The Soundtrack to My Youth

"I think George Michael may have died..."

I was sitting at the dining room table at Mom's, having just finished Christmas supper, when I received the text.  The year two thousand and sixteen, already cursed with so much darkness and death, had claimed yet another.

I suppose you never know how news like that will hit you until it does.  But amidst all the usual Christmas gaiety - the excitement of the nephews and niece, the adults talking, some Christmas movie on the television -- it took everything within me to keep from weeping openly.

I walked down the hall for a moment to gather myself.  When I returned, I told my sister the news.  She looked shocked for a second, then sang a couple of lines of "Faith" and moved on.  She didn't get it.  She was a bit too young then.

"Then" being somewhere in the vicinity of 1988.

Faith.  Father Figure.  Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.  One More Try.  Careless Whisper.  That music was the soundtrack to my youth.

For me, it represents those sweet spot days of thirteen to nineteen.  First cars and awkward first kisses.  Bonfires and pep rallies and hanging out at the mall.  Falling in love and first broken hearts.  When the real world had mostly yet to begin to erode the innocence.

I remember being on a field trip.  We were going to Helen Keller's birthplace, I think.  On the bus, I had strategically positioned myself on the seat in front of Annalisa Gray, on whom I had a little crush.  She was listening to the "Faith" album on her Walkman, which made her even more appealing.  

Though I had both the "Make It Big" and "Music From the Edge of Heaven" cassettes from the Wham! days, I had not yet procured my own copy of George Michael's first solo album.  I daydreamed that we might share headphones while listening to it, but as reality would have it, I think she loaned me her Walkman long enough to listen to one song.

The next year, she and I would perfect the art of the tongueless kiss.  (Is art the right word?)  I got my own copy of "Faith" and flat wore it out.  As it almost always does, the music outlived the crush.

I guess eventually the music outlives us all...

"I'm looking out for angels, just trying to find some peace..."

Rusty

It was nineteen eighty-six or -seven.  I had gone with Fave Aunt to watch my cousin's rec league basketball game.  He was 8 or 9.  I didn't know any of the other kids on the court, but one stood out. I gathered from the parents cheering around me that his name was Rusty.

Rusty's head was cocked to the side a bit, his shoulder slightly raised.  Sort of like if you were trying to hold a phone between your ear and shoulder to free up both hands, then backed it off about halfway.  It was obviously some sort of physical abnormality, one I had never seen.  But that was only part of what made him stand out.

While his condition made it almost impossible for him to shoot accurately, Rusty was a rebounding whiz!  It was pretty clear, at least to me, that he was trying twice as hard as anyone else. 

The game ended.  I don't recall who won or lost.  Yes, we had winners and losers in those days.  We kept score.  And miracle of miracles, it didn't kill me.  (Just do me a favor and don't yell "Loser!" in my vicinity, I still get a little sensitive.)  But there are three distinct memories I have of that day:  My late uncle coaching my cousin's team; thinking to myself that my cousin was definitely never going to attend Duke on a basketball scholarship; and Rusty.

Years scattered.  I didn't think about those things for a long while.  Rusty went to that place where certain memories are kept.  Ones you can't necessarily recall on command, but they're solidly there.  It simply takes some trigger -- a dream, a particular song, some conversation -- to bring them to mind, clear as the day you lived them.

Then some years ago, my sister was telling me a story.  She mentioned a Rusty.  The name was just uncommon enough that I thought it might be the same guy.  It was.

Rusty was the same age as my sister's husband.  They were friends.  He was a groomsman in their wedding.  But somehow he wound up talking more often to my sister.

You see, Rusty was one of those poor, misfortunate souls that we here in the state of Alabama refer to as "Auburn fans."  (We have other, more colorful names, but I'll save those for another day.)

My sister, of course, was raised as was I -- to love Bear Bryant and the Crimson Tide.  She strayed away from the fold once, in her rebellious high school days.  Made Mom buy her a Michigan sweatshirt for Christmas the year Charles Woodson won the Heisman.  But she returned.  There was much rejoicing.  (See: "The Bible," Luke 15, Parable of the Ninety and Nine.)

Despite their opposite allegiances, Rusty would call my sister from time to time to talk football.  Because that is what we do in the South.  Before the games, at halftime of the games,  after the games, after the season, we talk about college football year-round. 

Rusty still lived with his parents.  My sister once told me his condition made him not want to go out much.  He didn't like crowds and preferred to only be around his closest few friends.  I liked to imagine that these conversations with my sister brought bits of brightness to his days.  Pure speculation on my part, the brain eager to fill in what it does not know.

As is so often the case, the news came out of the blue.  My sister calling to let me know Rusty had died.  He was thirty-six.

First, shock.  Then questions.  Eventually more speculation.

My sister said Rusty suffered from Crohn's disease.  He had been sick but had put off going to the doctor.  By the time they got him to the hospital it had been too late.  Was he afraid to go?  Maybe he was just sick of always going?  Did he not have insurance?  Maybe he had it but the deductible was so outrageous that he couldn't afford to go?  All valid questions in modern-day America, sadly.

The next day, someone shared a post from Rusty's sister on Facebook.  Heart-ripping.

There were only the two of them, him and her.  I know how that is, to have that one person who grew up exactly like you did.  In the same house, with the same parents.  The same blessings and disadvantages.  The same unspoken secrets.

I clicked over to Rusty's Facebook page.  Scrolling through the RIP's and "I'm gonna miss you's" I saw a message from my sister.  Tears began.

Further down, the posts became scarce.  Then, a handful of birthday wishes from earlier in the year.  I noticed the date.  Rusty and I shared the same birthday.  It seemed more than a coincidence somehow.  I knew I had to write something.

Sometimes, when you don't see someone often or haven't seen them for a long while, the image you have of them sort of becomes frozen in time.  I do it with famous people a lot.  When I hear a song from the 80's I still picture the singer or band looking as they did then.  I cringed a couple of weeks ago when I saw the promo for the new Matt LeBlanc show and all his gray hair.  In my mind, he's still sitting in Central Perk and it's twenty years ago.

I did the same thing with Rusty.  I thought of one long ago Saturday in nineteen eighty-something.  Of the rebounding whiz with his head cocked to the side, trying twice as hard as everyone else.  I reckon some have to try twice as hard their whole lives...

My sister said not many people showed up at the funeral.

And I remembered how Rusty never liked crowds.


"Remember him when he was still a proud man.  A vandal's smile, a baseball in his right hand.  Nothing but the blue sky in his eyes..."

They called him Adam Yauch

I flipped on the TV last Friday evening.  The volume was down, but when I saw his picture, I knew.  MCA -- Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys -- had died.  At 47. 

A week later and I still seem to be doubled over from the proverbial punch to the stomach.  I don't know why it's affecting me so much, just that it is. 

I remember watching the video message where he announced he'd been diagnosed with cancer.  But then you don't hear anything for awhile, and it's easy to think, "Oh, he's young, he'll beat it."

Until a couple years later you see his picture on TV, and you realize he didn't.  He couldn't.  And there is only shock.  And sadness.  Deep, deep sadness.

For the better part of the past week, I've tried to come up with some way to put all these feelings into words, and mostly failed.  I just want to put on all my Beastie Boys songs, download the ones I don't already have, and listen to them for hours and hours until it somehow gets better.

I did recall that I'd written a post about the Beastie Boys a few years ago, so I looked it up.  (It's here if you want to go back and read it.)  My initial thought was that it doesn't really work as a tribute. 

Then again, maybe it does.

It recalls a time when we were younger, and it felt as if there would always be an abundance of days.  We knew life would end, but back then it was hardly a passing thought as that seemed almost incomprehensibly far away.

So much farther away than it seems today. 

"I wanna say a little somethin' that's long overdue / The disrespectin' women has go to be through /  To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends / I want to offer my love and respect to the end..."