About seven years ago, I was bellied up to the bar in the Bullpen, Guerneville’s premiere gay-redneck sports bar and pool hall. I had, ironically enough, just finished up an alcohol education awareness class (a nasty leftover from a DUI eight years prior) and was waiting for Chris to join me after work for a cocktail. At least three other of my classmates were there, including the bartender. It was a chilly northern California winter evening and as I sat there basking in the warmth of the flaming hearth and the dim glow of neon lights, listening to the drone of the race cars on the TV and drinking a Jack and Coke, a poised and ashen-haired gentleman came and sat next to me. I glanced at him and he took the opportunity to address me before I could turn away and resume my private moment.
“You look like an interesting person,” he said. “Do you mind if I strike up a conversation?”
I gave him a brief assessment: Gentle, reserved movements, kind smile, casual, neat dress, close-cropped hair, scholarly glasses, gay vibe. No threat here.
“Sure,” I said, bemused.
“My name is Ernest,” he said, proffering a strong but yielding hand.
I grasped its warmth and returned his smile: “Deneene.”
Within minutes I was a full participant in Ernest’s life, woven into it as deeply as the story he told me of the cross-country drive he’d just taken to his hometown of New Orleans and back. If I’m remembering correctly, I believe his mother had recently died, which was the reason for his sojourn to the Big Easy. One tale followed the next as we lit each other’s cigarettes and bought each other drinks – Jack and Coke for me, Scotch and soda for Ernest.
Ernest had moved from describing several comical and sordid details of his childhood and was in the process of describing his artwork and life as an artist when Chris walked in and found me at the bar, curiously and strongly engaged with this interesting gent. Chris joined the current round of drinks and hopped into the conversation with equal amusement. By the end of the evening we knew we’d made a great friend.
Though Ernest lived a couple of hours north in Covelo, he would often travel to Guerneville for a weekend of fun and festivity, either staying at our house or sleeping in his (mostly) trusty Dodge van on a downtown side street, visiting us in the morning with a full box of fresh doughnuts from Safeway. The many hours and subsequent years spent with Ernest eating gourmet meals, sipping contraband absinthe, critiquing movies, speculating the universe, discussing poetry and literature at our house or his cabin in Covelo were rewarding and insightful to say the least.
Ernest’s friendship, once so unexpected, was one of the most tender and inspiring of my life, and one that is now hard to think of living without. I’ve learned so much from him – about things, about people, about how to just be. He is not only the most independent intellect and unique artist that I know (many will remember him as the creator of the large graphic paintings hanging on the upstairs walls of our Guerneville house), but is also the best-read person I’ve ever met. I will never best him at literature – or dirty limericks. And his memory! I could never aspire to such detail.
So adieu, Ernest, flying now from a blue dream to a crystal clear reality. I see him on a cloud, cocktail in one hand, book in the other, easel set up nearby, floating through the kaleidoscopic colors of the universe, smiling and uttering, in his measured and lively southern drawl, “Dahlin’, this is FAB-ulous!”
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