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A Meditation on Jon Yevin at 45
I Know A Man by Robert Creeley
as I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking, — John, I
sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what
can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,
drive, he sd, for
christ’s sake, look
out where yr going.
I’ve always wanted an older brother, an impossible ask as the first-born, but Jon Yevin, who I first met through the Jewish Community Center of Paramus when we were barely out of diapers, would come to stand in for that role. He’s three years older and the actual older brother to my friend Shira, who once saved my life in rural Austria, after finding me on a train, asking what the hell was wrong with me and insisting that I go to a hospital, not knowing my appendix had just burst. One emergency appendectomy and two years later, Jon and I reconnected in NY, where I was an aspiring magazine entrepreneur and Jon was a published magazine writer known for gonzo stunts like getting Christian universities to incorporate “Goldstein” into their name by pretending he was a widow with a large potential endowment.
