Limekiller!

I first met Avram some twenty years ago at the Clarion Workshop at Michigan State University, where he was a teacher for one week and I was a student. Avram was ill and taking various medications, thus not at his best. The teaching of writing is an elusive process; indeed, there are those who claim it can’t be taught. During his time at the workshop, Avram — by virtue of his illness — did little to disprove this. That said, if he had not taught at Clarion, I doubt I would have become a writer. He validated me in a way I needed, treating me less as a student than a colleague, encouraging me to challenge myself, to explore and not exploit my gift. Yet in his encouragement there was ever a cautionary note. Once while we were going over a manuscript of mine, he said, “This is very good.” Then, giving me a deadpan look, he added, “Are you sure you want to be a writer? You’d make more money as a podiatrist.” He was a walking life lesson relating to the potential hardships of a writer’s life. One day at lunch, we (the students) were gathered at table in the cafeteria when Avram approached, cane hooked over an arm, carrying a tray laden with four entrees, two salads, several desserts, innumerable rolls. We gaped at him, wondering first how this smallish man was planning to consume so much food, and, secondly, wondering why he would attempt such a monumental consumption. He took a seat, hung his cane on the edge of the table, unloaded the tray, arranged his utensils, taking an inordinately long time to accomplish this. Finally, he looked at us and pointed to the banquet in front of him. “Why all this?” he said. “Next week, it’s back to soupbones.”

After Clarion, I didn’t see Avram for several years, though we carried on a correspondence; but when I moved to Seattle, I took the ferry across the Sound to visit him with some regularity. During those visits, I would help him with errands. He was by then limited to a walker, incapable of leaving the apartment without assistance, and he would often call me and ask me to come visit, and when I did, I would find myself pushing him about Bremerton in a wheelchair, obedient as a horse to his demands, helping him with the groceries, bill-paying, library returns, and that sort of thing. I was being used, of course, and there were times when I became impatient with him for taking advantage of the relationship. But it gradually dawned on me that this is what friends did — they used one another — and that I was using Avram every bit as much as he used me, though my usage of him was less labor intensive: as mentor, touchstone, resource. On occasion, he, too, would become impatient. Once, when I was beginning to write my own Central American stories, I wrote him a letter expressing some insecurity as to whether people would think that I was encroaching on his literary turf. A few days later, I got back a post card that read: “That’s right, Shepard. I’ve staked claim to the entire Caribbean littoral. It’s mine, all mine. Keep your grubby hands off.” I was so confounded by this burst of acerbity, it took me a goodly while to understand that he was telling me I was an idiot for assuming that any writer could dispossess another of the opportunity to examine a certain region or historical moment. At any rate, our friendship passed, as most friendships do, through phases of intimacy and neglect, waxed minimal, became exuberant, grew intensely divisive and reached grudging accord, and then, one morning shortly after I learned he was failing, I picked up the phone and was informed that he had died… a death, I believe, that warranted much more of a salute than it received.