1979-2006
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Charlie was probably the most cheerful SOB you could ever know. The kid always had a smile on his face, and always found a bright side to everything. For most of the world, this is probably one of the best traits that a human could have. For a manic depressive and hopeless cynic like myself, it could get pretty damn annoying. To have that much love for family and life as he did, well...sometimes it would lead one to think thoughts like "What the hell are you so damn happy about anyways." I felt that way quite often in our short time together, and thankfully, Charlie never held it against me.
He was a dedicated soul, and nothing ever kept him down. In Charlie's mind, he could do anything, and if there were things he couldn't do, it either wasn't important, or he hadn't gotten around to it yet. Life didn't stop him, it just slowed him down occassionaly. And I envied him for that.
You see, Charlie appeared at a time in my life when I longed to be myself. I had an image that I had painstakingly designed to keep people fearful and at bay. But it was a hard fascade, and involved a lot of work to maintain. Then one day out of nowhere, here is this skinny kid with spiked hair and the stupidest grin on his face. I looked at him, and asked if he was high. His smile got wider, his eyes got even more squinty and he said "Hell no."
And in those words began a friendship that I will always cherish.
Charlie had a way of pushing me into acts of stupidity that I would have probably talked myself out of if left to my own devices. In a world where your conscious tells you not to do something becuase of all the dangers, Charlie was the voice who would say "Ah, you'll be fine." And while that attitude may have put my life in jeapordy on several occassions, it also gave me some of the finest memories of my life. With Charlie, I could be alive, because I had no fear of death, or scarring my precious image.
As I write this, I also am making preperations to add a couple if choice words to my dictionary, as a tribute to my friend. These words I found one day scribbled on my dorm door, written with great haste and completely misspelled, they would become words that me and Charlie shared as an inside joke to the rest of the world. Now, they almost define us as friends. I find his character in places I had forgotten. Sometimes in CD's I haven't listened to in a long time, sometimes in movies on TV. I even find him in an old car of mine with a screwey glovebox that served as a source of constant amusement.
You know, in the last part of his life, I wasn't the best of friends to him. I wasn't there as much as I could've been, I dodged phone calls, and forgot to return them. The last time Charlie ever called me, I forgot my phone, and never called him back. This will be something I always regret. I thought that Charlie represented something in my past, and that I needed to make a transition to being an adult. The reality is that Charlie represented life incarnate. His life reminded me that living was not bills and responsibilies, but the willingness to be crazy and stupid. In the time after his death, I have managed to remind myself of these things. But I will always regret not being able to share them with my friend
So to my bro, my niggo, and my best friend. I will miss you always. Thank you for giving a cynical old fool the time of day, and bringing me a taste of the life you lived so well. Porps to you my friend and two taps off the chest.