8/21/2006
Last week, when I went to do karaoke (first time I’d gone to that place), there was this really big, friendly dude there for a little while. I didn’t know him but everyone else seemed to, and I think he gave me a friendly pat on the back even though he’d never seen me before in his life.
During the week, somebody had a picture of the guy on MySpace (yeah, yeah, I know) with a caption to the effect of: “I’ll miss you with all my heart.” And I thought, is he moving away or something? It seemed to me that a lot of people knew him, he was a local DJ and man-about-town, and they were all saying goodbye to him. I figured he must be moving to the big city to be a star.
Then I went to karaoke this week. And I found out that the guy had died. It was unexpected. I was confused at first. Wasn’t he going to move or something? But no.
This guy had existed as a warm body, standing right next to me, seven days prior. Wednesday he died. And last night they were mourning him.
Sometimes young people die unexpectedly. But it is a shock and a sadness to experience it so closely in space and time.