It was the end of the day, a day away from the end of Feb. 05. I was strolling home though the bitter cold and slush and sleet. Countless, colorful, rippled lights from street lamps, store fronts and automobiles zig zagged their way, slicing electrically through the veil of falling snow like lazy, crazy celestial lightning bolts, reflecting in the slick and, crystallizing into an all encompassing mass of spiny paradox and prickly oxy-morons. From Caprini’s hospital of last resort, I made my way home. My head was swimming in vast pools of what mortality may now mean as I struggled to make simple sense of out of one of life’s most definitive and final themes. Grappling with what good bye would really mean this time, I could feel his last breath and sense his last spark vanishing into thin air. I imagined standing in the path of the universe reclaiming his life’s energy and force. Eric’s death seemed moments away. I thought to my self while slogging the icy, bitter bluster that he might be dead before I reached my door step.
I had spent the last evening with Eric and some how still clung to the silly hope that this last agonizing bought would pass and he could beat the big C, at least for a little while longer, maybe make it to springs first flowers, just a month away. His colon was blocked and stones born from the chemo were killing his kidneys. He was drifting in and out of consciousnesses. The dope wasn’t working and his pain was stabbing its way through the Delauded. He managed some how to sit up in his bed. He turned to me slowly with his eyes deeply gazed .The depths of exhaustion from his second to second battle hung on this face like great slabs of dead flesh on brittle bones. With lids so heavy and eyes only half opened, he looked me in the eye and said “Mike, I don’t think that I can make my way though this any more”. I put my arm around him and assured him that he could. I told him that there were better moments around the corner. I told him that if he could get himself through this bit that we’d stroll out of this fucking place and grab a frank at Crif Dogs. Then I began to crumble. Tears came streaming and I began apologizing involuntarily. I could clearly hear myself telling him how sorry I was. Those being the last words that I would have chosen to express in front of him but, some how those words were coming out of my mouth inexplicably. My words and my thoughts were beyond my control. Suddenly he looked genuinely pissed off with me for the first time in our knowing each other. He fell slowly back on his pillow and demanded that I don’t punk out on him. His eyes seemed to clear for a brief moment as though he were unencumbered by his ailment. He raised his hand and pointed at me and said “You are magnificent! Don’t you ever forget that! His eyes slowly closed and he drifted off into a moaning half sleep. Those were the last real words that I ever heard him speak.
The next day began bitter but bright. Despite the gravity of the evening, little more than a few hours past, I was clinging to the false hopes of denial and thinking that I would see him after work and he would some how be in better shape. Out the door and off to work I went with these hopes holding me higher than reality would allow. A second after I had crossed St. Mark’s I heard my name. It was Bette calling me from the opened window of her car. I turned and ran to her. She told me that she was on her way to the hospital, Eric was crashing and, that he may already be dead. With tears in her eyes she sped off. There I was left standing in the middle of the street, dumb founded but, only to a small degree. Denial disintegrated and melted away from me like last evenings snow in the morning sun. The moment was more real than I wanted it to be but, then the moment never really gives a shit about what you want or what you feel. The moment is what the moment is no matter how you wish to cloak it. I reached in to my coat's pocket and took out my cell phone. I called the studio and explained why I wouldn’t be in. I about faced and actually made it to the hospital faster on foot than Bette and Peppy in their car.
I reached the front desk and told security for whom I was there to see. I was told that Eric was in rough shape and probably wouldn’t make it through the morning. The elevator seemed to raise me through different levels and layers of existance. It was almost as if I were drifting through illustrations of the evolution of man, the rise and fall of the roman empire, the birth of distant stars, My mind was strangely staging a surreal montage of Eric conducting with languid, graceful, drunken gesture, the most absurd and beautiful ballet beneath my balcony with a cast of thousands, hand picked by him from St. Mark’s bountiful ebb and flow, awash in youthful energy’s stellar glow. The elevator ride was moments made to feel like hours by the barrage of sound and images flashing through my head.
It’s strange how morning light bears its own indifferent serenity. It was pouring into Eric’s room though a wall of windows and painting so perfectly everything in its path. There dear Eric lay in his over bleached gown, fighting through his sleep and his stupor with all of his remaining core strength to draw his next breath. There was a clear plastic ventilator strapped to his face and upon each labored exhalation two puffs of steam emerged from each nostril making him look very much to me like an old dragon at the end of his road. As I stood over Eric I noticed that all of his pictures had been removed from the walls. Only my love for him and the gravity of the moments held at bay my infuriation for what I felt was the hospitals abject inpatients for his passing and, the freeing of his bed for the next sinking ship. I stroked what few strands of hair he had left on his head and kissed his forehead and heard myself say to him for the first time “Eric, Its gotten to were you didn’t want it to get to, you know its time to let go, its time to stop this suffering, you’ve been braver and more noble about this than anyone I’ve ever known, its ok to say good bye now, its all ok.” Waves of selfish grief crashed against my heart like meteorites tearing though new life forms on fledgling planets. I held his hand thinking that if in this moment he should pass, perhaps in that passing, my hand, my arm, my heart, my brain, my body might act as a conduit thus channeling his energy back into the universe and maybe, just maybe I could retain some residual signature of that energy, to combine that residual signature with my own energy and in so doing retain a tangible part of Eric Himself. Of course I know that all one needs to retain a tangible part of anyone past or, present is to reserve an honored place in your heart and mind for that loved one for as long as you draw breath, a place within the deepest bowels of your breadth where you with those loved ones will always effortlessly dwell. Perhaps it is that the heart is covetous by nature and some how feels the need to make the divine but ethereal more concrete, to be able to hold in ones hand what they may hold in their heart. Alas, we are all human, silly and simple, no more than the magic of sparks and carbon. But oh that magic that is love that, makes so often pain a more than fair price to pay.
Bette and Peppy entered the room, surprised to find me there ahead of them. Bette looked beautiful with the morning light setting silver shine in her thick wavy hair. Tears rolled down her cheeks but, could not break or diminish the warmth and love so apparent in her smile and her eyes. She reached down to hold his swollen hand and said “I’m here buddy”. The word “buddy” never seemed to mean so much to me as it did that instance when it left her lips. Those two simple syllables seemed to bind and define all of their years, their trials and tribulations, their triumphs and failures, their experiences and adventures, their separations and reunions, their meanings to each other, their ties though on different paths. A word that could be taken lightly in another context among different people was in that moment as perfect and profound as any word ever uttered. Eric lay gasping like Darth Vader with a Volks Wagon on his chest. His eyes were less than half opened. Despite his barely semi-conscious state, he writhed in what seemed to be a dreadful discomfort compounding his omipresent pain. His beds controls were broken so the bed could not be adjusted and Eric had slipped into an awkward position. For that, Bette fell into outrage, feeling that this was a form of mistreatment, which in fact, I guess it was. We got a nurse to help make Eric more comfortable and then the doctor came in.
The doctor was a tall dark man in fine but terribly mismatched clothing. As Bette would later, aptly describe him, more for his demeanor and pitch than his garb, as being a bit too similar to a used car salesmen. He brought me, Bette and Peppy into a small conference room at the end of the hall to present us with his recommended course of action. Among Bette, Peppy and myself there was great ambivalence. Eric was clearly in agony, an agony that he clearly expressed having no intention of residing within. Eric had been emphatic in the past about wanting to down a delightful lethal cocktail rather than hanging on through the torturous nether place that he knew his disease would become. At this point that hell was undeniably here but, Eric had also taken the position that for him, his life had now boiled down to love and pain and, that the love that he felt from all of those who had rallied around him was well worth it. Eric was a positive energy junky. All we really wanted to do was give that beautiful old doper the biggest fix we could, a consummate high fit for Kieth Richards to say goodbye, a smile that would take him from there to the end of time. The doctor expressed his possition that he was not in the business of helping people die especially if he felt that he could provide the opportunity of creating more quality time. The notion of quality time was a big hook. Eric had just been brightly lucid two days earlier. In all honesty I don’t think that it was solely our desire to give him extra time just for him, in truth we were Eric junkies as well and wanted to selfishly continue basking in his charm and magic. We wanted to hide from the end and the final goodbyes, the finishing of the story, the end of the saga, the end of his toothless smiles and devilish wit. I think in part, we wanted to take some refuge from what pains we knew would arise from the deprivation of his crazy silly soul. The doctor explained that the key problem at this point was that Eric’s kidneys had shut down and that if we but him on dialysis we might be able to give him another month or so. The notion of another month or so peppered with beautiful magic moments was an intoxicating but, ultimately selfish idea. What sea of searing pains would he have to swim in order to regive those gifts he’d already given? Bette asked me for my opinion on the dialysis. I told her that a month with more of those magic moments might well be worth it and also that if we gave it this last shot that we could go guiltlessly into our futures without forever wondering if we had pulled his plug to soon. This course would also give Eric, should he awake, an opportunity to put in his two most valuable cents as to how we should go from there. Peppy being the calmest and most level headed of we three, concurred. The doctor was given our go ahead. We went back to Eric’s room to collect his things.
Eric was moved from his room and brought to ICU were he would be put on dialysis. Exhaustion and hunger were over taking me and I left for a short time to grab a bite and 40 winks. When I returned to ICU Eric was no longer there. I asked the nurse at the desk what had happened and she told me that Eric had been moved to the hospice upstairs. Fear and dread and resignation to the fact that nothing else could be done to bring him back wrapped its self around my chest like a thorny corset. The moment was rolling toward the pins with no gutter, no rebound, no reset, and no concession. I stood shoulder to shoulder with those pins, watching the moment come thundering down the alley, gathering momentum and thundering force with all of the indifference and brutality that nature its self has always been guided by. I stood bye those pins now knowing that there would be no spare, or compromise. The formation would be holey laid to waste. There would be no pin left standing. No lucky combination. The strike was now inevitable. The game would soon be over and all hope for rematch was fleetingly gone as the truth would soon roll over all of us.
The elevator doors opened to friendly color and gentle light. I was taken back by the more humane air and the amusing paintings that were made by obviously well meaning armatures that festooned every wall. I made my way to a generously sized waiting room with a wall of windows over looking the east village, comfortable sofas and chairs, a kitchenette, big plants. It was a vastly different planet from what I’d known visiting Eric those past weeks just a few floors below. I made my way to Bette and she told me that as soon as Eric was put on dialysis he began to crash. The procedure was too great a shock to his fragile system and the staff in ICU immediately took him off of it sighting that it would have killed him in no time. Bette also told me that the ICU staff opined in so many words that the doctor was a shameless imbecile to have not considered this result due to Eric’s delicate state. It was now time for the hospice, the only truly civil place to spend his last impending hours. While I had been gone Bette went through Eric’s phone book and called every one she could, letting all parties concerned know that the end was now in hand. One by one friendly faces filed in, weeping gentle tears and telling wonderful stories, some spanning more than forty years. The room filled and love so enchantingly enveloped all within it.
Eric laid still but gently smiled in his morphine induced slumber. He was still breathing hard but, not seemingly bothered by it. The lights were dim and mellow as loving friends took their turns to bid fare well. They sat by his side and held his hand and revisit shared stories, adventures and events. I sat in the corner like a fly on the wall to absorb those moments of emotional display, to steal for myself the opportunity of witnessing so grand an out pouring of first hand adoration. I wondered if he could hear all of those precious things said, if he could feel the kisses and his hand being held and his forehead being softly stroked. Were these the reasons for his smile so serene or, was he peacefully adrift on velvet waves to what ever his heaven might be? I said my good byes but, not with such finality. I knew that I’d see him again soon. In his present state he could last hours or he could last days. I stayed till about nine that evening. I made my way home and pretty much cried myself to sleep.
I awoke shaken and wondering how much time was left. I got to the studio a little earlier than usual and packed up a casting kit; alginate, bandages, Vaseline etc… I gave Bette a call to check on Eric’s status. I only got through to her voice mail. I figured that she probably got home late and was catching up on some very well needed sleep. I made it to the end of the work day some how despite the wild distractions and head trippings, feeling the minutes tick past, lost thinking about the days before and dreading the days to come, I still some how, managed to get an honest days work done. I clocked out and with the kit in a bag over my shoulder and headed for the door. With my hand on the knob, I heard Elliot’s voice over the intercom alerting me that I had a phone call. I picked up and heard Bette’s voice. She had just gotten my message from the morning and told me that Eric had passed away. He died 8:30 in the morning, almost exactly the moment that I had finished packing the kit which was now over my shoulder. Of course it was a coincidence but, part of me almost felt that it was as if Eric was waiting for me to do what I said. She told me that there was going to be a get together in front of Eric’s building at six p.m.. She told me that Eric was already at the funeral parlor and that there was an issue with the funeral parlor not wanting to allow my making the cast. I told Bette not to worry and, that I would make this all work no matter what. I hung up the phone and headed out the door. I don’t quite know how to describe my feelings at that moment. On one hand I was devastated by the news and to a degree shocked maybe by the sudden finality, almost to the point of a woozy unsteadyness that made my legs feel rubbery but, on the other hand I could hardly say that I didn’t see it coming or, that I wasn’t relieved that his suffering was over. Then amidst the mixed emotions tumbling through my brain like boulders in a cement mixer, I began to focus on the task ahead of me, pulling a mold from the face of my now dead Eric. My emotional confusion was immediately replaced with a stoic brand of terror. I made this promise to too many people, I made this promise to Eric. There was no backing out, no crapping out, no room for excuses or, as Eric would put it, "punking out”. The task stood in front of me like a wall of flames. I didn’t know what parts of me might be consumed or destroyed. I knew that going through this would change me in ways forever, just as Eric’s passing had already changed me in ways forever. Letting down the trusting parties was not an option in any way shape or form. If I didn’t do this, the opportunity would be lost forever. That wasn’t an option either.
I got back to St. Marks, bought some flowers at the market, crossed the street and, made my way up the block to Eric’s front door. People were already gathering. There were pictures and flowers and candles. The air was cold but, the vibe could not have been warmer. Eric would have loved it. I approached Bette and Peppy. Peppy shook my hand firmly while holding a ceremonial drum in the other. Bet gave me a kiss and a hug and began to immediately explain that the cast might not happen as the funeral home wasn’t comfortable with the idea and nearing it's closing time. I asked Bette for the phone number of the funeral home and told her not to worry. I called them as she gave me the number. I explained to the director of the home that I needed to do this in order to carry out the deceased’s last wishes and that it would only take an hour. He told me in that case that it had to be done as soon as possible. I told him that I was in the process of jumping into a cab as we spoke. Bette smiled sweetly and stroked my cheek. I told her that I’d be back soon. I left the crowd of mourners to Eric’s first memorial. I was now on my way to my own private memorial for Eric, one that would give birth to an object more powerful than I could then foresee. As I made my way in the back seat of the taxi, trepidation was taken over by determination and my sense of obligation to all those who were waiting to see the product of my promise. I sat back, trying to save my energy and strength, to take a moment and breath. As the cab made its way up fourteenth st. I kept my eyes open for the address, trying to relax a bit before the emotional earth quake I was about to confront.
The cab pulled over and I got out and, strode wrapped in the illusion of confidence through the mortuaries front entrance. I was greeted by the doorman to whom I explained why I was there. He told me that they were expecting me and asked me to take a seat and wait for the director. As I sat there I could feel my heart pounding but some how found a way to keep my cool. The director came in and shook my hand and placed his other hand on my shoulder. Very few words were exchanged. There was no need to explain. He already knew why I was there. He led me down a hall then through a door to what he called the holding room. It was a fairly large room by NYC standards, maybe 200 square feet. It was wood paneled half way up its walls and nicely carpeted. There wasn’t much in it, a casket, a kneeling alter, and a large card board box on a gurney. The director reached into his pocket and took out a small utility knife and cut through the tape that held the box shut. I was stuck by how unceremonious this all seemed but, guessed that this was how most people were delivered from the hospital. He pulled back the boxes flaps and unzipped the white plastic bag inside and there was Eric. Bald and old and toothless and ravaged by cancer, raped and ripped by the fiercest torments of agonies that the physically fit could never fathom. There he lay, strangely as beautiful as any of nature’s greatest triumphs. His head was turned slightly to the side. His eyes where still half opened as if lost in a wonderful doped up day dream. His smile was as serene and sublime as the best Buda had ever offered with more than a dollop of underlying subversion and mischief which of course was what Eric was largely about. Around his neck he wore two braided string necklaces, one blue, and one red. These some how lent Eric an air of child like innocents. The notion of the necklaces made a smile break out across my face as I drifted for a moment into all of the chats that we had about the power of the energy of youth and about how the future was secure because the kids are alright. My smile was also born of the oxy-moron. Of all the words to describe this worldly scallywag, innocents would wait soundly slumbering at the opposite end of the thesuaral spectrum. The director asked me what I would need beyond the kit I had brought with me. I told him that I would need access to running water and some kind of covering in order to protect the carpet. He told me that there was a rest room through the next door down the hall. He gave me a disposable casket cover to tarp the floor. I asked him if it would be better for me to do this in the room were they prepare the bodies and he told me that there was already a body in there and that Eric couldn’t be move because another funeral was now in progress. I thanked him. He turned and left the room. The door shut behind him.
There we were, Eric and I. For the very last time I would spend with this dear, dear friend. I stoked his cheek and kissed his forehead and told him that this would be beautiful. I told him it wouldn’t take very long and that I promised not to fuck it up. I knelt down beside his box to unpack the kit and started to cry out loud. My heart was pounding like a Koto drum. I could feel the stress spreading across my chest and shoulders. I could feel the tension traveling down my arms and tingle in my finger tips. My eyes were swelling shut as tears were splashing onto the inside of my glasses. I could feel the weight and motion of those tears dangling from the bottom edges of my lenses and see the splintered light and reflections dancing within them but, I didn’t skip a beat or loose my rhythm. I was determined to run this as if it were just another casting, to not let the torrent of tears and tidal waves of emotion stand in the way of professionalism or methodology. I rose from the unpacked kit, took off my glasses to shake the tears from them, wiped my eyes on my forearm and, went to get a pail of water. When I returned I stood over Eric and noticed that there was dried mucus around his nose and mouth. At first I was dismayed that the hospital would let him be delivered in such a state but, quickly realized that hospitals only do what they have to and that preparing a body is somebody else’s business. I cleaned him up while explaining to him what I was doing and what the steps of the process would be as if he were alive and could hear me. Then I shut his eyes. They closed so easily. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and to my amazement, when shut, they seamed to rise in the corners just like his smile. As his closed eyes smiled back at me, I marveled at how a fluke of geometry can mirror the essence of ones soul. I asked his permission to turn his head because I couldn’t get to his left ear in his current position and could almost hear him say “Mike, my good friend, my head is in your hands.” I reached into the box and placed my hands on either side of his head. With the heels of my hands at his jaw, my thumbs on his cheek bones, his ears between my fore and middle fingers and my pinky and ring fingers at the sides of his neck, I tried to move his head but it didn’t budge. This was my first encounter with rigamortice since elementary school biology. A fetal pig’s leg as it turns out is considerably less resistant than the head and neck of a human being. I said “Eric, man, your not making this any easier for me are you?” He said “come on you mighty beast, give it a little horse power” I took deep breath and applied lateral force incrementally. My arms were starting to shake. I didn’t know if I could do it. I broke out in a soaking sweat and felt waves of nausea and tears sweep over me. I was twisted with the gut wrenching fear that I was going to break his neck. My head swam backward to a time when I broke a mans nose in a fight and could feel the bones crackle and collapse beneath my knuckles. I could taste vomit in the back of my throat as tears began spilling from my eyes, landing on his chest and soaking into his faded hospital gown. I had visions of his vertebra shattering. I had visions of his head coming off in my hands. I was a fraction of a second away from giving up and then I heard him say “Come on you big pussy cat, we’re almost there. You can do it Mike. I’m not going to break. You’re the man.” I gulped another deep breath, applied more force and suddenly his head was free and moved with the silken smoothness of a well greased ball bearing. I was drenched as if I had just run a marathon and my knees were seriously weak. I may have fallen over if I weren’t hanging on so tightly to his head. I straightened myself up and breathed for the first time in what felt like ages. I could hear him say “That wasn’t so bad was it?” I replied in a very loving tone “Eric, fuck you.” I laughed out loud and he just kept on smiling that beautiful smile of his. The hardest part was over. I untied his string necklaces and placed then on his chest. I rolled a towel in a plastic bag and placed it behind his head to act as a catch or, dam. I mixed the alginate and started the mold. It seemed as if I were done in no time. I cleaned up my mess and I cleaned up Eric and put his necklaces back on him. I placed the mold, packed in wet paper towel, back into the same plastic bag that I had brought the kit in. With my hand on his chest, above his still heart, I gave him a last kiss and bid him his final farewell knowing I was the last person to ever spend time with him. I zipped closed the bag and shut the cardboard box and let my self out of the building as if I had never been there. As I hit the street the air felt crisp and welcoming in my lungs. The first taxi I hailed stopped for me and I was back on St. Marks before I knew it. With the mold of Eric’s head still in the bag beneath my arm, I entered Dojo’s to have a drink with Bette and Peppy and who ever else was still there from the memorial. I had a few drinks but, barely spoke of what had just transpired. I said my goodnights and made my way home. I walked in through my door and found that my sister Alisa had left hot soup on my stove and a box of Kleenex on my coffee table waiting for me, a lovely gesture of comfort and condolence. Contrary to my exhausted state, I only found sleep in fleeting winks. This had been as tough and trying a day as ever I had known.
I got to the studio the following morning and before doing anything, I slushed Eric’s mold and let the plaster set till lunch. During lunch I took the mold apart. The bandage pretty much fell off and as I tore the alginate away, Eric emerged perfect to every pore, hairs captured from his brow, scalp and chin made the cast even more real, even closer to life, an impression laced with life’s signature and DNA. There held in my hands his amazing likeness with nostrils so deep it seemed as if he could still draw breath. There in my hands, Eric as last seen on earth, as relevant in that instant as it would be till the end of time. Honest and unembellished, telling tale of his life and death, spirit and soul, serenity and struggle within every parameter of its surfaces. There in my hands, in cool plaster, he smiled back at me with his mouth and his eyes, that miracle of geometry that I had said good bye to only hours before. I could feel the hairs standing on my forearms and back of my neck as tears revisited me, catapulting me back through every moment that had led to my holding this incredible hallowed object in my hands. I stood there, gazing into Eric and saw my life’s events like so many dominos in a linier cascade of precise sequence. To have removed or repositioned a single domino would have authored an entirely divergent path, one in which I may have never known Eric or one in which I would have never come to the studio that would teach me how to do this thing. A different life, a different everything would have been the only possible result. I could hear deeply in my head the strange song of those crashing and clacking dominos, singing differently than any song that had ever quite been, full of tangents and strange timing and horns and strings, full of percussion and coral interludes, of rests and rolls, crescendos and syncopations only half written and unique to only me. For the first time I had a notion of the gravity and importance of what I had actually accomplished. There in my hands, I held this thing made in little more than an hour or two that was more poignant and profound than anything that I had ever created in half a million hours of practicing my crafts. In the days that followed I spent a few hours, here and there reinforcing the cast and welding together a simple stand. That Friday I presented the cast to Bette for the first time.
I arrived at Bette’s loft late Friday afternoon still covered in plaster and welding soil, carrying a black back pack that contained Eric’s head wrapped in towels. She kissed my cheek and welcomed me in. She was filming Bonnie recalling Eric’s last days. She sat me down on the sofa next to Bonnie and resumed letting the camera roll. From behind the camera Bet asked me to tell the tale. As I did, I began to cry but, through my tears I continued without stopping just as I did though the making of Eric’s mold. As I neared the end of my story I unzipped my back pack and pulled Eric’s cast from it. Bette and Bonnie were immediately moved to tears. So powerful was its presences.
The Sunday that followed, Bet held a dinner for Eric’s oldest friends, many people who had known him since the mid 1960’s. As I walked through the door I could immediately hear ancient tales of shared exploits and recollections of grand adventures being told by those old friends. I was among the youngest there. My having created the cast had gained me special admittance to this sacred event. I set Eric’s bust on its stand at the head of the dining table and the room quickly quieted as Eric’s presence commanded focus and attention from all there in attendance. As the evening ambled forward with so much lovely conversation, I watched those interactions with the plaster, the tears and the smiles and the loving expressions. Not from all, though certainly from many, gazes that only could be defined as a truest adoration. I watched peoples expression change to amazement as they realized that the bust had a few of Eric’s whiskers captured from his chin and, several arrant hairs on the top of his head. It wasn’t just a likeness of Eric. Eric is in it and coming out of it at the same time. I watched as hands slowly hovered like butterflies, an inch or two over it, to touch those hairs sprouting. I saw many people kiss that plaster. To see what this thing meant to so many was utterly heart melting. In so many ways it was almost as if Eric was there enjoying the evening with all those who had gathered. It was almost as if he was smiling for that express purpose. That smiling face was so reassuring, as his had always been, there for every one to see again, when most thought they never would. There volleying reminiscences and recollections across the dining table with Eric at its head was such a treat for everyone. I was proud and honored to give this gift with Eric’s help or, maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, no one there was left undeeply touched as Eric’s likeness reaches beyond death its self. In that evening the meanings of sculpture from the beginning of time redefined it’s self within me. I remembered a quote from Michelangelo in which he defended his carving of Lorenzo De Medici for not truly resembling the subject. Michelangelo declared “What will it matter in one thousand years time what this man looked like”. I know that dear Buonarroti was addressing what he felt was the greater significance of portraying the spirit rather than creating an accurate likeness which for him would have been a less expressive and/or challenging task but, in the end we are left only with the artist’s poetry. Lorenzo's likeness in truth has been lost. Eric’s likeness writes its own poetry beyond any artist’s gifts and for those who knew him first hand, time and space are transcended beyond any of talents contrivances or inventions, no matter how great or nobel. In my opinion nature is the greatest designer. The phenomenon of Eric’s existence was among the finest examples from that source. Within this incredible object there is nature showing more evidence of sweetly sublime character in perfect three dimension than mere intelligence and skill could ever really match or, convey. Even in death Eric continues to be a creative catalyst. In that we continue to give each other gift and tribute. Thanks a trillion Mr. Krupnick, rest assured, the kid’s are alright.
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