Zach speaks

Three posts in one day, wow! Well this isn’t really me, except for this intro. Jeremy called this afternoon and we had a nice Skype session. Rosalie was in high spirits, twirling around half undressed after a chocolate treat. At one point he mentioned the pictures in my first post of today and expanded on the North Carolina story. It struck me that the date was within the time frame of Zach’s diaries. After we finished our conversation, I looked up the September 2012 file and found this description of their holiday:

September 16, peaceful detachment

Yes, it has been a little while since I’ve been here but this time, I have a decent reason. Last weekend, I took my vacation to visit Jeremy, and it feels very very long ago. But I’m going to recap as best I can:
Thursday I got up very early and drove to the ATL. The only real highlight of the trip was taking the wrong exit and going through NOLA instead of bypassing the city. When I got there Thurs Jeremy and I played catch out front, watched TV, and then went up to Ted’s where he works and had extreme milkshakes. Basically, we just sat at the bar and discussed different milkshakes and booze combinations and then asked the bartender to blend them for us. They were fantastic and although I don’t think the booze added much, it was still pretty damn good. I would make the argument that they tasted so good because of the heavy cream included, LOL.
Friday, we got up and drove up about an hour and a half towards the South Carolina/GA border and rafted Section IV of the Chattooga; the river had been running pretty low and it was billed to have some class V rapids along with a lot of III and IV rapids. It was pretty damn fun, although the lack of water made it so that it wasn’t as heart pounding pulse thumping as it could have been. Jeremy made a good point that enjoyed big water more than technical rapids and I have to agree with him. But, with that in mind, it was a banner day: brilliant weather, water that felt good, hardly any actual paddling, and it was just me and him and couple guides in the boat so the conversation was much better than it would have been if we had any gringos. So that was nice. After rafting, we got back on the road for Greenville, with plans to meet Greg for dinner and to crash at his place. As we were driving, we realized we had some time to kill and we were driving right through Clemson, so we stopped for a little while and checked out the campus. It was gorgeous; a small town pretty much with nothing else except the university going on and it just felt peaceful, even with the buzz of a football game that was scheduled for the next day. I immediately loved it. After Clemson, we got into Greenville, met Greg, went out to Thai food and then pretty much passed out.
We got up the next morning (Saturday) with plans to meet Kevin Lausch and go to camp and Brevard. We ate at the Golden Corral breakfast buffet (heavy) and then drove up to Kevin’s camp, which is outside Traveler’s Rest. It was fantastic to see him and randomly Turbo was there as well, so it was a mini-camp reunion. Randomly, Katie Sidman texted me the night before, which was the first time we had talked in probably 2-3 years. After chatting with Kevin for a bit, we hugged him goodbye and went up to camp, where we spent a little while at Pretty Place paying our respects. When we were there, it was overcast so the views weren’t exactly tremendous but it was still a powerful experience to revisit a place that is so deeply entrenched in my heart. After Pretty Place, we drove down into Brevard and had lunch at Pescados, which Jeremy loves but I find pretty average. After Pescados, we drove out into Pisgah to Big East fork, where, for the first time in over five years, we hiked the same trail that I took campers backpacking on during that magical summer. We did the same exact route too and got up onto Shining Rock Ledge where the views are enormous and powerful. The mountain forest is as beautiful as ever. It was an intense hike when it was all said and done: about 7 miles and around 3,000 feet in elevation gain; I was sore. After Pisgah, we were trying to connect with Kelley Clifford and we didn’t really have any definite plans. We elected to go back into Brevard (rather than go towards Asheville) and made the decisions to buffet at Twin Dragons, since we were both ravenous after the hike. At this point, our day had pretty much gone according to plan and I was quite pleased. Then, Kelley decided to meet us in Brevard and got us an in to sleep at the Dill’s in Hendersonville, which was a huge upgrade over our plans to camp somewhere on the side of the road. So we crushed some Twin Dragons (as epic as ever) and then met Kelley at Dollies (a slightly overrated ice cream place but still deep in my heart) and then went out to the Dill’s, where Kelley also was staying. At the Dill’s we stayed up late and drank good IPA’s that Jeremy had brought and had big conversations with Mike Dill and Kelley. I was exhausted and looking forward to the big bed they had prepared but we still stayed up late and loved the conversation. As I write this now, I recall something else: when talking with Mike and Kelley: a feeling of kinship. I found myself saying the words: what we all do professionally, thus implying that we have similar missions. And we do! We are in the business of making people’s lives better. It was a cool moment and it made me realize the inter-connectedness of my camp connections and my rec sports connections.
Saturday was heavy and Sunday we got up, Kelley cooked us breakfast, and then we were on our way to Gorges State Park and Turtleback falls. We found it with a little difficulty, hiked the 1.5 miles down to the falls, and then spent a little while sunning ourselves on the rocks before taking some time to do the water slide over the falls. I hadn’t been there in over 4 years, when Jeremy and Ashley and I had all met there for a 4th of July weekend (that was transcendent in its own right. Also was the last time I had seen Kelley). Anyways, the sun was out, we were the ONLY ones there and it felt very special, as though were an exalted being for enjoying the majesty of those hidden waterfalls. After doing the slide 5 or 6 times, we hiked back out and got back to the car, where we then drove back to Atlanta. At this point, Jeremy and I were doggone tired but we had planned another Epic Mealtime fest for that evening, involving Tequila and mexican food. The problem, however, was that it didn’t flow as nicely as it did when we did it at xmas and Jeremy invited a bunch of really annoying work friends over and they pretty quickly put me out…so after he and I cooked, I basically hid away from the party and chatted with Ashley, who was also pretty annoyed. So it didn’t exactly go as epically as the first time but was still pretty damn fun, overall. It helped that the giants were on TV that night and beat the dodgers, so my mood was improved. I slept in the next morning and then left ATL around 930 and drove back to BR, where reality awaited.
It was an intense 4 days, which is how I like it. Although taking vacations like that don’t exactly make you rested, it was crammed full of good memories and happiness and we didn’t waste much time sleeping. My axiom of the short but crammed vacation still proves true.
One thing about this trip, perhaps above all else: the beauty of that region is still amazing. Although Jeremy is a big proponent of the West, where everything is bigger and more savage and in many cases, just as beautiful, there is something so magical to me about the forests and the waterfalls and the feeling that I’m in the middle of the jungle. And the air! The cold crisp mountain air, even at the beginning of September, just felt right.

Jeremy and Zach

Writing the last post started me thinking more about Jeremy and Zach together. I was originally thinking about the photo from Michigan along with the North Carolina one. I was a little surprised to find that it dated from 2002 because I the process got me thinking about our trip to London in 2000.

Neither boy was very happy about being in London where we spent way too much time going to museums. They were troopers, though, and didn’t complain much. They took solace in each other, I think. My enduring memory is of the two of them walking down the street ramming shoulders into each other. I don’t have any pictures of that but I do have this one:

At the end of the two weeks in London, Jeremy got on a plane for Michigan and his senior year in high school while the rest of us went back to California.

a special bond

While looking for the picture of Rosalie on my phone yesterday, I came across this one. It had no title or other indication of when and where it was taken. I emailed Jeremy and he filled me in.

He said: ‘Picture was taken in the Shining Rock Wilderness in NC. Zach and I went up to the mountains to go rafting, visit Greg McKee and some of our haunts in the Brevard area. September 2012.’

I sense some pain in Jeremy’s response. He and Zach had a special bond as brothers. Now there is a special kind of pain to think about times past with Zach. While they did all the usual things brothers do growing up, I don’t think I really recognized the special bond they had until I saw this picture, taken on the shore of Stony Lake in 2002:

jeremy-zach .

Jeremy was almost 19 and Zach was 13. It was the first indication to me of the adult relationship they had developed. As with the North Carolina picture, they are relaxed and happy to be in each others presence.

It’s kind of not my place to represent the relationship between Jeremy and Zach so I will stop here. I just wanted to share these pictures.

a happier Zach story

I thought I might have details on this in my own journals but a trip down memory lane found only a note that we went out for dinner. A dedicated journal writer I’m not, although in fairness who could have guessed how precious those encounters would become.

I was surprised to find out that I didn’t go to Louisiana to visit Zach for almost three years after I went with him down there in 2011 on his move from Oregon. Of course we saw each other once or twice each year in either Georgia or California.

So it was February 2014 and he was in the midst of trying to find a doctoral program. He had driven by himself to Lawrence, Kansas in January through snowstorms and now he was going to have an interview in Tallahassee at Florida State. I drove with him and we went on to Georgia to visit Jeremy afterwards.

Anyway, the night I arrived in Baton Rouge we went out for dinner to a sports bar he knew. They had an order counter near the front and after we ordered the girl asked Zach his name so they could call us when it was ready. He told her, ‘Roger’, and started walking to the table. I looked at him with a question and he said he just liked to use different names in those places.

A few minutes later they called out ‘Roger’ & we went and got our food. Zach’s quirky humor!

reality

Well I had a couple of doses of reality, as one might say, today. Why would one bit of reality be more significant than another? As one of my science fiction authors said in another context, reality is just a shared hallucination. True enough, but some things are more important than others.

Reality first came to my attention this morning about 6:45 when I woke up but that isn’t what I’m writing about. I had received an email yesterday from the Assistant District Attorney in Baton Rouge telling me that he had finished his investigation of Zach’s death and wanted to discuss his conclusions with me over the phone. I responded telling him that this morning was a good time and he called me about an hour ago.

I spent yesterday evening steeling myself for the news that there would be no criminal prosecution and that in fact is what the gentleman had to say. I do not use the word lightly. This man, who I will not here name, was a gentleman from start to finish. This in addition to being completely professional. He was very familiar in our conversation with all aspects of the evidence and circumstances.

Bottom line: he felt that the driver was ‘negligent’ but not ‘criminally negligent’, thus there would be no charges. I’m not going to go into all of his reasons now but they were all good enough.

The ADA was emphatic in telling me that he would be happy to talk to me at any time; answer any questions, etc. I told him how much of the rather fine points I was raising were on the basis of one reading of the police report months ago, that I haven’t been able to look at it with anything close to the objective eye needed for legalistic thinking. He reminded me that the statute of limitations for criminal action is 4 years so there is time.

Towards the end of our conversation he asked what I did for a living. This was after I commented that I could only admire people like him and the police Traffic Homicide Unit who faced death and other horrible things daily and didn’t go crazy. I told him worked at the Symphony Hall in San Francisco. He said how great it must be to work with such a good orchestra and I had to agree. Then I told him how Sarah has been playing with that orchestra as a sub since last fall and that really started the waterworks. I held most of it in until I got off the phone.

After I calmed down I got in the shower and got my second dose of reality. The shower drain was backing up! I choose to interpret this as Zach telling me that I have to press on.

killed

Killed. I haven’t looked it up in the dictionary. I’m pretty sure I know what it means. It’s a brutal word. It’s the word I use to describe what happened to Zach. He didn’t ‘die’, he didn’t ‘pass away’, he was killed.

We say he was killed instantly when he was hit by the pickup truck but in reality we don’t really know. The front right corner of the truck hit him while he was on his bike and he rolled up and hit the window. Julie says she saw him flying through the air so I guess that’s what happened next. When he hit the ground the right front wheel of the truck ran him over. I’d like to believe he was dead before that happened. The police say he was at fault for not yielding to oncoming traffic. They say he was drunk and therefore responsible. The driver, who was going 53 mph (estimated) in a 35 zone, got a speeding ticket.

I’ve seen the police pictures – some of them. When I got to the one that showed his broken face I started screaming and ran to my bed and assumed the fetal position. My neighbor Rose heard the noise and came over and just held me while I sobbed. Of course I can still see that image in my mind’s eye.

Killed.

the report

So far I’ve been reluctant to put up anything like progress reports on my efforts to understand what happened in Baton Rouge on the evening of November 14, 2015. Many people have asked me what I want. I’ve always felt, and I still do, that revenge is not the path to follow. Zach is dead & nothing can change that most important fact.

I am unhappy with almost everything the officials of Baton Rouge did – or more precisely didn’t do – in their investigation. Their conclusion that Zach was at fault for entering the street when he shouldn’t have makes me want to scream. Seemingly, everything hinges on the fact that Zach’s Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) was measured at 0.125%. The driver had a BAC of 0 so he’s absolved, goes the narrative. Never mind that he was rat racing another guy to be first past the merge. He got a speeding ticket, BFD.

This subject did come up last weekend, at the breakfast in Grass Valley. Emily spoke very clearly about similar incidents that had come to the attention of she and Zach. She said Zach was willing to see all sides and was generally forgiving of the one most of us would see as the transgressor. Ashley echoed my feelings when she said that she thought the driver should be punished with something more than just a speeding ticket. I asked her specifically what & she said, ‘Prison time.’

Nancy & I both looked into civil suits. She wanted me to join with her but I declined. I consulted another lawyer who eventually got back to me and said the insurance was ‘only’ $15,000 & I would have to share that with my ex-wife. So evidently their M.O. is to jack up the insurance company. They’re not interested in real questions of responsibility.

I consulted yet another lawyer and said I would pay up front to have my questions answered. He sent me to an accident reconstruction specialist who essentially declined to take the job for a variety of technical reasons (he was at least nice enough to explain to me why). The lawyer also suggested that I contact the Baton Rouge District Attorney’s office. He said they generally very responsive to bereaved families.

So it has proven to be. I wrote a letter; they called me back. I wrote another letter because I hadn’t written down the name of the lawyer who called me; they called me back again. Both times I came away with the feeling that the lawyer in the DA’s office was sympathetic to my concerns and would make an honest effort at reviewing the investigation.

The title of this post comes from the interesting fact that the DA lawyer didn’t have a copy of the coroner ‘report’. I said I did and would send it to him, which I did this morning. I call it a ‘report’ because it is two sentences long. Reading it and trying to read the police report again gave me the impetus to write this post.

dawn over Emerald Bay

I made it to the spot where Eagle Creek flows under the road and leaps over the cliff about a minute before local dawn on Saturday. I took a picture that is crappy but it shows the sun just peeping over the mountains on the east side of the lake.

One person was already there: a real photographer with his camera on a tripos capturing the serene scene. We said hello to each other but otherwise went about our own business. It was a few minutes before 6. The rest of our group wasn’t due until 7 so I just looked around a bit & drank in the silence and beauty and snapped a couple of photos of my own. A couple of kayakers were out on the bay. (Those two little dots are kayakers.)

Presently a large van pulled up and disgorged about a dozen teenagers who came down to where I was and started hooting and hollering and throwing rocks and things. I went back up to the road. I hoped they would get tired before Jeremy got there & luckily by that time they were just leaving. Another group came and went so when Nancy & Linda arrived about 10 til we were completely alone. Sarah then picked up the bag with the jars and we all went down the steps to the creek and falls. We each selected a jar and went to commune with Zach’s remains one last time.

I had somehow gotten the idea that the ashes would float at least a little so I went to the pool and tipped a little in. To my horror, the ashes didn’t float at all. They went straight to the bottom of that lovely pool and made a big gray stain on the rocks under the still water. Of course I could feel Zach laughing at me for my foolishness.

So then I went to the end of the pool where the water starts to rush over the rocks preparatory to going over the falls and put a little more in. This time the bulk of the ash was swept away immediately but there were little solid bits (bone?) that caught in the crevices in the rocks and stared back at me as if to say, ‘Now what, big boy?’

I picked the frothiest part of the rapids where the bottom couldn’t be seen and poured all the rest in. It’s like jumping off the cliff, I said to Zach. All at once or not at all.

Sarah came over and helped me sweep the worst of the stain into the running water but the little bits in the crevices were obstinate so we let them be.

Jane’s visit

My sister Jane had been saying for some weeks that she wanted to visit Zach at my house before we all took his ashes away. I called her yesterday morning to remind her that time was getting short and she was able to stop by later in the day.

Earlier, I had offered up several options for her visit, thinking that she would want private time but in the event she and I just talked. We didn’t talk a lot about Zach per se, as one might at a wake, but more about our reactions to his death and the arc of our griefs. She cried a little but I was strangely calm. I was able to talk about how I had cried so much in the early days and then as time passed I cried less but then I felt that not crying was to somehow invalidate the grief. I’ve learned that grief has no time line nor is there any formula for it. When I’ve cried recently it has been triggered by some random thing not directly related to Zach. I told her about the Bereavement Support Group I have been going to and said that it was open to her as well if she wanted.

We talked about souls and what they might be really. What is the difference between a living person and his earthly remains, be it a body or a box full of ashes or a headstone somewhere? My contention is that the things that Zach touched and were part of his life – his clothes, his books, his computer, his phone, etc. – are just as much Zach as his ashes. His ‘soul’ is his memory within those who are still living and all of those things contribute to his memory.

Jane saw a picture I had of our beloved Uncle Bob who died in 1999. She commented that there really were very few family members who had died in her adult lifetime and she didn’t know how to react. We’ve had Aunts & Uncles die in the last 10 years ago but they were in other states and we weren’t close. None of us kids went to the funerals. Our grandparents have been dead for more than 20 years and they all lived far away. I remember thinking something similar years ago: that I’ve lived a charmed life and no one really close to me has died. It’s not really true; I’ve lost colleagues, some to age, some to suicide, some to AIDS, but no one I was really close to personally. I’ve been to some funerals now.

Here’s the picture of Uncle Bob with Teresa:

Teresa and Uncle Bob

Zach’s ashes

Zach’s ashes have been at my house since I came back from Louisiana. They rest on a table in my living room. I’ve placed his Hobbes doll next to him along with the Rubik’s Cube that he was so good at. One of the flower arrangements that came in December dried out kind of nicely so I’ve kept it there too.

Here’s a photo:

Next week it will all change. Sarah is coming Wednesday night & we will take the ashes and distribute them into 6 small Mason jars. These we will carry with us up to Lake Tahoe where on Saturday morning we will each – 6 of us now – take a jar and place his remains back into the earth there.

After months of avoidance, everyone is finally talking seriously about the little details of this event. I expect to have a post about it next week. Here’s a picture I took back in March of the spot we will most likely be at: Eagle Creek Falls just above Emerald Bay.

IMG_7881 cropped

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