bring the noyz

"Some are born to move the world --
To live their fantasies
But most of us just dream about
The things we'd like to be

Sadder still to watch it die
Than never to have known it
For you -- the blind who once could see --
The bell tolls for thee. . . "

-- Neil Peart

Curtis.

For now, he lingers ever present, bobbing just below the surface of consciousness, continually bursting through idle moments of thought with a smile or a tear.

More the latter than the former. That's just how it goes.

Is he in Heaven? Is he in the Other Place? I'll leave that question for the preachers and philosphers. The only certainty is that he is not here.

And that just plain fucking sucks.

I know that with the passing of each new day, he will slowly sink and softly settle down into the vast pool of memory and rest comfortably alongside those I have known and loved who have gone before him into the Void of the Great Unknown. My grandparents, Bill and Bruce, former students: Holly, Lonnie, Chris, Maribel, Rusty, William, and others.

I know that with the passing of each new day the profound sorrow and sadness at the loss will slowly fade, leaving only joy that I have been blessed to have been involved in the life.

But not today.

And that just plain fucking sucks.

But yet I know that day will come. It must. It always does.

And when that day arrives, and I am truly at peace with the tragic event and horrid memories of the past few days, there is no doubt a song, a phrase, or another thought will from time to time cause him to rise up and momentarily remind me of his presence.

Or as we who knew him occasionally go out with the boys and knock back a coupla coca-colas in his honor.

When that happens, will I think of his last moments, sitting beneath a tree in his parent's backyard with his hand on the trigger? Will I wonder what was it that made the thought of waking up Wednesday so completely unbearable?

No.

I will remember standing in front of The Alamo at 3:00 am on a Sunday morning because we left the party in our dorm room two hours earlier to go buy cirgarettes and somehow wound up on the interstate heading out of town, singing along with The Simple Minds "Don't You (Forget About Me)" while looking out the window at the stars.

I will remember jumping around playing wild air guitar with a tennis racket rocking out to "I Can't Drive 55".

I will remember Champions, and D & D games that went on for hours upon hours eventually ending in drunkeness, silliness or both.

I will remember Camp Wade and The Dome and Curtis and I eating all of the food.

I will remember "doodle doodle dee, wubba wubba wubba"

I will remember reading his copy of "Fear and Loathing". We interpreted it not as a novel, but more as a guidebook or instruction manual on how to live life to the fullest.

I will remember buying, then drinking the complete contents of our first bottle of mezcal, then creating and taping the first of many Doctors of Mezcal ceremonies to consume that blasted little worm.

I will remember Koyaanisqatsi on acid.

And Freddy 3 on acid.

I will remember spending over eight hours and twenty dollars playing Gauntlet on acid.

I will remember the bong we shared when we moved into our first apartment together. We called it "the baseball bong" because it was about the size of a bat and after three hits you were out.

Were we a little to much into recreational drug use? Probably.

We were only 20 when the drinking age went to 21. It suddenly became much easier to score a bag of weed, a few hits of acid, or some ecstacy than it was to get a six-pack of beer. I've always imagined that as one of the unintended consequences of the governments efforts to reduce teenage drinking.

And we were young, intelligent, invincible, with heads full of the ideas of Hunter S. Thompson, Robert Anton Wilson, and Timothy Leary.

But it wasn't all fun and games.

I will remember 36 to 48 hour marathons filled with textbooks, typewriters, and endless supplies of coffee, cigarettes and Dr Pepper.

We made it class most days and kept up our grades in the "A" or "B" range.

Study whenever we have to, party whenever we can.

Or as Curtis summed it up with his typiclal positive upbeat spin, following a complaint about having to go back to school after a break: "vacation never ends, it only changes locations".

I don't recall how or why it morphed into the bastardized Latin sounding "vacatium never endum, it only changum locatium".

But it did. It became and still is our motto.

Pseudo-Latin sayings? Um, okay.

We weren't half as cool as we thought we were. But I think secretly we all knew that.

I will remember all the girls I liked in college liking Curtis that way but me just as a friend. The bastard. He never once took any interest or my advice to at least allow me the opportunity to live vicariously through him.

I will remember Curtis turning me on to many of my still favorite bands, such as The Rainmakers and asking Bob Walkenhorst why he wrote about sitting on the porch with J.D. Salinger in one of their songs.

I will remember a 26 hour marathon non-stop road trip to see the Marfa Lights, taking turns sitting in the passenger seat looking down the highway with binoculars for signs of law enforcement as we speed excessively along.

I will remember returning from my five year self imposed exile "out of the country" (known also as "my first marriage") and being greeted with all the warmth, friendship, and forgiveness I would have received had seen him the day before.

And then going to see The Who rock like they haven't done in over twenty years.

I will remember all these things, and many many more.

As I remember them, I may share them with you, my dear reader.

I will remember because we all will remember.

It is through the act of remembering you honor someone's life and you eventually gain acceptance of their death.

But that takes time.

And that takes tears.

And that just plain fucking sucks.
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