Remembering Roy, c.1970

Roy and I were accidental roommates at Columbia when we were freshmen, never having met though we grew up a few streets apart in Bayside. We became fast friends, and eventually as juniors moved into an apartment on 112th St., just a few yards away from Tom's (later made famous by Seinfeld). At some point, not long after we moved into our sublet (two bedrooms for about $100 a month, if that can be believed), we helped my girlfriend's family by taking one of a litter of kittens off their hands. Roy suggested the name -- Rufus T. Firefly, after one of Groucho's characters -- and she (as we later discovered) was both the joy and bane of our bachelor life. One night (very late, of course) Roy was writing a paper and crumpled up a sheet into a ball and threw it in the general direction of his wastepaper basket ... and a moment later Rufus was there with it in her mouth. She had taught herself to fetch, and fetch she did, for as long as either of us had the patience to play the game. We'd toss the paper ball, and she would tear off at the speed of light, grapple with the object, and then come loping back, ready for the next round. She never tired of it -- though we certainly did. Roy could not write a paper (and his were of legendary length) without starting and crumpling dozens of pages, and the mere sound of paper being balled up was enough to bring Rufus to plaintive, rapt vigilance at his feet. I can't think of Roy to this day without thinking of Rufus fetching balls of paper in the wee hours of the morning. I can't imagine Roy didn't think of this from time to time, just as I do ... though I wish we'd had the opportunity to reminisce and have a good laugh about it together.