Tributes

...rather, excerpts quilted together, by him for me, and written into the front cover of the book of Bukowski poetry he bought me

I decided that, with only anti-climactic things to write after my hectic September, I'd shift gears a bit and pen accolades to Craig's twenty-something birthdays and years...at least, the ones I've known him through. I've got 5 days to beat his 29th birthday. Ideally I will write a daily narrative for each twenty-something year of his I have shared with him approaching this new one, which, sadly, will mark the beginning of the final 12 months of our twenties that we will share. I keep being promised by Vogue and Cosmo and other miscellaneous contemporaries that our 30's will be more memorable. We'll be the collective judges of that.*We weren't exactly dating the October he became 25. We didn't name it dating, anyway. We drove places together, or met there, and drove away together, crashed at each other's places like slumber parties (yeah!) and took each other out for dinners. This particular night I deemed it appropriate to take both Craig and TW out for their birthdays (TW's is near), so that paying for just Craig's dinner wouldn't seem so date-ish. After our dinner at Local Color Brewery, a feature of either Novi or Livonia, Michigan (to this day I confuse the two) we went to a fine establishment called the Library Pub, down the street from Local Color. Other co-workers would be meeting us there to celebrate Craig's quarter-life birthday. Permit me to sum the evening up quickly in saying we were at that bar for a matter of an hour or two and Craig was beyond intoxicated. Friends were taking "Irish car bombs" with him, TW played protagonist with the purchase of a "Texas Prairie Fire," which left Craig smelling of tobasco sauce through the night and into the next morning. I remember it well. Craig wound up drunk enough that he tried to convince one of our co-worker's wives to give him a kiss: "You know you want to!" he shouted in an octave several pitches higher than usual, huffing his booze breath all over her hair as he leaned toward her. Luckily, we were all sports about his quick obliteration and loved the show. As our friends JW and BG arrived in post-softball sweat to buy Craig a birthday beer, Craig made grand attempts to be affectionate with JW: "Give me a hug, asshole!" he instructed JW. The birthday celebration, needless to say, sped by and it became time for me to drive him back to Ann Arbor. After rounds of hugs and "I Love You"'s to the crowd of well-wishers, and after TW buckled Craig safely into my car, I began the trip home which was accompanied by the following: passed out cold Craig, his head heavy and lolling to a side, or to his chest, plus an exaggeratedly heavy knee which targeted my gearshift while I painstakingly shoved it away so that the car would not be thrown out of gear. When we arrived in Ann Arbor at his apartment, I forcibly pulled him from the car, which jolted him from his drunken slumber and I think I recall several slurred innuendoes, none of which are appropriate nor relevant to the remainder of the story. In fact, I will leave his 25th celebration at this: I fed him water, Advil, and tucked him in, and he wondered before he passed out for the night Why Was I Treating Him So Nice When I Wasn't Even His Girlfriend?*When Craig was 25, he went to see Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf in Stratford, Canada. He saw Jane's Addiction and Live in Auburn Hills, Michigan. He saw Disturbed in downtown Detroit. He saw Living Color in Royal Oak. He became an uncle for the first time when he was 25! IU won the Old Oaken Bucket from Purdue that year (he witnessed it from the torrentially rain-felled stands at Memorial Stadium before going to an IU alum's brother's apartment to watch the remainder of the game). Craig ice skated on Joe Louis Arena's ice, when he was 25. He posed for a photo in the penalty box there. He went to Toronto, Canada for a weekend.*Craig moved to Hartford, Connecticut when he was 25. Not to haul myself into the year, but 4 days after I turned 25, Craig left Detroit for Hartford. He went to Montreal for the first time at 25. And to NYC. I cannot do justice our respective first trips to NYC, but I can say he was 25 when he first went to NYC. He saw his first Broadway musical on Broadway at 25. Craig had an incredible 25. I feel unbelievably lucky that I was there for so much of that.*