Saturday, October 18, 2008

Beautiful Boy

Spencer Barnett was the kind of kid that you knew would go on to do interesting things.

He paid me the highest compliment by once calling me cool.

He used words like haberdasher.

I knew him because his mom and I are friends.

We saw the Gates in Central Park on its last weekend. It was cold and he stopped on the street when we were almost there because he was out of breath.

We bought hats for a dollar each from a street vendor because we were so cold. His looked jaunty, mine looked dumb.

I thought he was brave when he wore a throw-back flowery shirt in high school.

He made me laugh.

When you made him laugh it felt like you had achieved something.

We had a dance off at a party at his house.

He liked to play games that require paper plates and pencils.

He patiently explained to my family how to draw five squares across and four squares down without acting like we were stupid.

He was handsome.

He loved the Phillies, Project Runway and Barack Obama, maybe not in that order.

He knew a lot about music.

He was a theater kid in high school.

He was into Queer Theory in college.

He played Helen Keller's father in The Miracle Worker.

He had a big imperfect heart.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Anna...........thank you my dear friend for this tribute to Spencer. Yes, he was a beautiful boy and he did think you were fantastically cool.

Please read this at the service on the 29th.....ok?