I don’t believe in Paradise.
I do believe in Address Books.

Time of Departure

ideon died first. Locked in the room with jumpstart heart-shockers, unsuccessful—a pretty gifted dark kid who’d always been only lucky (till this), a boy whose new cashmere sweater was often a green as sweetly acid as the colors in his pictures. He assumed that he alone would somehow be saved, by friends with connections, saved because of all his genuine unrealized promise.

At his funeral, twenty mourners held on to each other. Angie, determined to push Marco’s wheelchair, kept bumping into drainage slots and tombs, half-blind from our week’s crying.

Gideon had had the goods but often used them up, on splendid times. He maybe figured he could finally “apply himself,” could become fully superb when he was old and homely, and getting no better offers. (Who on earth can blame him?)

It pained me, his being buried here, in such a cut-rate sort of Jewish cemetery in far Queens. The boneyard rested, pummeled by screams, direct on the flight path of La Guardia Airport. We tried saying our goodbyes out here; the few of us gathered were little aided by a dwarf-sized rental rabbi who had never known our friend. We screamed, “Gideon liked … Gideon could always …” beneath the howl of jets that swooped so low we might jump up and nearly touch metal. Gigantic silver planes (so close you could count their undersides’ rivets) swept over this squat ghetto, gray stones somehow urban. We, already stooped by mourning, we ducked even further. Jet noise seemed a new part of the diaspora’s old humiliation.

Here lies a beautiful boy who painted boats and houses, who, though forever broke himself, still managed to give his nephews refurbished forest-green Volvos to take to Tufts. Here lies a boy who caused the world to fall in love with him, and who allowed us to forgive him for never quite solely loving us back enough, for never playing at work quite hard enough at work. He had other gifts and he gave all those away, with a generosity that shamed the smallmindedness of his fond, loan-holding survivors.

I tried, the day Gideon died, to get his obituary into the Times. I found I would pull all sorts of backdoor tricks for friends, especially sick friends—tricks I’d never once considered for myself. I was told that the paper’s art editor must approve the listing of any dead artist. The obit editor explained, “I’m afraid I never heard of him myself. We only have room for major painters. Your friend, what was his name again? Yes, nice name. I’m sure a fine person but didn’t have significant New York representation. A Boston artist mostly. No important museums. Just not well known enough for us. But I can give you the extension for the notices.”

“Do, please. Now, the Notices? Because all this is new to me.”

“Yes, the paid-for obits. ‘The shorts.’ You ready to copy?”