Jeff was the first. We met at an after-school program. Half an hour into it, he told me, “We’re gonna be friends,” and he was right. Jeff was charming and had a way of making you feel like you were the coolest kid around. I wasn’t, but that’s how I felt around him.
Jeff introduced me to Tony. Tony is on the short list of the funniest people I’ve ever known. He was quick-witted, in the same way Usain Bolt is quick at running. He’d have us howling with laughter one moment, and a moment later we’d be speechless, contemplating a shockingly insightful observation. I’ve known few people who saw and understood as much of the world around him as Tony did.
Tony introduced me to Chad. We quickly became best friends. Chad was somehow funnier and quicker to laugh than Tony. He eventually ended up with a successful nightclub comedy tour to prove it. Chad was not the most educated person I’ve known, mainly because other things caught his attention. He could’ve been a rocket scientist, or surely a lawyer, if he’d wanted. He didn’t.
Jeff was the first of us to leave home. He joined the Army and went to Iraq in 1990. He came home mostly the same guy we’d always known, just beset by random, unusual ailments.
I left on my own adventures soon after. When I came home, I saw Chad often, Jeff periodically, and Tony rarely. We were still good buddies, but you know how life gets. We got busy in our own ways. Soon we hardly saw each other. I didn’t, at least.
I kept in touch with Chad the most. I can’t say he was a good influence exactly. However, his heart was always in the right place. He’d call unexpectedly: “This is a collect call from the county jail from… Chad. Will you accept the charges? Hey, I’m glad you’re home! Hah, so, I kinda did something stupid…” While he never did anything outright bad, he made his share of mistakes. I won’t share the best of those stories here. Buy me a drink sometime and I’ll have you crying from laughter. Trust me on this. Still, most importantly, he owned his errors, learned from them, and genuinely got back on the right track.
It was Chad who called me a several years ago. “Hey, uh, did you hear about Tony?” Tony’s life hadn’t been as colorful or funny as Chad’s. While I don’t know the details, I understand he’d seen some rough years. Still, not so many that I’d have thought his bright light would burn so briefly. It surprised all of us. Tony was far too young to have gone away. He went anyway.
A few years later, I got the news about Chad. He was young, active, healthy, and still passed away in his sleep. That hurt, more than I can describe. There’s no way that should have happened, yet it did.
Shortly after, Jeff called and left a voicemail. He said he was sick. I’d known, via Chad, that Jeff’s exposure to who-knows-what in Iraq had left him physically broken. The Army eventually agreed and gave him reasonable disability benefits. I don’t think I wanted to believe that he was genuinely that sick, though. Besides, we hadn’t talked in decades. What would we even have to discuss? We’d walked very different paths in the many years since, and while I still thought the world of him, we didn’t have a lot left in common. I didn’t call him back.
Yesterday, my wife turned to me: “I hate to be the one to tell you, but Jeff’s gone.” She shared pictures from his Facebook. His eyes didn’t have the bright, lively expression I’d known in him since that first day. He looked haunted. His brain got sick in a way that isn’t supposed to happen until we’re old. Fate didn’t wait, though.
That was hard to hear. Harder was the realization that I’m somehow the last of us. I’m far, far too young to be the last of our group left. I mean, I still have plenty of friends, mainly those I’ve met since I moved away from our childhood home. There are plenty of friends there, too, including many we all ran around with. But my inner circle, at that place, at that time? It was Jeff, Tony, Chad, and me. Now, it’s just me.
I’ll be OK after some wallowing in self-pity. Life goes on. Just do me a favor, OK? That old friend you’ve thought about but haven’t said hi to in years? Do it. Do it for me, for Jeff, for Chad, for Tony, and for everyone else we can’t reach out to anymore.
I love you, my brothers.