Gone Fishin’ Part 2
I couldn’t remember the last time I was able to get out of town for a solid week. I didn’t realize how badly I needed to do so. I’ve been in a serious creative and intellectual slump for months now. This is not what I needed with a demanding new boss at work. I had to actually get out of town to realize how bad I was slumping. When you’re sitting on the deck on the beach in the dark after you’ve had a bottle of wine and are drinking your third beer after your second ‘Papa Jer’ (that’s Stoli Vanilla and Extra Spicy Ginger ale) and you’re smoking a cigarette because, fuck it, you’re on vacation, you have a lot of time to think. I did a lot of thinking. I resolved to break out of my slump. I thought about the last time I was able to mentally break out of my loop. Suddenly, I did remember.
It was September 13th, 2003. I had finished graduate school only 4 months before and I was putting that Master’s degree to good use at Kinko’s as a delivery driver. I was going to Fredericksburg, VA to meet with two friends from graduate school and one friend of ours from undergraduate.
Aaron Reed was smart enough to not go to grad school after college, he got a great job at Virginia Power and moved his young family to Richmond. I didn’t get to see him much after college, but we kept (and still keep) in touch. He would be meeting us at Will’s place in Fredericksburg.
Will was a friend from undergrad and grad school. He was probably the smartest of us all (although he always said that about me, but we all knew it was really him). He was from Asheville and very laid back. After grad school he took a job with the Naval surface warfare center in Dahlgreen, VA where Trey lived.
Trey was, like Will, a friend from undergrad and grad school. His given name was Willard Bernard Jackson III. He was born near the intersection of Willard St. and Jackson St. in Durham. I drive by there sometimes, the intersection is near the ballpark in Durham. He worked with will at the NSWC and had a house in Dahlgreen right on the Potomac river. It was a sweet deal. He was renting this huge house for $400/month as long as he mowed the lawn! Along with the house, there was a 4-wheeler and a sailboat that he could use whenever he wanted! He used the money he was saving on rent to buy a power boat!
We all went over to Trey’s on this unusually warm September day to watch our beloved NC State Wolfpack take on the top-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes in football. It was a huge game for the Pack, and were excited about drinking beer and watching the Wolfpack storm to victory and (therefore) recognition on the national scene.
What happened instead was a flurry of Ohio State touchdowns. In the first quarter. The Pack was quickly down 24-0.
It was the first time since graduation from undergrad 3.5 years before that the 4 of us had been together. We decided to not spend the time watching the Pack get smashed, and instead go out and have fun.
We took the boat out and I have never in my life been so scared. We were flying through the river at top speed, bouncing all over the place. I was clutching the railing and holding on for dear life to my beer (and the railing). We went to these little islands and played horseshoes and drank and talked shit. We took the boat to some town and walked into a pizza place stone cold drunk. We had the nastiest greek Pizza I’ve ever eaten in my life. We had one of the most fun days of my life. We got back to Trey’s to check the final score and to our surprise found that the Pack had made the most miraculous of comebacks while we were out fucking around. However, they fell just short, losing in triple-overtime to the Buckeyes 44-38. I didn’t care.
Sitting on the deck, watching and listening to the waves crashing, I thought back to that day and how good it felt. Since becoming an atheist, I find myself re-examining a great deal of my old memories and feelings in this new light. I wasn’t an atheist that day. If I was, I probably would have been a little more careful on that boat.
I also wasn’t an atheist on the day, a little over a year later, when I got a call from Will. I was at King’s barcade for trivia night, so it was a Monday. Will told me that Trey had gone out with his friends on his boat late Friday night. He was standing on the bow and helping them to navigate with a flashlight, while one of his friends piloted. He was looking for buoys to avoid, but there was no way he could see the giant one they hit on the other side of the boat. He went over and they didn’t find his body for two days. He was dead and he wasn’t 30. The funeral was in Raleigh where his parents live. It was at a Baptist church. Although I was a catholic at the time, I took comfort in the religious message of the funeral, and the thought of Trey smiling down on us from heaven.
Sitting on the deck, looking at the ocean, I could see that boat flying through the water with our dumbasses on it and Trey at the helm, smiling. It was a nice thought, until I remembered that I was an atheist and that revisiting that particular memory as an atheist is terrible. Trey’s gone, period, and nothing will ever bring him back. He’s gone forever. It’s tough to swallow a second time.
I really miss you, buddy.
Ahem. Whew. Okay. Of course, it wasn’t all depressing. In fact, most of it was quite uplifting. I though of some cool things as well. I decided that I rather enjoy this blogging thing, and that I would like to do some more of it. I’ve come up with an idea for a blog, and I’m in the steps of making it happen. I’ve registered a domain name and I’m getting some wordpress software set up. Sadly, this will mean the end of HNTB. However, you’ve all been so kind to put up with my silliness here, I hope you’ll join me at the new place! More details as they come available.
In the meantime, we’ll be having fun over here closing out HNTB. Look for more posts soon, I plan on embarrassing myself in whole new ways!
