To me he was the most wonderful friend and
inspiration, nurturing my writing more unfailingly than any person on the earth; yet when
I told him I’d dedicated my first book to him, he immediately started complaining
about the whole idea of "dedicating books," sheer nonsense and tripe it was,
absurd and ridiculous… and he strode out of the room muttering these imprecations, as
if muttering could ward off the embarrassment of love.
The truth was that you simply never knew what he was going to say or do.
He had no problems saying exactly what he meant -- and he tended to change his mind -- and
sometimes he even said things just to hear how they sounded, so that even he didn’t
believe them. He was the perfect will o- the wisp, never easy to characterize or pin down.
He did everything quickly -- walk and write letters and paint pictures and read books -
hell, he even cooked quickly -- and his mind spun faster than anyone else’s… yet
he was capable of just sitting in silence for tremendous amounts of time. He had the
tendency to arrive phenomenally early for all occasions once we invited him for lunch, and
he showed up at 9:30, and this is no exaggeration, Leonard himself was the exaggeration.
By the same token, though, he would also leave just as early: Abby (his oldest child, of
course) had an enormous dinner for her 40th birthday party; Leonard made a superb and
emotional speech... and then left well before the main course. There was just no one like
Leonard.
Continued |
