high price of friendship

Paul's dead.  My mom could hardly spit it out.  I knew something was up because my little sister and my mom rarely call me on the same day.

My response "Paul who?"  I know a couple of Pauls.  "Paul McCleary." she said.

I couldn't believe it.  Paul was the best behaved of the McCleary brothers.  The youngest and probably the smartest.

I hadn't heard from my man in a while but he seemed like he was doing well.  He had at least 2 kids and one on the way.  I hardly remember him as a young man though.  I remember him as the kid his mom referred to as "Pauly Paul."  He used to want to be like his dad so much that he had a pretty noticeable Jamaican accent.  His pops injured his foot and Paul would limp around, mimicking the steps of his idol.  Instead of calling video games by their names he would quote them.  He would say things like "Lets play some dribble drive." or "We was playing Last Lap."  It would always take a second to figure out what the hell he was talking about.

I remember how excited he would get about winning at dominoes over the rest of us.  He would throw his hands up and shake his head and smile super hard.

The story of how he went still hasn't really been presented to me.  All the news site said was "Wrong way collision on I-29 kills 2 1 injured".  The story that they had used no names and fit on my blackberry screen where I didn't have to scroll to read it all.  10 sentences tops. 

I hear that Paul was pretty drunk but I don't know if he was the one going the wrong way.  His girlfriend was the "1 injured" and I still don't know if she made it.  The news is so indifferent about the loss of life in KC that I thought that I should say a few words in honor of my man even though we eventually grew apart.

He was a good kid that grew to be a good man.  I'll always remember him fondly.  His passing was a reminder that all of us are going to take that last ride.  We were all boys that helped each other grow up, for better or for worse.  We will have to bury each other eventually, Paul just happens to be the first.

I'm thankful for the friendship that we had even now that it hurts that he's gone.  That's the cost of having friends.  That love is going to go away at some point but it pales in comparison to the love that gets spread, even by kids growing up on porches and in basements on a sleepy Kansas City, Kansas block in the '90s.

This goes out to my old friends from the block:  Donald, Darrel, Brandon, Levi, Hugh, Paul and Chris and all the old heads that spent a few years with us and moved away.  I love ya'll.