Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Marriya Bushka - Barry Bush - A Brief Eulogy That Isn't Brief At All

Barry was the one who introduced me to board games that weren't Monopoly, LIFE or Sorry! Thinking games that weren't D & D (but was the one who told me how to program a TI engineering calculator to do melee rolls to save time). The first to install solar panels on his house, the first to take me to Trader Joe's for the organic value, the first to make hot water one of life's simple pleasures, the first one to demonstrate and the define the word "bench" that had nothing to do with picnics. Helped me build that first system, back when the PC AT was the shit.

I remember playing that Dune board game, and he always took the role of the Bene Gesserit - that one female role in a sea of masculinity - and won, time and time again, cackling maniacally with that brilliant smile, big brown eyes atwinkle. Barry - even in the midst of horrible life events, tragedy and hardship - never stopped laughing. At times, you wondered if he was even capable of taking anything seriously.

The key was that old Malkavian madness, if you ever played that game. The Malkavians were this totally mad, insane clan of vampires - but they nuts off their rockers because of all the ancient races and clans, they were the ones who Knew. They were crazy because they were aware of history, all of it, and instead of flinching or looking away, they went mad.

Barry was like that. I think.

Believe me, I tried to find a serious bone in his body many times. We had that kind of history. Barry was my late husband's co-conspirator on so many plots and schemes - they bought a house together, while still in college because it made better sense than paying rent. And they had been right - to a point. I don't think I ever knew a time when Barry hadn't packed paying renters into every nook and cranny of his living quarters, way beyond what I would have found comfortable or acceptable. (No Barry, I am not renting that converted garage with the dandelions growing up through the non-existent foundation, no. Yes, I could get $900 a month for it, no.)

He was buy-it-in-bulk frugal. Do-it-yourself Wow That's Gorgeous When It's Done frugal. Belonged to all the bartering clubs. Had that Costco membership, went to those swap meets, had those side gigs.

Graduated with an electrical electronic engineering degree and tried like hell not to build bombs in the eighties.

Gulf War I came along and ended most of aerospace engineering - for certain, in California - but that was okay, he was also one of those guys with a creative streak a mile wide, and a dream in his heart. He's going to go into the entertainment industry! It'll be great!

He worked as an extra, commuting between Vista and Hollywood, and I don't really know when, but his wife found someone on the internet and left him. "It couldn't have been anything I did, I was never home!" Smiling, he said that - and then laughed. This was the bride he had wooed so avidly, it had made the papers back in the day. He hired a mariachi band to serenade her, he'd wrote poetry, he had shown up with flowers on one knee. Oh, he had loved her. Two children together, the house on some acreage - they worked, she kept things going and Barry?

Barry was gambling everything, and coming up rolling ones. Or a bit more, but never enough to win the game. Did he have enough talent? I'll never be sure, the grinder took all that first just trying to keep up. Took it all, returning little or nothing. But he kept smiling, laughing, adapting, keeping on keeping on.

She took the kids, married again and time marched on - the step-father turned out to be Not So Nice, and Barry ended up taking the kids back in after some really nasty stuff I can't discuss without a court order and express permission (which I don't have, either of them). And work got scarcer, resources got stranger and Barry?

Kept cracking jokes. Except now, it was getting toxic. Nasty comedian toxic. Claiming to be a social Darwinist, he would tell me about how his family had cut ties with him after he'd told his father he'd gone into debt sending his daughters to college only to have them age out of childbearing years instead of providing him grandchildren. "So, you literally paid the State of California to sterilize your daughters, Dad." I seriously doubt his father or his sisters liked that much, you understand. I'd met and known them all - they're all really fascinating people, but they're not going to find that amusing, period. To Barry, I am pretty sure their objections were displacement instead of actual ire - hey, he was right. They wanted kids, right? Now they can't, right? Why is that? Oh yeah, you went to college, got a job and didn't get married fast enough! Too bad, but you got what you got - he, at least, had fulfilled his genetic destiny, two kids - ta da!

Mad as a hatter.

People would ask me how I could allow that guy in my house. I said what I suspected, which was something was very wrong. Maybe I was hoping to get a crack at it if I was patient, maybe I would find out what it was but I had my suspicions. Something was very wrong, gone very wrong with someone I'd known for a very long time. But you can't act on information like that - you can only believe in them, and wait.

Three rules of messing with other people's lives - IF you get permission: Make sure they know they're safe, get the best care you can - and this you weigh as heavily as those first two - let them be happy, if at all possible. What are you working the first two for, if not that? Give them a chance to be happy, for the love of mud. So yeah, two steps back.

His mother had died of early-onset Alzheimer's, and when it had set in - it had done so with a vengeance. While he had smiled through telling me about it, Barry hadn't minced words. There was little we didn't talk about, he was one of the few people I didn't scare. He would look me in the eye, take in the worst news, nod sagely and hug me.

Then make a joke about it.

He was one of those guys who did not want to go out in a blaze of glory. He wanted to live forever, because this was a huge, fascinating place of science and magic - he was going to be the one to see 100 years and change, by gumption. Had the books, did the supplements, followed the speakers, attended the seminars. Even demented, yeah - he wanted to be here. Okay, not optimal but hey - you never know! Science!

Had the book with the covers torn off. Frugal, remember? Okay, he was cheap.

I was sure he was going to be cruising around in the background of my constellation, that quirky, difficult old jokester for all of my life. Heck, survive me. Maybe write my eulogy and tell people what a nice, sweet little fool I had always been because I had never thrown him out of my life, when clearly I should have.

I loved him so much, I think it surprised him. I would never date him, but oh I loved that idiot.

His daughter found me on Facebook this week, and asked if I could take a call. Her father died over the weekend from complications of diabetes, and people? He was in his fifties, not even close to a retirement age - none of that. Sudden, lethal and done.

Yeah, something had been wrong.

And now, he's gone.

Not what either of us had expected.

Back in the days of camping trips, and board games by Coleman lantern, there was a game of Dune (accompanied by a large bottle of Amaretto) that Barry started losing...until they looked and noticed that the bottle of "Armadillo" was just about empty. I'm going to remember him by those days, I think.

When discussing "Good Omens" when it was new, along with "Paradise Lost" and C.S. Lewis in the same breath was as natural as turning on the lights.

Playing that "Black Tower" game and providing sound effects and demonstrating the melee battles - winning AND losing.

Watching a bootleg VHS of "Tampopo."

Keeping my mouth shut when someone has the latest "Life Hack" because Barry'd already done that one, guys. Trust.

Looking straight into the abyss - and toothy-smile grinning back at it, Cheshire Cat style.

That was Barry Bush.

And that is what I remember.

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