My Buddy Died

When I moved into my new apartment it took me two days. It is a five story walk up so it was quite an ordeal. The first day I moved half the stuff on my own and the second Martin showed up and legged it with me. As I was struggling with the boxes the first day this Mexican dude who lived in the building saw me and grabbed some and hauled them up all 5 flights with me. No introduction, no nothing, he just saw I was foundering and pitched in on his own. He hung around for a couple of loads and really helped me out cause I was pretty damn exhausted lugging all my heavy shit around.

I only saw him one other time about 3 weeks ago. He was down in the dive around the block that I like to haunt. I bought him a beer. He bought me 2. And a round of pool. And sang "real" salsa to me. The juke box was playing "bullshit" salsa and so he put in a few dollars worth of the "real" stuff. He could have stopped with the round of pool cause frankly "real" salsa is "bullshit" to me but he didn't mean any harm by it. He was a good guy t and we had a fun time and a good conversation. He was a marine and had some pretty damn good Iraq stories.

Tonight as I was coming in I could barely get in the front of the building door for all the candles blazing in front of it. About a hundred cheesy glass cylinders with cartoon saints painted on them were all fired up on the landing. Hand written posters saying RIP David were taped all over the place. I didn't have any idea who the hell this David character was until I spotted a photo taped on the door and there was my buddy looking back at me with his black eyes. I don't know what happened to him and probably never will. And I guess my move out will be a site more difficult without the extra hands when the time comes.

RIP David