Joe Sheehan: In Memoriam
A Tribute and a Cautionary Tale
Post-Mortem Jacket Cover
At my funeral, as I hover above the congregation, above disgruntled poets, above ex-girlfriends meeting each other for the first time and consoling my mother who they always liked better than me, I want some brave soul to stand up and say, “No one lived life as deeply as this man, or sang as terrifying a song. No one was a greater poet or friend of the soul.”
But more likely, there will be an embarrassing silence, as when someone passes wind in a movie theater and no one accepts responsibility. But I can live with a moment like that, appreciate its indecisiveness and self-loathing. Traits they say I championed when alive and barely kicking.
This is a comic take on how I see people responding to my funeral, which hopefully is far off in the distance.
I want to talk about death.
My father used to say that when you reach a certain age, you spend more time at wakes than you do on the practice putting green. He was the last living member of thirty guys in his golf league but was able to handle it all with a sense of humor, probably because he was Irish, and we Irish have always had a way of finding death more amusing than terrifying. Our biggest concern is that the restaurant won’t run out of alcohol at the reception. Consequently, this won’t be a depressing essay. In fact, I would argue that the shadow of death should make us appreciate life and be more productive. If someone told me that a meteor was about to hit earth and cause a tsunami that would destroy the east coast, I wouldn’t sit home terrified until it washed me away. Instead, I’d drive to the beach, open my beach chair, pour a big glass of Jack Daniel’s on ice, and get a good look at that wave. It would be devastating, but also, in a way, very very cool.
But, though not depressing, this essay is a cautionary tale–not about what to eat or not to drink, but about nurturing old friendships, and what happens when you don’t. Most important I want to celebrate my best friend in high school, Joe Sheehan, who died of pancreatic cancer last year.
Consider the above photograph, the only one I have left from my first wedding. The wedding itself was an austere ceremony that took place at a small chapel adjacent to the main altar in St. Joseph’s Cathedral on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo, NY. The priest was my good friend Father William McCurdy, who spent most of my senior year keeping me from tumbling into the abyss, though many of my classmates might argue that he failed.
After the wedding there was a small reception at the local Holiday Inn, where a bunch of mangy, anorexic, hungover rockers and their groupies frolicked by the pool. This picture was taken at the reception. Joe is on the left; Craig Peterson, another close friend, in the middle; and I’m on the right. That’s my father and brother in the back, my father looking like a hitman for the Mafia. But look closely at Joe in this photo. If you knew Joe, you would have seen that expression many times, and whatever I am about to say will pale before the image of it. It’s probably the same expression he’s flashing now as he leans over my shoulder, amused, thinking, “Pete, you really want to write this? You really want to embarrass yourself yet again? What lies are you going to make up now? Whatever, don’t ask me to save your ass again.”
The last time Joe and I spoke (a year and a half ago) we did what old guys do—tell stories, wondering out loud if those stories were actually true, because, as we all know, when old-guy stories are repeated, they gain new details. Sometimes even a new character or two appear to push the narrative forward or to complicate the tale’s intent.
The only thing that remains constant is that we old guys usually end up being the heroes of our tales. We’re more handsome, or smarter, and certainly sexier than we were in real life. Joe and I spoke about that old-guy terrain where reality and the imagination collide before agreeing to coexist with each other, so that we end up like those old Confederate soldiers in William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily,” who “confuse time with its mathematical progression” so that “all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches.” With that image in mind, allow me to share a few memories . . .
Joe and I, for much of our first few years in high school spent weekends at each other’s houses. He was at my house so often that my mother called him her third son. On Fridays we’d head to our respective homes, eat, and change, and then meet up at the Statler Hilton Hotel, where the bus from Grand Island, NY (where he lived) would drop him off. The Hilton was a cool place. You could hang around the lounges and get swallowed up by huge armchairs while smoking cigarettes. No one bothered you, and it was rumored that a certain kind of woman you wouldn’t find at the local Catholic girl’s high school dance frequented there. A perfect place to live out your Mrs. Robinson fantasy, even though her existence on screen was a year away, just a rough character sketch floating around in screenwriter Buck Henry’s prodigious imagination. But, in fact, we were happy just to kill time there, waiting for the bus to take us to those innocent dances where we’d hang up our London Fog raincoats and look for the girl of our dreams. A nice girl, but not too nice. Afterwards, if Joe decided to go home, we’d stop to eat at a dingy greasy spoon downtown called the Servomat. Then I’d see him off and try to catch the last bus behind Nick’s Texas Red Hots, hoping not to get jumped. What did Joe and I talk about during all that one-and-one time? Who knows? But I do remember feeling that we owned the city back then, and that if we stayed together, we were invincible.
* * *
I don’t remember asking anyone to sign my yearbook, so what accounts for the all the goodbyes scribbled over so many interesting faces. The sentiments run the gamut. Most of them were sincere expressions of friendship, but there were also a few guys who just signed their names, as if to say, “Dude, I hardly knew you so why are you asking me to do this?” One classmate nailed it best when he began his epistle with, “Pete, why did you bother coming to school this year? Or maybe you really weren’t here.” Joe laughed when I mentioned some of these. Perhaps the most cryptic note was from a was from a guy named Mario Seggio which read, “Pete, just be a good student, will you?” I told Joe that I had hired many linguists and etymologist to decipher some secret meaning behind that message, along with what another kid named Charlie Burke meant when he wrote, “Swim, baseball, of freshman football in senior long to be there.” And Joe? He somehow managed in the 3 x 8-inch white space to the left of his picture to neatly print what can only be called a 168-word tongue-in-cheek complaint that read like a standup monologue David Sedaris would be proud to deliver. It begins with “How do I love you, let me count the ways. One way, two ways, this way, that way. Four years ago, I met you at that first football dance. Wow, since then I went to summer school twice, dropped 100 places in rank, and grew sideburns (it took four years). Thanks a lot.” That was Joe—smart and caustic, but he could also laugh at himself.
* * *
A final image of Joe. We’ve been graduated for a few years and we’re driving down Delaware Avenue in his Corvette, Cream’s “Badge” blasting from the speaker, Joe’s long supercool auburn hair blown back and disheveled by the wind. We’re going to the Lake, a favorite place to party back then. We’re hoping we’ll get lucky and find a familiar face who will let us crash at his cottage. Halfway there the Doors “L.A. Woman” comes on, and that’s the song I’ll always associate with Joe. That song could really animate him, especially after a few beers. What happened that night? Who did we see? Did our girlfriends show up? I wish I could remember, but memory, like faith, can’t be bent to one’s will.
* * *
I could go on and on about the concerts we went to, the girls we dated, the nights shooting pool at a bar called Maxil’s . . . but I’ll wind it up here. This was a difficult piece for me to write. In a sense I feel like a deadbeat friend for not spending more time with Joe.
But you know how it sometimes goes: you move out of your hometown, and then there’s work, and marriage, and a kid, and another marriage, and another kid, and you’re coaching sports, and then you wake up one day and say, “I’m seventy. How the hell did that happen?”
Yesterday, after going for a long swim, I sat in my favorite coffee shop drinking a decaf and munching on a hot apple fritter. I grabbed my phone, checked my email, and found out that Joe had died. I knew he was going to die. He knew he was going to die. But I was stunned by how visceral his loss was to me. I was supposed to see him this fall. There was much that needed to be said. So much catching up to do. But I blew it. I was too late. I waited too fucking long.
So all I can offer are these few memories from the muddled mind an old guy about another old guy, a guy who often made me think, and more often than not, made me laugh. Like most of us, Joe wasn’t going to be class president or throw that winning touchdown pass.
But, man, he was one cool guy.
You can find Peter Johnson’s books, along with interviews with him, appearances, and other information at peterjohnsonauthor.com
His most recent book of prose poems is Old Man Howling at the Moon
His most recent book of fiction is Shot: A Novel in Stories