Christopher Hitchens was a supernova in Washington. Amidst the dreary, self-editing power-seekers, he was a wild and beautiful boy, out to seduce, provoke, and dazzle. The thirty or so years that we were friends are studded with indelible memories. Here’s just one that can’t be forgotten:

On assignment in Palm Beach, Hitchens scored an invitation to dine at the town’s most exclusive, and allegedly anti-Semitic, country club. Though he admired Trotsky, truth be told Hitch revelled in the high life. But having discovered his own Jewish heritage late in life, he was hell-bent on making the most of it. After generous libations at the bar, Hitchens and a small party of friends, including his wife Carol Blue, were ceremoniously seated at a table in the midst of the stuffy dining room. Surrounded by billionaires politely nibbling at Crab Louis with their families, Hitch was presented with the establishment’s menu. There was a pause, as he scanned the entries. Then, at a volume designed to be heard on all eighteen holes of the adjoining golf course, Hitch handed back the menu to the waiter and boomed, “This won’t do. I NEED THE KOSHER MENU!”

After the ensuing commotion, the member who had hosted Hitch was suspended, and a new club-house rule was passed: added to the list of social taboos from that day on was an absolute ban on journalists.

Hitch lived so large, and so beyond the rules, that his mortality seems especially hard to accept. I remember the day some eighteen months ago when he told me that he was mortally ill. He had missed a few stops on his book tour, which wasn’t like him, so I called to see if he was all right. “No,” he said frankly. “I’m not. I have cancer.” I was so stricken for the next few days that I couldn’t get much work done. Then I noticed that during the time that I was using his illness as an excuse to procrastinate, he had himself authored a handful of brilliant pieces. I couldn’t work, but he couldn’t stop working. He was a born writer, whose irrepressible talent and verve put most of the rest of us journeymen to shame.

Photograph by Stephen Shepherd/Eyevine.