Later, I remember us, sitting out in a parapet-enclosed walkway on the second floor of a building on Vanderbilt campus, talking about philosophy and religion. It seemed important to us, in those days, to figure everything out. Alan told me, then, about his plan to take a tour around the world, after graduation. He wanted to go to the UAR, too, but a baptismal certificate was required to get in. I said, "You could become a Christian." We laughed.
A couple of weeks later, Alan called me, clearly excited. "I got baptized!" he said. "I'm a Methodist!" I wasn't sure how I felt about that. I blamed myself.
After school, I didn't see, or hear from, Alan for years. The next time, in the late sixties, we were both living in St. Louis, but neither of us knew the other was there. I don't remember who found out first, but I remember well the afternoon we spent in a Midtown mansion, where Alan was working as a houseboy, while going to medical school. How he came up with these deals, I'll never know.
He showed me around the house, pointing out the original Picassos on the walls. We were the only ones there at the time. In the kitchen, we caught up the years, while Alan made himself a sandwich. Then, he grabbed a bottle of bourbon from a cabinet and took me up to a loft on the third floor, where he lived. We sipped the bourbon and talked about everything. Alan had been a programmer for IBM, a yogi in India, had graduated with a divinity degree from the Harvard Theological Seminary, and was then in his third year of medical school. I, on the other hand, had a government job.
After we covered our curriculum vitae and the bourbon began to take effect, we got around to gossip. Alan asked me if I knew Cam Talley. I revealed that Cam Talley and I had been in first grade together. I asked him how he knew Cam; he said that he didn't know her at all, but somebody had told him that she was a cafe singer in Boston. I made a mental note of that.
At one point, I reminded Alan of the time at Vanderbilt when we had the talk that led him to become a Christian. He gave me a funny look and then laughed and said, "Was that you?"
Looking back, it was a magical time. Sitting cross-legged on a stool, with just a pair of khaki bermudas on, Alan was easy to picture as a yogi. We talked on, through the afternoon, until the room began to get dark.
It would be another ten years before we would get together again.
Alan became a psychiatrist, married a pediatrician, and had a son, Graham. They all lived in Harvard, Massachusetts, in a really smart-looking house that looked out on a wildlife refuge. I visited them there, during the early eighties. Alan was gone when I arrived on a Friday evening, but his wife, Carla, graciously took me in, fed me and kept me entertained with conversation. After Graham went to bed, we talked into the night, mostly about Alan.
The next morning, when I got up, Alan was there, and wife and son were out doing Saturday things. Alan also had things to do, and he didn't let my visit keep him from them. I remember him, keeping up a running conversation from the top of a very tall tree in his yard, which he had scaled with some hooks attached to his shoes, while hefting a chainsaw. I stood by, below, offering encouragement.
Later, we took a walking tour of the neighborhood. A beautiful afternoon in fall, it was - a New England fantasy, yellow and orange leaves everywhere and white fences. As we walked, Alan told me the histories of all the houses; some were more than 200 years old, from Revolutionary times.
Just as I began to wonder who might still be living in them, Alan bounded up the steps to one and knocked on the door. A rotund little man, wearing a red blazer and tie, looked out and, when he saw Alan, he laughed and welcomed him with open arms, calling him by name. We were invited in. The man's wife came out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. Alan introduced me to them as his friend. They appeared to be in their seventies, but both were lively and quick.
Alan told them that I was interested in finding out about their house, so I got the complete tour, including an explanation for why every room had its own fireplace (cold winters, no central heating!). When we had visited all the rooms on all three floors, the man said that he had saved the best for last and went over to what appeared to be the door of a small closet. The door proved to be Dutch in its construction and he opened the top half to reveal a well-stocked bar. This was not just a bar, he allowed, taking his place inside, but a refuge and inner sanctum, in which he was absolute king. "The rest of the neighborhood can go to blazes," he said, "but I will defend the hallowed ground below this spot to the death!" And then he poured a round of Scotch. As we sipped, the man's wife came out from the kitchen with a plate of cranberry bread. I remember thinking, when will there be an afternoon like this, again?
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