Pork Tenderloin While the World Ends

Nearly everyone I know has experienced a tremendous loss in the last two weeks. They’ve been the kinds of shocking despair missiles that come at you sideways, when you least expect it, while you’re just trying to cook yourself dinner or celebrate with your friends.  

If you count yourself among these grieving hordes, I’m so sorry, and I love you so much. The trite refrain that we all “thought we had more time with them” has been ringing in my ears the whole time — trite because it’s so cruelly and exactly true — and I hope we all get to hug each other very soon.

Mine was Marcelo Gallegos. Marcy — like all the great ones we lose way too soon, literally defies explanation. After his death, as in his life, there is nothing I could tell you that would accurately express his booming voice, his maniacal laugh, his otherworldly talent, his unbelievable gift of gab, the insane ice green of his eyes, his love of all things luxurious and decadent, and filthy and rotten. 

Thinking of him today, it seems impossible that we’d get to have him for a long time, but I really wanted to be wrong about that. 

Marcy and I went to Sandia High School together, where he was the first Out Queer I knew, glistening, in a vintage silk cravat or something, like a beacon of how you could just be yourself instead of trying to pretend to be different. I suspect he’d be repulsed and flattered in equal measure by that admission, “That’s disgusting, thank you so much.” He wasn’t doing it on purpose, he was just being himself because he had no other choice, because his brain was wired to be exactly the spooky, creative freak he was for the entire time I knew him. 

I hung around with people he was friends with in school, but we weren’t close friends until we all lived in New York in 2008 — Sean and I in Brooklyn, Marcy, Topher and Mike on the other side of the river in what you could loosely describe as a three bedroom apartment on Attorney Street, steps away from the majesty of the Williamsburg Bridge overpass. Marcy slept in what was intended, I think, to be a porch just off the living room, in a nest of vintage fabrics, an odd collection of lace and floral handkerchiefs, occasionally, and somewhat notoriously, using a slice of pizza as a pillow after a rowdy night. 

I have so many memories of nights spent there, drinking shitty beer, watching Marcy smoke a cigarette from between Topher’s toes, laughing and screaming “GIMME THAT DICK” at each other in the back yard until the neighbors complained more than once, gently fearing for our lives every time we stepped into the elevator. I remember thinking that it felt really good to be around people who loved you the most when you were at your darkest and most socially unacceptable. Anyone who ever did karaoke with Marcelo will never forget it. Certainly, none of us will ever forget the afterparty of Topher’s birthday dinner, when we casually tossed and entire case of wine glasses off the roof for some reason, cheering every time one shattered in the alley — only slowing down once someone hurled a bucket of tar over the side of the building and we decided we’d gone too far. And then there were the feasts. 

Topher came home once to Marcy hard at work on a full lobster dinner. When asked how afforded all that, he responded blithely, “I got them under the Manhattan bridge — they’re like a dollar a pound down there.” Dinners around the lazy Susan at Congee Village were always cause for calling in sick the next day, having consumed twenty courses and at least three bright blue cocktails. But my favorite nights were with the “Two Fat Ladies.” We all spent hours falling in love with reruns of the great British cooking series, specifically with the ladies themselves, Jennifer and Clarissa. This common love of British humor, dirty jokes and dairy products, culminated one magical night in 2011 when Marcy made us their Pork Tenderloin in Pastry — basically a pork Wellington, stuffed with ham, herbed breadcrumbs, and so, so much cream. 

It will go down as one of the great meals of my life, enjoyed in a cramped kitchen on a spring night, before we all flung ourselves out into the rest of our lives across the country from each other. The Two Fat Ladies truly seemed to love each other, right down to their last day together, when Jennifer passed away in 1999. Her last request was a tin of caviar. Clarissa, unable to get it to her in time, ate the whole thing herself as a tribute to her friend. When we got the news that Marcy had died, Sean and I basically did exactly that with a bottle of Cognac, hoping to follow suit. 

I will miss his artwork, the tiny glimpses into the gorgeous nightmares he held in his head. I will miss his incredible mixtapes, full of music I didn’t know I wanted or wasn’t ready to appreciate until much later. I will miss talking with him about the under-appreciated sexual value of body odor, and for getting to chuckle at his endless lust for his friends. I’ll miss the unbelievable rush of making him laugh, and the tender sweetness of watching him and Sean become friends. I will miss just knowing that he’s out there, making the world weirder and queerer and more full of art. I, along with most of the people who love him, really hope he haunts us.

Listen to This Shit: Marcy Made Us A Playlist”Marcy’s Hot Summer Jams” on Apple Music

You’re reading “Soup and Despair,” a (sometimes) weekly newsletter by Sarah Flynn and Rebecca Orchant. It’s about food, feelings, and surviving the dark times. If someone forwarded you this email, it’s because they love you and they want you to eat. You can subscribe to it too!