A few minutes of additional conversation with Jim, particularly as it relates to our friend, Prof D.  I wrote a piece when Dave passed away at 40.  I'll share it with you here.  Please read, and listen, and hold your friends dearly while they're with you.

Dear Dave,

Through alphabetic providence, we, perhaps the only two white kids deeply and completely connected to hip hop and hip hop culture in Glenshaw in the late 1980s, became locker partners in ninth grade.  1988.  The year I moved from Connecticut to Pittsburgh, an exceptionally awkward teen terrified of not fitting in yet knowing that I wouldn’t fit in and ultimately not wanting to be a popular douchebag but ultimately giving too much of a shit and really pissed off about the whole internal struggle.  Del Duca.  Dengler.  Both of us with overalls, Public Enemy gear, ball caps and sneakers that, whenever possible, matched the cap, and thick, perhaps not entirely unintended white-boy afros.  Both of us working 20 hours per week to buy the shit we loved because we came from families without money.  Both of us honors students and smartasses who didn’t quite fit in with the preppy Glenshaw overly-earnest-pseudo-poetic-pop-leaning (…fuck Michael Stipe…) honors-student vibe.  You were among my earliest friends and have been one of my longest-standing friends.  You hooked me up with free Arby’s and free Pizza Hut and you drove my no-license-having ass all around Pittsburgh when I wasn’t bussing it.  You blasted EPMD, Eric B. and Rakim, Marly Marl, Biz Markie, and the Beastie Boys.  You accepted me and you endeared yourself to my Mom.  You were my boy.  Almost all of my memories of you from the 90s involve boisterous laughter, hip hop, and happiness.

We commuted to Pitt.  We hung out in the William Pitt Union and played too many games of ping pong across our Freshman year.  We wagered sodas and lunches and we purchased our own paddles.  We became fucking ping pong nerds.  And why not?!  Things changed the following year.  I asked you to be my roommate in our shitty, roach-infested, slum-lord-managed apartment on Bates Street. Stone also played ping pong with us, and I worked with Rich.  They shared a room, and we shared a room, and the roaches took up residence with Scobes and Cordes across the hall.

You were a shitty, shitty roommate.  Inconsiderate and seemingly clueless.  You pissed me off somewhere in the vicinity of all the time.  You have no idea how close you were to having your ass beaten by one or all of us across hundreds of occasions.  I once cleaned the dirty toilet…the one you just left unflushed, post burrito, and with some piece of metal stuck in the bowl…with your bath towel.  You drank directly from the 2 liter bottle like that’s how the world worked.  I used to turn on the hot water when you showered to fuck with you.  We talked about you fiercely behind your back.  I came to really dislike you…and I bailed right the fuck out of another year in the apartment.  That distance was the key.  They say absence makes the heart grow fonder.  This proved true for us. 

You came to my a cappella shows religiously…you were my biggest and most consistent fan.  We hung, we ate, we shared music, and things shifted largely back to normal.  I was in your wedding, and we participated in friends’ weddings together.  Your laugh remained boisterous…the kind of laugh that turned heads.  I’m glad you never gave a fuck about all that.  When you laughed, you laughed with your entire body and soul.  And when you showed up, you were really there.  You weren’t preoccupied nor were you fake.  You were present.  Not many people on this planet are present.  Like ever.  You were. That’s a fucking fact, jack.

And now all you are is gone.  (You loved that song, too.)

I saw you last at a fantastic party for our close friend.  Before that, my family and I ran into you at Pamela’s in Millvale and we all whooped it up for like a half hour.  You showed me your new Jeep.  It was a dream vehicle for both you and Dawson.  Each time I ran into you it was a little reunion, a celebration, an event.  Mad Mex.  My 40th birthday party; you, Jen, and I all wore denim bib overalls.  I had my Tribe Called Quest shirt on.  (You were one of the few that truly understood the significance of Tribe.) The Pig Bar; you dressed as Billy May for the Halloween S.G. Project.  That De La Soul show at Mr. Smalls.  It was the night that Bush was elected to his second term.  The crowd there sucked.  We both thought that De La would never come back to Pittsburgh given the lack of enthusiasm weighing down the place.  But we fucking jammed that night.  It was as if we were right back in high school…and we were listening to “Me, Myself, and I” for the very first time.  Minds blown.

I marveled at your interactions with Dawson, David.  You were a loving, caring, generous, present (…ever fucking present, man…that was your gift…), guiding Father.  You got me completely back when I saw you in that role.  All else forgotten, swept under the carpet of too-many-years-ago and too-few-days-left-to-hang-on-to-bullshit.  Too goddam few days left.  How could we have known how few?

Dude, I miss you.  Life is precious and precarious.  I’ll not forget that again.  I won’t.  I promise I won’t.  I’ll find a way to remind myself.  You will be remembered.  You were loved.  You made an impact and you made a difference, and you spread a whole lotta love, laughter, and joy.  That’s all we can hope for as humans.

I’m numb, man.

It’s never really too late.  Until it is.

It is.

G