What will you say of the bond we had?

My best friend from Prague — at least the best friend who wasn’t also a rent boy — died suddenly last week from an inoperable brain tumor.

It’s shocked all of us who were close to him, all of the band of believers in boys and, in my case, beer.

A few days of extreme pain, another week of drugged-up existence and then he was gone, I’d spoken to him via Skype two weeks prior. He was as cranky as ever and full of stories, as usual. One of the great things about Chris was his ability to fill every second with tales so amazing that I wouldn’t have believed them if I hadn’t been part of them myself. And he was so good at re-telling the ones that didn’t include me, that for the first few minutes I could forget I’d heard it all before.

In our conversation last week, he remarked on how easy it was to maintain our rapport no matter how much time had passed since our last call. Chris hated email and I don’t like talking so we didn’t communicate as often as we would have liked. Still, I said in response: Friends forever, buddy! I’m glad I said it, but it hurts to remember that now.

I was hoping I could remember a story about him that was appropriate for this blog about cancer, but they’re all pretty dirty. Let’s just say he was an expert at getting random, butch straight boys to drop their pants for a smile, or a McDonald’s hamburger.

Without him, I would have gone hungrier when I was homeless, and certainly lived a lot lonelier life.