Rest in peace, my friend....

[Jester]

Today while working at the toy shop I got a call from my friend Frank. When he told me he had bad news, I figured he was going to tell me that he could not cover my magic shifts the week of my birthday because he had booked out of town shows, or something to that effect.

In the grand scheme of things, that would not really be bad news.

But this was.

His best friend, British Adrian, a guy who had been on the island and been friends with Frank far longer than me, passed away last night.

He had not been sick, per se. He suffered from diabetes, but he had just got back from a skiing trip, and by all accounts, he was totally himself. And then last night...he was gone. Diabetes finally beat him down the slope.

So I went down to the Waterfront Bar, where Adrian had not merely been a regular, but more of a fixture. Hell, he was practically furniture there. And various regulars and friend of Adrians were in different levels of shock. I myself am still not completely at grips with it.

So I bought a couple Coors Lights for Frank and myself. I can't stand the stuff, and Frank almost never drinks beer...but Adrian drank the swill, and this round was in his honor. Hell, he used to joke around with him and tell him that if he really wanted to add some zip to his beer, he should throw in a couple of ice cubes. And Adrian laughed along at the jokes, not only taking them in good humor, but admitting that his choice of beer was, for all intents and purposes, watered down swill. In addition to Coors Light, Adrian also regularly drank Jameson's. Neat. Hell, he even had his own prayer rug for the stuff. Not one that he had at his house to kneel on, mind you. A tiny miniature little rug or carpet, that he placed his Jameson's on while he sipped on it. A tiny little rug that acted as his coaster. I called it his prayer rug. He laughed at the idea.

Adrian had a lot of stories. But the difference between him and most barflies is that his stories were all true. And even if you had a bit of doubt about some of them, they were all, each and every one of them, very interesting and very hilarious. A lot of people can take a ten minute story and turn it into a 35 minute saga. Most of the times, they bore the piss out of you and have you looking for the exit. Adrian would not only turn a short story into an epic, he would have you hanging on every word, laughing your ass off, and pinching your bladder to avoid having to pee so you wouldn't miss any of the story. I am not exaggerating. He may have been the best storyteller I have ever met.

Adrian was but a few years older than me, in his mid-forties I believe. He was an original. He was slow to anger and quick to laugh. He had his faults, as we all do, but I am not embellishing who he was because he has gotten off this ride. This really was who he was. He was often an opinionated asshole. Perhaps that is why he and I got along so well. But he was, in the end, to the end, and from the beginning a genuinely good guy, who had his friends' back and was never boring.

Here's to you, Adrian. I don't know how you drank that crap all these years, but I thank you for not being a fan of Heineken. I don't know that I could have gotten through that. I also know that the Waterfront Bar's owner is going to be wondering why they suddenly don't have to order as much Coors Light or Jameson's as they had been. And that you'll be laughing about it as you ski the heavenly slopes. And, without doubt, that wherever you are, they'll be serving ice cold Coors Lights and healthy pourings of Jameson's.

Here's to you, mate. Thanks for the sweatshirt. Russ still hates me for it.

[Food Lady]

Awww, you made me have a couple of tears.

[Gumby30]

So sorry to hear about your friend - but I love the image of the prayer rug!

[Jester]

So did I. And that's really what it was....just a small (3"x2"?) rug that he rested his drink on. Hilarious.

[42_42_42]

A beautifully written tribute, Jester. Sorry for your (and Key West's and the World's) loss.

[Rapscallion]

Greater love hath no man than that he should drink crappy beer in memory of the departed. Your tribute is noted and shows the dedication he inspired.

Rapscallion

[Sapphire Silk]

Greater love hath no man than that he should drink crappy beer in memory of the departed. Your tribute is noted and shows the dedication he inspired.

Rapscallion

Quoted for truth.

My condolences as well . . . sounds like a great guy that will be missed.

Here's tipping my electronic glass to his memory

[Cat]

He sounded like a cool guy....sorry for your loss. I lift a virtual beer to you

[morgana]

Sounds like someone we would all have liked to know. I think I shall go find myself a "prayer rug" in his honor.

[tollbaby]

My condolences Jester, and I am lifting a glass to your friend. (it's diet coke, but I can't have booze... best I can do!)

[MadMike]

And Adrian laughed along at the jokes, not only taking them in good humor, but admitting that his choice of beer was, for all intents and purposes, watered down swill.

I'm sure you and he both knew the joke about Coors Light being like sex in a canoe, because "They're both fucking near water."

Adrian had a lot of stories. But the difference between him and most barflies is that his stories were all true. And even if you had a bit of doubt about some of them, they were all, each and every one of them, very interesting and very hilarious. A lot of people can take a ten minute story and turn it into a 35 minute saga.

He sounds like the guy who used to sit across from me at my job. I didn't know him for that long, and he quit there years ago, but he was a helluva nice guy, and had all kinds of stories. He had been all over the world, and there was a story behind just about every place he'd been to.

Sorry about your friend. But I imagine heaven just got a little more entertaining.

[Jester]

But I imagine heaven just got a little more entertaining.

A LOT more entertaining, actually. Assuming, of course, they let the bastard in.

[Jester]

WE had the memorial service today. In true Key West fashion, it was on a boat at sea. Specifically a beautiful schooner. (One fellow, who works on another boat, described it as a "Cadillac." The captain of the boat corrected him, saying it was a
"Rolls Royce." I'm from the desert. I'll take their words on this.)

Overall, it was pretty awesome, and Adrian would have been amused. This entire time, I had not gotten choked up at all, from the time I found out he had died straight through to the service. Nothing. But then one of the assemblage, a rather cool fucking dude, while under sail, told a little story. "Adrian once asked me to take him sailing on the [local boat]. And I did. He once asked me to take him sailing on the [another local boat]. And I did. He once asked me to take him sailing on the [boat we were on]. And I never did. Until now. Captain, raise the sails! This is for you, Adrian." And that was, of course, the cue for the crew to start raising the sails. A chill went down my spine even as I typed that....experiencing it got me rather choked up.

Other amusing anecdotes:

--A text from his father in England detailed a birthday card he had bought for Adrian's upcoming birthday. "Buy a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll drink beer on his boat all day."

--The guy who described the boat as a "Cadillac" detailed how he was "Adrian's favorite Chinaman." Even though he was Vietnamese. As he told it, it made Adrian feel more British, like he had his own Hong Kong. It almost sounds offensive as I typed it, but if you had been there, you would have gotten the sense of humor. Clearly the guy thought it was hilarious, and was not in any way offended. And if you knew Adrian, you would know it was nothing more than a joke, and he was not at all ignorant, as this unfortunately makes him sound.

--When the captain announced that the beer available for consumption by us was Heineken, Corona, or Bud Light, someone blurted out, "What--no Coors Light?" Everyone who heard that laughed. (As I think I mentioned in the OP, that was Adrian's beer of choice.)

--Frank pointed out that Adrian was known for closing down the Waterfront Bar, and many of us had joined him in so doing over the years, but despite that, we would not be the last people to see Adrian that night. "The cab drivers were!" Which was Frank's cue to bring up one of the local legendary cabbies, who related the last joke Adrian ever told him, which he felt was apropos:

A boy is talking in church, and the priest had him stay after the service.
"Johnny," the priest demanded, "Where is God?"
Scared witless, Johnny said nothing.
"Johnny.....where is God?"
Eyes bugling, the boy remained silent.
"JOHNNY! WHERE...IS....GOD?" thundered the priest.
Terrified, the boy ran out of the church, and didn't stop running until he got home. He ran up to his older brother and yelled out, "Joey, they don't know where God is, and they think WE stole him!"

--Another person opined that when Adrian didn't show up for work, no one really noticed. But when he didn't show up at the bar for three straight nights, then people started to worry.

--At one point, when someone was saying something about how Adrian loved women, someone said, "Oh yeah he did!" And one woman said, "And he was a great lover, too!" Raucous laughter for that one.

--People kept talking about what I called the Prayer Rug, what others called the Magic Carpet, the little miniature rug that Adrian used as a coaster for his Jameson's. Finally Frank's mother, who had it in her purse, held it up for all to see, and to take pictures of.

--Many jokes were made about how Adrian would play the worst music (to everyone else) in the jukebox at the bar. "Dancing Queen" was one of his favorite choices, for example. Someone pointed out that he was simply trying to play whatever would piss off the bartenders. Generally, he succeeded. One guy said that whenever he saw Adrian heading for the jukebox, he would cut him off and put about five bucks in. "You can get the songs after this," he'd tell Adrian. By which point either he'd be long gone or the band would be back on stage.

--A bottle of Jameson's was being passed around, sort of like champagne at a wedding. Jameson's was as much a part of Adrian as Coors Light, so this was our tribute to him. After a few people said a few things, before the shots were consumed, I chimed in: "A toast to Adrian....who is not only with us in spirit, but in spirits."

It is said too often about people that they are "unique." But Adrian truly was. As one person put it, there wasn't a part of him that wasn't eccentric. And of course, he never considered himself at all eccentric. But then, the truly odd never do.

Chin chin, Adrian. Chin chin.

[Jester]

I've been meaning to post this for a few days, but it keeps slipping my mind. In any case, this was a piece penned by my friend Popcorn regarding Adrian. Popcorn is a published author and an excellent writer, and an old friend of many here in Key West, including myself and Adrian. I don't think the piece needs any more introduction, honestly. So, with full permission of the author, I reprint it in its entirety here.

My friend Adrian

I don’t really drink Coors Light anymore. I used to. I dated a girl who always had a case of it in her fridge. When I moved in with her, I would be sure to always pick up a case of it while I was at the package store getting a case of beer that I liked. I was a beer snob at the time so my choices ran towards Sierra Nevada and Samuel Adams and such. (For the record, my tastes have switched to Bud Light.) However, inevitably she would end up drinking “my” beer and I would be stuck with the Coors Light. But that was 10 years ago, and I haven’t drank it since then.


My friend Adrian drank Coors Light. Coors Light and Jameson. I was with him on 2 of those 3; I drank Jameson and (as previously mentioned) Bud Light. There were more differences beyond that. I would shoot my whiskey quick whereas Adrian would sip his, letting the glass rest on the tiniest Persian rug I’ve ever seen that served as his coaster. We were always at the bar at the same time. He arrived around 11:15 and me about an hour later, both of us having just got off work. His jobs were below nondescript, and I wondered how someone like him could be happy working part time as a waiter at a buffet restaurant and as a parking lot attendant. And then I really got to know him.


Adrian grew up in England and Wales, in admittedly dreary places. When old enough he chose to do more, working his winters at French ski resorts and his summers at clubs on the Canary Islands. Finally, at the ripe old age of 22, he moved to Key West, where he lived for the next twenty years, not concerned with where he was working but content with how he was living.


Adrian passed away last week. We’re not really sure when. Friends saw him out Sunday afternoon and remarked that he didn’t look well, and he went home. Finally, on Tuesday evening, when no one had seen or heard from him, someone went, and found what no one ever wants to. It’s a sad and fitting tribute, both to the man and the island he called home for 20 years, that it wasn’t anyone from his jobs that wondered where he was, but rather his friends from the bar who hadn’t seen him for a couple of days and got concerned.


I wondered how best to describe Adrian to my friends. I knew that, while my closest friends would understand, most people wouldn’t grasp why someone chose to live the way he did. I fumbled with trying to find the best way to phrase “He chose not to concern himself with what he did, how big his house was, how new his clothes were or how fast his car was. He chose to care about how he lived, who he loved, and how he treated people.” Try as I might, I couldn’t distill it down.


On Sunday, as 50 or so of us sailed on the Adirondack III to scatter his ashes, Malcolm, an employee from Adrian’s favorite bar, got up to say a few words. And in those few words, he nailed what I’d spent the better part of a week stumbling over:

“I have never met a person more comfortable in his own skin and own person as Adrian.”


Amen. Adrian was every nice thing you could say about a person. He remembered birthdays and anniversaries, bought drinks and Christmas cards, and had a talent for finding the most obscure late 60′s/early 70′s rock and roll on the jukebox, and furthermore knew how to get to it the moment the band stopped playing. His jobs only mattered as much as a) he did them has professionally as possible and b) they paid his bills. He had no concern for amassing personal goods. He found no identity from name tag clothing. He knew, somehow, life was both too short and too special to be concerned with such things.


Maybe it was the travel to and from Lake Tahoe, his annual skiing trip, that did him in. Maybe it was a complication from his early onset diabetes, a condition he monitored regularly, that was the culprit. Maybe it was just the dumb luck of time and circumstance.


All I know is that when I swing through the bar at the end of my shift, it is a little emptier than I like it.


I still don’t drink Coors Light. Had one, and a Jameson, the first night I heard. I don’t remember them being so bitter, but I finished it for him before switching back to my beer. I didn’t feel bad about it.


After all, if there was anyone who believed in living your life true to who you were and not be persuaded by the winds of others, it was my friend Adrian.


I’ll miss you buddy. Next Jameson’s on me.