In Memoriam Michael A. Kroll
His death, like the news of it, came without warning, expectation or apparent reason to be concerned. Although I hadn't had a reply to either of my two most recent emails, stretches of silence had happened before, especially when he was spending what little "free" time he had tending to his ailing parents, both of whom died during the three years I knew him. How strange, how chilling it is, to write "knew him" when "know him" was the accurate description just a week ago.
I am grieving for a friend I met only three years ago as a real estate agent. My partner had located a house that looked ideal for us Ñ Spanish style, large and open with lots of natural light and a commanding, even breath taking view. I longed to see the stars at night, and emailed the realty company advertising the property. They randomly assigned an agent to respond. I'll call him Ari.
The very first time we met, my partner and I were traveling with our dogs, and Ari was to meet us at our motel in the morning. It was the first of a number of times that our attempts to see property had to be aborted, in this case because both our dogs had been vomiting all night. We had visited my aunt's house the day before where the dogs had eaten leaves from a shrub in her back yard. My aunt loved the butterflies that occasionally flitted into her garden, but she routinely sprayed insecticide on the shrubs the caterpillars fed on. She hadn't made the connection between the caterpillars she hated and the butterflies she loved.
Anyway, the morning Ari knocked on our motel room door, we were still cleaning up the bathroom floor. He spoke softly, comforting both us and the dogs, and reassured us that we'd be able to carry out our mission at a later date.
The very first time Ari took me out Ñ my partner was not able to join me on that trip Ñ he showed me as much as he could about the rural mountain town and its environs, not individual properties but different topographical areas, from valley to mountaintop, and we got to know each other. I liked him. He was very easy going, not the pushy stereotype of a realtor, but a decent man in mid-life. He spoke of his wife and two children, of the various jobs he had done over the years, of places he had lived and which of those he loved the most and why. He asked about me and expressed genuine interest in my political passions and, in particular, my writing.
Finally, I turned to him and asked, without beating around the bush, "Do you think a mixed-race gay couple would be accepted here?" Perhaps because he had first met us in that motel room, he expressed no surprise at the question, either verbally or facially. He answered that at one time he thought it might have been a problem, but that he'd observed a steady influx of more liberal ideas and people. He thought we would "be good for the place."
The next time I showed up to view property was another of those occasions where the primary purpose of the visit could not be fulfilled Ñ this time because of snow. We met that morning in a small cafe and watched as the snow quickly blanketed the streets, making the mountain roads impassable. Sitting across the small table from me, Ari looked into my eyes, then looked down. Lowering his voice, he said, quickly, "I have something I want to tell you? I'm gay."
I took the information in as I had many startling admissions I'd heard in my capacity as a death penalty mitigation investigator, betraying no emotional response, but listening attentively. He went on to tell me that his wife and children did not know his sexual preference, that his son was openly gay but did not know (and now will never learn) that his father, too, was gay. He had been brought up in the church where he had met his future wife. They had married young.
As he revealed his secret, it was as if a terrible weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He straitened himself, sat more erect, looked at my eyes and not at the floor as he continued to open up. I knew from personal experience how crippling it could be to hold such secrets, to keep the essence of one's identity tightly and fearfully bottled up.
Wistfully, he admitted that except for a brief affair and an online friendship with a man he had never met, I was the first person he had unburdened himself to. He trusted me. Now, in addition to our professional relationship, we shared a secret Ñ his secret Ñ which became another bond cementing our friendship.
Since then, I spent many hours with Ari either in his car or mine, sometimes with my partner present, sometimes not, driving up and down mountain roads looking at houses for sale. I often apologized to him for taking so much of his time without buying anything, without putting a dime in his pocket.
Well, that's not altogether true. Less than a year ago, he called me about two parcels of land in the area where my partner and I had decided we hoped to move. Both parcels were on the market for $10,000, though one was a single acre and the other four acres. "I'm already getting inquiries about these parcels," he told me on the phone. "I think you should see them, but I can't hold off these potential buyers for long. It's not ethical."
I jumped in my car for the five-hour drive, checked into a motel, and met Ari the next morning at his office. He showed me both parcels. Only the four-acre piece commanded a view of the valley below and the mountains beyond. I asked him how much he thought I might be able to offer to get the property. He told me the owner was a friend (he knew everyone), someone he'd helped get a mansion for about half the asking price not far from the spot we're we stood. He suggested I offer $8,000, an unbelievably reasonable price for the land. I made the offer, which was accepted. So Ari got his first tiny commission from me, and I got a foothold in the mountains where, if I only had some money, I could build, and our friendship could blossom.
Ari directed me to a local builder. "He's very competent and a good person," he said, but warned, "Just don't talk about politics!" On a subsequent visit, I met Ari at the builder's office, and we drove in separate cars Ñ Ari and I in mine, the builder in his Ñ to the property, where we identified various building sites. But it quickly became apparent that building on the site would cost more than buying an already existing house, so Ari continued sending me listings, which my partner and I would review, choosing those we were interested in seeing, and continuing to make trips there when we could.
Whenever Ari and I spent time together, we teased each other with fantasies each of us was entertaining about the future: how we would hike together to a canyon he knew where there are wild horses; how he would show me the oldest and tallest oak trees in California; how we would sit together in my yet-to-be-purchased hot tub and marvel at the expansive vista while sipping bourbon. If truth be told, I think we also nurtured unexpressed fantasies, like skinny dipping together in one of the many natural pools he knew of in the surrounding mountains. At least I entertained that fantasy.
It was Ari who turned me onto the Nifty website. During my final visit, he asked me if Nifty had published anything since the last story I'd written about sucking off a sailor in Guam while listening to Nixon give his resignation speech on radio. He always asked me about my writing, lavishing praise on everything I sent him, both published and unpublished.
The last time I saw Ari was the first week of April, barely a month ago. He had shown us a house that, yet again, fell short of our expectations. When I went to his office the next morning to say we would again be leaving without making an offer, he only smiled at me and said, "I'll happen." As he stood, I handed him a parting gift: a joint I had rolled the night before in the motel. He thanked me as he shoved it into his jacket pocket, saying he'd wait until after his doctor's routine appointment in a couple of days for fear it would show up in a blood test. We hugged each other good-bye, and I felt his lean, muscular body against mine. In his late 50s, his graying hair beginning to thin, Ari was a handsome man who, unlike me, was very health conscious. He was a vegetarian who, nevertheless, enjoyed a good scotch.
About a week ago, I sent him one of my regular emails inquiring about a couple of properties my partner had found online, asking him what he could tell me about them. After several days without a response, I sent him a follow-up, what would be my final email. I joked with him about another website he had turned me onto. My last email read: "I have a bone to pick with you (in a manner of speaking...). Ever since you turned me onto Tumblr, I HAVE TO look at those photos of beautiful men every day, at least for a while. I'm torn between pure admiration and pure envy: I wish I had a flat stomach!"
Thus, we teased each other, like tentative teenagers, he approaching 60, me about to turn 70.
There was no reply to this email the next day, but the day after that Ñ the day before yesterday Ñ I got a call from the builder. He asked when I thought we'd be back so he could walk the property with us, "no charge," and discuss various possibilities. I told him that if we came, it would be during the week between my last day of teaching and the first day of a vacation to celebrate my 70th birthday, but that I couldn't be sure until I heard back from Ari about possible properties to view. "It's just not feasible for me to come down unless I have some houses to look at," I told him, "and I'm still waiting for Ari to let me know about that."
"Ari passed away last week," he said. "A massive heart attack."
"Ari passed away?" I couldn't quite compute the words. I stuttered, "Oh, my god!" I cannot replicate my state of utter shock and disbelief. I reeled, muttered a few words about Ari being far more than just my realtor. "I don't know what this means for me," I managed. "I'll let you know."
"Ari passed away?" Those words echo in my brain. They haunt me. They are so without adornment, so total, so complete, so impervious to argument or clarification. Like turning off the TV, suddenly everything is black. Everything stops. Everything is gone. Silence.
Ari was ten years my junior, so maybe this overwhelming grief I'm feeling is partly generated by my own impending mortality. But it's much more than that. My tears are heavy with pain for this wonderful, gentle man who felt forced to conceal the essence of his self-identity. His terrible secret prevents me from grieving openly, from sharing my pain honestly with his family and loved ones who did not know who it was they loved. It prevents me from naming the town, or revealing wonderful but well-known details of his life for fear of betraying him posthumously. Yes, there is a self-centeredness about my grief for dreams that will never happen, and for the finality of death itself. But there is something inexpressible about it, too, a deep pain borne of a life unlived.
Ari was my friend. I can't believe he's gone.
In Memoriam 9 Michael A. Kroll