I met Neil at a party at the
Orbach house on 21st street back in the 80s. I'm pretty sure it was to celebrate Martha and Tony
Orbach's impending wedding. Neil interrupted a conversation I was having near the pool table on the second floor and I thought he was kind of obnoxious, possibly funny, and very handsome, and therefore perplexing. The party was smoky and crowded and we crossed paths a few more times during it, but never in a way that made me think he wasn't, perhaps, full of bluster.
Until I saw him again, soon after, at the
Orbach wedding and he said something like "Remember me?" and I said something like, "Sure, you're that rude guy," and he shot back something like "Who, me? I'm not rude, I'm extremely charming, and anyway, I'm not
that into ska music." (Remember "rude boys" and "rude girls"?)
Here we are chatting each other up at the wedding.
"I'm 17." "No, you're not." "Yes, I am."Neil was, indeed, very charming. I was crushed when he revealed he'd recently moved from NYC to Miami to start a business with a high school friend. I was starting NYU in the fall and the cost of tuition and perhaps some minor layer of intelligence prevented me from chasing after him and pitching a tent outside his Floridian apartment complex. There was no mistaking the sudden pandemonium of an exciting new romance. He sent me a bouquet of pumpkins in October. We wrote each other goofy and impassioned letters and had marathon, middle-of-the-night phone calls. Some of the things that would play in my head over and over all through college, long after we'd broken up, were all the times we reunited on streets, on my stoop, wherever, after weeks of not seeing each other. It was always operatic to me, but not just because I cared about him so much. It was also because Neil himself was so operatic: passionate, intense, unpredictable.... As if the way to show up was, naturally, to drive his truck halfway up onto the sidewalk and jump out, leaving the door open and Tom Petty's
Free Fallin' blaring on the car radio. Then, too, there were times like when we arranged to meet at a party in
SoHo and, shortly after he walked in the door, he got into a fight with my sister's European semi-boyfriend Dirk, which almost broke up the soiree. Dirk did have an irritating quality about him. But it wasn't worth
fighting about.
I realized Neil and all the stories about him running around the city and upstate were kind of legendary to some people (whether they involved beating someone up or not). But to me, he was always gentle and sweet, and funny. He was always recommending books: "Have you ever read Nathaniel West's
Miss Lonleyhearts? It's really great, but really dark," "I'm finally reading
Moby Dick. It's about a whale," (Ha ha). "I was never crazy about Saul Bellow, but oh my god,
Henderson the Rain King!" I read an article about novelist Harry Crews and his book
Car, about a man who tries to eat his entire Ford Maverick from bumper to bumper, and told Neil about it. I very much enjoyed taking credit for this, as Neil became a huge fan, and ate up all of Crews' books. We both loved the remake of
Breathless with Richard
Gere we'd seen on TV, even though it was extremely cheesy. And when we had our first argument, he bellowed, "What we have here is a failure of communication!" Then, he couldn't believe I didn't know what he was referencing, so he bought me a copy of the book (better known as a movie)
Cool Hand Luke. Christmas had long since past, but he inscribed it "To my
grinch," because I was often grumpy and pessimistic about the fact that he lived so far away.
Here he is in his Florida shop with two of its residents.
What woman in her right mind could avoid the gaze? Of those two cats?He inspired my first full-length play,
The Impossibility of Romantic Relationships in the Final Minutes of the 20th Century, and ducked in one night at the last minute to see it — a great production with Maddie
Corman, Josh Hamilton, and Ethan
Hawke. He was always so supportive and vehement about my work. "You better keep writing, or else!" he'd say.
We stayed in contact long after we split up. He always seemed to call me right before I went out on a date with someone new, or right after I came home from one, and of course, he loved that.
He took this shot when we drove out to Amagansett for a couple days.
A natural dreamboat and one of his many catches.
But I'm talking about an old version of Neil here, a more-than-a-couple-decades-ago Neil. We fell out of touch after he married Martha, a tall, beautiful, wise-crackingly funny drink of water who I knew was perfect for him. And when I ran into him over the years, it was no surprise he'd become a dad and stayed home to take care of his and Martha's beautiful kids. The one thing everyone knew in the absolute was that Neil wanted children. I'll never forget when I stupidly mused one time about there not being another term for "Mr. Mom." "DAD!!" he said, to my well-deserved embarrassment.
This past year, my friend and Neil's cousin Dawn invited me up to see her brother Neil V's show in Kingston and Neil was there. We ended up hanging out a few times and yakking on the phone with some frequency since then. I'd seen him a few times over the years and knew his old, street-fighting temper had long since simmered down. But it struck me as so paradoxical this time, how much he'd changed and grown and yet he was still the same, exact person I'd known. He was just so much more brave. I'd never thought of Neil as weak — lord, no! — but I never imagined how strong he could be, even as his body grew weaker.
I walked around his neighborhood with him one day and he stopped to chat with everyone we passed (he seemed to know everyone in his neighborhood) to promise them he wasn't messing around behind Martha's back (Ha ha).
I called him one day this past spring and he happened to be at the chiropractor's. "What's the one thing no one can live without?" he asked. For some reason, I didn't know that day. In disgust, he put his chiropractor on the phone, who reiterated: "You really don't know what no one can live without?" "No," I said. "Water?" "LOVE!!!" They both finally yelled.
He knew more than anyone how passionate, lucky, and full of love his life had been; he always talked about it, despite the pain and deep annoyances he and his family were dealing with. I'm glad he doesn't have to fight anymore.
But it still completely sucks that he's gone.
