, midnight movies, excursions to the golf course. There were different things that we had in common with the other camp, including a fondness for Monty Python and the sense that we didn’t belong in any of the many cliques at our high school. We became, then, a clique of our own, and basically all one had to do to join was to make us laugh.

The core group was almost entirely in splinters. If I had been estranged from Marc, the others were completely divorced from him. Larry I was in frequent contact with; Andy I communicated with about as often as Marc. For years, I had wanted to bring the four of us together. I was intrigued by the fact that close friends should drift apart mostly due to time and circumstance. How is it we had so much in common when we were teenagers, yet went into different directions as we got older? When Larry’s mother died, I thought that might be a time for us to reunite. Didn’t happen, nor did it happen when my mother died or when Larry’s father died. It didn’t even happen at Marc’s funeral because both Larry and Andy were out of town. I was determined that we four would be together one more time, even if one of us would be in a jar.

We spread Marc’s ashes on his birthday. His family was nervous about sneaking onto a private golf course. His friends, in spite of the solemnity of the day, could not contain their excitement about being back at the site of past glories. As we walked along to a favorite spot, I found three golf balls that had been lost by errant swings some months before. I gave one to each of Marc’s daughters and kept one for myself.

I delivered a prepared speech about Marc, then invited people to speak if they wished. Finally, we walked to a wooden bridge that crossed a grassy bowl between two hills. We stopped on the center of the bridge and Marc’s wife handed me the jar. Inside the jar was a bag. Inside the bag was Marc. The contents were quite a bit whiter and heavier than I expected; not "ash" at all, but rather powder and bone fragments. I tested the wind with a wet finger to ensure that no one got an unwelcome embrace from Marc as he descended. Then I said goodbye and turned the bag upside down.

As Marc hit the ground, a gaggle of geese scurried over to see if he was food. After a few pokes, they decided he was not. Then we left the golf course, probably for the last time. As I walked back to my car, I smiled. Marc had done what I could not: bring together old friends in a place they had loved. And now Marc has all the space, freedom, and privacy he could ever want and ever need. Forever.

[clinthopson]

Thank you gg.

[Gentle Giant]

Just listened to my favorite album from one of his favorite groups:

[jesus marion joseph]

Great story. I'm in regular contact with three of my closest friends from high school, though I usually only see the other one that lives on the Cape when we visit one of the others, far off-Cape. Weird.

[Chris D]

Nice, GG.

[Ron Thorne]

Thanks for sharing this very personal remembrance, Jason.

[GoodSpeak]

Wow, Jason.


In my Honors classes, we have been talking about the profound use of verbal expression in poetry as a mechanism through which an author may convey true emotional insight and how it ultimately values the human experience when we read it.


This essay you wrote accomplishes that feat with such honesty and a depth of feeling so rarely found in written form these days....I would love to allow my classes that same priveledge.

May I have your permission to share that piece with my students?


Tim

[Gentle Giant]

I'm honored, Tim. Absolutely.

I also wrote a one-act play a couple of years ago that slightly fictionalizes the above tale. It was such a powerful moment that I feel I could write something meaningful about it in just about any form.

Today, some of the friends who were there and I emailed each other with humorous memories of Marc, including finding his parents' Super 8 porno films when we were about 14 and watching them on an old projector that melted half the frames.

Marc had eclectic musical taste. When we would go to used record stores, he would invariably get excited about things that we couldn't understand, like Leonard Bernstein's Mass, a live Harry Belafonte album, or Billy Squier's latest record. He was a bit of an expert on show tunes, but also liked Styx and Yes. He could play organ fairly well and he and I wrote a handful of tunes together. I would write the lyrics and sing the melody, while he transcribed. I tried to turn him on to jazz. I remember him asking me about my fledgling fascination with the genre. He wanted to know about the lyrical content. I said it was largely instrumental and he said, "Cool." But I have no recollection of us listening to much jazz together. However, after he died, his widow gave me his vinyl collection (Chris knows this as he bought a few of them), and I was surprised to find a fair number of jazz records among the Blondie picture disks and obscure progressive titles.

Thanks everyone for your feedback. We all have such stories to tell, inspired by people who touched are lives. Writing this, for me, is a way to keep his spirit and memory alive and present.

[patricia]

Beautiful. Thank you GG.
Many of us have dear friends from our past, usually highschool or college, with whom we have lost touch.
If your story helps prod us into touching base with them, before we have to say our final goodbyes to them, it will have done something valuable.
Thank you again Jason.

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

I'm honored, Tim. Absolutely.

Thanks, Jason....but you flatter me.

The honor is all mine, my friend.

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

I also wrote a one-act play a couple of years ago that slightly fictionalizes the above tale. It was such a powerful moment that I feel I could write something meaningful about it in just about any form.

And I would love to see that, as well.

You have the Gift of written expression....and I am truly grateful to be a very small part of it's fruition.

[Scott Dolan]

Haunting shit, GG.

Write more, my friend.

[Scott Dolan]

Please?

[Gentle Giant]

I'm overwhelmed by the response. The one-act play is too long to post, but I can email it if you're interested. I'm also 25,000 words/50 single-spaced pages into a novel based on the old English folk song Matty Groves (popularized by Fairport Convention). Having the time and energy to write creatively when you write professionally during the day and have an infant daughter and exhausted wife greeting you at the door at night is difficult, however.

[steve(thelil)]

High school friends are the best. Fantastic essay.


My long time and great high school friend jeff54 (who posts here) has been trying to spread my ashes for years now.

[Gentle Giant]

My friend Marc would have been 45 today. In his honor and memory, I'm drinking Jack Daniels (because he was a cheap bastard) and listening to Yes, Close To The Edge, because it includes a quote he used under his high school yearbook photo (even though he never graduated):

I crucified my hate and held the word within my hand.
There's you, the time, the logic, or the reasons we don't understand.

We didn't know exactly what it meant, either, but it was pure Marc.

Cheers, buddy.

[jazzy mary]

[QUOTE=GoodSpeak;600660]Wow, Jason.


In my Honors classes, we have been talking about the profound use of verbal expression in poetry as a mechanism through which an author may convey true emotional insight and how it ultimately values the human experience when we read it.


This essay you wrote accomplishes that feat with such honesty and a depth of feeling so rarely found in written form these days....I would love to allow my classes that same priveledge.

May I have your permission to share that piece with my students?




Please, Goodspeak, tell me those are typos in the word you wrote. You teach an honors course? What subject?

I don't mean to be mean...but I have to ask.

[jazzy mary]

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

Thanks, Jason....but you flatter me.

The honor is all mine, my friend.



And I would love to see that, as well.

You have the Gift of written expression....and I am truly grateful to be a very small part of it's fruition.

*its* fruition?? I really don't understand. Are you really an English teacher? I guess I'm derailing this thread and I'm sorry about that. But I am truly astonished.

[jazzy mary]

It is a well written story, GG. Although, the thought of being cremated makes me sick to my stomach. I've told my daughters that, under no circumstances, are they to cremate me! I guess I'm just too Catholic. The idea of being burned or vaporized (or whatever the heck they do) really freaks me out.

[cookie]

GG: very beautiful, man. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[hornplayer]

Thanks for sharing that, Jason, and for remembering your friend in such a special way.

It really calls to mind old friends I need to get in touch with. We never know when it will be too late.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by jazzy mary

It is a well written story, GG. Although, the thought of being cremated makes me sick to my stomach. I've told my daughters that, under no circumstances, are they to cremate me! I guess I'm just too Catholic. The idea of being burned or vaporized (or whatever the heck they do) really freaks me out.

It's not a particularly Jewish way out, either. I'm hip to the rationale people give for it, but when you think about it, it is kind of nasty. And holding a bag of your buddy is quite a strange experience.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by hornplayer

We never know when it will be too late.

That's the truth. And really, the Internet makes it so easy to find people. Whether through Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, or whatever, you figure your friends are plugged in same as you. And probably thinking they should get in touch with you as well.

Thanks again all for the kind comments.

[jeff54]

Great essay GG

Originally Posted by steve(thelil)

High school friends are the best. Fantastic essay.


My long time and great high school friend jeff54 (who posts here) has been trying to spread my ashes for years now.

It's more like brushing the ashes off my jeans because you didn't flick before passing.

High school friends are the best.

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

but when you think about it, it is kind of nasty.

No worse than rotting away in a hole in the ground, to my way of thinking.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by jesus marion joseph

No worse than rotting away in a hole in the ground, to my way of thinking.

Maggots, not matches.

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

Maggots, not matches.

Ha ha! Think of the maggots, man!