I first met Dave in the fall of 1984. My wife Shelly and I last saw him on December 28, 2008.
In 1984, Dave was a curious creature. He was my freshman college roommate (one of three). I remember waking up in the middle of the night or coming home late from a party and finding Dave sitting on the couch in the common area of our dorm suite, with the lights out and the television off. This seemed odd. I quickly got used to it. He was shy back then—I don’t really remember him coming out of his shell until later in college—so if I asked him what he was thinking about, he’d usually look away, and then with a grin say something about a mathematical or scientific problem that I didn't understand. At first, I thought he was ribbing me (early in our relationship he liked to tease me with such subtlety that I was never really sure when he was or was not being fecetious). In time, I began to realize that Dave really did like to be alone in those moments. It was his time to be with that extraordinary mind of his. Thinking back now, he appears to me almost sage-like.
Through college, Dave became more of a friend, though truth be told, he was closer to my then girlfriend than he was to me—they shared a disdain for the college social activities in which I indulged. When my girlfriend went through some tough times, Dave took care of her. When she and I graduated and moved to New York, Dave went West, though he would come back and visit. When she and I went through the roughest of our rough patches, Dave, who prided himself at that time on being both a matchmaker and a caretaker, tried to counsel us. He wanted us to be happy and together so badly that he talked me into waking her up one New Year’s eve at 3 a.m. and proposing to her, which I did while he waited outside the room. Even at the time I knew it was a bad idea, but I followed his advice. I figured Dave knew better than I did and that with commitment the situation would improve. The relationship ended before we made it to the altar.
I visited Dave in Los Angeles a number of times. One time I told that I didn't want to put him out so I was going to stay in a hotel. Wanting to play host, he talked me to stay with him instead. When I arrived, he picked me up in his art-car (covered in seashells) and surprised me with, “We aren’t going to stay at my place…I don’t have a place right now, but it is no big deal, I’ve got us set up,” and courtesy of a mutual friend who has also written on this site (Ashley), we stayed in a large Hollywood home where she was house-sitting. The situation was perfect until the third night when the owner phoned to say that he was coming back early and Ashley needed to be out immediately. That night I ended up sleeping on the floor in Dave’s campus office (he kept a sleeping bag there) while he pulled an all-nighter working at his computer on a report that was due in the morning.
I never made it to Hawaii. David regularly traveled back to the mainland, and seemed to periodically ‘pop up’ in my life, often arriving on short notice. Visiting my now-wife Shelly and I in Seattle, I remember Dave almost bragging about the life he had made for himself out in the middle of the Pacific. I remember him talking about the incredible flora and fauna, of sea turtles, of living in near isolation “on the other side of the island.” He talked about his love of being on the water. About spending time on FLIP ships. And about having this second-life as a producer/promoter of local bands.
Then things seemed to change. As happens to all of us, he had what he saw as a professional setback. I don't remember the exact details but I remember that his aspirations to complete his PhD had been thwarted by some bureaucratic snafu. Understandably, he was very upset about it. He said that he would never be able to get the kind of job he wanted; that he would have to start his career over. I don't remember if he was still living in Hawaii when he told me this, though I think he was.
The next and last time I saw Dave was on December 28, 2008. I didn’t recognize him. He’d already been in Monterey by that point for probably five years. He emailed me on December 27th to say that he would be in New York the following day and that he wanted to visit. I told him to come up to the art gallery Shelly and I were running in Harlem.
Before lunch, a man and a woman walked into the gallery. The man smiled at me. I asked if I could help them. After a long, awkward silence, I realized it was Dave. Dave. Wow. He looked so much older. He had gained so much weight. His hair was cut short. Even knowing it was him, it took me a long time to see through the surface of this person who was standing in front of me to the person I had always known.
The four of us went and had lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant, then headed back to our apartment, where we spent the next six-plus hours talking, laughing, and drinking rum. Dave didn’t look like he was in great physical shape—he was too, too big, there was no question about that—but he didn’t look anything like he does in the most recent pictures. (I am still in disbelief that this boyish creature could age so quickly.) He was in excellent spirits; he still had that puckish charm. We talked about everything—it seemed there wasn’t a conversation Dave couldn't carry--and he seemed to happy in his new life in Monterey, with new friends and colleagues, new work adventures, the softball team, and more. Well after dark, Dave’s friend Miranda motioned that it was time for them to go. I remember hugging his now large frame and him giving me a long, very sweet hug back. And I remember that when he left, I felt that he was leaving too soon.
Dave, I am going to miss you so much. It is hard for me accept the fact that several years from now, you won't surprise us with a visit. If there is a heaven, I imagine you are sitting quietly on a cloud in the dark, with a bemused look on your face, while radical light plays like music in your skull.
From A.R. Ammons, who taught at Cornell when we were there. Perhaps you already know it:
"He held radical light
as music in his skull: music
turned, as
over ridges immanences of evening light
rise, turned
back over the furrows of his brain
into the dark, shuddered,
shot out again
in long swaying swirls of sound:
reality had little weight in his transcendence
so he
had trouble keeping
his feet on the ground, was
terrified by that
and liked himself, and others, mostly
under roofs:
nevertheless, when the
light churned and changed
his head to music, nothing could keep him
off the mountains, his
head back, mouth working,
wrestling to say, to cut loose
from the high unimaginable hook:
released, hidden from stars, he ate,
burped, said he was like any one
of us: demanded he
was like any one of us."
