Raymond Stanton, 1940-2018

I'm guessing Raymond died yesterday, or the day before. There was a handwritten note on his door from a neighbor named Dave, wondering where he was, Raymond that is. Dave wrote that he hadn't seen Raymond for awhile. I saw the note yesterday morning; today it's not there, and now I know why.

I'm sure he died alone, of that much I'm sure. 

I liked Raymond, though it doesn't sound quite right to me to hear myself say 'I liked Raymond'. He lived next door and was the first person I met in the neighborhood when I moved in. I could see he had integrity, and I didn't know him at all. Once, he took my morning newspaper, thinking I wasn't home, over to his apartment to read. The next morning, realizing I was indeed home, he put the newspaper back in its blue plastic sack with a note, 'thought you were out of town, sorry, Stanton'.

I liked the way Raymond used his last name, as if that was all you had to know about him.

I'd see him around--out in front of his place, walking to the market or to the bus stop, at the local library. All the librarians knew him, a good sign, at least to me. Librarians are reserved people, and Ray was reserved. I'd hear the librarians call him, 'Ray,' as in 'good to see you Ray,' or 'where've you been Ray?' They used the shortened version of his name. I couldn't do that, I always called him either 'Stanton' or 'Raymond'; this felt right to me, a way of acknowleging in my own way a man who lived alone in a world of ruined dignity.

Raymond looked, at least every time I saw him, as if he was working out some great problem that only he could work out, alone, and that this was how he used his time, day after day. Whatever the problem was, I like to imagine it enlarged him, made him almost noble, but I could be wrong. His landlord told me once Raymond was 'crazy', and accused him hacking off the top of a small tree on the sidewalk in front of his apartment. Raymond told me not long ago that he'd been an alcoholic, but hadn't been alcoholic for years. The last time I spent any time with him Raymond we walked down to Geary together; he was catching the 38 Muni, on his way to an AA meeting. 

Last night at about 11 pm it became official: Raymond Stanton was dead. The cops showed up, then a fire truck, then an ambulance, but without a siren and the blinking lights. A few neighbors gathered on the street; it was all over in a matter of minutes.

Raymond could have been dead two or three days. I don't think he was, but he could have been. I do know he was alone.

This morning I thought about what I would say if there was a service for Raymond, and if I was asked to speak.

All I can think to say is what I can't say, because everything I'd say would have to be all in the present. I guess I'd say how beautiful the day is being--so clear, warm, sunny--and that Raymond's death makes me sad, but I'm also gladdened by how much life is going on anyway.