by Herbert Gold
When Death comes to claim me, scythe in hand, in his European white sheet drag or the black formal suit of Baron Samedi, the voodoo Guardian of the Cemetery, I'd like to roll back on my heels in the official stage gesture of surprise and hope the scythe does its work swiftly. The downside of that instant would be that I couldn't celebrate my farewell with Ethan, asking him to sing once again his country rock song from age nine (“My baby done left me, /So I went downstairs and ate some fried chicken”); couldn't tell Ari what bliss it was when he took charge of rationally organizing my beatnik pad; would be unable to remind Ann of how I fell with tears and relief into her arms in Israel after Melissa decided she needed to start life over without me; couldn't remind Judy of the time when she climbed onto an empty pedestal in a park in Cleveland and enacted a conquering four-year-old hero for Sid and me; wouldn't be able to repeat Nina's imitation of a cable car stalled on Russian Hill, backing up, making a running start. I'd prefer not to go swiftly if all these matters would remain undone. They probably will be.
Ethan, remember when we passed a rotting heap of vegetation and you said, “Dad? Make you homesick for Haiti?”
It's pleasant to think of immortality, or at least to be recalled sometimes with love. I remember my old friends Francis Xavier, Victor, Harold, also those whom I cared for or disliked, in their good and bad times, their youth and age. In return, I want to be remembered, too. It's a version of heaven and hell, which some believe in. But like most of us, I suspect that when I'm gone, really and truly gone, I may be melted into air, into thin air.
