"…Flying, crying, to and fro,
Cruel claw and hungry throat,
Or else they stand and sniff the wind,
And shake their ragged wings: alas!" ~ William Butler Yeats
Something in the air has put me in a melancholy mood, and I sat musing on the past. Invariably, when this mood strikes, I think of Joe Santiago.
There are people who go through life leaving nothing behind them but memories. No descendants, no monuments to their passing, and nothing in the permanent record to say, "Here was a life." Such was Joe.
We met Joe when we moved into our last home in New York, and knew him for 14 years. He was an urbane, witty, and cultured individual. Dante said, "La stirpe non fa le singulari persona nobili, ma le singulari persona fanno nobile la stirpe." (For the non-Italians, roughly, The birth doesn’t make the person a Nobleman, but a great person makes noble the birth.) Joe had this inherent nobility. He was also a deeply troubled soul who battled depression, mental illness and addiction all his life. He did not have much to give, but if you needed it, it was yours.
Joe sat at our table 2 or 3 nights a week for dinner, and he was the key guest at any of our parties. For days after an event, all I heard from the attendees was "that charming man", etc. He was wonderful company, whether we were sailing, at the opera, or sitting on the veranda having cocktails. When one of his depressed episodes overcame him, he would retreat to his room, draw the curtains, over-medicate, and ignore the door and phone. But I always knew that in a few days or a week, he would emerge as dapper as ever, and we would take up where we left off.
When we moved to NC in August 2003, we spoke to Joe every week, and he planned to visit us for Thanksgiving that year. I was in Paris in September when I got the call that Joe had been killed in an accident. He had been housesitting for his brother, taking care of his dog, and went out to buy cigarettes. A woman with a history of epilepsy had a grand mal seizure while driving. Her SUV jumped the curb, crossed a parking lot at over 90 mph and struck Joe. He died at the scene about 10 minutes later, and the force of the impact knocked his artificial eye so far it was never found.
Joe would have found the odds of what happened to him amusing. He loved playing the lottery, and sometimes won, but never big. The chances of him being in that exact spot just as that woman had her seizure, and the chain of events, are probably equal to winning the jackpot. If only…
I walked Paris all that night, angry at the woman behind the wheel and the gods that (if they existed) slept when my friend most needed their protection.
And all these years later, I still weep when I think of him. The loss of a friend is much harder on a misanthrope; we have such a small pool of people we care about. Joe deserved to die in a chair, drink in one hand, cigarette in the other. Instead he ended his life shattered on a pavement.
I flew back to New York from Paris, and went to the place where he died. At 6:00PM, I poured two Aberlours and lit a cigar. I poured one drink onto the pavement that was still stained with his blood, and said, "Cocktail time, Joe." It was a goodbye he would have appreciated.
Joe’s ashes share a box with his parents, and will be scattered when his brother, the last of the line, is gone. There is no grave, no memorial, and nothing beyond the memories of those who knew and loved him. Which is probably alright, for I can think of no monument to do him justice.
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