He wasn't my best friend. We only talked a few times a year, and predominantly thanks to the magic of social media like Facebook and Ning (before they went money hungry).
We hung out infrequently, mostly at big high school reunion events that seem to have become a yearly occurrence, a rarity when most people choose to forget their high school years.
On the face of it, we really didn't have much in common, except for a few important things. Our love of art, our great taste in women, and, most importantly, our four years at Art & Design.
It'd be a stretch to compare it to marines who bond after facing down death (though passing Ms. Glusman's English class came close, as did Ms. Geist's Global Studies. Funny sidebar about Ms. Geist: she was the basis for the teacher in Amy Heckerling's Clueless. Why? Because Amy Heckerling is an A&D grad herself, class of '71 I believe).
There were many classes that came before the A&D class of 1992, and there have been eighteen to graduate since then, but none have the inexplicable bond we do. None of those classes have 3/4 of the graduating class still in constant contact, or texting freakishly bizarre fetish pictures to each other (looking at you, Moses).
When we get together, it may as well be 4th period in the cafeteria again, with Mister Rogers calling out names over the loudspeaker, and CJay getting his head inside the tiny window of the snack line to examine the cookies, or the metalheads unleashing trays of food on Steve Reach, or Alex trying to steal the pizza I ordered for lunch when I picked it up from the delivery guy through the window.....
All of these are memories I cherish, and high school was truly a brilliant four year period of my life. We were part of a grand experiment, kids from all walks of life, all kinds of backgrounds, thrown into a concrete building painted blue and yellow on Second Avenue, with plenty of upper east siders looking at us in disgust that our young, brash selves would dare to enter their neighborhood.
We ran amok in the city. We haunted the ice rinks in Central Park, we visited museums, we hung out in the Village, and we cut out to escape to Pig Park. We grew up at that school. We bonded for life.
And because of that bond, we are all of us hurting today. We have lost one of our own. To some he was like a brother, to some a casual acquaintance, and others just another friendly face to see once a year. Some may have stronger memories of him than others, but it doesn't matter now. He was ours, and I hate writing that in the past tense.
No matter how well we knew him, Robert Johnson was our friend. And we will miss him.
Farewell, my friend.
Sunday, May 29, 2011 at 3:24PM 