Toast

Dewey died. On Saturday.

I found out Saturday night. Deb and I had sardined our way back from the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Keep Fear Alive. We were in for the night. I checked my e-mail. There it was, from Sue, subject line: A Journey. She’d gotten word from Noah, his son. None of us even knew he was sick.

Dewey died. I had just been thinking about him. How could I not, visiting our old stomping grounds? I was thinking of all of them, the circle of friends who burned brightly together before we geographically scattered: Arizona, Vermont, Florida, Chile. Dewey and Maria Elena, at last in Chile.

And just in September, too, near his birthday, I was alone in a bar far from home, girding myself for the next thing. I ordered a Jameson, toasted Dewey. Happy birthday, old friend. I don’t think I’d ever had that drink without him.

I haven’t seen him in fifteen years.

The day we met: A guy walks into a high school graduation picnic. A blissfully married woman (me) is suddenly all eyes and distracted glances and who-is-that? She must meet him. She chats him up and asks for a ride on his Harley. Her wish is granted.

Dewey died. When we left for Vermont, he bestowed upon us glorious gifts: for Tim, a fid he’d used on a Greenpeace ship; for me, a stick I’d long admired that he’d carved by a campfire—the dragon head on one end twisting and spiraling to a penis head on the other. It graces our bedroom wall.

Dewey died. If I say it enough times, maybe I’ll begin to grasp it. Dewey died. Dewey died. Dewey died.

Perhaps this bottle of Jameson will help.