motherfucker, I had a feeling it would end this way.....
It wasn't unusual for Leawood to not answer my text messages every time, or not hear from him for a month or two. His health had taken a turn for the worse earlier this year and he retired and was preparing to move to South Dakota. WTF? He wouldn't say it, but I think he had a secret fantasy that he might meet Kristin Noem and get to see her neked. He had pretty much given up hope of seeing Sarah Palin neked so this would be a logical progression.
I sent him a photo from Colorado back around Solstice. It was of a huge Lauren Boebert sign on the edge of the Empire and told him that Defix and I were going to sneak up there at night and deface it. He really wanted to see a nude photo of the Congresstwat also. We didn't make that happen then, but it could still happen. Not long after that his text messages faded away. I knew his heart issues were really bad and he didn't like to talk about it. My "are you still alive?" messages were starting to feel like they were in poor taste. After a couple of months of no response I went through the somber work of looking through the obituaries this morning and found out he passed away in late July. This is how it goes sometimes with imaginary internet friends. Their real friends and family don't know we even exist and so when they pass, they are just another message board character that doesn't post any more. Unless someone knows your real name and looks for your obituary, you just fade into the ether.
Bob was a proud father, a smart lawyer, a funny drunk, and a good dude and friend with a bigger heart than he let on most of the time. I will miss his dry caustic wit.
I have already regaled you with my story of our crusade for justice in Windsor MO. But I do have a couple of other Leawood stories. At one point I was a recently divorced single guy and was invited to a friend's 50th birthday party. I knew I was going to be one of a very small number of straight males there and the only person I would know was the birthday girl, so I invited Leawood to go with me so I would have someone to talk to. He lived nearby the party house and he obliged. Now as the moniker "Leawood" might suggest, Bob was sort of a Johnson County country club preppy guy at least in appearance. But I had no clue he was going to show up to the party in his tennis whites, polo shirt and matching shorts with a god damn white tennis sweater thrown over his shoulders and tied around his neck and topsiders on. He was a muthafuckin vision of country club splendor in his "take me, I'm your ballboy" outfit. Other partygoers were "dressed up" as well because it was a gay woman's birthday party, but nobody drew the admiring looks that he did. Not only were we the only straight people in the room but we were also the only men. Not long after that my friend Stephanie put the song "It's Raining Men" on the stereo and the girls demanded we dance because they put "our song" on for us. I think we declined the girl's request and left shortly after to get a drink elsewhere. Unless you have video to prove otherwise, I am sticking with that.
After I met Annie Oakley and started growed up dating, Bob kept a close eye on the proceedings. In theory he thought the concept of having a mate was good, but in practice he never really warmed up to domestication. He really liked Annie; every now and then he would ask me if she had any friends? Annie declined making any introductions, "seriously, I couldn't do that to one of my friends." I never told him that but I am pretty sure he it would have made him laugh. Not everyone can laugh at themselves. I always take it as a real indicator of character if you can laugh at yourself, and Bob was good at self deprecation.
Another imaginary friend is gone. He will be missed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5aZJBLAu1E
I saw the worst minds of my generation empowered by madness, bloated farcical naked,
dragging themselves through the whitewashed streets at dawn looking for a grievance fix.