Stepping Up with Charles Coe

After eight years of Bush meeting all my (low) expectations and too many months of Obama meeting few of them, I am happy to report on a moment in which life did not disappoint. Let me tell you the story of the recent Coe Family Fundraiser.

My friend Charles Coe is a monster talent. I’m not talking about his heart-squeezing poetry, his witty prose, his killer cooking, his melodious singing, his exaggerated capacity as a volunteer, his smooth MCing or his gawd-damned good looks. I’m not even talking about his role in the community as peripatetic fundraiser and all around I’ll-back-you-upper. I’m talking about his ability to pull people together.

The last few years have been tough ones in the family of Charles Coe. His dad died several years ago and to Charles fell the responsibility of looking after his mother, his sister Carol and their home in Indianapolis, Indiana. Then his mom died. More recently, Carol got very ill with cancer and Charles realized that the additional expenses this involved had pushed him past the limit of his resources. “I’m all tapped out,” he told me.

He called together a couple of close friends to discuss putting on a fundraiser for himself. Several well-known poets stepped up to read and a plethora of unspeakably cool silent auction items began piling up, not the least a brunch for four prepared by a former corporate chef and a vacation weekend in a San Francisco apartment minutes from Golden Gate Park. We put out the following message with an Evite covering the event details, and we suggested that those who couldn’t make it just send along a check.

There are times when a family needs a hand. For the Coe family, this is that time. My sister, Carol, has been suffering from liver cancer for two years. Now she’s at the final stage and is about to be moved from the hospital to hospice care. Her son and I are unable to cover all the increasing medical and end-of-life expenses. I’m holding a poetry fundraiser in hopes that my friends and colleagues can help our family deal with this pressing financial burden.

Charles asked me to make arrangements for the venue and to be the MC, running the podium part of the evening. His friend Zoe took on the silent auction. Barry offered to 
photograph the evening. Others picked up refreshments, rented and managed a sound system and decorated the hall with poster portraits of Carol. A gaggle of friends offered (and did) to turn up early on the night to set up.

Then Charles got a call that he had to go to Carol in their hometown of Indianapolis. He picked up and went. Several days later, Carol passed away and Charles remained to make final arrangements.

Zoe and I scrambled to hold it all together. We put out a reminder for the event with this message from Charles:

I'm sad to say that my sister Carol passed away on Friday, October 9th, and was laid to rest this past Saturday. Now the focus of tonight's fundraiser is on helping my family deal with her final expenses, and other expenses too numerous to mention here.

But I don't want tonight to be a somber event; I want it to be a celebration of community--an acknowledgment of the tremendous love and support it's been my privilege to receive over these last weeks. So I look forward to seeing you all tonight. And I sincerely thank those who can't attend but have sent contributions.

Setting-up the event in an hour had the usual share of minor drama (would the hot water boil in time for tea?), but by the time friends started to pour in, the hall was ready to receive them and their donations. Pastries and hot drinks were scarfed up we recognized each other – friends and strangers alike - as vital to this palpable sense of community. People crowded around the auction tables laden with arts, crafts and coupons. A bidding war ensued on my silent auction offering: a 90-minute dance lesson in bossa-nova, cha-cha, meringue or swing.
 
We began. I welcomed everyone and introduced the remarkable poets, one after the other: Danielle Legros Georges, Barbara Helfgott Hyett and Fred Marchant. It was a poetry-loving crowd who knew and honored these well-known voices. And then I introduced Charles:

When I first met Charles through the National Writers Union, he introduced himself to me (and perhaps to some of you) as a “bald-headed Negro from Indianapolis, Indiana.” I soon discovered that Charles is one of the most social guys around. I don’t mean that he’s a party lad – although he is that – but he is a magnet for people whether it’s for a literary or a humanitarian event.

Who knew, during his misspent youth, when he was lead singer for an Indianapolis rock-& roll cover band, … who knew he’d become such a pillar of our community. He moved to New England in the mid-70s and started his career as an “ever-evolving earthling” – always growing, always flowing. He began with song writing and went on to create knock-out poetry and prose. His book Picnic on the Moon was published by Leapfrog Press and his essays, often humorous, have appeared in publications from Harvard Magazine to the Boston Weekly Dig

He serves as co-chair of our National Writers Union/Boston and as the head of the National Writers United Service Organization – national non-profit companion org to NWU. His emphasis is on building community among the writers organizations, so we often work in collaboration with the other groups.

I think of Charles as the guy who steps up. He steps up to organize fundraisers, especially around violence against women - whether it’s for the Casa Myrna Vasquez refuge for women or for the Women’s Network in Lawrence or Jane Doe in Boston. He organized fundraisers after Katrina and after the Tsunami, and he has appeared at a gazillion events that others put together.

He steps up for friends in more or less need. He brought over his drill and ladder and other butch tools when no one else could penetrate my ceiling to hang a light. When he couldn’t either, he bought some special bits to try again.

He threw me the best book party a girl could wish for when my book on Sarah Palin came out.

Probably many people here could talk about how Charles steps up. But we’ve seen him mount the highest steps, through the illness and death in recent years of his father, his mother and now Carol his sister. Luckily, he’s got broad shoulders, our Charles does, and he’s been a rock for his family.

But this succession of family heartbreaks stretched his resources too far. When Charles needed a hand, he totally and completely believed that his community would step up for him. And he was profoundly  right. Look around the room and know that for every one of us here, there are at least one or two other people who couldn’t make the date but stepped up to make the gesture.

I think most of us feel lucky to be able to show Charles that we have learned his lesson of generosity and friendship. He’s stepped up so often for us and the things we believe in, and this time we have met his own high standards.

Not only do we get to come together to celebrate the love Charles has demonstrated for Carol and the community he has built, we even get to hear him read. I give you Charles Coe.

In the end, Charles reached his monetary goal and completely over-shot his hugs quotient. The truth is that from the start I was impressed – but concerned – with Charles’ belief that the community to which he had given so much would totally get his back. For him, it was a life-changing experience – a sense that there is somewhere to turn.

People with class privilege, with close family members who have resources, with inherited wealth or big jobs, they live with this assumption all the time. Many were born with – if not with a silver spoon in their mouths – at least a safety net under their asses. For those on whom others depend, those who have to fight for everything we get, those  who most feel the impact of the ravaging so many of us are taking at the hands of the bonus classes and their political plants, our only recourse is to be loved. Charles has given the love and just look – his peeps were there to return it when he asked for it. He believed it from the beginning. He knew that this was one investment – his willingness to step up when others needed him – that neither Wall Street nor Washington could diminish. We all want a bit of that generosity-magic that Charles has – so he gave us this opportunity.

Comments

[Sue Kelman]

If Charles Coe is much beloved, then so to are you, Sue, for your deep capacity for friendship, loyalty, and putting it all into the most moving of words. Keep on keepin' on.
Your friend and student, Sue Kelman

[Allen Young]

You made this man (unknown to me), and the event, so warm and sweet. Thanks!

[Gema Gray]

It was an honor to be there that evening. I was so moved by the outpouring for Charles, emotional as well as economic. You've captured the spirit of the evening perfectly.

[Marilee]

I love what you have to say about Charles, community, belief in friends and "our only recourse." I love how you framed this occasion as an opportunity (given to us by Charles) to try on some "generosity-magic" for ourselves. Wish we could have been there in person.

[Jeanne]

I was unable to attend, but you made me feel like I was there. Thanks for being you!