That first year of high school, back when dinosaurs roamed the converted swampland of South Miami, I arrived at school with the glorious awareness that I was Special. That I was an actor of the highest caliber and that soon all would see the greatness that was Me.
Trouble was, there was this other guy who seemed like he might just be able to give me some competition. His name was David Hernandez, and where I was tall and fair and authoritarian, he was smaller and darker and earthier. Which meant, of course, that we weren't competitors at all, rather we were natural and perfect complements who should be working together all the time. But I was far too dim to see that immediately, and so I was cautious.
Humility began to set in. The seniors refused to recognize my obvious superiority. And soon enough, there I was at the audition for the big annual musical. Suddenly I became very aware that as a singer, I was, well, not so good. (Sure enough: after my vocal audition, the musical director basically said "Please don't ever do that in front of me again.") So I sat there on the floor, feeling decidedly uncertain, with that annoying David guy sitting a little over thataway, chatting away with some girl and looking very relaxed and comfortable. (He wasn't. Singing was not his best strength either, I later learned.)
To this day, I don't quite know why I did what I did next. Maybe some small screaming part of me recognized that the best way to deal with an enemy is to make him your friend. Who knows. But abruptly I stood up, walked over to David, stuck out my hand and said, in a bright chipper voice, "Hi! I'm anti-social!"
He looked up at me, at my out-thrust hand. He blinked a couple of times. Then he started to roar with laughter. We were friends from that moment. Turns out, if you want to make an impression on someone like David, "that weird impulse you usually ignore" is exactly the right way to go.
We soon learned that we were a perfect pairing, and we worked together all the time. We did plays together, scenework in class together, we did the televised morning announcements together, we traveled together across the state to drama competitions, and of course we started hanging out together. He drew me out of my impossibly stuffy self-seriousness and made me looser, more fun (if only there were pictures of the outfit he stuffed me into when he finally convinced me to go see Rocky Horror...). I think I gave him a little stability, a sense of certainty and direction and purpose, that kept him from flying off after every little impulse that assailed him. (There were many impulses. So, so many of them.)
Most important of all, from my perspective: after a series of "friends" who had betrayed me in one way or another, David was constant. Unwavering. Endlessly loyal. He was the first friend who stayed, who I could count on. Who I could trust. Trust meant a lot back then, and of course it does now.
Eventually, of course, things happened. Graduation. I went to school out of state, David stayed behind. Time and distance worked their malicious fingers into our friendship. David had issues with certain substances, and because I didn't know how to help, it became easier to just let him slip away. We drifted, as people do.
A few years ago, during the first flowering of that great eternal high school reunion that is called Facebook, someone told me that David had died.
The intel was wrong--someone from our school named David Fernandez, F not H, had in fact died several years earlier. But during the few days before I could get that cleared up, I found myself feeling guilty and upset. I had not done enough to help my friend, and now he might be gone. So I started doing some research, and a friend helped. We tracked David down, and found a phone number, and with considerable nervousness I left a message.
Soon thereafter, a return call. That distinctive baritone, bellowing "Bob Tooooooombs! How you doin', man!" Time and drift vanished in the face of his mighty enthusiasm. We were friends again.
I dragged him onto Facebook. We shared pictures and stories, and he found other old friends too. When I went home for a visit, I cleared out an afternoon and went to see him. Took him to lunch, talked about the things I'd done and he'd done, and we made lovely, unspecific plans about things we might do together some day. (A revival of Albee's The Zoo Story came up the most often.) He and his apartment smelled strongly of cigarette smoke. My grandmother's place had smelled like that, and she had died of cancer. It made me nervous.
In April, he announced on Facebook that he was going to get a biopsy and he was worried about the results. The news, when it came, was pretty damn bad: lung cancer in several places, including an inoperable tumor behind his sternum. He would need both radiation and chemo; and he would probably need chemo for the rest of his life. He checked into the hospital and I called on a Saturday afternoon.
"Bob Tooooooombs!" he said with the same enthusiasm, but his voice had changed. Ragged and raspy, and there was a tiredness that seemed to have moved in full-time. But he was adamant about beating the cancer. "I'm Batman," he said. "I'm gonna kick cancer's ass!"
His sister Deanna, from whom he had once been estranged, became his rock throughout his illness, and he was incredibly moved by her devotion to him. Old friends, too, started showing up at the hospital or calling, and he was just as moved by every bit of attention that came his way. I think he was a little surprised that people cared about him so much. They usually arrived with Batman gifts, and I'm sure his hospital room must have been stuffed with Bat-paraphernalia. Someone set up a GoFundMe account to help with his medical expenses, because he probably wouldn't be able to work again for a long time, if ever.
One day I checked with Deanna whether I might call again, but she said he wasn't feeling great that day and maybe I should wait a little. This worried me, so I started looking at flights back east. Maybe the weekend of May 16th would work.
David died on May 9th, overwhelmed by illness and treatment. Batman had fallen.
He was one of those irreplaceable people. If we're lucky, we get one or two of those in a lifetime. I'm tempted, incredibly tempted, to fill about a dozen more paragraphs with stories about David--probably anyone who ever met him could tell just as many stories, because he was one of those guys to whom things happened. The phrase "Never a dull moment" was invented, I'm sure, to describe a life with David Hernandez in it. But I think that for now, it's enough to say this:
David was my first true friend. He meant so much to me, and I miss him immeasurably.
Goodbye, old companion. Hope to see you again someday. And then we will have merry adventures indeed.
