A Life Not Lived

The subtitle of this post should probably be "Should You Blog While Drinking?" I'm not sure, but I'm gonna anyway.

I'm by myself this weekend: my lovely wife has taken our children to visit her parents; I stayed home with the dog. I was mildly productive earlier, having straightened a few things around the house and shoveled the dusting of snow off the driveway, so I can laze about for the the rest of the day. It's been good so far: I watched the Illinois/ohio state basketball game, watched the Blackhawks put a thumping on those bastard Red Wings. Now I'm sitting in front of a fire, listening to some tunes, sauntering my way through my fourth Lone Star beer. Mellow, relaxed, just chillin', as the youngsters say (or said, or whatever).

Wandering through the radio channels coming over our satellite TV, I settled on SIRIUS 1st Wave, a channel that plays the beginnings of alternative music. Over the waves comes U2's "Wild Horses", from their Zooropa album, and I get to thinking of an old friend of mine, the guy that I went to that concert with, ages ago. His name was Dave, and man, did we have a blast at that show. We had seats in the 13th row, 10 seats from the thrust stage that wandered through the crowd. While Bono was singing "Mysterious Ways" he was out there, and looked right at us. One big step and I could have reached out and shook his hand. Really one of those "Fuck, yeah!" kind of moments. Magical, in a way that was only partially influenced by the marijuana and Crazy Horse Malt Liquor Dave had talked me into getting. About as cool as it gets to a couple of 20-somethings (Dave was 21, I was 23).

That was just one night in a string of good ones in our all-too-brief friendship. We had met at our job, one of two I had at the time, the other being a gig as a limousine lot overseer at the music theatre where we saw the show. Our mutual employment was at a mall store, framing bad art for the tragically hip and woefully misguided. Dave was a mananger, in the sense that he managed to screw most things up, and I did the framing, in between ignoring orders from Dave and making sure things got done right. But we got along well: we had a lot of shared interests, one of the most enjoyable being seeing which one of us could make the other look like the biggest fool when a cute girl wandered into the store. (I have to give Dave his due credit: we fought to a draw on most occasions.) So we moved from work buddies to getting a beer after work (and during, a few times), to hanging out on the weekends. We frequented all of the small blues bars in the city, strictly avoiding the Kingston Mines as a poseur hang-out (it still might be; I haven't been there in years), and closed them on a regular basis. Our two distinct favorites were b.l.u.e.s. etcetera and Rosa's. One memorable night at b.l.u.e.s. etc., we sat stage-side for a two-set performance by Sugar Blue, the great harmonica player, known by most people for his harp work on the Rollling Stones' hit "Miss You". Sugar was a great guy: he talked to us before the show, during the set break, and for an hour after. Another of those special memories I have locked away, and Dave was there.

On a Saturday later that same summer, Rosa's was the final stage of an epic bender Dave and I rolled through with another friend in tow. Highlights of the night included subduing a roaring drunk at a basement dive I've long forgotten the name of, getting high in an alley behind The Alley with two punk chicks I can best describe as partially clothed, free hot dogs at Demon Dogs (due to a misplaced order slip), walking into a yuppie bar and walking straight out after the bartender flipped us off before we were entirely inside, forgetting where my car was parked, drinking at a Mexican place where no one spoke English until we remembered, driving to what we thought was within a block of Rosa's (it was more like five), moving a road construction horse to create a parking space, getting eyeballed by two of Chicago's finest on patrol, and Dave nearly breaking his neck trying to get down the stairs into the joint.

The joint itself was pretty empty for a Saturday night, but it turns out they had had a big afternoon show, and the rest of the night was just passing time. However, much to our delight, the 10:00 show was the last show of the Texas Rubies before they headed back to...you guessed it, Texas. The Rubies were a small 3-piece band fronted by two tall, blonde Texan women, belting out Janis Joplin-style blues with more heart than talent. But it was a decent show, and we sat for an hour and a half, indignantly drinking our $1 cans of Black Label beer* and crooning along when they covered songs we could remember the words to.

* I say indignantly because in high school, Black Label was our beer of choice, being $6.99 for a case of returnable bottles, meaning drink 3 cases, get the 4th free! And here we were paying a dollar a  bottle for brew that normally cost us 30 cents. Robbery! Where underage high schoolers got such cheap beer is nobody's goddamned business, so don't ask.

It was the kind of steady fun that marks a day well-spent. After Rosa's we left the city, after shoving the construction horse we moved into the trunk of my car, and made our way back to the suburbs. We hit a few places on the way home, until at last I pulled into my driveway as the sun was coming up. I remember sitting in my car for a while, just enjoying the buzz, dragging it out as long as I could. A few weeks later I started classes again and started playing rugby as well; Dave had his own classes, and tried to start a band. We saw each other a few times, but the times grew fewer in the way they do, being pulled apart by the vagaries of life. I lost contact with Dave for a few years, but never forgot the fun we had.

It was about this time of the year, 16 years ago, when I went back to the mall where I worked and stopped by the store, to see if anyone I knew was still working there. One girl was; she had worked with Dave and I, and she was the manager now. I asked if she knew where Dave was, and her face sank. "You haven't heard, then?"
"Heard what?" I asked.
"Dave committed suicide over Thanksgiving. His parents found him hanging in his bedroom. His girlfriend broke up with him and he flipped."

I was stunned into complete silence. I gave Cheryl a hug, and just walked away.

Sixteen years later, I still don't have any real answers. I don't know why, and it still bothers me. I'm both sad and angry; time has only slighty mellowed the anger and softened the sadness. And any time I hear a track from Zooropa, I think of Dave, and what might have been.

RIP, Dave Lusk. Tonight I drink to you.