Bridges: A Memorial

         We had a food club back in the 1970s. We would go to the Santa Cruz co-op and buy peanut butter by the gallon. Most often it was Bryant who drove, helped shop, and distributed the purchases to members.

The food club put out a recipe book and produced a little melodrama, "The Saga of Spanishtown Sue", for friends and family. Bryant had the role of Wicked Willie Whoppergotter, the tyrannical landlord whose transformation came with the recovery of his only child, Sweet Susie Thistledown.

Bryant died, too young, in July of this year, but I only learned about it yesterday. Part of the paradox of Bryant was his willingness to stand out in some cases (wearing full Scottish regalia to the Symphony, for instance) and his reluctance to attract attention ("I don't much like to read about myself, especially on the Internet.") Trying to deal with his loss, I wrote about him for the e-magazine of a friend.  I figured that Bryant wouldn't mind now that he wouldn't have to read the words.

I wrote about how he dressed up at St. Nicholas and distributed toys at Christmas on his way to midnight services at Grace Cathedral (he was Jewish), how he yearned to sing bass in a Russian men's choir, how he could hold a stick in his hand and it would sprout leaves.

I found a picture of him, more than 20 years old, a Polaroid I took during his brief attempt at playing piano. The picture shows his wild dark hair and beard, his half-smile, his eyebrows which went up into an expression which was at once hopeful and surprised.

Bryant once played Tevye in a small production of Fiddler on the Roof. Since he liked to do things properly, he repeatedly bowed throughout the performance whenever his character was addressing God. Davening, they call it, from the Aramaic D'avot Inun, "These emanate from our patriarchs". The act may have been more suited to worship than to musical theater, but of course it was unforgettable. "Would it spoil some vast eternal plan/ If I were a wealthy man?"

My church holds memorial services for the departed after forty days, one year, three years, seven years. The people sing "Eternal be his (or her) memory" and they say "Light be the earth which covers him (or her).

Bryant will be buried next to his mother's grave, far from where he spent more than half of his life. Probably the best 40-day memorial I can make for him is this poem I wrote about him in 1974.

GOATHERDS

He blew the conch to summon the herdsmen.

From the next valley came an answering call.

And lo! The Golden Goatway Bridge

built of huge stringers and consummate daring

crossed over the sheer drop to the ocean.

Bridges are something else, he said.

The children cut the ribbon.

He drove the gold stake.

The goats refused to walk across

to honor the occasion;

in fact, Bryant chased them up the cliff,

looking like a goat himself,

but gathering ceremonial flowers.

When he changed his tactic

and ran away from the goats, they chased him.

"The goats have taught me all I know,"

he said, panting,

distributing the flowers.