Never let those who claim they’ve experienced more tell you that a year is a short span of time or that in comparison to a lifetime any given year is insignificant. In a year the world can change, in nine months a child can be born and in eight, as was the case for us and Jackie McAllister, a wonderful friendship can be formed.
We luckily do not have to speak of Jackie euphemistically, and even if impelled toward it by sadness, we must avoid it at all costs. He was too good a person and our memories of him are too precious to clothe them in artificial or untruthful garments. Most important, Jackie himself was opposed to euphemisms. He offered his interpretations of art and life willingly and with a refreshing lack of restraint. He called things as he saw them.
While others sat quiet and calmly in a classroom Jackie breathed heavily and sweated profusely. It was as if he never rested. While most focus on one or two things at a given moment Jackie’s mind worked to grapple with almost everything. If you watched closely, you could nearly see his mind at work, spinning rapidly and travelling past Renaissance paintings, in and out of philosophical texts, sprinting quickly over the day’s sports page, resting for a moment beside the artwork of Kippenberger and beginning again upon the pitch of Ranger’s stadium, then stopping once more to convey verbally to the class what he had just discovered.
Jackie could speak of Baroque architecture, Henry Rollins and NASCAR in the same breath. (I am of course simplifying here, because in that same breath he would also mention five or six other names and terms that went directly over my head.) He loved NASCAR, though. I often joked with him about writing a book titled The Philosophy of NASCAR, by JMcA. Perhaps the virulent order of brightly painted vehicles, battling for position, appealed to Jackie for the way in which it mirrored the ceaseless flow of ideas that travelled through his mind. Or perhaps the energy of the crowd was comforting, for it resembled the seemingly boundless energy that occupied his every move and thought.
Jackie once wrote an essay that discussed Willem de Kooning’s work and/or eating habits (depending on your interpretation). In it he described how “Bill” took his coffee.
Jackie liked his coffee instant and with side of vanana yogurt.
It often seemed to be the case that he was on a first-name basis with artists and writers throughout history. I guess if you spend enough time with these characters they begin to show up at your house for drinks. At any given moment, Leonardo, Sigmund, Friedrich or Marcel was bound to stop by. Likewise, to his friends, he was known simply as Jackie. Taking a stroll with him was a bit like getting a historic tour of Manhattan. He had a way of making space seem smaller and more comfortable. It was like one big house and you were Jackie’s guest. But you were not the only guest, for on entering a gallery or bar of Jackie’s choosing, you had an even chance of bumping into an acquaintance, old classmate or friend of his. They all called him Jackie too, with an emphasis on the consonances, as if to make the name bounce the better to describe him and the energy he radiated.
It was an excellent event to be on the opposing side of an argument with Jackie, for he truly made you work. Each point he made was presented with equal seriousness and humor — each statement exclaimed, “this is important, but it is not the world.” He was a master of provocation. At times he would make assertions he himself did not believe, followed quickly with the question, “well, what do you think?” The goal of any argument with Jackie was not to establish a truth but to question truth from a different angle.
He once told me, “Sam, I don’t ask people questions. I wait for them to tell me the answers.” I laughed at the time deeming this Jedi-like statement nonsense. What Jackie knew of me, he never asked. I told him willingly. I can only imagine what he would know of me if he had eight more months to listen. Or how much I would know of him, for Jackie could seemingly relate in some way to most everything. If you laid a card down, he would match it. One more and you might be playing all night. In either case, you’d never forget the game.
