The following is adapted from the afterward in Wolfshadow , the science fantasy novel by Robert Edward Graham and C.S. Fuqua.

“Piss on It!”

That was Rob’s response when life didn’t go quite the way he wanted or expected. Then he’d laugh and move on—sometimes to better things, sometimes to worse.In the mid-1990s, I was making extra money as a part-time instructor for Writer’s Digest School when I received a well-crafted, affable introductory letter from the latest assigned student, Robert Edward Graham. He came across as a truly nice fellow with a genuine commitment to developing the craft of creative writing. He worked as a server at a steak house in Waco, Texas, but he had a dream, something he’d been considering for a while: to write a publishable novel. Certainly, most students set their sights on that goal, but many don’t have the patience or persistence to reach it. Rob did.

Born in 1945 in Corsicana, Texas, Rob was a multi-talented man. In high school, he earned the distinction All State Tackle after his football team’s 1963 winning season and post-season state championship victory. Rather than pursue a career in sports or enroll directly in college following high school, he took off in artistic directions with an eye on the big time. He didn’t rush in, though. For every new endeavor, he prepared relentlessly until he felt he was ready. Then he went for the primary goal, not a hundred smaller goals hoping to lead up to it.

He ventured first into rock and roll as a founding member of the Penthouse 5, a band that became one of the most popular in mid-1960s Texas, one whose albums have become collectibles. With Rob serving as primary songwriter and vocalist, Penthouse 5 quickly became known for its ability to blend harmonies and increasingly heavier sounds into something new and exciting. The band cut several singles for regional labels, one reaching number one in the Dallas market, bringing the group to the edge of national success. But rifts developed between several of the members, and the group split in 1967.

Rob next became an actor, appearing in commercials and filling supporting roles in various stage productions. He also became a popular photographic model, remaining in high demand for several years, but things changed with success. He drank socially. And then he began to drink more in private until it destroyed several close relationships. Job offers dried up. His wife left him. Eventually, he wound up on the street, homeless and surviving off what he could scrounge from restaurant garbage bins.

“Then one morning,” he told me, “I woke beside a dumpster with my face in a puddle of vomit. The sky was on fire with the rising sun. And at that moment, I had an epiphany. I had two choices: Die or get sober.” He checked himself into a detox center and spent the next desperate months getting straight.He’d been clean a couple of years when the school paired us. For whatever reason, he found it easy to confide in me, and we developed a deep friendship.

Before the course, Rob had never written with any meaningful intention, but during the course, his desire and ability to write flourished. He developed several science fiction stories that rivaled stories in magazines of the day, but he insisted his stories weren’t good enough to submit for publication consideration. Besides, he wasn’t interested in small publications: “I want to write a novel.”Sounded like a great idea to me. A semi-autobiographical book could prove both therapeutic and publishable. He laughed. “I don’t want to write that kind of novel. I want it to be fun. I want it to have real meaning.” He left it at that until the end of the course. Then I received a call from him that began, “I have a proposal…” He felt it was time to write his novel, but he didn’t want to write the book alone. He wanted an accomplice, as he put it. He wanted me.I was hesitant. I like to work alone—a primary reason I chose freelance writing as a profession.

“I learned a lot on the street, bud,” he said. “When you’ve lost damn near everything but your life, you come face-to-face with what’s really important.” He was well-versed in the mythologies of world religions, including Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Native American, and others, and well-read in science and theoretical physics. He thrilled that science and some spiritual systems such as Buddhism reinforced one another in various aspects. He wanted to share that enthusiasm by marrying science and spiritualism in an epic story about a Native American pitted against the most powerful negative force in the universe. Ultimately, he wanted to craft a story celebrating his faith in humanity’s ability to overcome its self-destructive nature in a way that relied on ability rather than miracles.

Admittedly with reservation, I committed. We developed a scant outline for the first chapter, and Rob got busy writing the initial draft. When I read it, I was hooked.From then on, we discussed ideas and direction chapter-by-chapter. Rob would write the rough draft, and I’d edit and expand or cut it in preparation for the second draft. Throughout development, bits and pieces of Rob’s personality became integrated with the personality of the book’s hero, Wolfshadow. When Rob sent me a replica of the Bowie knife Wolfshadow carries in the story, the real man and the fictional man became almost inseparable in my mind. By 2000, we’d finished the first draft and were well on the way with the second draft when several tragedies happened.

In a country as rich as the U.S., Rob was one of the “working poor” who could not afford basic healthcare insurance or qualify for government sponsored medical assistance. It was a time when a majority of politicians believed that a beg jar on a corner store’s checkout counter served people better than universal healthcare, something many of them still believe. Working upwards of sixty hours a week and sometimes more, he still did not make enough money to purchase insurance on his own, and his employer was not legally obliged to provide employees with coverage. Even if Rob could have afforded insurance when he needed it, he would have been rejected because he’d developed cancer of the throat. As the disease progressed, he received treatment as he could afford it through various clinics, but the disease was taking its toll due to sporadic rather than comprehensive treatment. His ability to work long hours decreased, compounding money problems. Pain grew to near intolerable levels. The lack of funds for treatment and expensive pain-relief medication eventually drove him to the poor man’s painkiller, alcohol. The book was set aside.

In time, Rob became destitute enough to qualify for publicly funded surgery in a research/teaching hospital. By then, the cancer had spread far more than it would have had he received proper medical care in the early stages. By the time surgery arrived, he was fully back in the bottle despite claims he could control consumption—consumption that continued even after surgery and subsequent chemical therapy that appeared to remove the cancer.

Work on the book languished even as Rob promised to return to it “soon.” During this time, he never got around to sending the only existing hard-copy draft to me to digitize. Eventually, I let it go, convinced Wolfshadow would never be finished.In 2006, the cancer recurred. Again, he went untreated until he secured public assistance in a deal with a university hospital to receive treatment in return for donating his corpse for research. Surgery this time failed and perhaps expedited his death. At least he got clean, and the desire to complete the book returned as he entered a publicly-funded hospice facility. But there were problems. The hard-copy second draft’s last three chapters had vanished. Working long-distance by phone, we did what we could until he could no longer converse. We then worked through email with the help of his brother, David, who mailed me the hard-copy and proved instrumental to the book’s completion.The book’s direction—most likely the result of Rob’s rapidly declining condition—changed considerably from what I recalled of the original draft. Drifting in and out of awareness, dealing with a variety of distractions—from medical personnel to visitors—Rob’s concentration splintered. He couldn’t recall details of the original story as the disease and medications played havoc with his mind. The missing chapters loomed as our biggest problem to overcome due to Rob’s lack of recall of earlier chapter events. Then David suggested to Rob, “Let’s start with the ending and work backward.” Rob gave a thumbs-up.

“He’s taking himself to the actual place he needs to be to write this new ending,” David wrote in an email to me. “He’s moving back and forth between states of consciousness (and perhaps actual locations, at least in his imagination).” David described in another mail that, as Rob finished the final pages, “He points out the structure of the last page—the way he’s broken up the lines—to make certain I understand… He writes ‘the end,’ underlines it, taps it slowly with his pencil…”

Two days later, Rob died.

Another year passed before I could work exclusively on the novel. During that year, though, I completed a new draft of the missing three chapters, tying preceding action into Rob’s new ending. When I was able to return full-time to the book’s revision, the work went quickly. Neither story nor characters became stale or boring, no matter how many times I revised a section. Occasionally, I’d hear Rob argue in my thoughts, “No, that’s not what Wolfshadow would do.” So I’d ask myself, “What would Rob do?” In the end, Wolfshadow became the character he was meant to be, a man of honor and devotion, much like the man who created him.

The journey of Wolfshadow has been both emotional and rewarding. During revision, the original discussions and debates with Rob about the story’s direction surfaced repeatedly in memory. If I found myself stuck on a certain point or storyline, I’d defer to those earlier discussions, to what I believed Rob would have wanted. Many revisions later and three years to the month after Rob’s death, I typed “The End.”

Shortly before he lost his voice, we talked about his prognosis. “I won’t be going back home,” he told me from his hospice bed, but his voice had no hint of fear or remorse. “I’ve had a good life, Chris—good friends and a great family. Now I have cancer. Everyone dies.

“Piss on it.”

Bless you, my friend. You live on.

***

Rob’s brother, David, had the following comments after reading the above post:

“I read the blog and was simultaneously touched and bedazzled. Some of the details you included detailing the evolution of your personal and professional relationship with Robert were real revelations to me; others added nuance to my own memories of Robert during the final years of his life.

“I still have a hard time being satisfied with my own attempts to identify what is was about Robert’s conduct during his final days that I admired so much. You called it lack of remorse and fear. I agree with that, but there was something having to do with innocence and wonderment mixed in. He actually seemed to be having some type of fun. There was no dread emanating from him, and a good deal of playfulness and hijinks in the mix. It was like he was in a waiting room, keeping himself playfully occupied. When he got pooped out he really disappeared, but there was a great deal of mindful and lighthearted presence to him during those final days. It is still something ephemeral and hard to vocalize. But I can say clearly that he set a great example.”