requiem for ross
Actually it's a little pathetic when I pour some of my coke on the ground and say it's for my dead homies. Cause... I don't have that many dead homies.
Ross is one of them though. I was friends with Lauren Beth Yockey for awhile before I met Ross Yockey. She had told me about her parents, and then abrubtly they moved to Seattle and I got to know them. Joanne with her quiet southern dignity, and Ross with his enthusiastic lust for life, and intense curiousity.
I was a writer and so we gravitated together. His curiousity was insatiable and he would always ask a million questions of me. He could not be satisfied by shallow answers,
When I wrote a book of poetry as an elaborate Christmas card, and gave it to people as a Christmas gift, he stopped there in Beth's living room and read it, in its entirety. He looked at me with a devilish look and read a poem aloud for me, as if it were an imperative.
One time, when I was talking to him about marraige. (I was engaged and asking for advice.) He told me, "It's best to just do whatever your wife wants. It works out better that way." I chuckled at him, but he was right. Joanne said, "You just have to keep talking."
Ross has been on the way out for awhile. The last 3 parties I saw him at, he had a tank of O2 in tow, and it hurt me to see him, swollen and dying. I asked Beth if I should call Joanne, and she said I should call Ross and see him. But I fucked up. I missed my chance to spend a moment with him, and soak up what he had to say one last time. Or provide a moment of comfort to him. Whichever.
Shit. Now I have someone to pour out Chardonnay for. Ross, thanks man, you raised up a good woman, and you left two good women behind. I miss you so much already.