Two Plus Too Minus One

People are always asking how did I come up with the idea for the DRB Clique. Why six people? Why a mixed group? Why so many?

Because that's how big my tightest circle of friends was. The DRB Clique isn't a cover for my teen clique but an homage to them. Tiny pieces of our existence are intertwined everywhere in my characters - which is why no one character mirrors me or my friends exactly.

Of course we considered ourselves a crew then, in the eighty's, because break dancing and what not was huge and break dancers ran in crews. So, fiends of pop culture followed suit.

That's it, though. That's the answer. Nothing more, nothing less.

I chose marketing and PR as a career. I'm a writer by skill. But everything isn't a concentrated effort or strategy much as my Type A personality would like it to be so.

Two Plus Too Crew was me, my girl Nick and our four best guy friends. I know, we couldn't count very well could we? 'Cause that's six people all day long. But it started out with four and just kept growing.

The crew actually had more than six, because we rolled mob deep in high school. But at its core, it was us six.

The "heart" of the core was Big Ed, named so because he was literally a big guy. But as luck would have it, he also had a big heart and was the friendliest person on earth. Eddie had this smile that immediately signaled he was up to something devilish.

And he couldn't lie. When he tried, his mouth would pooch up and his forehead would wrinkle like it did that time all the guys rode with him to me and Nick's cheer competition and never arrived.

We were so hot with them. They told an elaborate lie, the way guys do when they're in trouble...oh because I forgot to add that the original four of the crew were Nick, myself and our boyfriends (now hubbies). So they were the ones in trouble, and by association so were Rodney and Eddie.

Now that I think about it, Rodney and Eddie got into more trouble because of our BFs. They're probably the only two guys in the world who basically got all the nagging of having us as girlfriends and none of the benefits.

Man, that's so wrong now that I think about it.

Anyway, the other three told the lie easy - bad influences every one of 'em ('sup ya'll?) but Eddie's lips started to pooching and his eyebrows rising and falling making his forehead wrinkle. Nick and I were like - Alright ya'll lying! What really happened?!

They were like - Aww man, Ed you dogged us out.

But he didn't of course. He was just too honest for his own good, sometimes - or at least for their own good when they wanted to be up to no good.

Big Ed passed away, last year. It was the first time I'd ever lost a close friend. He was only thirty-seven. And honestly, using the term "only" is habit when referring to someone not old passing. The fact is, if I were sixty-five or seventy, right now, I'd probably still say "man, he was only..."

Because you never want to lose a friend.

This morning, though, I realized you never do.

Tomorrow is Eddie's birthday. He would have been thirty-nine.

I dreamt about him this morning, just as my brain shifted from sleep to waking. He was only in the dream for a few seconds. The dream wasn't about him. It wasn't about anything really, fractured thoughts from a tired, stressed out mind, mostly.

But right in the middle, when the nonsense was getting I guess too ridiculous for my mind to process anymore, there he was, sitting in a chair teasing me, covering his big laugh behind his fist like he used to do. And there I was giving him grief, pounding him good-naturedly with tiny fists that couldn't inflict pain on him even if I hit my hardest. He laughed it off, pretending to fend me off as we joked back and forth.

The way we interacted in the dream is how we always used to hang out and it could have been a scene out of one my books, because it's how the clique trips with one another - light barbs filled with affection.

I woke up, pleasantly startled and a little sad that he'd come to visit me so easily. Slipped into my dream so smoothly I never questioned why he was there or why he's no longer here.

There's no answer to the latter, but there is to the former question - it's his birthday, tomorrow, but he dropped by and gave me a gift, a reminder that he is still here.

Happy Birthday, Big Ed. R.I.P. and keep dropping into my dreams now and then.