Michael Lebowitz remembers a friend with dignity, respect, honour and honesty.
She is not young anymore. One gets the impression that even when she was young she was not youthful, given to enthusiasm and giggling. The office politics of her place of work were more and more like her dining room table in her childhood home. There was yelling but far worse was the subterfuge, the jockeying for position, grant money and office windows, trips to Germany and other such – this was bloodsport and damn near killed her.
She took up a lover. He showed up nightly in a liter sized, soon to be gallon sized bottle of cheap red. He stayed nearly all night. The days passed into night, the years slid by, a parade of tears and silence, ending in the grey uncertainty of the next dawn.
That morning she talked about how sometimes the thought of taking herself out came back to her. How odd, how final the phrase sounded coming from this quiet mouse of woman. She wasn’t built that way of course, she said. But she thought she understood it. There were scarves to knit and cakes to bake, everyone has something don’t they? Still, there is longing and fear, a bravado that belongs mostly to those who have fallen off the map. Her hands fly with surgical skill, the tapestries of her day emerge. She speaks slowly today, with what might even be amusement, at the thought of other people doing themselves in. As if. She asks one of the local musicians in the room if he has ever recorded an album he often jokes about, Songs to Hang Myself By. I’m working on it, he says, his voice getting lost in the uncomfortable laughter that starts and trails away. Almost as if it is only a matter of time, he seems to be saying.
This exchange came back to me earlier today when it became clear that it had been only a matter of time.
RIP JP Scofield
Photo Credits
Photos By Michael Lebowitz – All Rights Reserved
JP in high school at the 10:36 minute mark: http://vimeo.com/4441331
beautiful smile wrapped in sadness. Thank you for sharing this.
I can see the sadness in his smile. It was almost always there. I like to think he was happy and having fun at times. He did not report that as the truth. I can not express how great his value was to me. I believe he is better now and I am honestly glad for him. (not for me)
JP was like my dad. I would always tell him that he was like my step dad and he would smile. Everyday our relationship would expand to new reaches. One day he was more like a brother, one day he was more like a dad, everyday he was always going to be my friend. He was never my enemy. JP came to my house to drop me off to school the day he died, he dropped me off at school and he said his last words to me, “See you tomorrow.” I don’t think JP wanted to kill himself that day, I don’t think that he ever thought that he was going to die that day. I think he thought it was a regular day. I miss him so much and I am happy I got to know him for over half my life. I am though sad that I am not going to have my father figure though. If I had one more day with him. We would go to my house, watch some reality tv with him like we always did, go to dairy queen and get a whole bunch of fry sauce, play music with him, then we would probably lie on the couch and talk about our feelings and our day. RIP JP<3 I love you more then words itself.
Thank you Daisy. I’m glad you got to know him and that you remember him with love and kindness. he deserved all that and more.
An hour after I heard about JP, I was at a men’s meeting and I heard a complete stranger speaking similar thoughts. Afterward I introduced myself and startled him with my blunt thoughts. It makes me wonder why I was never able to be as honest with JP as he was with me.
JP’s death aroused strong deep emotions in me, and my first thought on reading this was that it had crossed some line to being too self-consciously literary for the subject matter. That’s the offspring of two English professors reaching automatically for the red pencil when something makes her uncomfortable. Then again, maybe there was a reason in the larger scheme of things for the discomfort, for it pointed me in the direction of this website as an outlet for my own output of essays on social issues. I am a firm believer in synchronicity.
There is always that risk…too literary-too distanced-too sentimental-too self conscious-I’m glad you read it Martha. it was a moment that spoke to me a long while ago, and, as I mentioned, more recently.Underlying it for me is that as much as we think we know of others, we mostly don’t know…having said that,red pencils are certainly anyone’s prerogative…most writers will tell you that they write for themselves…I certainly do. JP and I were not that close so i wrote what worked for me…his passing had a more profound effect on you and many others and I am conscious of that now as I was when I wrote…this is only mine, not definitive in any way and in fact Ithinkthat the facebook note maybe closer to it for me.
Perfect tribute. Odd how loss so often brings forth eloquence.
Thank you, Michael. I get why you used the picture.
Shelia S
I figure…he was the leader of the band—this was taken at Stevies memorial
Thanks for this, Michael. Can’t help but wish we could have held him here.
You are not alone with that…
May your friend find serenity now.
Thank you for honouring her so well.
Again, I enjoy your writing. Though I don’t understand
why you’ve used the photograph you did here.
Robin,
My way of getting at things can sometimes can be oblique-it was her comment that made the whole idea of suicide so striking, so incongruent-a harsh reality for him addressed in a quiet throwaway…as if hearing a nun swearing in church. He died a couple of days ago. she probably doesn’t remember saying it. It froze me to my chair and it stayed with me for days…it seemed like the right way for me to write my way through my reaction to the news.
I do remember the comment, or at least others like it, and I think you misunderstand if you call it a “throwaway.” Comments like that come from a pretty dark place in my psyche and I was closer to the edge JP fell off of than you realize. I think he understood that. Just because nuns don’t usually swear in church doesn’t mean they don’t have plenty to swear about.
exactly Martha…and It struck me that while “thrownaway”, delivered without drama, it was totally startling to me, revealing in a general way,:not knowing you very well, it stuck with me. And I’m sure JP knew that about you. I didn’t.
Thank you, all, for taking the time to
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