For a dancer

I dreamed about Jeff again last night. It's been a long time since I dreamed about him.

Jeff Sevcik was my first friend at college, San Francisco State University, in 1973. Tall, slender and graceful, with strawberry blond hair and a wide smile, he was friendly and charming and funny and charismatic. We went together to an orientation dance at the dining center, and he was all over that dance floor, long legs leaping, arms slicing through the air - me laughing with joy.

Jeff was a writer, a poet, an artist, a dancer. He was the most alive person I've ever known.
He signed up for piano classes, he'd never played before. I remember sitting with him in the tiny practice room in the basement of my dormitory. His 6 foot 4 frame crouched over a piano while he practiced his scales and smiled and laughed - "I'm playing piano, Bren!"

Jeff had come from McKee's Rocks, Pennsylvania, and he loved San Francisco, loved California. He learned his way around The City and then showed me his favorite places: Sam Woh's restaurant, the backstreets of Chinatown, North Beach. We rode a bus home at midnight, and Jeff entertained me with spot-on impressions of Joan Rivers, whom he resembled a little bit. I nearly wet my pants from laughing so hard.

One night out walking, he told me, he saw a dog scampering on the sidewalk in front of him.
"What a cute little dog," he thought. And then he realized it wasn't a dog. It was a rat. He raised his hands to show me how big, and started laughing, "I almost petted it!"

We rode across the Bay Bridge on a bus with a band of happy friends, bedecked in bright colors and dusted with fine glitter, to Berkeley to see Bette Midler in concert. Years later I was still finding sparkling dust on my skin and in my hair, and every glimmer reminded me of that magical night.

Alone in his dorm room, we listened to his records together, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Laura Nyro. One night we slow-danced together, tender and serious, gazing into each other's eyes. I felt like I was falling in love, but I knew it couldn't be the same for him. Even so, it was romantic and dear and intimate and sweet.

Over Christmas break he sent me a letter, typed as always: "I'm getting tired of tacos and gatorade, bren, what then?" That was all, one line, pure Jeff Sevcik, a private goofy message.
It made me smile.

The last time I saw Jeff, he said, "I won't say goodbye, because I know we'll see other again."
We both smiled, and knew it sounded corny, but felt sure it was true. I never saw him again.

In 1986 Jeff died of Kaposi's sarcoma/AIDS. He was 31 years old.

I began having dreams. Looking out my window, I would see him striding up my sidewalk with those long legs, waving his hand and grinning. When I rushed to open the front door, no one was there. The dreams stopped a few years ago.

And then last night, another dream. In an apartment in San Francisco I receive a letter with one typed line: "been trying to find you, i'm still here." My heart races. It's Jeff, I know it, he's still alive. I search, I keep losing things, losing clues, worrying, frantic, distracted, I have to find Jeff, where is he? Where is he?

One of the songs that Jeff and I listened to obsessively was "For a Dancer," by Jackson Browne.

I don't remember losing track of you
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must have thought you'd always be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you're nowhere to be found

I don't know what happens when people die
Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can't sing
I can't help listening
And I can't help feeling stupid standing round
Crying as they ease you down
cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away

Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don't let the uncertainty turn you around
(The world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound

I miss you Jeff.