Always Hurts

Many of you know I'm a fairly active gamer - video game player. I'm not like the kids who play now with their Fortnite and Apex games. I remember playing Atari at home when I was a kid and was thrilled to get a used Nintendo in my teens. IN 2004 I started playing an online game that I was sure I wouldn't like, but now I've been playing it nearly continuously for nearly 20 years.

Some of you may recall a short story I wrote called Gaymer. Some gay people like to use that term to describe themselves, but I've always thought inserting things like that to change the word was kind of lazy. Apparently I'm an occasional hypocrite, given the name of the story. The story revolves around two people who make a connection in an MMORPG (Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game) that translates to the real world.

My friend Trev was a true character. Almost every text message exchange with him is NSFW just because of his twisted sense of humor and an unfortunate love of puns. He was the kind of friend who'd take a simple word, like twinge, and moments later transform it into a word that had associations with midget fisting. We spent years and years laughing at things both in-game and out. We had long discussions about politics and absurdities. Trev was the template for the Travis character in 'Family'. The anecdote in the story told by Travis about trying to get some sexy times and the little girl pushing the door enough to move the weight he'd placed there and then looking at her mother and he in bed and asking if they knew there was a weight behind the door was his. The story where Lu was playing hockey in the living room with is dad also came from Trev. Trev had a great talent for spotting terrible-yet-funny character names in game. It's a game we liked to play. Stinkwrinkle was one that always made us laugh.

He and I met this lady in game, Julie. Unless you play World of Warcraft, much of the actual details won't make much sense to you or be relatable, but put simply...she was a very sweet hot mess. The things she used to say would make us laugh so hard - casting spells on one character that had nothing to do with offense, telling people that her mage's fire shield drew attention from enemy mobs. One night she wasn't there, but a mini-boss in a dungeon makes an entrance by crashing through the ceiling (underwater, but no water comes in - video game logic, you know) and the mini-boss pounds its, um, hand (not really, but we'll go with that) and makes this weird, undulating noise as it challenges the group. For some reason Trev said 'I wonder if that's what Julie sounds like when she's on the toilet and there's no toilet paper?' We laughed harder than we had any right to, and that was how I came up with the Cthpupu or Cthpoopoo, forget how I spelled it (instead of Cthulu) that ended up in 'A Perfect Confluence of Events'. In that same dungeon there was a character named 'Shmagoogoo' and we couldn't stop laughing, and after we'd spot a new, weird name we'd pronounce them 'good, but no Shmagoogo.' I met Trev once in person and we had a great time going to all his favorite pubs and being introduced to proper poutine. At the time he wasn't working, but he'd said he'd managed to work things so that he could extend not having to go back to work for another six months. 'Mind you,' he'd said, 'I won't be living high on the hog, but I'm more concerned with having the time off than what I'll do with it.' A few Christmases ago I conspired with another friend to send him imported penis mints from France.

Needless to say, Trev left an impression.

Last spring he had some stomach pains and eventually went to the doctor and ended up being diagnosed with cancer. We thought he was going to get the all clear last fall, and we were making plans to get together - doubly fun because we wanted to not tell one of the friends so we could surprise her. Unfortunately he wasn't cancer free. He went through rounds of treatment, and then the doctors took a massive swing and missed. Unfortunately, the world is poorer today. He died this morning and though I miss him already, though I can't quite grasp yet that I'll never hear him again, he left me with so much laughter, so much him that it tempers some of my sadness.

I wish you'd all gotten to know my friend. In a way, you have - through some lines or silly things he and I came up with. Maybe he will continue to be an influence - for all of us, I hope so.