BleepsBlops

High School is supposedly when you have the best time of your life and the place where you meet your best friends, the ones that will permanently mark  and stay in it no matter time or distance.

It was in High School that I met Ricaom, or simply Ricky. We weren’t in the same classes, he was already a sophomore and I do not exactly recall the moment we crossed paths. It might have been in one of our theater classes, or just during break when we used to sit on one of the many benches blessed by the shadows of the huge sycamore tree (that ceased to exist some five or so years ago).

At the time I had developed a morbid sense of humor, mostly as a way of coping with my dad’s death and Ricaom for reasons that I still do not fully understand felt the same way and understood and shared the same teenage angst .

We would often talk in the intervals in between classes, exchanging remarks about classmates, the professors we were taking and how big life was supposed to be outside of the school walls. We also talked about music a lot, and it was with Ricky that I got to listen for the first time to the band that would become my all time favorite.

Ricaom was also my first gay friend. I still remember my freshman year, we were sitting at one of the empty classrooms in the ground floor with its huge art-deco windows facing the street. He had brought a small boom box from his house and had recorded some tapes withe everything from Siouxie and the Banshees to Jesus Jones. It was at that same classroom, listening to Blue Bell Knoll by the Cocteau Twins that he said in a low voice “I’m gay”. I replied “okay” And that was it, there was no discomfort just friendship.

Years in and out we kept in touch. I went to college, he didn’t. He used to live by himself in the outskirts of city, sometimes DJing in some of the clubs in our hometown – some I played with him.

Our lives were normal, we didn’t get wasted and for the majority of the time we would get together at his apartment with a couple of good bottles of wine at least a couple of times every month. It was me, Ricky and George, a common musician friend, and Ricky’s dog, Bobby. We used to kill time, drink wine and have some of Ricky’s experimental dishes while listening to good music. Sometimes we would watch Lost Highway or some other artsy movies and for most part we just laughed a lot at life.

Ricky lived in one of those huge and highly populated apartment complexes that suddenly popped out of nowhere and populated urban areas around the world by the end of the 70’s. George used to call it “Condominium Gropius” (as a reference to the derelict place from the German book “Christiane F.”). Someone had written “The Gossip Corner” in graffiti at one  of the buildings  and it was always a reason for chuckles when we would pass by it and see a dozen of young girls sitting under it talking loudly about other people’s lives.Silly times. Good times.

It was ten years ago when I moved and ended up not seeing Ricky for five years of so, then we met again. It was the same fun, the same jovial feeling. The feeling of being safe and among friends again.

And then, at the end of April I received the bombastic news that Ricky had died. Nothing as poetic as portrait in any of the songs we used to listen. He had been the victim of a hit-and-run. Someone had crashed him while he was going back home pushing his bicycle. He died there, at the side of the road without assistance.

My good friend died alone and with him part of the best years of my life.

It is not every day we love someone but I am sure wherever Ricky is, he still is able to listen to the voice of Liz Fraser singing Carolyn’s Fingers, the same track I am playing right now. I am also sure that he finally found the peace and company he always wanted in his life.

Rest in peace my friend.