"Grandpa" James Oliver

 "I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil." ~ Gandalf 

I was a twenty one year old kid when I first met James. I am surprised I don't remember meeting him earlier owning that we had many of the same friends.
 It was at his apartment in Tacoma. The Polynesians, if I remember the name correctly. All of us seemed to live in this Zeusforsaken  complex where the roar of highway 16 would sound like the ocean...if you closed your eyes and had a good enough imagination that is. It was after a long and wild night at Cheers West. A night built around a plethora of rum & cokes, lots of dancing women, and Flaming Dr. Peppers. I don't remember my first impression of him. "Tall" was all I could probably muster at the moment due to the hangover from the previously mentioned evening.


Most of us called him Grandpa. No, he wasn't old but he was much older than most of us. Slowly over the years he would become a great friend to me. We would drink excessively at times, having more fun than we probably should have without being arrested. Vancouver, Canada being one of our favorite places. A club called Cecil's to be precise.

He was a Jack and Coke man with a great fondness for Frank Sinatra and blondes. He taught me much and some of my best memories of my twenties involve him. A group of four of us, John, Johnny, Jeremy, and myself, seemed to gravitate towards James. We all spent obscene amounts of time together at one of the greatest and most gloriously disgusting dive bars called Roselli's. A type of place where you had to enter through the back from an alleyway. When that corroded metal door opened and the wafting smell of ancient stale beer and decades of spilled liquor hit you, you knew you were in for an interesting night...or alcohol poisoning...and of course there was always a risk of food poisoning from the most questionable hot dogs you ever laid eyes upon. or single pizza slices. Most knew better than to order the hot dogs, yet sometimes you were too damn hungry and drunk stomach can handle any food, right! It was always a wonderful thing to see someone's initial reaction to their first time walking into those hallowed narrow wood paneled walls.

This was our home. One of many actually. Along with the haunts of Wow's Etc, The Victory Club, Cheers West, Barbs, Drakes, BBQ Pete's and Luciano's, where depending on what night it was you could find any combination of us. Between Wow's and Roselli's alone it was like attending a drinking university. We learned from the best and James, a trained bartender himself, was one of them! He was the Gandalf to our little drunken fellowship.

While James and I were working together for Budweiser -and during the last few years I was able to do anything before my own problems began to control my own life-  we would spend much of our time together at Luciano's. It is here and then that he and I became very close. Much closer than our previous seven years of friendship.

I used to call James "my most paranoid friend". I don't mean in a sad and pathetic conspiracy theorist sort of way. I mean...well, he was one part Gladys Kravitz and one part...I'm not sure what! It was in a humorous and endearing way. I had teased him about it on more than one occasion. A common example would be if there were people talking outside his apartment or house, or there was any kind of noise, there he was peering through the curtains or the peephole in the door. "What the fuck are they doing?", or, "What the hell is going on out there?" were phrases I have heard on many occasions while sitting in his home. Or if there was any kind of social issue with someone, he had the tendency to create little negative scenarios in his head about what their true intention was. Again. this wasn't in a frighting or concerning way. But an endearing one. The latter may have been due to his ability to be so fiercely loyal to his friends. And he truly was!

I will have to also admit that with me his loyalty faltered on one occasion and we nearly came to blows. I had never been so furious with a man before and certainly not a friend.  He saw me seething, like a volcano preparing to erupt with such force it didn't care what was in its path, but knew it was directed towards him. It was a tense couple of hours in a very public place. In the end I saw he knew exactly what the problem was. However, to his credit James knew well enough to keep his words to a minimum. His understanding and his clear regret were in his eyes and it was one look and his outreached hand that calmed me. There was an understanding between us and I think we became even closer after then. It was like a bond between brothers that deepens after some sort of tragedy. Unfortunately because of my own personal demons that bond while still there would become very distant as I regressed into a nearly empty shell of who I once was.


I remember the last time I saw him. It was during Art On the Ave in 2010 -maybe 2009- It had been a few years but the reunion was a warm and happy one even if he did make fun of my new chubbiness. We laughed and I explained a little of what I was struggling with and I was caught up on his life. We only spoke a few times after that and eventually only a couple of times via text. I remember leaving a message with him when I was told of his illness, making sure I didn't let on that I knew what was happening. Why? Because he wouldn't have wanted too may people to know and I was told in secret although I'm sure many people were in on it. I never did hear his voice again. That was four years ago. And while I can clearly hear it in my head, it is only a shadow and will fade with time no  matter how hard I try to hold on to it.

"We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away." ~ Charles Stanforth (Jim Broadbent)

I have lost three people now in the last nine months. Several more the last few years. The loss of James has hit me the hardest. I cannot help but to morbidly wonder who is next? My Mother? Johnny? Annie? Krista? Brian? Perhaps I am next? What I do know for certain is that James didn't deserve this. No one does. It makes me furious with Zeus, Yahweh, Allah, God, Re, Ahura Mazda or whomever you choose to believe is pulling those puppet strings. If this is part of a plan, then perhaps I choose to no longer play by such cruel rules in a sick sort of experiment to stroke the ego of such a childish being. But I digress. My apologies.

I cannot speak to the man James had become these last six or seven years. I'm sure he was pretty much the same, which is a good thing. But at a time when he was dealing with such great pain, I failed him as a brother, a man, and a friend.

I loved James Oliver as though we truly were brothers. I always felt comforted just knowing he was around, out there somewhere. He was most likely going to be the first person I would track down when I would finally return to my Cascadian homeland for a visit. I have, or would have had, so much to tell him. So I waited -too long- and kept living in my own little world.



I ask all of you to reach out to someone you haven't spoken to in a long time. We all have that one or two people we wish so desperately to have back in our lives, but life gets in the way. "There is always tomorrow", we will tell ourselves. Well, tomorrow, for some people, may never come again.


My tomorrow with my friend and brother, James, is now only an unfulfilled plan on a worthless "to do" list. Don't allow yourselves to be put in the same empty and regretful situation.


I love you, James. We all do.

Goodbye and fare thee well, my friend