Considering this second wherein a heartfelt praise was the spark of a sophisticated friendship, I considered my good friend, the author Robert Bingham, who died of a heroin overdose in 1999. At a gallery present in New York within the early Nineteen Nineties, Rob, then a stranger, got here as much as me and informed me he’d learn a brief story of mine and appreciated it very a lot. The story was a couple of younger man whose father died younger. I might later uncover that Rob was a man whose father died younger, as had mine, although this affinity was one thing we by no means truly acknowledged in phrases. Rob later received concerned in a literary journal I’d began and we had numerous adventures at residence and overseas; he received married after which he died. Now all of it appears to have taken place within the blink of a watch, although the precise span, gallery to funeral, was about seven years. Within the spring of 2000, we each printed novels, his posthumous.
We had a wierd dynamic with our writing: outwardly supportive however not concerned within the particulars. We talked about literature on a regular basis however we didn’t learn one another’s work or provide notes. We had been every a supply of hysteria for the opposite, but additionally of confidence, in equal if fluctuating measures. To say we had been aggressive is definitely true, however it might miss one thing extra fascinating: Rob and I wholeheartedly needed the perfect for one another, whereas additionally feeling wired by the prospect of being exceeded by the opposite.
Vivid in my reminiscence is an answering-machine message he as soon as left that begins with the exultant however gently delivered information that he had positioned a narrative at {a magazine} of notice, the place I had additionally printed, suggesting we get collectively to rejoice. Then, as if he had run out of issues to say however didn’t need to put the telephone down, he concluded with what virtually felt on the time like a taunt: “How about that, Jack?”
Rob’s loss of life was so abrupt that I nonetheless stay shocked: the swearing off medicine, the drunken relapse, the overdose, the found physique, and immediately, the groomsmen at his marriage ceremony reassembling six months later to be ushers at his funeral. As of late, my friendships with different writers are extra cordial, even delicate, as if we now have seen sufficient folks burst into flames after which go up in smoke that we recognize the fragility of the opposite individual’s presence. I’ve by no means been capable of write correctly about my good friend Rob or that point in my life. As a substitute, I smuggle mentions of him into numerous items of writing, as I’m doing right here, as if I can solely see him in reminiscence by means of eclipse glasses.
It is perhaps this dynamic, above all, that prompted my visceral response and repeat visits to “Manet/Degas.” The mysteries of the artists’ friendship had been most conspicuous in a gallery devoted to 2 work, aspect by aspect, one by Manet and one by Degas. They’re variations on a theme: In every, a lady is seen in profile taking part in the piano.
