Fire is the way I remember people. It’s a way of feeling warmth again, of seeing light again, and of reminding myself every fire goes out. With everything that is going on these days, it’s hard to take time to stop and look back at loss. There’s so much of it and once you reach a certain age there’s more people missing from your life than those who remain.
Curt was my best friend from the third grade on. He and I stopped speaking back in 2002 when he got involved in serious drugs. We were in our forties at that time, and playing Russian Roulette with chemicals was getting to be dangerous. He pulled a gun on his brother in law, his son disarmed him and they fought him, and a deputy arrived. Curt attacked the deputy and wound up in jail. He called me to bail him out and I wouldn’t. His wife called me and asked me to give her time to serve papers and get rid of the guns.
Someone called me in 2013 to tell me Curt had lung cancer. When I went to see him it was already in the later stages. In January of 2014, Curt died with a cigarette in his hand.
The man was an excellent guitar player. He played twelve string and six string, sang some, but I remember when he was thirteen or fourteen years old he was good. He was good with people, effortlessly, they seemed to know there was some sort of magic surrounding Curt, and I was the one who women came to in order to meet him. We dated sisters at one point when we were roommates, and one night he suggested we switch women and both girls agreed to it. Their mother had a fit. It didn’t stop us, nothing ever could, until Curt got connected with the wrong woman and the wrong drugs.
Curt was a good chess player, taught his oldest son to be even better at chess than he was, or for that matter, even better than me. At one point I was really good, but that second generation Curt raised was awesome. Curt knew how to hunt, fish, and even play golf. But we both started smoking early in life and eventually, that killed him.
I still remember being outside. It was cold as hell, and I had gotten a good fire started. I sent Curt a photo of the fire and a few minutes later his nephew called me. Curt was dead. The funeral was good, inasmuch as one can be, and a lot of people I hadn’t seen in decades arrived to see him off. We buried Curt beside his mother in a small cemetery next to a small church. The road to the church was paved now, and that was a shock to me.
It’s been a dozen years now. His oldest son has a son, and I hope he becomes a guitar player and learns chess. It hurts in a way that I cannot put to words Curt won’t know this kid. And worse, the child will not know Curt.
Let’s take a break this week from what’s going on outside in the world, and remember the people we’ve loved, and lost, but will never forget.
Take Care,
Mike
