By
Sarah L. Myers
New
York, NY, USA
If
you just blur your vision a little bit, you can see it
in the way it used to be.
–
Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown: Congo Episode
Anthony Bourdain is in the Congo,
staring out into the sky above the jungle. He wears his worry for just a second
before resuming his role as Joseph Conrad in the Heart of Darkness. Moments later he’s Tony again. He laughs
gleefully at a shock of lightening keeping his plane – a primitive model of
which not even he had seen – on the ground. He’s badass, relentless, and
without fear.
At the center of Heart of Darkness lays the dichotomy of the civilized and the
savage. No one possessed that spirit more so than Tony. While always leaning
more toward the savage, he was elegant and civilized in ways only a world
traveler could be. He walked like a caveman with a loping gait and
long-swinging arms. His Appetites
cookbook contains recipes for British-style pheasant alongside the pornographic
glory of a sausage and pepper hero from the food truck. One of these makes him
“shit like a mink”. It’s your guess.
It’s taken me a few weeks to write
this. With blurred vision I’m able to revisit my
favorite episodes of No Reservations and Parts Unknown. I drank the “Black Death” Brennivin in Iceland because
Tony did. I signed a fake name to get into Trisha’s, a sunken little hideout in
London’s Soho district, because he once drank there. I was new to the city when
I went to Les Halles and closed the place on half-priced wine night. With every
glass I felt just a little closer to my chain-smoking, ball-busting hero who
demanded only the best of himself but was always the first to self-deprecate.
 |
| Sarah L. Myers |
How could someone so hungry for life
choose to end his this way? That has been the hardest question I’ve asked myself
as I tried to write this. I always saw a boyish joy in his reaction to the
world. If he was taking his problems with him, it was a burden with which we
could all identify. There’s not one place I’ve seen that has made me forget
that my cousin, Rachel, my best friend since the day I was born, is gone too.
In his book Medium Raw, Tony writes about drinking alone in a bar, describing
the pre-fab Irish pub complete with Celtic curio and bartender on a student
visa. He rips the menu of wilted pickles and talks shit about the fried
zucchini. A song comes on the jukebox and he’s transported back to Beirut,
where an episode of No Reservations
upended into chaos amid political uprising and violent protest. He smells
burning jet fuel, hears rockets, and accepts a sudden sadness. He pulls himself
out of the moment but writes he is sure no one else at the bar feels the way he
does.
This might be my favorite story he’s
ever told. We all balance on this wire every day. Who doesn’t hear a song or
see a photo that dredges up something to break your heart again? One reason
it’s taken me so long to write this is because for weeks I couldn’t hear his
voice on TV without jerking like I’d been slapped. Of course I didn’t know him
personally, but he had donated items to Thirsty’s Joey Ramone charity auctions
and I’d run into him once at Rudy’s – that beloved Hell’s Kitchen dive with
free hot dogs and duct-taped booths. Tony didn’t stay long. A drunk guy thought
he was David Byrne. Never one to suffer fools, he promptly left.
When visiting Rome, a place very
special to Tony, he comments on the ruins that enchant him and the endurance
and power of such a place. Then, he says, “Shit gets real.” When the ruins
don’t belong to you, when the cross to bear isn’t hanging from your shoulders,
they are easier to gaze upon with admiration and wonder. What was going through
his mind that day? Where was the one place he just couldn’t get away from? We
all wear our shadows differently. It’s heartbreaking to imagine the pain he
must have been in.
 |
| Sarah's Secret Beach (Belize) |
In a little more than a month I’ll be
back in Provincetown, a place close to Tony’s heart and now just as close to
mine. I’ll cheers to him at The Underground. My vision will be blurred but
probably for other reasons. I want to celebrate my hero in a place he loved.
Tony is everywhere in Ptown - in the Portuguese kale soup at the Lobster Pot
and the salty midnight pies at Spiritus. I’ll focus on those fun, irreverent
things about the quirky town instead of picturing him ducking to get through
the door at Old Colony Tap.
If
you just blur your vision a little bit, you can see it
in the way it used to be.
The second a moment ends, it becomes
something that used to be. I am struggling with the very real fact that someone
I trusted to show me the world chose to take himself out of it. To me he was
completely invincible. We could go anywhere as long as he was there to take us
with him. Where are we supposed to go now?
xoxo
slm
__________________________________
Sarah
L. Myers is a founding member of the Editorial Board of Stay
Thirsty Magazine.