My oldest and best friend (a year older than I) in all the world--whom I have called Marcus in these pages--died four days ago.

He'd had a pace-maker for half a year or so, and complained when I talked to him in Spokane on the phone, a couple of times during the last month, of shortness of breath and virtual prostration after but little exercize.  Merely walking to the store, he said, left him exhausted.  On Wednesday the fourth day of this month Richard called me to tell me that Marcus had had a heart attack early in the morning of the day before, Tuesday the third, and would be having triple by-pass surgery Friday morning.  

I immediately called Marcus in the hospital (Wednesday evening)--and was appalled, stricken, by how weak he sounded and how deathly solemn.  A week later, the operation having been pronounced a success, I called again, and was pleased to note that he sounded stronger--but the frightening, ghastly solemnity remained (as of a man in mortal fear for his life).  And then, as I started to say good-bye, baldly and à propos des bottes, Marcus blurted, "I love you."  I did not say "Fuck you" (for I was raised a gentleman) and, though horrified at what he seemed to be saying, I politely responded, "I love you too.  Bye."

Then Richard called me three days ago to tell me that Marcus had "passed away" the day before.

Anecdote:  When Marcus and I first met--the first week of April, 1965--he being 23, and I just 22, I was of course attracted to his Arrow Shirt ad good looks, and determined to have sex with him.  But when I got to his apartment (over "the Av," University Way, in Seattle) he gave me a cup of tea and put a recording of Rameau's Six Concerts en Sextuor on the stereo, which so ravished me that I threw myself to the floor in front of the speakers, and forgot all about jumping his bones.  And so it went, pretty much for the rest of our lives.  We sometimes peripherally orgied together, but we never had sex, and such was our taste in music and philosophy that that suited us just fine.