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Shovel 10 | Sep 23 2002

He had a board with letters on it which he would point to with this thing he held in his mouth. The mouth thing was u-shaped at one end, so that he could grasp it in his teeth.

He was dying and had once been the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. I learned these things from his wife, who appeared always about to cry, or having just cried, but never did cry.

I don’t remember what my job was, exactly. Probably feeding him and getting things. It didn’t last long because he died in just a few weeks. I got a call from his wife who said I didn’t need to come in anymore. I wasn’t sure if I had been fired or if he had died, but then a few days later I saw his picture in the paper.

I have only one memory. We were alone in his study and he was spelling something with his pointer. This may have been the first day. He had just spelled a word I didn’t know. First he had spelled the words DON’T BE SUCH A and then this word I didn’t know, so I had asked him to do it again. That’s what he was doing. I thought he seemed annoyed.

Here’s what he spelled:

                            N
          E
    B
    B
                  I
                                      S
                H