Darryl

Dreamed I was back in the Little Store, and there was a long line of customers waiting to buy stuff. Christmas rush! (In real life, the Little Store never had Christmas rushes; we were strictly a summer tourist season play.) I went behind the counter so I could help with the checkouts except that I couldn’t find the bar codes on any of the items customers wanted to buy, and the customers were getting more and more impatient and irate—I was afraid they were going to walk out without buying.

One customer brought an item to the counter that he had rather painstakingly assembled from broken parts. Some kind of tschotske: a bunch of adorable and anthropomorphic paper maché cats riding on a wagon. When I took the item from him, it fell apart! I was on my hands and knees, trying to pick up the pieces so I could reassemble them when I woke up.

###

At 2:14 a.m., RTT sent me a text: Darryl just died.

I can’t say I’m surprised.

I am very sad.

Such a sweet kid. I mean, he wouldn’t just give you the shirt off his back, he’d tear off his own skin to keep you warm if he thought you were cold.

But so fucked up.

I was sleeping when RTT texted, so I don’t know how it went down.

Heroin overdose? Covid-19? Suicide? A bar fight? Did a cop kneel on his neck?

I guess I’ll find out later today.

This is just gonna decimate RTT: He and Darryl had been super close since they were 14. Many, many times, I ferried Darryl back and forth between his house in Cayuga Heights and the Cement Bungalow. And Darryl was one of the go-to guys when Ben was dying last summer; used to sit with Ben in the T-burg apartment when RTT had to work.

Then Darryl tried to do a drug robbery—with a gun!—and RTT had to tell him: You can’t move in with us.

Which I understand broke Darryl’s heart.

But what was RTT supposed to do?

Last time I heard, Darryl was in Las Vegas.

God! This has been such an awful, awful year for RTT. And just when it seemed like the sun might be breaking from behind the clouds, this happened.

Fly with the angels, Darryl.



Update: An OD, sez RTT. Fentanyl-laced oxy.

Third time's the charm, I guess. The other two times, the paramedics got to him in time.

And yes, he'd been to rehab. Several times. It didn't take.

Is it wrong of me to be tremendously relieved that it wasn’t suicide?

(Although, of course, it was suicide.)