For Monkey

As most of you know, I am not a band director. I have been molded into, like, a quarter of one by Janet, Matt, and Brian so I could come have fun with them and not totally jack up their programs. As a result, I have met a lot of people in the band directing world over the last 10 years. Now, most people I meet for about five minutes on the sidelines at a football game or as they anxiously wait for me to input their UIL contest results in the spring. As such, I spend a lot of time re-introducing myself to band directors, which is totally legitimate. I’m not really a band director, so there’s no reason for people to remember the name of Janet’s redheaded friend who always seems to be hanging around.

David Martinez, though, was never someone I had to re-introduce myself to. If you were a friend of David’s friend, you were a friend of David’s. Monkey didn’t treat me like I was a quarter of a band director either. He was always by my side at contests ready to help move chairs or to crack a joke (or, really, both). He talked to me like I knew what the hell I was doing in the band world (I don’t), and he figured out a way to get me new lighting and sound in the auditorium, something we’d been trying to do for decades (I could never repay that debt).

I only have one picture of me and David, but it is perhaps my fondest memory. We were at state marching contest, and Janet and I needed transportation from one hotel to another. All we had at our disposal was David’s Tarpley van—blacked out windows, no seats in the back, and no Tarpley wrap on the outside yet. Undeterred, Janet climbed in the back, and David and I giggled in the front, convinced that if anyone was watching it would look like we were kidnapping Janet and taking her to an undisclosed location. She snapped a picture of us in the front seats, laughing, and I snapped one of her, crisscross applesauce in the back between our luggage.

Later, the three of us sat down in the hotel bar and Monkey had the bartender make me and Janet a charcuterie board (after I taught them both to say the word and Janet said it about 18 different ways, none of which were correct). We sat there for several hours, enjoying our cheese and crackers and telling stories. And laughing. Wherever Monkey was, there was always laughter.

I have struggled with how to process David’s death. I feel a lot like Janet’s redheaded friend who doesn’t really have a stake in the grief at his loss. I haven’t known him as long or as well as most people that will miss him. I’m friends with a lot of the K Psi folks, but I’m not one of them. What is my loss in comparison to all of yours? Publicly grieving feels a little like I’m trying to horn in on something that isn’t mine—to put myself in the center of a loss I don’t belong in. Writing these thoughts, even, I feel a little gross, undeserving.

But on Friday at his funeral, his sister forced a red carnation on me (she literally tracked me down and pinned it because I’d already given one away to Charla, who deserved it more). I turned to Janet and said “I don’t feel like I should have one of these. These are for—”

“Close friends?” she interrupted. “Which is what you were. Monkey would have wanted it.”

So I shut up and let Jerri pin a red carnation on my shoulder. Because it didn’t matter to Monkey that I wasn’t from the college days—Janet loved me, he loved Janet, ergo he loved me. That was enough.

I still don’t know how to process David’s death. He would have been 41 in a month. It’s not fair that we won’t ever again get to hear him crack a joke under his breath or feel him wrap us up in a giant, incredible hug. I don’t know how Janet and Matt and I will make it through hosting UIL in March without Monkey standing outside the auditorium doors helping direct bands to their next performance area or moving bass drums around without being asked just to make it easier for us. How will any of us face the Tarpley booth at TMEA without him standing there? I don’t know.

The best conclusion I have come to is this: We didn’t get near enough time with David, but he loved us enough to last all of our lifetimes.

So, have a laugh, have a shot of Hennessy, hug a friend, and in the name of everything that is holy, wear a damn mask—for Monkey.