It must be over two weeks since I wrote those five true words. Tonight I realize that John Gemperle deserves either a long and loving memoir, or no words at all. I never knew where he came from, I never knew how he got where he was going so fast. All I knew were those few painfully beautiful years when we were strange and strangely passionate lovers. But much more than that, so much more, what I knew was how brilliant he was. And how troubled. He was a poet. He would have been a poet. He was a teller of tales. He lied. His lies were wonderful. I listened to his lying truths and marveled at him.
He wanted everything. But he also wanted nothing. Even then, I sensed life was more than he was willing to endure. And his living of it cost more than he was willing to pay.
I saw him the night before he died. Or perhaps it was the actual night of his dying. I don't really know the hour death came for him. We spent that last night at the No Name Bar. Sausalito, of course. Was he twenty two? I've thought all these years that he was twenty two, so perhaps he was. He was drinking too much, I've never really drunk at all. But I loved the No Name, a place I'd been thrown out of regularly beginning when I was 16. I was well known there. They called me Lolita, and tossed me out. That night I was legal and that night John was like someone Kerouac would have created: shouting insults, quoting poetry, quietly crying as he held me in a booth in the back. When you're 22, you can't even begin to imagine that someone you know could die. So, unimaginably, I didn't go off with him when he left the No Name. I don't know where he went or why or with whom.
I was with Colleen Trumbo when the phone rang. It was the very next day. I don't remember where we were. I think it was somewhere up Larkspur's Madrone Canyon, the very place John came for me when my stepfather told me to leave his house. John came on foot and we walked away into a rainy redwood midnight. I don't recall where we went. I just know that he came for me. But on this day the phone rang and Colleen answered it. We'd been laughing, she and I. But Colleen's face as she listened to whoever was speaking turned down. "It's Nona Dasmann," she said, "She has something to tell you." I took the phone from her hand and held it to my ear. Nona told me that John was dead. He'd been found in San Francisco's panhandle. Sitting with his back against a tree.
John Gemperle remains with me now as he was then. 22 years old, lying and crying against my neck. I really did love him. I still do.
Ki (Pam) Longfellow
I shall never NEVER forget.
It must be over two weeks since I wrote those five true words. Tonight I realize that John Gemperle deserves either a long and loving memoir, or no words at all. I never knew where he came from, I never knew how he got where he was going so fast. All I knew were those few painfully beautiful years when we were strange and strangely passionate lovers. But much more than that, so much more, what I knew was how brilliant he was. And how troubled. He was a poet. He would have been a poet. He was a teller of tales. He lied. His lies were wonderful. I listened to his lying truths and marveled at him.
He wanted everything. But he also wanted nothing. Even then, I sensed life was more than he was willing to endure. And his living of it cost more than he was willing to pay.
I saw him the night before he died. Or perhaps it was the actual night of his dying. I don't really know the hour death came for him. We spent that last night at the No Name Bar. Sausalito, of course. Was he twenty two? I've thought all these years that he was twenty two, so perhaps he was. He was drinking too much, I've never really drunk at all. But I loved the No Name, a place I'd been thrown out of regularly beginning when I was 16. I was well known there. They called me Lolita, and tossed me out. That night I was legal and that night John was like someone Kerouac would have created: shouting insults, quoting poetry, quietly crying as he held me in a booth in the back. When you're 22, you can't even begin to imagine that someone you know could die. So, unimaginably, I didn't go off with him when he left the No Name. I don't know where he went or why or with whom.
I was with Colleen Trumbo when the phone rang. It was the very next day. I don't remember where we were. I think it was somewhere up Larkspur's Madrone Canyon, the very place John came for me when my stepfather told me to leave his house. John came on foot and we walked away into a rainy redwood midnight. I don't recall where we went. I just know that he came for me. But on this day the phone rang and Colleen answered it. We'd been laughing, she and I. But Colleen's face as she listened to whoever was speaking turned down. "It's Nona Dasmann," she said, "She has something to tell you." I took the phone from her hand and held it to my ear. Nona told me that John was dead. He'd been found in San Francisco's panhandle. Sitting with his back against a tree.
John Gemperle remains with me now as he was then. 22 years old, lying and crying against my neck. I really did love him. I still do.