This is not to be read as a list. I was recently asked at a job interview the influences on my life and I went back in my mind to the time when it seemed all the interesting people were dying. Eric Foot ate a handful of mushrooms and went into cardiac arrest at an outdoor concert, my cousin Marlin flipped his car into oncoming traffic, and then two weeks later the best of us, Timmy Hughes (we called him Kiki), a man incapable of spite or sarcasm, was drinking up by the estuary one Saturday night and he dove into the dark green water only to float up three days later, leaving behind a dog and an engagement ring for Ginnie Foot who was Eric Foot's sister.