Monday, February 18, 2002

Regarding Davey…

Julie dropped back into my life last Tuesday, quite unexpectedly as is her way. (I once came home from work to find her asleep on my couch with her boyfriend. In my locked apartment. In a secure, doorman building. I still have no idea how she managed it.)

As deadlines hovered menacingly over my head, we sat for two hours reliving college days and catching up on news of old friends. We're coming up on what our alma mater calls a "landmark reunion," which is a euphemism for a period ending in either zero or five seen as an excuse to ask for a larger alumni fund contribution. Anyway, it's been a few years since our last rundown of the old gang and, surprisingly, there were few surprises. The constant seems to be that none of us is using our degree in the way it was originally intended. Good for us.

Eventually, we got around to talking about Dave, sweet little Davey who everybody loved. Davey died a couple of years after we graduated although, in fact, none of us can remember if he actually did graduate. It doesn't matter, though. I'm not sure I ever met anyone who learned more eagerly from what life offered to him, in a classroom or not. Davey was never without a friend or a smile or a good word for anyone, even the burnouts and cheaters and assholes everyone else despised.

Davey never said "no" because, deep down, Davey was afraid if he did, he might not be asked again.

He admitted that, once, and then denied it -- when pressed on rare occasions -- with the same vigor with which he consumed all the rest of his days.

Well, those were the 80s, kids. I could have been Davey, easily. We shared more or less parallel paths for a while anyway. But I turned at the fork in the road marked "guardedly optimistic" and Davey continued blithely down the stretch labelled "sunny and cynicism-free".

Davey believed in romance, in adventure, in doing a thing simply because he hadn't done it before. Davey took spontaneous road trips, sampled all manner of food and drink and held my head over a toilet once or twice. I often gave him a hard time and kidded him and got as close to him as anyone was allowed. I never took the leap of faith it would have required for me to try to get closer. Well, those were the 80s, kids.

I wish I could say I thought of Davey often but the truth is, until Julie materialized in my office and dragged me down memory lane, his stubbly face and sweet smile and sparkling eyes and dry laughter hadn't crossed my mind in two years or more.

We promise to do it, to keep in touch. We say we'll write and get together after graduation, and we seldom do. At the wake or the funeral, we vow to remember, to make the lost a permanent part of us, but that's harder still and they go out of sight, out of mind, deep in heart.

Davey and I went to The Upside, a lot. To Faces and City Center and Angles. We never went together, but he was always there, and we'd fall upon each other and laugh and drink and dance until the sun came up.

I thought about that Saturday night, when I was introduced to Davey again. It wasn't him, of course, but an astonishingly faithful facsimile. A new friend, of a friend. Young and lean and with a smile that seems to make up about half his body, although the other half has merits of its own. He's bright and funny and so very optimistic but a little scared too.

He and Davey have something else in common but, fortunately, these aren't the 80s anymore.