The older we get, the more
dead people we know.
Poor Patrick. He was a curious
little fellow. I’d known him since junior high school, and, I must confess, I
found him to be rather obnoxious back then. A little Italian guy who tried to
talk tough. I had no idea how much he suffered. Being born a diabetic should’ve
been enough, but he also came from what he claimed was a dysfunctional household, possibly involving alcohol abuse. The teen-aged me
would never stop to think of how difficult his life must’ve been.
Always below average height,
Patrick was often the butt of jokes. There was a picture of him in our junior high
yearbook squeezed entirely into the space of a hall locker.
Being tiny didn’t exactly make
Pat a ladies’ man, and his amorous misadventures are something it’s best not to
dwell upon. It seems that the little guy just couldn’t catch a break. It’s hard
to woo a girl when you have a rather elfin appearance, harder still when you
have a stubborn and complex personality. Patrick would over-think just about
everything, and people who didn’t take the time to get to know him found him
infuriating.
Pat’s apartment in Signal Hill
was, I always thought, something of a macrocosm of his interior life. The place
was cluttered and chaotic, which seemed incongruous to me as I knew Patrick to be
precise in all of his opinions to the point of being dogmatic. He loved specifics and demanded exact information, so I couldn’t understand
why he had two refrigerators and two coffee tables, none being in particularly
good repair.
“Why don’t you toss one of
these out on the curb?” I asked him. He answered, “Well, they’re both still
good. They can be repaired.” “But you only need one,” I said, “so pick the best
one and throw the other out.” “But I’m not sure which one,” he answered.
And that was Pat all over. It
had to be perfect, and if he couldn’t come up with a definitive answer, he
became intellectually paralyzed. I guess this makes sense. He’d grown up in a
chaotic household, and suffered from an unpredictable malady. He desperately
craved control, yet he found it so elusive.
Pat’s obituary listed him as
an “amateur actor and impersonator.” Normally, control freaks don’t make very
good artists—in the theater or anywhere else. I have to say, however, that
Patrick genuinely had a degree of talent and, his obit to the contrary, he had
actually worked as a professional actor
for a season with a traveling Christian theater troupe called The Lamb’s
Players.
I remember coaching Pat for
his audition for the company. I suggested a monologue which he performed
sincerely and sweetly. I also coached him on his singing audition, urging him
not to croon but belt. He performed that audition with confidence, and I never
knew him to be happier than when he was asked to become part of the company.
Unfortunately, a year on the road is hard for a diabetic, and Patrick
ultimately had to leave the company because of health and healthcare issues.
The theater was the place
where Pat and I connected. We’d gone to different high schools after junior
high, but met up again in the Theatre Arts department of California State
University Long Beach. We were both cast our first year in a production of The Tempest, directed by an outrageous
Brit from RADA named David Perry. I was pretty hot stuff, I thought, being a
freshman cast in a fairly major role. Pat, however, because of his tiny size,
was cast as a supernumerary, an attendant to the goddess Juno in the pageant
scene, his face blackened and unrecognizable. Apparently he got into some kind
of tiff with the stage manager, and left the Theatre Department disgruntled
after that first year.
Six years later I encountered
Patrick again when I was hired on the theatre faculty of Long Beach City
College. Patrick was enrolled as a student in the department, making another
attempt to light up the stage. In my first year there I directed him in the
brilliant one-act comedy Lone Star. Part
of the challenge in working with him was working around his chronic tardiness
and his combative tendency to over-analyzing everything. At one rehearsal I
remember him gesticulating wildly, pantomiming everything his character said. I
called to him from the stalls, “Damn it, Patrick! You’re telling a story, not
signing for the hearing impaired!” To his credit, he never took offense at me,
and we soon became good friends.
As I look back on it now, we
were an odd and mismatched pair. I was an instructor and Pat was a student so
there was an unfortunate inequality to our relationship. I’m afraid I looked on
him rather as my “sidekick,” like Batman would’ve looked on Robin. He was
shorter, less secure (or, truthfully, less arrogant)
than I, and I could feel that he looked up to me. Adding to the inequality was
Patrick’s new-found love of casino gambling. This dangerous little hobby often
put him in a place of urgent financial need, and I more than once advanced him
considerable sums of cash—once wiring him money when he was in Las Vegas and
had gambled away the means of returning to Long Beach. I never asked for him to
return the money I gave him, but, I’m afraid, my generosity added a layer of
inequality to our friendship. Kindness has a way of becoming tyrannical.
In spite of his myriad
difficulties, Pat had a charming way of remaining optimistic. If he wasn’t
blowing money at the gaming table, he and I relaxed with friendly games of
penny-ante poker with another friend at Pat’s Signal Hill apartment. These were
really enjoyable and very innocent evenings, and Pat was always a gracious
host.
I had the opportunity of
seeing Pat at both his best and worst. During the period of our friendship he
was diagnosed with Epstein-Barr or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, an added burden to
his diabetes. It was painful to see him at times looking so frail, sick, and
exhausted. On several occasions he’d visit me in my flat, and I’d see that look
of pain in his eyes and often watch as he dropped his pants and jabbed himself
in the butt with a much-needed needle full of insulin. I learned patience from
him, and got into the habit of telling him to meet me a half-hour earlier than
I wanted to get together, knowing his condition always caused him to be about a
half-hour late.
But I do Patrick a disservice
by recounting his faults and challenges. As I look back on him now, I realize
that my diminutive friend had an enormous heart and an enormous faith. Sometime
in the six years when I didn’t see him after CSULB, Patrick left the Catholic
Church of his upbringing and united with the Church of the Brethren. The
conservative, Biblical literalism of the Brethren must’ve appealed to his need
for definitive answers. But I also think that in that fellowship he found the
unconditional love and acceptance he had always craved. I have no doubt that
his faith was honest and devout and that he truly loved God. He showed a
tremendous capacity for empathy which I greatly admire and remember to this
day. He was, simply, a kind man.
Often he told me truths about myself which I didn’t want to hear, but he always
did it with love.
A wonderful memory which
sticks in my mind is how Pat invited me to his church one New Year’s Eve for a
foot washing ceremony. I’d never experienced this ancient Christian ritual
before, but I found it very moving. Now, I routinely wash the feet of my
first-time communicants as part of the Maundy Thursday mass. It was touching, at
the time, to be invited to share a special night with Pat at his church.
(After the worship, however,
he and I retired to a local night club where we met two charming young
ladies—exchange students from Germany. They invited us back to their hostel for a
very polite and extremely chaste evening. I remember it being quite fun, and it
put a huge smile on Pat’s face.)
Today I remember his wonderful
and underappreciated intelligence. He was remarkably knowledgeable on a wide
range of subjects, and—God bless him—he could drive a stick shift, a talent
which came in handy when I needed to rent a truck for my move from Lakewood to
North Hollywood. Granted, Patrick managed to damage the load door of the truck
and then argued with the rental agent about whose insurance should pay for it. I
remain grateful to him all the same.
Pat was a little shocked when
I told him I was going to the seminary. I remember him blurting out, “You’re
kidding!” He must’ve been surprised that this recovering alcoholic whose mouth spouted
profanity like a fire hose would leave the glory of the theater to become a
humble pastor. (I’m actually surprised by it myself at times!). Nevertheless,
he gave me his blessing and told me he’d pray for me. As I recall, he was
working at Disneyland at the time, and I always thought such employment seemed
to suit him. He was both child-like yet
quirky and lovable like a character out of a Disney cartoon.
I never saw Patrick again
after I left Southern California for Philadelphia in 1994. Sometime in 2000 or
2001 I received a message from him through another friend. I phoned him and
found that he was again in desperate need of cash. I told him I wasn’t equipped
to help him out. I have always regretted that.
Indeed, as I remember Pat, I regret
many things. I wish I had been less condescending, more appreciative of his
many gifts, and more worthy of his friendship.
He was a complex man loaded
with contradictions: A true romantic who never married. A devout Christian and
a compulsive gambler. A creative artist with a hopelessly literal mind. A
compassionate, feeling man who could start an argument with anyone.
He has passed through this
world leaving no lasting impact save the small and gentle fingerprints on the
memories those who knew and appreciated him. I feel that I want to celebrate
him. I want to say, “I saw you, Patrick. I knew you. And you mattered.” Truly, I want to say the same
about so many I have known—both living and dead. They are the creative souls
who, because of bad luck, bad choices, or any combination of the two, never
rose in the estimation of the world to the lofty level of their poetic spirits. May they find their rest and reward in the arms of God.
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