On the evening of December 9, 27 years ago, the phone started ringing. I happened to be home and people were asking me if the rumor that was going around was true. Alarmed, I put a call in to the 16th Street house. No answer. I called Mission A and Sweet answered. He confirmed what I had feared; Russell Wilkinson was dead. I had known of him for several years before we actually met by his nom de guerre, or punk moniker, Will Shatter. We met under the most banal circumstances imaginable. I was managing a parking lot above a strip club and he was seeing a woman who lived in the building overlooking the lot. We bonded immediately, kindred spirits with similar tastes, similar demons. Hed hang with me in my little booth and wed knock back a six pack of Brown Label from the nearby Woolworths. The bond fastened. We hung out at the Mab or On Broadway. I spent several nights a week kicking back on the couch, where he was living, staying up until dawn with Will listening to Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen. There were other interests that bound us together but they are, in the last instance, largely irrelevant. He was a serious person, although this went against his public persona. He was sensitive. This was evidenced in both his lyrics and his behavior. Ive encountered no sweeter soul in my lifetime. But he had needs he couldnt fulfill and compensated, like many of us, with things, actions, substances, that ultimately took his life. I got out. Escaped. A woman saved me or, rather, I let a woman, or love, provide the exit for what I perceived to be, literally, a dead end. Will had love, and a woman, and heart, and respect but, ultimately, he was taken. Or submitted. It really doesnt matter. He was gone too soon. I loved the man and just what kind of man he was is evidenced in his lyrics. An open wound, an open vein. He confided in me that he could never go onstage and perform as he did, reveal himself, without the wall of noise provided by Ted, Steve, and Bruce. And, before that, Craig Gray and others. Will was old before his time. I saw him shine but then his light was extinguished. He never got to see his son, unborn when he died. I did. Once. The experience was unsettling. I saw Will for the last time that day, around a year after he died. It took me twenty years before I could bear to hear a Flipper song.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 08:47:13 +0000
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