Short timer...

I visited a friend who's now in hospice care. Cancer. Not discovered until he went in for an MRI to find out why his shoulder was hurting him so much. He wasn't even released from the hospital but was taken straight to a room and sedated and is now drifting towards the end. I doubt he'll be around more than a week.

His name was Vincent Botticelli, and he cut my hair. The only person I'd found in this town who could do it like I wanted it. I stuck with him for more than 10 years. Every two months we'd talk about old movies and actors and actresses and while I might have known more history, thanks to my background, he had a greater depth in his viewing. He loved all of the Italian cinema and we'd both seen so many classic Hollywood films, we would never have the same conversation.

It was great fun comparing Joan Crawford to Bette Davis in their respective roles. Same for film noir; lots of gossip and tidbits about the actors and the quiet cruelty of those films. No one was safe. Gene Tierney. Jane Greer. Robert Mitchum. Kirk Douglas. Burt Lancaster. Comparing looks and sexiness and beauty was a joy.

But to him, the whole of film boiled down to Ava Gardner. In this dress. In East Side, West Side, a 1949 movie starring Barbara Stanwyck and James Mason. He said the only time he'd ever considered going straight was when she first appeared in the movie. She played a character born to be murdered...and he loved her every moment.

He also liked to point out hairstyles and how inconsistent they could be from one moment to the next. Like Kim Novak's hair in Vertigo. Apparently, the process they used to make her a platinum blond, in 1957, was very delicate. If not properly cared for, it would quickly shift into a harsher shade...and it drove him nuts to see how often that happened. Like in the flower shop...scenes shot on different days then cut together had her hair inconsistent in its coloring. Now that I see it, I cannot unsee it.

I took him a printed copy of Ava, in a frame that could be set up on his night stand...but I doubt he'll really know of it. He was pretty done in by morphine. I did get to meet his partner (I don't know if they actually married, nor was I going to ask). He was a gentle man working in an art museum and so endearing.

I don't believe in the religious versions of heaven and hell, but I do think there is more to the basic essence of the universe than we can ever understand. I sense it when a character in a story takes over and sets the path we're to follow. Takes me places I would never have gone. Never have gone. Lives I've never been close to living. Both real and unreal. And the love and the depth and the arguments I have with my characters are more important to me than any other part of my existence.

I know Brendan is from that essence, for I can think of no other explanation as to why I'm letting him lead me through the story of a lad I would never have known and whose life I would have no true understanding of. Call it the fates or a muse or insanity, it's just...this is proof to me that when we leave this world, there is another to be joined with, in some way, form or fashion. We meld with the universe, again.

I can only hope that Ava will be kind enough to help him in his transition.