E-Mail This Article to a Friend A man for all reasons (continued)
	In memoriam Donations in David Brudnoy’s name can be made to: The David Brudnoy Fund for AIDS Research Massachusetts General Hospital 100 Charles River Plaza Suite 600 Boston, MA 02114-4719

AS HE GOT OLDER, Brudnoy mastered the art of being a loyal and devoted friend. But he tended to define the relationships in which he was involved. He never counted sexual loyalty on his part as a prerequisite to a sexual-love relationship, although he often did expect his partner to practice monogamy. This was indicative of a larger aspect of Brudnoy’s personality: by sheer force of his enormous energy, powerful personality, personal charisma, and towering intellect, much of his world revolved around himself. While he no longer may have been "the best little boy in the world," he remained forever a Jewish male only child. One got an enormous amount out of a relationship with Bruds, but it was evident that he established the parameters. Those parameters defined a very large number of relationships fulfilling to both Brudnoy and his many friends. Given Brudnoy’s evident talent for love and friendship, engaging in a relationship on Bruds’s terms was an enormously satisfying undertaking. He was a terrific partner in the waltz, but it was pretty clear that he led.

Bruds the libertarian-conservative, and I the libertarian-liberal, became friends more than 15 years ago. At one time in his life, he considered going to law school, but realized that it just was not for him. I, on the other hand, was a journalist before entering the practice of law. We tapped each other for experiences and perspectives neither of us had, due to our career choices. Brudnoy was fascinated with those aspects of my criminal-defense and civil-liberties practice that kept the big, bad government from wrecking the lives of my clients. I was fascinated by his ability to tell truth to power and still retain the admiration, even the friendship, of the powerful.

Our philosophies overlapped in an extraordinary number of ways. We shared a virulent disdain for government officials and school administrators who abused the souls and minds of students. He railed against them on the air; I railed against them in the courts; we both railed against them in print and, on occasion, on his radio program. Indeed, Bruds was a formal adviser to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a nonprofit I co-founded for the purpose of restoring liberty and academic freedom to students and professors in higher education. Like me, Brudnoy was fiercely intolerant of repression in all its forms, whether it came from the right or the left.

But Brudnoy’s consistency and wisdom as an adviser went well beyond his work for FIRE. Occasionally, if friends ran into trouble, he would direct them to me for informal legal advice or ask me for help on their behalf. Often the objects of Brudnoy’s concern were his students; he took great interest in their lives. He often got to know their parents, and when his students married, he got to know their spouses, and later their children. He was genuinely interested in his students, and they repaid him with a loyalty and devotion that most teachers today never see. When he taught at Emerson, he became a surrogate father for a fraternity there, and even when he left for Boston University his Emerson frat kids made Bruds an honorary brother, a title he retained to the day of his death.

Brudnoy was remarkably gifted at advising others on how to deal with life crises, having survived several of his own, including his multiple near-death experiences since his diagnosis as HIV-positive and, later, full-blown AIDS. His wisdom, combined with personal interest mixed with affection, could always be counted on — by me and countless others. One could always learn something from David Brudnoy, and he was forever forthcoming.

I LEARNED FROM Bruds right up to the very end. When I visited him at Massachusetts General Hospital just a couple of days before he lapsed into a coma and then, hours later, death, he motioned me into the room. I approached the skeletal figure lying in the bed. The eyes were those of Brudnoy — bright and inquisitive to the end — but the body was that of a scarecrow. He extended his arm toward me, with obvious effort, and took my hand. He explained that the end was near, and that he’d already ordered the cessation of most nutrition and medication. "I’m about to meet my Maker," he commented, and, just to let me know that the notorious agnostic was not having a deathbed conversion, he added: "whether He, She or It." I was suddenly struck dumb, without words adequate to deal, as frankly as my friend was dealing, with his imminent death. I therefore replied with some humor of my own: "Or perhaps They." Bruds tried to laugh, but it obviously hurt too much. I sat there, trying to have a serious conversation, but I just couldn’t get myself to face what he had already faced with candor and grace — his imminent death. Before I could recover my focus, a recording crew entered to tape Brudnoy’s remarkable deathbed interview with Gary LaPierre, which was to be played the following night on what was billed as the "last ‘David Brudnoy Show.’" Although long-time Brudnoy friend Peter Meade hosted the show, Meade was careful to note that it was "directed by David Brudnoy," as indeed it was.

Walking back to the T in a torrent of cold rain, I realized that I had not only failed to engage Brudnoy in a discussion of his imminent death, but forgot even to tell my friend that I loved him. I thought of returning to the hospital, but it was too late. The taped interview would have already begun. I went home but couldn’t sleep much.

The next night I listened to the interview, and I heard my dying friend explain to his loyal listeners, via the taped interview, what was happening to him and how he felt about it. Among many other things, he said that he’d come to realize the importance of telling people you love that you love them, before they’re dead — the very subject that had obsessed me since my awkward departure from MGH the night before. I frantically dialed into the program, where the interview was being followed with several hours of Brudnoy’s friends and associates sharing their reminiscences and views of this remarkable man. I managed to get on the air and, after saying a few things about David’s admirable political and philosophical consistency, and knowing that Bruds was listening to this final broadcast of "The David Brudnoy Show," I told David that I loved him.

I HAVE BEEN struggling to find the words with which to end this appreciation of my dear friend David Brudnoy. Unsurprisingly, I found those words when re-reading Life Is Not a Rehearsal. About midway through, Brudnoy recounts a tribute he wrote in the Boston Herald, where he was a columnist at the time, to a just-deceased close friend to whom David felt he had not paid adequate recent attention. "As Mrs. Loman says of her husband Willy in Death of a Salesman," wrote a grief-stricken Brudnoy, " ‘attention must be paid; attention must be paid to this man.’ "

Harvey A. Silverglate, a regular contributor to "Freedom Watch," can be reached at has@harveysilverglate.com