Time and Robert B. Parker

I worked today, a really long five-hour shift. Long because it was rainy and ugly and everybody on our sheet cancelled. So no golfers and me there like the Maytag repairman. Usually, in my waning years, time seems to go by much too fast, but this day seemed endless. And there's the six-year-old Calvin, watching the clock that never seems to move. Just like me this morning.

I’m just finishing the last Robert B. Parker book . . . ever. It’s called Split Image, and it’s the last Jesse Stone that he had in his computer when he died. Parker, that is, not Jesse Stone. Oh, am I going to miss them—Parker and Jesse and Spenser and Hawk and Sunny Randall and Susan Silverman and a whole bunch of minor characters in the three series.

I’ve read the entire Spenser series twice. And now I think I have to read all the Paradise series and the Sunny Randall series again. I was never able to read any of the Spensers without envisioning Robert Urich, from that too-brief television show called Spenser, and now I’m equally stuck with Tom Sellick when I read the Jesse Stones. Tom Sellick is Jesse Stone. I hope that Tom Sellick continues to produce and star in more of the stories about Paradise and Jesse. Helen Hunt talked Parker into starting a series about a female equivalent of Spenser because she wanted to star in any movie versions. I don’t know what happened to the films that were supposed to star her as Sunny Randall. Maybe now that he’s dead, something will happen.

So here I am, reading this last one, feeling like I’m attending a funeral. It seems to be coming to some sort of completion. Sunny is back working a case in the area. She’s close to being over her ex-husband Richie, now that he’s a proud father. And Spenser swears he’s over his ex-wife Jenn. They both think they’re making progress with their shrinks—Dix for Jesse and Susan Silverman for Sunny. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll wind up in more than just Jesse’s bed, maybe in a more committed relationship. But that would only happen if Parker foresaw his death and decided to bring closure to the two series. Nah, probably not. Parker must have thought he was going to live forever, and would go on writing book after book after book.

I’m going to miss him, going to miss them all.