Joe Sodd III, a high school classmate of mine, was stabbed to
death early yesterday in the Augsburg College area. He was stabbed
once in the neck and was apparently on his moped when he was attacked.
There is a very good article on his friends’ and family’s reaction and
his dance work at Cornish College of the Arts (Seattle) here:
http://www.startribune.com/local/20302819.html?page=1&c=y
I didn’t know him all that well. We had a couple of classes together
and we talked in school and at a party at his place. But I do have one
little thing to contribute to remembering Joe. When I read “Paul’s
Case,” a short story by Willa Cather, I pictured Paul as looking like
Joe Sodd. I did this because Joe seemed, from how I knew him, to be
just like Paul from the story.
The story goes like this: Paul was a bright-eyed youth in Pittsburgh
who always wore a red carnation in his shirt and seemed to irk the
high school administration with his preoccupied mannerisms and the
sense that he was unconcerned with them, wanting to do his own thing.
Paul worked as an usher at a theater in Pitt and this experience
fueled his nebulous but potent dreams. He eventually took the train to
New York City, escaped the monotony of his home and school, the smell
of cooking, and the normalcy/idiocy of life there. He stayed in a
hotel in New York, watched performances in smoke-filled rooms, used up
all his money, and lived a brief life of beauty and art.
Instead of going home (which he had never planned to do), he killed
himself by jumping in front of a train on a freezing cold night. Willa
Cather links the red color of his carnation with the red color of his
blood when the train kills him.
Now Joe Sodd is dead, but I’ll always remember him as having lived a
brief life of beauty that ended in violence. I remember the bandanna
he wore once in Ms Hubbard’s class. I remember his amazing tap dance
performance at the South High talent show. I remember the tearful
reaction of his friends. And now I am going to re-read “Paul’s Case,”
and once again I will picture Joe as the protagonist. This time it
will have even more poignancy.
I’ll read it again and again, Joe, and never forget you.
pseudoisaac 