Deputy Dawg 1968 - 2007 RIP

This morning I checked my account, and finally Antonio had deposited the money he owed me, so I was grateful to be able to forget about this whole episode and never have to think about him or this experience again. Then I remembered I have an errand I need to do down in San Jose next week, so I figured I'd make a call to see some old friends down there to pass the time. I called one friend of mine that I've known for 15 years (aka from "back in the day") but his cell was disconnected. So, I called his work, where I was told he had passed away. I kind of suspected as much.

I met "Deputy Dawg" when I worked at one of the worst jobs I've ever had at my life; a loan officer for Household Finance Corporation (now bought by the British bank HSBC). It was one of my first "real" jobs, and it gave me a VERY good (or bad, depending on perspective) view into corporate politics, greed, finance and back-stabbing. But while it was a horrible learning experience, I also made some very good friends, and formed a tight bond with my fellow co-workers who were suffering through it along side me. One of those friends, was a very good-looking, outgoing guy who was 2 years older than me who had just gotten out of the army and looked like a short-haired Mario Lopez. We all had nick-names for each other, and his was "Deputy Dawg" because he was the office Manager's right-hand man. Deputy Dawg was a good "drinking-buddy" type of friend, in that we would always go and party together at clubs, bars, road-trips to Mexico etc. He was a total "man's man" and though he had a girlfriend would cheat on her with any other woman that crossed his path. And on several occasions, when we were drinking, we'd share a moment of intimacy where we were one step away from "crossing over to the other side". But in retrospect, both of us were more afraid of the consequences of doing anything and potentially sacrificing our masculinity, so nothing ever happened (but damn, it sure could have).

In recent years I'd been distancing myself from those types of friends for a lot of reasons. The biggest was that I found myself only drinking around those particular friends. I did it for several reasons; to fit in, to be on their level, to dull my urge to possibly mess around with the ones I was attracted to (they don't know about my particular tendencies), and of course to escape reality. I've never really even liked alcohol, but just really enjoyed the commeraderie. So, when I stopped hitting the bars and skipping the weekend house-parties and sports parties with them, we gradually lost contact. But not completely. We always knew how to keep in touch by email here or a phone call there, even though it may be once a year if that. But the last time I saw Deputy Dawg was a year and half ago when we met at a brewery down in San Jose. When I saw him, he was still very big and buffed, but now slightly bloated and completely bald from chemo. The fact was when we had both started at HFC 15 some odd years ago, he had been released from the Army due to the fact that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. He made a full recovery and was in remission until only about 2 years ago when it apparently came back. He told me as we met that the chemo had worked and he expected it to go into remission again. It was good to catch up with him, and we left promissing to get back together for a bigger reunion with other mutual friends. Well, one thing leads to another and life has a way of catching up with all of us. And when his cell was disconnected, I kind of knew what was coming. I wish I had made a point to get back in touch with him earlier than this week. If I had tried only a few months ago, at least I could have said good-bye.

Anyway, I'm fairly confident he's in a much better place, and he definitely knows how much our friendship meant. Even though we hadn't kept in close touch, we both knew we were friends and at any point in time we could call each other up and pick up exactly where we left off. So, Deputy Dawg, my homie, my friend, mi carnal...rest in peace. And we'll see you on the other side.