《Insomniac City》Bill Haynes

12-26-09:

O, on the phone from NY, stutters to speak: "I know that I put up all kinds of restrictions. Barriers. And was reluctant to go places with you in public. I now want to say that I love you, too, and I would be happy to go anywhere with you."

I am smiling broadly on the other side of the country.

"And I, with you, young man," I tell him.

3-17-12:

O: "I don't know if a passion for symmetry is an intolerance of asymmetry. Do you?"

I: "I think one can be passionate about both. I think one can embody both."

O: "Good. Very good."

Undated Note - 2012:

O: "I sometimes think things are not enough until they are too much. There is no in between for me."

Kr

Rb

Sr

Y

Z

When I ask, he names each of them, following my finger as I go down the list. He interrupts himself at one point: "They like to be remembered and recited like this."

"They?"

O nods.

He could not look more delighted and it's no because of the alcohol.

Listed separately, under the heading, "No or infinitesimal," are the exceptions. He does on to explain the difference between organic and nonorganic chemistry. I do not - and expect I never will - understand half of what he is saying.

7-22-14:

I was standing in the kitchen last night making dinner for the two of us and a thought came to me: This is the happiest I've ever been.

I stopped myself: Is that true?

I kept doing what I was doing, making dinner, sort of testing the feeling; O was talking all the while; and I thought, Yes, yes, it is true. 

5-6-15:

At lunch, the husband of O's niece tells me how he first met Oliver, some forty years ago, at the home of his future father-in-law, O's older brother David: Nicky looked out the window, where he saw a large, bearded man lying on the grass in the garden. "What were you doing?" Nicky asked once he came indoors.

"I was wondering what it is like to be a rose," replied Oliver.