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" As told to Victor Ozols My friend and I were down at the Brooklyn waterfront. You crawl under a fence to get out there, and there&amp;#039;s a lot of dilapidated piers going out into the East River. The tide was down, and I noticed some feet poking out from under the pier. I was like, Oh, shit, man. Tell me that&amp;#039;s not a body. Facedown in the sand, there was -- we didn&amp;#039;t really know what it was. My friend is an EMT, and he said it didn&amp;#039;t look real. There was a plastic brace on one leg, and the way it was floating, it looked synthetic, like a robot. There are so many artists in Williamsburg doing crazy stuff that we thought it might be a hoax or an art project or something. Your mind is just grasping for anything other than what it is.  I&amp;#039;ve seen bloated animals in the water, and they get huge. This wasn&amp;#039;t like that. The body was pale. Otherwise it just looked like somebody who had jumped into the water with his clothes on -- black jeans, red flannel shirt, sneakers. I threw a brick and hit the guy on his back, and it bounced off and made a sound like it hit a sandbag. We got closer and saw a gash in his side and what looked like gray cotton mattress stuffing coming out. There were no flies, no smell. Just waves lapping at his knees. He was in a perfect Jesus Christ pose on the sand. I kept telling myself not to be fooled so easily, but my face got hot and tingly, and I felt a little queasy, like when you hear a fire alarm and you aren&amp;#039;t sure if it&amp;#039;s a drill. Eventually, my friend called the cops on his cell phone. Homeland Security showed up, along with cops and guys in scuba suits. A detective got our statements. I left out the part about hitting him with a brick. Then they flipped him over, and we saw the face. It was like a blast wave from a bomb emanated from it. His face was totally torn off, like you see in the zombie movies. Just... red. Eyes poking out. The cops explained that in the winter, bodies sink to the bottom and get dragged around. When the water gets warm, the bodies float to the top. Apparently this one had been rubbing on the bottom for some time. We left, got some drinks. We figured it was a mob job or a bum. The next day, I heard Spalding Gray&amp;#039;s body had been found. I looked on the Internet, and sure enough, he had a leg brace. I got in touch with his wife, and I mentioned that I&amp;#039;d never try to exploit my discovery. She said, &amp;quot;No, please, do whatever you like. You don&amp;#039;t have to be tasteful. This is Spalding Gray. All he ever talked about was his own death.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a3226/spaldinggray0807/>