A Prince Among Frogs
How did we meet? I’ll tell you.
I was working at the radio station WEHM as a D.J. with a Saturday afternoon show, “Kyle on the Dial.” Rusty listened all the time and fell in love with my voice. Curious as he was, he called the station.
“Is this Kyle?” he asked.
“Yes, would you like to request a song?”
“No, not exactly. I’m Rusty. Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked, just like that.
“No,” I said.
“We should go out for coffee some day.”
Instead, I suggested, “I get off at 5 — meet me for a drink at Cyril’s. Oh, and can you bring a sweater? It’ll be cold at the bar.”
He came, he saw, he conquered.
He brought me his sweatshirt. It was May 2004. The Kentucky Derby was on the TV. He picked a horse named Rock Hard Ten. Neither of us won the race, but we won the jackpot that day. That first date I saw all the cherries line up on the slot machine. I had hit the big time! A charming, handsome, smart, funny, sexy writer, sailor, skier, surfer, and adventurer. Perfect.
We have a winner. He was my king and I was his queen.
No playing hard to get. We knew what we wanted, and we knew destiny, somehow, had a hand in this.
What a lucky girl I was to have Rusty show me his world. And, I would add, what a lucky guy Rusty was to have me. “We’re both lucky,” he would say. Where every day was fun and full of adventures.
We went up the coast of California and down the slopes of Zermatt, drinking Swiss beer under the Matterhorn, sipping Singapore Slings in Raffles and Bintang beer in the Mentawai Islands, surfing in Indonesia.
“Let’s go to Tobago, Stowe, Jackson Hole, Hawaii, St. Barth, Cartagena!”
“Okay,” I’d say and start packing. He didn’t have to ask me twice. I was ready to go anytime and anywhere. We had so many more places to see together. His dream was to get on a freighter with armfuls of books and sail the world . . . with me.
In Montauk in the dead of winter, he would check the ice on Fort Pond and come home excited.
“The ice is perfect. Get your skates. Let’s go.”
In our matching Dickie snowsuits we flew across the ice, exhilarated, and would come home to a nice warm fire he would make in the wood-burning stove. He would always say, “Let’s find a good movie on TCM.”
If there was snow, we grabbed a sled and went to the top of the hill at Navy Road and raced down screaming and laughing like little kids. Rusty was a beautiful boy who greeted each day like it was Christmas morning.
In the summer we woke up early, grabbed our bathing suits, and jumped in the brisk ocean together. Rusty body-surfed like a dolphin, carving beautifully through the waves.
When the hordes of summer invaders were at their worst, what did we care? We loaded up our beloved sailboat, Leilani, with rosé wine and “poo poos” and off we sailed to distant shores. Just the sound of the wind in the sails and the waves gently slapping the hull.
Rusty, ever the Master and Commander of the sea, while I his cold-water-loving mermaid, always diving overboard. At night we’d anchor at our mooring and barbecue the porgies Rusty gleefully caught off Gardiner’s Island while I cried and begged him to set them free and not kill them. Sometimes he would release one or two back in the water, just for me, because, believe me, he didn’t want to.
Then after a 360-degree sunset on the lake under the crystal stars we’d sleep the blissful sleep only a rocking sailboat can promise. He believed the fish were singing to him.
“Did you hear them last night?”
I’d wake up early to the aroma of coffee and the sound of his splash into the water for his morning swim. He’d then zip me to shore in his dinghy so we could go to the beach.
We couldn’t walk five steps without stopping a dozen times to greet all the friends he had. Everywhere we went there was a chorus of “Hi, Rusty.” He always replied with his sparkling smile and a hearty hello. It was like being with a movie star, which he was.
My kids and I had a game we played, keeping a tally of all the people who greeted him, knew him, liked him.
“I’m up to 20.”
“Hey, Rusty!”
“That’s 21!”
It could easily get up past 30 at any given time on any day.
He would say in his humble way, “It’s only because I’ve lived here for 40 years,” but that wasn’t it. People just loved him. Everywhere he went he touched lives and made friends for life. From Jimmy Buffett to Joey Flapjaws. He had no enemies. He was an icon.
We saved turtles crossing the road and wounded birds on the beach. We would even save those prehistoric-looking crickets that were always in the bathtub. Rusty would just pick them up and toss them out the backdoor. Every living thing had a destiny. He was Mother Nature’s boy.
Rusty named his beloved trees. There was Daisy the Elephant. And nothing made him happier than seeing his catalpa tree bloom in the spring with fragrant orchid-like blossoms. Every year he took a photo of me standing among them. Who will do it this spring?
I used to say my dog Lucy taught me to love unconditionally, to which Rusty, always with the quick retort, said, “She died too soon.”
He taught me where she left off, to see the good in people no matter how bad they were. It’s a gift; I don’t think you can teach it. But I will try to be like him. My new hashtag: #whatwouldrustydo?
If I complained, he’d quote his mother and say: “Don’t be an oboe solo.” If I boiled over in rage, he just circled, cool and poised, until I ran out of steam, wisely never engaging in crazy moments. No drama.
Rusty didn’t have time for that. He was too busy paddling out on his surfboard to dominate the waves or hoisting the mainsail on his beloved sailboat while quoting poetry. Like he did on our first sail out to sea, from Edward Lear:
“The owl and the pussy-cat went to sea / in a beautiful pea-green boat,” he recited.
I was First Mate Moneypenny, because he, of course, was James Bond.
He would always say, “That’s a beautiful song,” when I played the piano or guitar, or “Fabulous writing,” when I was working on my novel. When I cooked dinner he would yell out, “What smells so good?” every night. Every time I sneezed he said, “God bless you.” Even when it hurt for him to speak. When we got dressed to go out he admired me with a love in his eyes I may never see again.
Always seeing the best, the good, the positive. What an evolved human he was. A super-mortal, maybe even an Ascended Master who came down to visit us just to show us how it’s done.
The clouds looked like horses’ tails, the ocean was Coke bottle green, and the crickets were trying to tell us something — it was a beautiful orchestra, listen to their symphony, he would urge. A piece of driftwood you passed on the beach was more: “It’s a log from a beaver dam. It floated down the Hudson River and washed up here in Montauk. See the teeth marks?” he’d point out. He knew the answer to everything. Sheer brilliance.
He would tackle anything life threw at him with style, grace, aplomb, and always humor, while letting his “freak flag fly.” He was a knight disguised as a beach bum, walking barefoot everywhere all summer long and rolling in the hot sand until he was caked like a veal cutlet and then throwing himself into the surf to get pure. Whenever the day had messed with my “wah,” as he said, he would just drive me to Ditch and walk me down to the ocean.
“Jump in, you’ll feel better,” and he was right. Dr. Drumm knew it was time to take my medicine.
The horrors of the world weren’t going to defeat him and darken his day. Even cancer would be defeated.
Knowing Rusty, how could one doubt he would beat it? Strong, healthy, vibrant Rusty. He’ll never die. How could he? He was invincible. Immortal.
He fought as bravely as he could, never flinching, never complaining, pressing on with faith and utter determination to live. I marveled at his courage, his threshold for pain and torture. He told me spending time in the rigging of Eagle gave him the courage to face anything when you’re furling the royal in the middle of the night 140 feet above the water with blinding wind and rain.
“What do I do with the batteries for Leilani next summer?” I asked, frantic. How would I do anything without him? We did everything together.
“We are going to recharge them and go sailing next summer,” he told me. Even though I was giving him morphine every four hours, then every hour, for his pain. He refused to consider death. It wasn’t in his plan. He had another 20 years! At least! He promised me. I believed him. I had faith. Miracles happen every day, right? If anyone deserved a reprieve it was him.
He subjected himself to the sickening chemotherapy, weeks of radiation, brain surgery, and merciless pain without a whimper.
“We’re going to get through this together,” he said. “So let’s plan a trip, South of France, New Zealand, Australia, Tahiti — all the places we haven’t seen, we’ll write our novels and groove . . . where do you want to go? We can stop off in Hawaii for a few days on the way, would you like that?” He was so looking forward to going.
But he didn’t. His final words to me were, “We had hope.”
If you knew Rusty, remember how he lived his life and set your compass. If you didn’t know him, I feel sorry for you. There will never be another like him, ever. He did it right. He knew how to live. He gets an A+ for his time here on earth. What a stellar example for everyone. If there’s a heaven, he is being feted now. I hope he got his wish. He wanted God to say to him when he arrived at the pearly gates, “Here’s your surfboard and here’s your wax.” I hope there’s an epic swell and his dog Drifter Boy is there waiting for him on the beach like he always did.
In his final days he would get so mad about the stupid, petty, wasteful things people were upset about and occupying their lives with. I saw it too through his eyes. Knowing how brief the time he had left was, he cried over the foolish squandering of precious life and finite time. Foolish humans. With all there is to appreciate in this beautiful world.
So be kind, have compassion, be brave, have fun, and be happy. Enjoy and, most of all, love with all your heart. And stop whining. You’re alive!
I’ll let Rusty finish this with this opening quote from his book “The Barque of Saviors”: “He rises by lifting others.”
Kyle Paseka has lived all over the world and recently finished writing a memoir about her adventures. She was married to Russell Drumm, who was a reporter and columnist for The Star for many years. He died on Jan. 16 at the age of 68.