CLAUDIA

It was Claudia's birthday a couple of days ago.

I'm not exactly sure when we met, but my first recollection was in the 1980s, when Marcus Leatherdale was shooting me for his "Hidden Identities" page in Details magazine.  I knew his roommate was Claudia - she was well known amongst our friends - but we had never met.  

At some point after the shoot, from a back bedroom, Claudia emerged.  Raven hair, in a black silk robe, cigarette in hand, not really looking toward the studio, but not looking away either.  Just a magnificent ghost in a doorway down the hall.

Years later we became friends.  She roomed with my friend Christina in an east 14th street apartment.  I remember visiting one day and her boyfriend at the time was practicing doing tattoos on an orange.  She and Christina vacated that apartment some time afterwards when there had been a fire in the building and everything smelled of smoke.  Christina returned a leather coat to me that I had leant her - the smell of burning wood never left it.  Eventually it went off to the Salvation Army for someone else to give it a try.  

One day we all lost Claudia to the ether.  For many years she was MIA - Marcus moved to India, but he would visit NYC from time to time and we would always inquire of each other if there was any news of Claudia.  One day I saw her on the subway.  She didn't recognize me.  She didn't see me.  She didn't see anyone.  My heart broke.

Years passed.

One evening I went to one of Marcus' openings at a gallery in Chelsea.  And there she was.  All I could see was my friend, so I ran to her and her arms opened up like a heart.  We held each other for a long time.  Claudia was back.  Over the next few years, she got herself clean, got a job, got a home, got into college to finish her degree in creative writing, graduated from a masters program, married our dear friend Amos, and today is in Paris for her birthday.  

It leaves me speechless at times.  Until she calls me for coffee.  And then we never have enough time for all the talk collected up between visits.  Now when I miss my friend Claudia, it isn't because she is missing - - it's because she is busy living.