Kevin Alexander Scott

Who was your first best pal? Seriously — I wanna know!
Mine was Kevin Alexander Scott (R.I.P.). We met at the beginning of our sophomore year, in the art department of our small western Pennsylvania state college.

Sure, sure, I’d had friends prior to Kevin just not anyone with whom I felt utterly comfortable. There’d been no one I could really let my hair down/ bare the old soul/be utterly ME with. I was too monstrously afraid (a fear that went WAY back) — so sure was I that NO one could possibly like me if I showed my true form. (Manticora on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Ljubljana Dragon on Tuesdays and Thursdays — I take the weekends off ‘natch).

Somehow Kevin got in past my premium, Superman proof, tungsten wrapped spirit. Sneaky bastard did it with charm, love and a Star Wars G2 type tractor beam of a personality and beauty. He was 6 feet tall, blond, broad shouldered, slightly barrel chested with a tiny adorable butt. The glorious fucker.

This pic, below, is the only one of him that I have. It was taken on the sly. He was massively averse to having his image captured. In high school and college he’d earned dough through modeling — primarily catalogue work though there was some runway action too. Because of this, he said, he just could NOT abide being photographed. On the whole, except for this one sneaky moment, I respected that.

I was dating someone (a dairy farmer from Amish country — yeah, that was destined to work out splendidly, eh?) and he was linked to his high school girlfriend — someone he was mad for. So, we didn’t hook up (aside from all platonic and marvelous and shit).  Cool by me as he, for the longest time, intimidated the fuck outta me. NOT his intention but, given my scared poopless background, unsurprising.

As time went on, with its' inevitable youth romance shedding habit, Kevin and I were single. We’d been BFFs for so long that changing it, at that very moment, felt too awkward for either of us to deal with. Instead we pledged to marry but not until after we got our wild 20s under our belt. That was an honest and true, real soulful feeling for us both. I was no longer afraid of my own shadow so I wanted to play, joy, LIVE.

In our post college graduation-ness, I went off for my third and final season with the carnival. He was in Harrisburg, PA (his hometown) looking for work in that post Nixon, post Ford nasty ass economic environment...and having the luck of the Oglala in his quest.

I called him weekly from the road. In one minuscule, rural, southern Illinois town I received the shock of my life. Kevin announced that he had joined the Navy. ‘the hell???!

We grew up during the Viet Nam years when the martyrdom. gloriousness and hero fixation/glorification of WWII had been turned on its head. Soldiers were in NO way the enemy but, to our minds, they were tools of a shallow business/profit modeled government. A government more interested in gaining power over resources than anything else.

Kevin was going off to be an Arabic and Hebrew linguist and he was psyched. This was major league double plus wild levels of exciting for him AND he’d get the great benefit of college buckos too. Once out, he could go to grad school without going bankrupt.

Yea, but still...

Over the next few years, as I struggled in Boston -- working a few jobs at a time, he kept trying to get me to join up. “But we could be together then and the work would be interesting and challenging for you.” Yup, all true BUT
A) I knew I’d never make it through boot camp with my total NON-acquiescent ‘tude. I’d worked wicked hard to get on the path of being my own self. No way would I have been able to become an automaton for the team
B) I’d lived so many goddamn places in my youth. I wanted to live where I chose,  NOT where the Navy, or any one else, decided on.

We kept in touch and continued to plan on living together after his hitch was up. And then he signed on for another go ‘round.

George Bush I’s Gulf War began and Kevin was based in Greece — flying missions over the Mid East weekly. We called each other regularly (OOF, those phone bills!) and then he came home. Came home with some nasty ass Hepatitis variant which, within a few years, killed him. Slowly and mega horribly.

When he knew that death was around the corner, and wouldn’t be stopping for a quick smoke first, he told me to go ahead and get serious about The Amazing Bob. He let me go and I understood.

Kevin died in the summer of 1991 at the age of 32.  I miss him still.