O Captain, my Captain

Any time I emailed Frank, my salutation was those timeless words from Uncle Walt: O Captain, my Captain. I found out later that this was what many of Frank's students called him, perhaps using the honorific from Dead Poet's Society, or acknowledging Frank's pitch-perfect Jean-Luc Picard impersonation. But I would like to think that I was the first to address him thusly, even though I'm sure I wasn't.

Since grad school, the two years we spent in the creative writing graduate program at Temple University (known to this day as Temple Writers), we were buddies. Even though I was in the Poetry department and he was in Fiction, something drew us to one another from the first day. We didn't even have that many classes together, but he was pretty much my strongest influence, my greatest supporter. I think that we bonded over the fact that unlike so many of our colleagues, neither of us really cared about what we called "the trappings" or "the uniform." Frank was a solid, splendid writer who cared about language and its relationship to the world of science and reason, thought and image. Like me, he wasn't interested in wearing dreadlocks or dressing in Doc Martens or flea-bitten bohemian outfits from the thrift shop on South Street. He was about substance, not costume. Quality, not farce or fashion.

When things started breaking down for me as a poetry student - when my professors, in their so-called wisdom, started praising such eternal works as my colleague Elena's poem (which consisted of the word "icicles" written nine times), and when my faculty advisor informed me that I'd never be taken seriously as a writer unless I changed my name ("Andi is nothing more than a perky little sorority girl nickname."), Frank urged me to get out. I can remember the conversation as if it happened last week. "There is only one choice," he said in a mock-Russian accent. "Please: to defect. We in fiction offer you asylum in our country."

And that's exactly what happened. Frank convinced me to get away from the poets ("All of your poems have characters - you do realize that, right?") and I went gladly to inhabit his country, leaving behind icicles and all manner of nonsense. But Frank was more than a mere comrade. He convinced me that I could not only catch up to the other fiction writers, but that my talent would be enough to raise the bar for the entire class.

Because of his confidence in me, I managed to achieve in the space of one year what everyone else had two years to accomplish. He was the peer advisor on my thesis and offered critiques that outshone those of every other student. He was the friend who, upon hearing my work overwhelmingly praised by the Fiction faculty, drily whispered the question in my ear: "So, which one of them are you sleeping with?" He kept my ego in check while simultaneously giving me the confidence to do better, be better, write better. Above all, he conferred upon me a special nickname, derived from Fletch, one of his favorite movies. To Frank, I was always and forever Dr. Rosenpenis - which he upgraded to Rabbi Rosenpenis after I converted to Judaism. Of all the nicknames I've been called in my life, that one, perhaps, was the best. Because once Frank gave you a nickname, you knew you belonged to a very special circle.

Yesterday, I found out that he died about three weeks ago. From all accounts, he had been going through some health problems, and his heart simply gave out. His sister, on Facebook, wrote that his heart was enlarged. Of course it was. Frank was a big-hearted, opinionated, soulful, talented person. I loved how he was never willing to compete in a class that was sorely competitive. I loved that he could be a total prick to what he quietly termed "people posing as writers," but those he loved, he loved deeply and was loyal to beyond words, time, distance, and geography. I loved that, like me, he was always homesick in Philadelphia for his family and the suburb where he grew up. I loved that he hated organized religion in general but didn't think I was crazy for embracing religion in my own life. I loved that he demanded respect for both science AND fiction - he knew that the right words and a fertile imagination and a demand for high standards could combine to create a work that could transcend genres. And I loved that he was just out and out funny and smart and kind and possessed a very sensitive and gentle soul beneath all the snark and bluster.

The last time I saw Frank, I was in Chicago traveling on business. The fates had also conspired to set me up on a blind date on the Saturday night I was there. It was not a good night. I didn't hit it off with the date, and a combination of stress, despair and boredom caused me to drink more than I ever have in my life. When Frank came to get me at the hotel on Sunday morning, to take me out to lunch and then to the airport, he accepted the situation (I was throwing up, disoriented, headachy and light-sensitive, unable to even carry my own luggage) with total equanimity. "That's my Andi," he simply said, taking the suitcase out of my hands and making me sit in the lobby sipping a glass of ice water while he went to get the car. After I was able to recover a little with a bowl of pho bo at a local Vietnamese noodle shop, he drove me back to O'Hare with A Hard Day's Night in the tape player. As we harmonized on the song "If I Fell," he simultaneously corrected the song's bad grammar. "And I," he sang, "would be sad if our new love WERE in vain."

I've sung it that way ever since.

Life never took me back to Chicago. But I was always confident that he was there, in the flip side of an email, in the songs we both loved, in the writing philosophy we both shared. And every couple of years, a package would arrive in the mail from Frank - a travel guide to Chicago. There would always be a bright yellow Post It note inside, on which he had written a simple message: "Rosenpenis - come visit. Love, FAL." Every year the new guide would join the others on the shelf. I wish I had made it back out there.

I went back and read Walt Whitman this morning as I was trying to get ready to smile and look pretty for a press conference. It was not an easy read.

"O Captain, my Captain,
"Rise up and hear the bells!
Rise up--for you the flag is flung -- for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths-- for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck
- You've fallen cold and dead."

Hard to believe that this is how the poem ends.

To say that I will miss Frank is a marvelous understatement. To say that I owe him my identity as a writer of fiction is an irrefutable fact. But that's not as important as saying that I will miss my friend. I have missed him all these many years, and will miss him until I have no years left.