Mr. Tuesday

My name is Eric A Tartakoff, aka, Mr. Wig.

I met Mark one sunny morning in the year of 1991, or was it 1990, I can’t quite be sure but the day was sunny and the room, that was his, at 708 Haight st. sfca, it was a mess that of which I perhaps had never seen before.

Not long before that morning, I had moved into the flat below, 710.

To be honest I can’t remember exactly how or when I met Mark, but my first memory of him as a friend of mine was us sitting at a table by the window of his room over looking Haight st. This table was impossibly cluttered. Books, beer cans, cups of old coffee, numerous ashtrays all filled beyond capacity.

We drank coffee, smoked cigarettes and played rummy 500 all the while listening to his eclectic music selections.

Hours were spent there, smoke was the air.

I lived in SF for 7 years and we were best of friends. He and I along with our very special cast of characters, all great friends got each other into and out of all kinds of trouble, I dare not go into detail here.

Really there are too many stories to write down, too many memories to recount.

Mark was one of a kind in so many ways, he made me laugh and infuriated me and through all the fun, frustration and happy even sad times we spent together, I always loved him like a brother.

I hate saying “mark was”, I hate it beyond words.

Maybe because I wasn’t at his funeral, but I find it hard to think of him as no more, as a was.

I find myself reliving one of a million times spent with Mark, from walking the streets at night just talking to driving 100 mph on a flooded, dry lake bed in Nevada, sliding and getting stuck in the mud.

From time to time I think to call his phone

but I don’t.

I miss you Mark