Giancarlo DiTrapano (1974–2021)
Various, originally published in Muumuu House (2021). This was my contribution.
Well, I was too late—again.
Since I heard the news, I keep thinking of Gian's way of living. Of not frittering away your time doing shit for shit's sake, of standing up for what you believe in, of not cowering in fear and complicity because of what other people might think. And yes, you could do worse than lionizing the dearly departed, just like you could do worse than following Gian's bold and gracious example.In the month and half since Gian's death, I have: left a well-paying job, fretted over some tweets, had so many stressful, uncomfortable conversations, personal and professional, that I can feel my heart increasing its dumb relentless thump as I type out these words. I have learned my mother is slowly dying—"deteriorating," in my father's words. I have dropped everything to visit a dear friend who's in from out of town so that we could walk with his three-year-old to Rite Aid, my friend clutching his son's one hand, me holding the other, as he catapults through the air.I have reconnected with exes. Emailed or spoken with two lawyers; streamed a Zoom funeral—Gian's. Been on other, differently agonizing Zooms where at least half the people are crying.I have finished reading a couple books, one of them Scott McClanahan's searing Tyrant-published The Sarah Book, which I'd published an excerpt of, back in 2017, without having finished because I felt too overwhelmed by my job and everything else that was going on. And I put together a remembrance of Gian that included 33 other friends' memories and tributes.I have carried lessons from Gian in some way through all of this.I'm reminded of the Mitch Hedberg joke: "I used to do drugs; I still do, but I used to do them, too." That's like me with wasting my time—I used to waste it; I still do, but I used to, too. But now, hopefully, thanks to Gian, less?Time passes, like water through a sieve. But hey, at least put out the sieve, right?At a gathering of some fellow mourners of Gian's in New York in April, one of the stories we kept passing around was Sam Lipsyte's remembrance of some friend of Gian's, "some guy," shitting on Sam and Sam's work and Gian kindly leading that friend away by the shoulder and then returning, sans friend but with equal kindness, telling Sam, "It's OK. That guy just really doesn't like you." In his remembrance, Sam notes how a lesser person might have shat on his friend, or make excuses, or tried to play it off, but Gian just told it to him straight, with grace and understanding and space for all. Everyone loved that story, and seemed to get so much out of telling and retelling it, but my correspondence with Sam, who was my professor in grad school, seemed to pain him. His words, so beautiful and crystalline, seemed wrenched from some deep place within. Sam is a warm, generous guy—one of the warmest, and most generous. But his emails to me were clipped, emotional boilerplate. The few words they did contain hinted at futility, danger. A toeing the edge of an abyss.I didn't know Gian as well as others. We only hung out just the two of us once, when he came over to my apartment for some reason I can no longer remember and took a photo that he posted on Facebook, back when he was on Facebook, me standing a bit triumphantly next to some rusty heating pipes that are now gone, and he tagged it with such effusiveness and optimism that I, mortified, pretended it all never happened. The full force of his intimacy and sincerity, I think, scared me—which of course is laughable, even contemptible, but ultimately, now, just sad. Gian was extra; I was sparing. But for what?There's another moment too I will relate. At the memorial last month, a friend and I found ourselves at the bar next to two people in their twenties who appeared a bit nervous and out of place—the guy said he used to work for Fat Possum (which I think distributed Tyrant books for a spell); what the woman did I'm not sure she said—when she focused in on us and blurted out, with relief and candor, that it was good to finally see some other people of color at the gathering. (The Fat Possum guy was white, as far as I could tell, which magnified the awkwardness of her statement.) I replied sympathetically but my friend, whom I look up to, to my surprise kind of recoiled. He didn't like her leading with that, he later confessed, it's exhausting, especially with strangers, especially at a bar. I mean, who does that? he griped. But I, perhaps conjuring Gian, took her side—she was young and just looking for some kind of solidarity, we should've given it to her, and my friend, who really is better than me, thought about it and admitted he fucked up, we could've at least thrown her a bone.My point here isn't being right or not—only that we have these moments and it all happens too quick and then it's over and, if you're lucky, and give yourself to life, I mean really give yourself to living, you'll maybe have some friends who can say something wise and not too boring about you, before they too are gone.There is, maybe, in the end, just this one lesson: You have to find your people. And Gian, bless him, was someone who helped.Read the full article at Muumuu House.