TuesdayJack Foley
I had fasted from 8 p.m. last night for a blood test
this morning. First I went to Copy Central in Berkeley to pick up copies
of Mary-Marcia Casoly’s book, Run
to Tenderness, but they had messed something up, so I’ll have to go
again tomorrow morning. Copy Central opens at 7:30 a.m., and the advantage
of going very early in the morning is that you can easily get parking
spaces and don’t have to feed the meters, which begin at 9.Then, from
downtown Berkeley, to Oakland—Kaiser hospital on MacArthur—for the
blood test. I was taken in almost immediately. Unfortunately, the
first—um—stab failed to draw much blood, so it had to be done again on
my other arm. Happily, the other arm was a fountain. I went around for
most of the rest of the day with a piece of cotton and a bandage on both
arms. After the blood test it was about 9 a.m. I needed a new screen for
my electric razor. The shaver shop was on the way to the Russian Orthodox
Church where Ben’s funeral was to take place. The visitation—viewing
the dead person—began at 9:30. I took a chance that the shaver shop was
open—and indeed it was. I got into the car to go to the church, but
decided I was a little hungry—and I had no idea what time I’d get some
food. There was a café next door to the shaver shop. I had scrambled eggs
and a bagel and some delicious iced tea. Satisfied, I went to the church
(near Shattuck and Ashby). Visitation was still going on. I went over and
looked at Ben. I knew many of the people there—many of them prominent
Bay Area musicians. It was nice to see them. It was nice to see Ben,
too—though I had seen him the night before. He was decked out in a black
leather jacket and wore his wedding ring. There was a little drawer that
was open above him in the coffin. It had a harmonica in it. Ben’s wife
Ella told me that he had wooed her by playing the harmonica and telling
stories. I had never heard him play harmonica but was sure it would hold
him in good stead in the afterworld. Ella said the bass was too big and
she wouldn’t let him have the guitar. Then came the service, which was
nice, tasteful, but a little long. Ella told me that the priest had been
born on the same day as Ben. The priest, who seemed intelligent and
scholarly, talked about the problems of language—English vs.
Russian—and the various traditions that went into the service. There
were Pagan elements, he said, and Jewish elements. Thinking, I’m sure,
of the Neoplatonists, he mentioned that the Pagans thought of the body as
a prison; and that the Jews too thought of the body as corrupt. He felt
that where his faith parted company with both the Pagans and the Jews was
in the belief in the resurrected body. As Jesus had been resurrected in
his body, so too would the dead. The priest insisted that though he
“didn’t know how,” we would “see Benjamin again.” Clearly a
sensitive man, the priest struck me as someone who might well have gone
into the church because of its emphasis on culture and art. The problem is
that an immense amount of baggage goes along with that culture and art:
not least is the belief in the immense wonderfulness of God and the
immense awfulness of man. Statements such as were made here must surely
have been made by the Catholic church during its services—and, as a
child, I simply took them in. Now, however, I feel much more inclined to
argue. The art and culture are the sugar coating on the pill of a belief
which is deeply, fundamentally repellant. (And this, I’m sure, was a
Berkeley lite version of Russian Orthodoxy.) It’s important to assert
the limitations of the ego sense, but self abasement? original sin? (The
latter doctrine a clear misreading of the first book of Genesis.
Philip Pullman is right to focus on it.) One of Glenn and Shantee
Spearman’s daughters stood in front of me during the service, in which
we all held lit candles. The little girl is, I don’t know, nine years
old and has enormous energy, which will one day be a marvelous thing. At
the moment, however, she is rather a caution. Eventually, the lit candle,
which she was waving about a little, was confiscated from her and she was
led into the room next door, where there were some other children. She was
wearing a beautiful, rather Chinese-looking dress—probably of her
mother’s choice—and she looked just wonderful. She has the kind of
intensity Glenn had, and she is quite beautiful even now. Oh, when she
grows up! At the end of the service, everyone gives the dead person a
goodbye kiss. Ben was wearing a headband made of paper, with some
religious designs on it; that’s what you kiss. I also touched his hand,
which of course was cold. Then we drove to the Chapel of the Chimes on
Piedmont in Oakland for the “entombment.” There was a “funeral
procession” which I decided not to be part of, so I went on ahead by
myself. The Chapel of the Chimes is a beautiful place, and Ben had chosen
exactly where he would be interred—not too far from John Lee Hooker!
More incense, a few more words, and the coffin was put in a big drawer in
a wall. Then downstairs for food—a really excellent spread, delicious. I
had two genuine chocolate chip
cookies. I generally avoid the sugar-added, but this was special. For Ben.
I chatted a bit with Charles Amirkhanian, a wonderful man—a
composer—who did music programming for many years at KPFA. He is
currently running the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco. I knew many
people in the room, so there was no problem finding people to talk to. Lyn
Hejinian, whose husband Larry Ochs is a well-known local musician, was
there. Then everyone went into the next room. Ella welcomed everyone and
thanked them from a podium with a microphone. Then people who wished to
say something about Ben came up to the podium. Ben had worked for Charles
Amirkhanian at KPFA, so Charles talked about that. I talked a little about
the “Mob Ecstasy” program Ben and I had done with Glenn Spearman
(I’m the only one of that trio left!) and then read the poem I wrote
recently—the one which transforms itself once the news of Ben’s death
(at 55!) reaches me. It’s a little as if the poem knew of Ben’s death
even if I didn’t. Later,
several people told me how much they enjoyed the poem. I’ve been
complaining recently how hard it is, after a certain point, not to write
elegies: so many of your friends die. How is it possible to register the
impact of a person’s death without writing an elegy? I think my little
poem is a partial answer to that question. After the testimonies, there
was a concert—and what a concert it was! Something like seventeen of the
most prominent free jazz players in the Bay Area came together for this:
the piece, “For Ben,” was directed by Eddie Gale. Everyone improvised,
but there was a structure within which everything happened, and Gale
indicated who should play next. Solo upon solo, always interesting, each
quite different from the other. (One Irish guy, Jim Ryan, played a chorus
of “Danny Boy”!) Finally everyone stood up and played together. There
was a huge blast of sound in which you felt that Ben’s spirit was being
sent off into the universe. It was really wonderful. The only negative
thing about it for me was that Ben’s son Esten (who is 27 or 28)
hadn’t been asked to play in the group. Esten’s playing is probably
still not the equal of the musicians in the group, some of whom are
genuine masters, but he would have done well enough, and it would have
been a powerful emotional moment for everyone. I wondered whether Esten
had been asked but declined, but, no, he hadn’t been asked. Later, I
told him that I wished he’d played. He nodded and said, “Look, this
isn’t over.” I said, “No, it isn’t,” and hugged him. There was
much hugging and few tears—not because Ben’s loss wasn’t a real one
but because (despite the terrible suffering of his last days) tears was
not what his life was about. “Life’s sweet, man,” he said to me in
our last conversation, “it’s sweet.”
Jack Foley
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