pallbearers

i won't have them because i don't want a funeral - certainly not a casket. just burn me up and cast the ashes into some water somewhere...but if i did have them here's a list of those i'd like to cart me around  [some of them are already dead so it's an impossible arrangement]: stiles adkins, ruly carpenter, glen cottar, jimmy green, tom o'donnell, andy smith, john swan, tiger thouron...and here's why i'd be honored to have them serve.

stiles adkins was my best man.  we met over quail guns.  his mama, miss laura, was the queen of fenwick island who used to take on all comers at yahtzee - with a glass of vodka at her side - and cooked the best soft crabs ever...i once ate 23 at one sitting and broke out in red dots.  [the crabs were illegal by today's standards - 50 cent sized.]  stiles and i laid waste to the quail population in and around fenwick and laughed the whole time, all the while trying to figure out how to get laid and drinking gallons of beer.  mister wilfred, his father, did not approve of our antics either in the field or in the bedroom [we wished] and, after finishing his bowl of chocolate ice cream would return to his beloved chickens - all 50,000 of them.  a true narrow face man.

ruly carpenter is my best friend.  he wasn't always - he used to beat the shit out of me on the football field and throw at my head on the baseball diamond - but when i began to date his younger sister we became close and have remained so ever since.  together we've shot every imaginable species of local wild life - some i'm not too proud of - and caught at least one of every local fish.  i've loved every member of his immediate family for - as he so amiably remarked at my son's, his godson's, wedding - "fifty years buzzard's been hanging around.  can't seem to get rid of the son of a bitch."  i'd trust him with my life.

glen cottar was one of the last true white hunters in east africa.  i met him in 1970 and hunted with him in 1971. we hunted the serious stuff - elephant, lion, buffalo, leopard as well as the antelope and zebra and did well, without incident - which meant glen did everything right. we didn't fool with rhino because they were being poached - though we were charged by a couple.  more important, we became friends and friendship forged in tight quarters - no matter the reason - tends to last.  he taught me a lot about life and death and  he'd be embarassed to hear it, but i loved him.  i loved his wife pat, just as much.

jimmy green was a gambler and, to a few, a bookmaker.  i first met him at the racetrack when i was a kid.  he was more of a kid than i but he was already running bets for his uncle, a real bookmaker.  jimmy was a hard drinker and a hellraiser.  he quit drinking and was forever famous for the quote "alcohol is not your friend."  his cigarette rasp would growl at the other end of the line, "we're headin' east [to atlantic city]. c'mon and go...i got bullets.  you can pay me later."  i'd always go.  jimmy died some years ago - in a chair at his favorite venue, the race track - a fitting exit for an old friend.

tom o'donnell is another gambler - though strictly a horseplayer.  besides adventures at the race track - like winning four 10 cent superfectas in one day and still losing $75 a piece - tom and i have fished together a lot in  the surf, off shore, and in the keys.  one day in jewfish basin tom hooked a nice permit which attracted the attention of a large lemon shark.  i fought the shark with joey's push pole while tom fought the permit.  both fish lost.  t'snake [to his friends] is a kind and generous man - the good cop to my bad cop.

andy smith taught me how to bonefish.  big and black as lawrence taylor, he lives on andros, the delaware sized island in the bahamas.  fortunately for andros there are only 5,000 inhabitants - hardly a crowded place.  besides bonefishing andy lobsters on the great bahama bank.  because of the cubans he carries an ak-47...my kind of man and one i'd want at my side throughout any trial.  he called me the other day after he heard of my newly acquired afflictions.  "i haven't the balance to stand on the bow," i reported.  "come sit on a cooler," he replied.  "if you can cast 30 feet we'll catch fish."  i think i'll go.

john swan...well, i'll tell you about swan.  he's a brilliant artist in watercolors and oils [i rather prefer the watercolors] who has just produced a couple of books - both wonderful evocations of his talent...but i've got a bone to pick with him.  he's a trout and salmon fisherman and whenever we fish in the salt he breaks my rods - that damn trout strike.  he forgets to strip strike, gets all excited and bang, there goes another orvis special.  he's chalked up four to date and i'm never again going to tell him, as i did last year, "you don't need to bring any rods.  i've got two."  he broke them both.

tiger thouron and i shot together for years.  he also, kindly, asked me to salmon fish on his deveron river beats in aberdeenshire [where i didn't  trout strike].  he was my son's other godfather - and a good one.  sadly, we had a falling out late in his life which was never repaired - though i tried.  we used to shoot in the morning, drink a lot at lunch, and play darts over whiskey until dinner.  to give you an idea of the annual killing volume, we often managed 2000 ducks, 2000 pheasants, several hundred doves, one year 154 deer, and one carp which i shot - much to my later regret - under the ice in a flood plain meadow after a deluge and a quick freeze.  tiger was a great friend.

major white, pure as the driven snow, i  hope would serve as altar boy.