The Quarry

In Memory of Neil C.

In Memory of Neil C. 1943–1995 i. Patrick Stewart is Prospero: Delacorte Theatre, Central Park, June 27 Here comes a swirl of lights—blue lights and red, a blazing white light. Prospero’s wrapped in robes themselves aswirl; his beard floats out in the astonished night, his eyes glaring red and blue as a thousand heads swivel away from him. A siren wails. “That night, the police got more attention than the play,” he’ll laugh to a gossip columnist, days later. And across the pond, which has not yet acquired its late-August skin, and therefore gives the air its colors back—but dulled, broken— a knot of cops move through the glare, flickering, appearing, disappearing. How quickly they remove a shape half hidden beneath the willows. ii. Belvedere Pond, August 17 Seven weeks later, having ascended the fanciful Gothic tower and questioned the park ranger, who extended an arm, a long pointing finger, I climbed carefully down a cliffside’s glittering schist 57 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. to a green grove, and entered. A catbird sat on a twig at eye level, watching. He didn’t move; he was silent; the scummed, inert water was silent; the reeds were unmoved. This was a place to die in. To the east, the warrior king, sublime on a horse of stone; westward, across the pond, was the empty theater. To the north, the softball fields you loved—and south, the woods, whose flights of migratory birds you spent whole days observing . . . iii. Delacorte Theatre, June 27 I wonder if anyone here tonight knows you. Briefly curious, do they turn to see you hustled onto a pallet and strapped down? —you who were the most private of human beings. And one day months from now, perhaps they’ll think I haven’t seen Neil in his usual haunts lately, the bookstores, the movies, the museum. . . . The loaded van drives off. Unknown. Unknown, you’ll lie in the morgue a week, till a bus ticket gives up its clue: in the end, you will not vanish, as it seems you hoped to, into the mass graves of June’s nameless dead . . . but now Miranda and Ferdinand kiss; Prospero beams. The audience rise to their feet applauding. Joy is general. 58 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. ...