APRIL 2005
A very good friend of ours had died in February of that year. He was an art professor at ASU and also
somewhat of a scientist and inventor. He could wire a house or design and assemble small machines.
The morning of his passing there was a late winter rainstorm that moved through our city. It was a bit
unusual not so much for the rain but for the thunder and lightening that came with it. I had slept on the couch
that night waiting for the inevitable phone call we knew would come from his wife telling us of his death.
Around 2AM or so I was jolted awake by a very loud peal of thunder that sounded almost as if it might
come right through our front door. I sat up on the couch somewhat dazed when the phone rang. His
wife said “he’s gone”. I dressed and drove to sit up with her till dawn.
Now I sometimes do public readings of the writing I dabble in. Prose, poetry, stories, etc. In honor of our
late friend I wrote a story about him. We knew of his love for rocketry and space science but when he died
we also discovered he had some benign but mysterious obsessions regarding a certain scientist
who had defected from Nazi Germany to the U.S. during WWII. No matter. I wrote the story describing
my friend’s past but also of more recent events surrounding his passing.
In April I stood on the stage of a somewhat retro beatnik art space here in town. My good friend had
participated in many events at this place so it was odd not to see him there with us.
The lights went down. I began my story. The audience listened politely to my tale. I spoke into the
microphone and told about my dear friend. When I came to the part in the story where I relate the morning
of his death, the thunder, the coincidental phone call and all, well an odd thing happened when I mentioned
the part about the thunder. At that precise moment in the story the stage lights and the sound system blew out.
Someone in the crowd gasped.Someone else chuckled. Everyone thought I had somehow planned for the lights
and sound to go out at that point in my performance. Well not everyone. After I finished my story without lights
or amplification and received some applause I stepped down from the stage where two friends stood waiting for me.
They knew the man I spoke of. They were slightly shaken and one of them looked a little pale. “Oh man he was here!” said one friend. The other agreed. We decided to go outside into the night to smoke and talk about what we had just experienced.
Eventually the stage lights and sound system came back on. I was last to leave that space. Before I went out the door
I turned to the stage and said “Thanks man. We miss you. Thanks for saying good by old friend.”
By:
Jeffrey.Falk@CHW.EDU
Thu Mar 13, 2008 8:13 pm
