My friend Jimmy died yesterday.  He was 21 years old.  I’ve known Bartman since we were kids-all the way through middle school and high school.  I was drinking a yeungling or two with James and Dan when my sister Rickie texted me the news.  Texting-I was given a damn text message to find out my friend was gone.  Can’t get much more impersonal than that, can you? I dropped my phone.  When she had asked me if I remembered Jimmy, I knew he was gone.  I just had that feeling-as if, in my head, I completed her sentence for her: “James Bartman…” is dead, I thought.  I dropped my phone and the room got a little blurry.  I sank into James’ chair in his room and called my ex, Doug.  We aren’t on speaking terms normally-there is enough history there to base a novel or even a goddamn miniseries around it-but today seems different.  Today, despite all of the bullshit that has gotten in the way of any of our relationships, all of us have at least spoken to one another for the most part.  It sucks that something like this has to happen for it to be ok to talk, but I guess it’s nice knowing that the bridges around me aren’t so utterly burnt that they aren’t salvageable as emergency paths. 

Bartman was driving to school yesterday morning and took a turn too sharply-he flipped his car.  Doug told me not to look up the photos online-evidently he’s visibly lying there in at least one of them, and that’s just not something I’m willing to witness.  Not right now. It seems so weird-I almost feel that, because I hadn’t talked to Bartman in at least a year and a half, I don’t have a right to feel sad.  I wasn’t in his life enough lately-there are plenty of other people who should have more right to mourn then I do.  I’m not even depressed-I’m just-shocked.  I don’t think the world has quite stopped spinning yet.

I feel badly for his girlfriend Molly.  Her mother passed away last year and Bartman has been her lifeline since then.  Now he’s gone-Hannah told me they were thinking of marrying one another, and now he’s just gone. Doug said to focus on the fun times we had with Bartman, and there are certainly quite a few of them to focus in on.  He was one of those guys who had the appropriately timed funny lines…he was always getting into some form of mischief-but he was smart as hell…brilliant, even.  So if he got into trouble in one area, he at least had the grades or the test scores or something to fall back on-and that’s what made you have to just laugh.  He was doing really well lately, too.  Hannah told me he died at a good time in his life.  He was just months away from receiving his pilot’s license…he had a really good girlfriend whom he’d been dating for quite some time now…he was in school at Jacksonville University…his facebook photo is of him and Molly dancing at some function or other and he’s dipping her. That picture is absolutely adorable.  He looks happy in all of his myspace photos…and for that, at least, I’m glad.