March
24, 1995
Garrick
called back two night ago. I guess he's lonely. At the end, he and Frank were
closer friends than any of the rest of us. We all seemed to take on Frank for
periods of time, assigning ourselves to his friendship until we grew bored or
frustrated with him. Early on, he was my responsibility, from 1967 to 1969,
when I went away and left him to Jimmy, Garrick and the rest of the gang. In
1970 when I showed up at his door, I inherited him again, put up with his
visits after he moved to New Jersey again, then left him to Jimmy once more as
Felice and I went west. Over the years, we've traded him back and forth so many
times that Garrick -- in the end-- more or less inherited him full time, even
managing to go with Frank and Daren to meet Frank's last lover, a dinner Garrick's
described as a ``trip.'' This woman -- Margaret -- it seems lived much the same
way Laurie did in New York in 1969. Garrick said there were dozens of flies for
every bite of food.
I find myself collecting these little tidbits
of information, trying to shape something out of those years I've missed with
Frank. Even old journal entries hardly suffice. I saw him only in snap shots,
as we passed each other on our way other places. It surprised me, for instance,
to have heard Margret say she had known him since 1984. Had I abandoned Frank
so long ago? How could I hope to piece together information from so many years?
Guilt after a death has amazing power. Anyway,
Garrick did confirm the fact that Margaret had attended the funeral, rushing up
at the last minute to throw a rose in the grave. I should have gone. I should
have paid my last respects and my final dues. I didn't get much done at home
for thinking about Frank, or wondering what we all would do now without him. I
asked Rocky about the grave's location, and he chuckled a little -- one of
those tearful bits of humor that indicates a suddenly ironical self-discovery.
``He's buried over by my house,'' he said.
``Not far from where me and Jimmy grew up.''
Apparently, Jimmy and Garrick once lived on the
corner where the bridge crosses the river into Totowa and Paterson from West
Paterson, near where the band used to play, and Frank used to join in for a
song or two. As kids, Jimmy and Garrick used to go to the store for a woman who
lived in the apartment below Garrick. They used to cross the bridge, and rather
than take the long way around to get to Union Avenue, they snuck under the
cemetery gate and crossed the cemetery, coming out right in front of what was
then the Acme.
``We used to go right passed the spot where
he's buried now,'' Garrick said, then grew a little irritated again, asking me
if Jimmy had mentioned what items Frank had wanted in his grave. Jimmy had
mumbled something about the request, but never in specific details. Garrick was
upset about the neglect but told me he was the last person to view the body
before it was closed, and had slipped in the Sergeant Pepper's patch I had
given him the previous Sunday.
``I just slipped it into his pocket,'' Garrick
said, and we both nearly cried over the telephone, neither of us able to think
of a more appropriate tribute. Frank loved the Beatles as much as he loved
anything in the world, and once owned a patch of that kind.
It was class act on Garrick's part, and one
that had only remotely come to me during the hazy days since Frank's death.
``I did it for both of us,'' Garrick told me,
and had he been in front of him, I would have kissed him.
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