Afew weeks ago I wrote about Dennis' fantastic stories and his sudden death. I wrote from a dispassionate stance, including none of my feelings. The article engendered a great deal more than the usual feedback, most of it positive, which is to be expected. It feels good to compliment. But it's hard to share negative feelings, and I appreciate two who took me to task, characterizing the article as brutal and insensitive.

I feel badly that people felt pain and insult from reading it. I get that it's our custom to speak of the dead with compassion, and I didn't do that. So I would like to tell you who Dennis was for me.

I miss him, as do those he hung out with at the store. He was kind, quiet spoken and respectful. I knew him as a sensitive guy who also happened to dwell in the most bizarre memories.

Despite these fantasies of former wealth and valor, he was quite real - and sharp. He engaged us in a game of barter which he won as often as we. I remember once buying a crisp $1 from him for $3. He'd said it was worth $10. I gloated until I checked the Internet and discovered it was worth exactly $1. Time and again I was his mark. Luckily the boss faired better.

The specificity of his tales fascinated me, as if he'd really been there: Caradine's smile as he got up from the table... Shepard throwing up in the spaceship.

Someone said these stories that dressed his inner landscape like Dali's melted pocket watches were his demons. Certainly these defenses against hardship and a damaged sense of self worth were far more bizarre than mine. But they didn't diminish him in my eyes. My vision of the world is more functional and serves me better to deal with society. So does that put me in higher esteem? He saw the mystery of life through a cracked lens. Because mine is clearer, is life any less a mystery for me?

When I'm dead will the

demons I leave behind be any less grotesque than his? I don't know. I don't want to judge.

Sometimes we'd see him a few times a day, and then not for a few weeks. I didn't think about it at the time because it never occurred to me that he'd suddenly disappear. Dennis is a lesson to me that the end is rarely expected. Who haven't I told I love them? Who haven't I hugged today? What little piece went unfinished before I lay my head down... and will there be a tomorrow?

So Dennis, I liked you. Though I never said it I hope you knew it. But as I speak to you now I realize I'm speaking to the wind... to myself... and is that any less strange than your confabulations? eric@ericnagler.com