Red Room Where the Writers Are

Someone's been on my mind a little more than usual lately. He's an old friend of mine. 

I met him about 15 years ago or so. I'd just returned to Pittsburgh after a few years of being away, and I'd reconnected with old friends. They introduced me to a few of their new friends, and one was quite a character. He had big eyes that he quite accurately called his "Bette Davis" eyes. 

One of my friends gave this memorable character a ride to the bar - which was quite necessary since he was too bombed to walk. When the very sober driver asked his name, he said, in the most movie star voice he could muster: "It's Spencer. Spencer Spencer. I'm in the phone book, darling!" With that, he tumbled out of the back seat of the car and into the bar. 

His name was Spencer.....sort of.  Everyone knew him as Spencer, but that wasn't actually his name. He'd reinvented himself, you see. He'd changed his first name to something more sparkly, in his opinion, than the more conventional name he'd been given (Thomas). 

I lived with Spencer briefly in 1999, and was his neighbor for several years after that. We were disastrous as roommates - Spencer was a worrier and a bit of a control freak - but he was a delightful neighbor.

He gave me an education about old movies and classic singers. I got a crash course in Peggy Lee, Judy Garland and Doris Day. We watched hundreds of old movies, a few every week.

After soaking in Spencer's personality for a time, I started to connect the dots and understood that, like a performer or a female impersonator, Spencer created his own role and his own reality and lived quite comfortably in it. What some people might see as blatant dishonesty, Spencer saw as necessary alterations to make him more comfortable in his own skin.

Spencer made a strong impression on people, both by the force of his personality as well as his appearance. I recall one evening when we went to see Blondie in concert. Spencer had spiky, short bleach-blond hair. He was wearing round, European ladies' sunglasses and an Andy Warhol ladies' blouse he'd picked up in Toronto. And a cigarette. Spencer always, always had a lit cigarette in his hand.

Spencer taught me how to appreciate people that are complex in nature, and to be friends with people who you sometimes don't agree with. I learned that confrontation wasn't a bad thing, but a necessary one, and often a learning experience.

He taught me how to be completely uncompromising about something you cared about, or perhaps even about unimportant things, because it was important to be yourself and do what you damn well wanted to.

I've been thinking about Spencer a lot lately because he died seven years ago in 2002. (The anniversary was a few weeks back.) He'd had a massive heart attack coming home from a neighborhood dive bar on a Saturday night; he was only 42 years old. It's still hard to believe: he was there, and then he wasn't. I didn't learn that he'd passed away until someone called me at work.

Spencer could be annoying, demanding, and a handful (he once flew into a rage because someone hadn't reconfirmed a dinner invitation for the third time) and you definitely had to live by some quirky rules in Spencer's world. But it was well worth the price of admission to be there. "Thomas" may have passed away, but I see Spencer's energy, humor and ideas all over the place.