Damndest thing. One day he’s here, kvetching about his stocks and no wonder, he was always looking for a bargain, junk bonds back in the day, all you can eat at buffet restaurants in low-rent shopping malls. Not that he was tight, just cautious. Conserved what he had, his money, his routines, his solo life.

Now he’s dead. Not from junk bonds or junk food but a junk doctor who didn’t read his file and prescribed penicillin that sent him into anaphylactic shock, Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and, poof, a month later, toes up. He had quit Medicare for a cheaper local HMO. No copays.

Over the years I asked Martin what he was going to do with all his money when he croaked.

“I ain’t goin’,” he snorted. No ex-wives and no kids to leave any money to, just a stray dog, Lucky, that kept him company for the past ten years. A distant sister too old to visit nowadays who didn’t need anything from him.

“Are you okay, financially?” I pestered. Only old lovers who have morphed over thirty years into close friends can ask these questions. Nobody else did. “Mart, you gotta have a will. Leave everything to me.”

“Hah.”

“You want to be buried or cremated or what? You give anybody a power of attorney?”

“Nah.”

Even ‘nah’ sounded Brooklynese. New York City smart, Martin could tell jokes for hours: Jewish jokes, Irish jokes, religious jokes, lawyer jokes, doctor jokes, all of them streamed out of his memory, an East River of humor, tolerance, irony and wit.

During the brief year he lived in my house, two doors down from his, he brought home grocery bags of goodies and great wine. He loved to shop, he loved to cook and he loved to eat. He taught me to drink martini’s. We went to Key West and looked at Hemingway’s house although Martin did not read much.

In Santa Fe last summer, promoting my memoir, Santa Fe Dreamhouse, I stayed with him. There’s a box of my books in his garage right now, along with the last rugs he didn’t sell at flea markets. Pissed me off he wouldn’t read my book even though he’s in the last chapter. Damn stubborn.

I’ll always have my dreamhouse for it existed before I ever set foot
in Santa Fe and will last as long as I have memory. It's architecture is not perfect but its location by the ancient river, snug against the mountain flank, makes it unique. There will never be another like it, ever.

I can fill the Thanksgiving table with everyone I loved. Here’s Martin, my old friend and neighbor from Brandywine Street, who loved my dog, Flyer, so much he followed me from Philadelphia to Santa Fe just to be near him. Martin has his own dog now.

“Can I bring my Lucky?” he’ll ask.

“Of course,” I say. “Bring what you love.”

Martin, how I miss you.