Happy sailing, Robert Schancupp–dear godfather, El Bobbo of Bob and Fran.
I have been on vigil with roast chicken, dismantled by food scissors; red wine; pecan pie; your favorite things.
I wrote this last night–tonight was your last night after all.
Before I share it with you, my mother just called again, not an hour after she had called to tell me you were gone.
“Is he back?” I said.
She was eating anchovies on toast, a little addled by the late hour and by her grief. But she laughed, as you would have laughed, at a joke you would have made. Thank you for being a brother to my mother.
Ok, godfather. You have the orange peel in your mouth. So here goes:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all your love. Thank you for understanding and returning my devotion. Thank you for visiting me in Guatemala. Thank you for being the best friend to my parents, for bearing up my mother, for your gentle graces with my father. I know you suffered in your life mentally and physically. But you did not hide from me, you did not hide forever from the world. You showed the world what it is like to live.
Thank you for making Fran so happy, for making Marylyn your close sister, for expanding your table to Myra and Ira and me and all the eccentrics and misfits who made you our maypole, our erudite leader, our lodestar.
You accepted our fervent love, and let us know it was returned, even though by personality you were more reserved, more private, than the wild emotionals who flocked to you, drawn by your raised eyebrow, your ducked chin, your gravelly voice, and the wit which moved so fast you were on to the next bon mot before we understood the first had struck home.
I learned from your wit, from your grace and unassuming sagacity. We stood next to each other at concerts at Irving Plaza, and climbed Tikal’s pyramid. We ate and ate and ate and dranked and smoked. We laughed more than some are blessed to laugh in their lives. And no matter what you had been through, you were the calm anchor while Fran and my mother and me and my father let our neuroses run loose. I watched you for guidance, for the pacing and tone with which to lead a happy life. I love you, I loved you, I love you so deeply. You are a part of me; I am honored to have been a part of you.
Goodbye? It is time to say goodbye? It is time to say goodbye to Bob of Bob and Fran, this rock of my life, this icon, this standard bearer of love and life’s pleasures–the nobility of them; hedonism no idle thing, but something to take seriously and pursue with purpose and skill–serious play, ennobling play, the endless trip of words. Mr. Schancupp may cease his labored breathing, and depart from us in the daily sense–we will have no new words from him, but he has implanted in me the gift of endless novelty, and my every creative seed, and every glass of wine or joint or well-cooked mouthful will contain him, he resides in the curl of every smile. He is Bob, immortal to me.
Robert Shancupp. Rest in peace. And may the afterlife furnish a rotisserie.
