And all your money won’t another minute buy

Pebble Beach, California, overlooking the most famous golf hole in the world. I’m sitting on the second floor of Club XIX. I’m nursing a Jack Daniels, eating beer nuts and wondering where the pebbles are. A seagull frets up and down the railing, eyeing my munchies. The sun will set in an hour and thirteen minutes.

I’ve carefully timed the last four foursomes. It takes twenty-one minutes, give or take three minutes, for a foursome to complete the eighteenth hole. There are some low fences and threatening-looking signs around the hole, but all the guards are on the other side of the hotel. No visible security to speak of.

My plan will succeed.

I have researched carefully the means of disposition of ashes after cremation. Although cremated human remains are typically ground to a fine consistency, the ash is particulate. Human ash is the color of bone; it consists primarily of small bone fragments. It is heavier than air, and thus it will not dissipate into the air if tossed. I have been warned specifically of this in advance, and I have accounted for it in my plan.

The guys in the foursome — well-dressed, male, middle-aged, clearly on corporate juice — pat each other on the back. I present a low-wattage smile to them, step over the fence and stride nonchalantly to the thick old tree on the fairway of the eighteenth hole. The tree is ringed by a small, hard border of compact yellow sandstone.

I pull the jar from my jacket pocket. I open it and hold it reverently. “Thanks, Papa,” I say, and I spread a tablespoon of ash onto the ground beneath me —

I look down. Now there is a light, but visible, smudge of white ash on the border of the sandstone.

If I spread all of Papa’s ashes where I stand, I’m going to make a mess. I close the jar.

I look down the course. Another foursome is about a hundred yards away and looking at me curiously.

Plan B.

The ocean. The ashes go into the ocean.

I walk to the ocean’s edge. The sky is steel gray, overcast, with hints of green and red sunset asserting themselves. I hear a golf ball bounce somewhere behind my head.

I open the jar and hold it reverently. “Thanks, Papa,” I say. I rear back and fling the contents toward the water, as hard as I can —

And the ash explodes into a great white dragon fireball! It jumps into the wind above me and rolls majestically down the course!

Well.

As I walk off the course I stop to fill the empty jar with sand from one of the sand traps. I have no idea why I do this, but it seems necessary. There are no pebbles at Pebble Beach. I went back to the car and cried a little. Los Angeles is only two hundred miles away. Hell, I can make it there tonight.

I can’t remember anything, can’t tell if this is true or dream

Hi! Thanks for reading my Craigslist personals ad. It makes me happy, that you are reading it, right now.

I am 6’3″, well-built, hazel eyes. What I am looking for is a woman. Basically, any woman will do, but ideally I am looking for a woman who also happens to be female. In principle she should also have been female all her life. But that is negotiable. I will understand if that is not the case with you. And I will support you in this.

I love long walks on the beach. I will appreciate and love you for who you really are. Even if you are a tad overweight.

Forgive me. I beg of you, my dearest, my most beautiful woman, do forgive me. I did not mean to imply that you were a blubber butt. Your butt is quite fine indeed. And I love you, for your butt, among other things.

Actually, it was a lie to say that I am well-built. In truth, I have no appendages. I lost them all in a high-stakes game of canasta. If I grow to trust you, I will tell you all about it. But we will not speak of it until then.

The part about me being 6’3″ was a lie as well. Actually, without my appendages I am 3’6″. But what does size matter? Nothing, if love is truly present in a relationship.

I have constructed a motorized device that permits me to navigate the beach without exerting myself unduly. The device consists of pneumatic drive units, including air-enabled crutches, that permit me to move with extraordinary efficiency, at speeds up to forty miles per hour.

I am typing this entirely with my tongue. I have a special keyboard that is coated entirely with Saran Wrap. I will never require you to clean this keyboard for me. I have people to do that.

However! My reproductive organs are highly functional. I have tested them thoroughly and am assured of their quality. You may be convinced that my reproductive organs are in great shape and will work as expected, when you need them to, where you need them to.

Ideally, you are a short woman. We will look better in photos if you are no more than 3’4″. But if you are a tall woman, I will understand and accept your freakish height, with unconditional love.

I collect dead spiders and keep them in jars in my closet. Hopefully you will not mind that. The spiders are dead. They will not bother anybody. Least of all you… my dearest.

You are the right woman for me. And you know that I know that you know that you are the right woman for me.

I require periodic turning to alleviate these festering bedsores. And my soul is yours, for the asking.

—

In related news, johnbyrd.org just passed 25,000 visits. Thanks, Mom!

And sometimes when it’s breezy I feel a little sneezy

Another funeral, today, for Justin Weiss. The room was full of friends and students. First funeral I’ve ever attended in which people laughed.

Sandy prepared a shrine for Justin: a five-card straight flush, several New York Times crosswords done in pen, golf clubs, a Jack Daniels gift box, a folded American flag.

They gave me a clear plastic jar with a red screw top. Inside that jar is the most valuable thing ever to enter my possession.

Now, I have a delivery to make.

But first, tomorrow, we catch a plane back to San Francisco.

I close my eyes only for a moment and the moment’s gone

Marcus Aurelius, old dead guy: “Lucilla saw Verus die, and then Lucilla died. Secunda saw Maximus die, and then Secunda died. Epitynchanus saw Diotimus die, and Epitynchanus died. Antoninus saw Faustina die, and then Antoninus died. Such is everything. Celer saw Hadrian die, and then Celer died. And those sharp-witted men, either seers or men inflated with pride, where are they? For instance the sharp-witted men, Charax and Demetrius the Platonist and Eudaemon, and any one else like them. All ephemeral, dead long ago. Some indeed have not been remembered even for a short time, and others have become the heroes of fables, and again others have disappeared even from fables. Remember this then, that this little compound, thyself, must either be dissolved, or thy poor breath must be extinguished, or be removed and placed elsewhere. […] Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.”

At five p.m. today the wife called and told me that Dr. Justin Weiss was gone. The family was all there, in room 2222. During my vigil, Papa’s brows were knotted through the wee hours into the morning light, but today his white face was smooth and calm. Sandy passed around shots of Maker’s Mark and joshed with us. I understood; it was what he would have wanted. The family talked and cried and laughed and talked. I touched his hand and his forehead and wished him a good journey to whatever hereafter is his destiny.

Both of my wife’s grandfathers died within the same week.

We don’t have to resort to souls to exist beyond death. Those who have died influence the living through our collective memories. We remember what they said and wrote and did, and those memories influence our current life choices. We read the completed lives of the dead, and we, the living, grow and change. Memory is life.

These are the essences of immortality and of souls, as I perceive them.

So here, then, is the continued life that I grant Papa:

From Papa I learned to take personal embarrassment as a source of amusement. From him I learned that poker is a good way to kill time with other men. From him I learned that it is OK to go to a shrink even if you are mentally healthy.

From Papa I learned that it is best to e-mail dirty jokes to as many people as possible.

From Papa I learned that your relationship with your parents determines much of your psychosocial lot in life. From Papa I learned that alcohol can be fun. From Papa I learned not to brag about academic accomplishments, and to be on good terms with as many people as possible, and to live a life of indulgence to the greater purpose of joy and not to self-destruction.

Hearts unfold like flowers before thee, opening to the sun above

Today, we’re back in San Francisco. But a week ago, we went to the hospital to visit Irving Kalikow, ninety-three, inventor and designer for General Electric, numerous patents to his name, the other grandfather to my wife. He survived open-heart surgery by Dr. Vlahakes, chief of cardiac care at Mass General Hospital. Unfortunately, he had a series of minor strokes during the surgery. Some time ago, Nurn purchased a Radio Shack CD sound system for Grandpa Irving. The familiar strains of Ode to Joy gently resonated through the hospital room as we entered.

Irving’s eyes saw me, and his eyes brightened. His face had color, but every word was an effort. “Oh, you! I must tell you — Dan has told me that you created this beautiful music — that you wrote it — and I’ve been listening to it — listening to it all morning long — and it has given me such pleasure — all your beautiful music! I didn’t know — didn?t know that you had such skill! I didn’t know all the music — the music — that you had written!”

All the eyes of his family turned and looked at me.

I said: “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Word came to us this morning. I reserved the red-eye tomorrow night, San Francisco back to Boston. Irving Kalikow has died. He was a good engineer and a great lover of classical music.

There will come a day and youth will pass away, what will they say about me?

We?re here at the Jewish Rehabilitation Center for the Aged to visit with Grammy Rose. She?s somewhere on Level Two and we have to go visit her. With me are: my wife, my wife’s father, my wife’s mother, and my wife?s sister. Basically, all the wife family that exists, is with me, right now. Keep that in mind.

We pass to the elevator as a roomful of wheelchair-bound folks nod and burble to a piano rendition of “Bye Bye Blackbird.” A pair of double doors is secured with an electronic keypad. We’ve arrived at Level Two. Level Two is for those folks who present some sort of danger to themselves, or to others. Each person in Level Two is fitted with an ankle bracelet that locks the doors tight anytime a Level Two comes within ten feet of the door.

The wife’s mother punches an access code, and the double doors swing open.

Behind the doors is a teeny little old woman in a white shawl and sweater, bowl-cut white hair, eyes wide, grinning placidly. She has a bracelet on her ankle, but it’s not Grammy.

“Who’s that?” I ask Amanda.

“Don’t know,” she says.

The wife’s father, the wife’s mother, the wife’s sister and the wife all walk through the double doors, and pass by the teeny little old woman. The teeny little old woman ignores them. I enter last. As I do so, the teeny little woman smiles deeply at me.

I freeze.

The teeny little old woman reaches way way up and places her hand on my face. She beams.

The wife, the wife’s father, the wife’s mother, and the wife?s sister all turn and stare at us.

The teeny little old woman says brightly, “I want you to get in bed with me!”

At this point, comedy breaks out.

I need someone to love me the whole day through

Justin Weiss, born April 6, 1922, the son of an immigrant, graduated from Rutgers in 1942, half a semester early. He test-flighted two-engine fighters during World War II; he was the engineering service officer for about two hundred fifty men. He recounted this ostensible war story during this 1994 interview:

“Oh, I was a great pilot. One day while we were waiting to leave Europe in the staging area near France as I said, a friend of mine, a non-flying officer, said, a colleague of mine, “Hey! Let’s take up one of these planes and go visit this friend of mine down in Orleans.” And so I said, “Sure,” because I’d been flying these anyway. So we took off and I was such a sharp pilot that I didn’t have an aircraft map. I had a road map. [laughter] But I knew where it was, you know. So we got down there and discovered there wasn’t an airfield there. [laughter] So I saw this softball field, and I said, “Well, we can set down here.” So we set down and ran out of field before I ran out of speed. [laughter] Crossed the road, wound up in a ditch, and we were standing on our nose. The propeller broke and some other damage. I got the plane down, and so we had no choice, but to spend the night … in the place where these ordnance troops lived while the ordnance mechanics, I went to Paris in a jeep and got parts, and they fixed the airplane under my direction. And then, as we were preparing to leave the next morning in this little plane, we had to spin the prop. We didn’t have an electric starter, and he was spinning and it wouldn’t go, and I said, ‘You sit in the cockpit and I’ll spin.’ And I gave it a good spin and the next thing I know I see my watch on the ground. The prop had kicked back and just hit me right there.” [Could it have taken off your arm?] “Yeah, it could have. I was sure I had a broken wrist so it was back to Paris again, by jeep this time, for medical attention. And so I come back, and I take off, no airfield. I take off down the highway, one arm in a sling. It wasn’t broken, but it was badly swollen and hurt. … What seemed like hundreds of guys cheering me off as I jumped off the ground over some wires and took off. [laughter] That was the closest I came to a combat mission. But no, as you see, I had an easy time in the service.”

After night classes at Columbia, he did a brief stint at Yale Medical School in the clinical psychology department, taught clinical psychology in Harvard’s doctoral program, and went on to run that program for Harvard. Dr. Justin Weiss was the chief psychologist for Harvard’s doctoral psychology program until he resigned in 1982.

Dr. Justin Weiss, devilish, lovable, egoless, atheist, cigar smoker. He enjoys his weekly poker sessions at the Harvard Club: “probability seminars,” as he puts them. When I moved in with Mandy several years ago, he called me and said: “I want to tell you how shocked! Shocked! I am that you are living in sin with my granddaughter!” And he immediately changed tone. “And are you having fun?”

A year ago I told him: “When I grow up, I want to be you.”  He laughed and said, “Me too.”

Dr. Justin Weiss is the father of my mother-in-law. A week ago in Florida, he collapsed as he was going out to get the mail. His son, also a Harvard doc, flew Dr. Weiss by air ambulance to Massachusetts General Hospital. Lung cancer, liver cancer, affecting his brain, spreading fast. All the family members, gathered around his bedside here tonight, as the presiding white-haired doc says: “It’s an honor to work on his case. We can definitely make his remaining time as pain-free as possible.”

At the top of what is probably the best hospital on the East Coast. All the other floors in this hospital are your typical tile and anonymous white walls, but the top floor is special. There is wood paneling everywhere. This floor in this tower of this hospital is called Phillips House. Sharp-eyed, well-spoken RNs check into this room punctually on the hour. The waiting room contains a beautiful wood cabinet filled with antique china. The couch pulls out into a sofa bed. And the cool midnight lights of the Boston cityscape twinkle and beckon, tracing delicate brushstrokes across the river Charles.

The twenty-second floor is where the best-connected in Boston get well or die.

I drew watch tonight. It’s one a.m. now. He does not speak. I am not sure if he sees me or knows who I am. As I write this, Dr. Justin Weiss’s hands fidget endlessly over a small brown Beanie Baby tiger. I have found that, if I keep the Beanie Baby in his hands, he fidgets with the doll, and is less likely to pull the oxygen tubes from his face. I have figured out how to replace his oxygen tubes in any case. He seems to fidget less, also, when I hold his hands, and stroke them.

I cannot bring myself to talk to him.

Hail Mary, full of grace. See you when the sun rises —