When my friend, Darren James, was returning to Southern California to finish up his BA, we went out for a farewell breakfast. Afterwards, I walked him back to his apartment, where we hugged and said our goodbyes. The minute I turned to walk away, a feeling swept over me that had never happened before or since.
I knew that I was going to never see him again.
We lost contact in the early '90's and when the internet came to be, I would occasionally do a search. His name is fairly common and I wouldn't really find anything. Then, in December of last year, he popped into my head, so I did a Google search and this time added the city where he was from and got a hit. My excitement was immediately crushed when the hit I got was his online obituary. A picture on the obituary confirmed that it was him. He had died on September 3, 2006.
When my grandmother passed away, I didn't cry. When I finally made it home from the World Trade Center on 9/11/01, I didn't cry. But when I found that Darren had died, I spent some time face down in a pillow that weekend.
Darren was a HUGE Frank Sinatra fan, and he turned me onto him as well. While at Bally's in Reno, he got to light Sinatra's cigarette while he was performing on stage To commemorate it, I gave Darren a vintage photograph of Sinatra for his birthday that year. Darren told me of another time he ran on stage during a SoftCell concert in London and kissed lead singer Marc Almond.
He was the first (and only) person I ever saw who ordered melted cheddar cheese on a slice of apple pie (which kinda grossed me out at the time), and sometimes we would climb onto his yellow Vespa scooter and ride over to Zim's on Van Ness for a late night Zim Burger.
I'm so glad I got to tell him that I was a better person having known him.
Darren, you are so fondly remembered and so missed.
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