Gray MacArthur

Gray died the day before Easter. We thought he would rise again. I met Gray through a personal ad about 20+ years ago. He had an ad placed in the Village Voice which read something along the lines of, "cantankerous bastard looking for a cantankerous woman to bicker with". I read the ad and laughed out loud. His was he only personal ad I ever responded to. Every time we went for dinner in the city we parted fighting. Usually it was after he regaled me with racist jokes about blacks or faggots. (I think I once tried to run him over in my car). His two closest friends, myself and another man were gay and black. We once got kicked out of a bar when he began his parrot nigger joke. The bartender kicked him out when he perceived that Gray was being insensitive to me.  I loved him. Madly. His voice was like nothing one has ever heard before. It was regal; sophisticated and made for the theatre. He read for the blind but got asked to leave when he began to ad lib, to his own amusement, what he would rather have read. He weighed 90 pounds soaking wet. He was funny in a way that was clever. He called me in the middle of the night always. Never did he call me during the day. It was always at 4am or some such ungodly hour. The great thing was that I could call whenever I wished as well.

He died of cancer. The nigger and the faggot were with him at the end as he had no immediate family. Only his corneas where salvageable.

When I tell people I am called by a friend in the middle of the night I am often responded to by a statement that is appalled in nature. I have to defend myself and him. I found it comforting. Comforting and warming. I liked being needed and called upon at all hours. It made me feel loved by him. He had numerous cats, two at a time, always the same breed - ugly as hell, always under the furniture never to be seen and always called 'Tench and Headache".

Gray was born in Italy. He was raised in Buffalo, NY. He spoke French and had lived in France during the war. He had met the likes of Richard Wright the author and had cursed him out as he had been rude to Gray. I can imagine him telling Wright the parrot joke and it not going over too well...

I am going to miss him. I am running out of my loved ones. If I could have one more moment with him I would ask for three things. To hear his voice again, to once again say I loved him and to hear, one more time so that I could commit it to memory, the nigger parrot joke. 

May you be with The MacArthur Clan in heaven and may they all be gay and black.