2009.01.11 Darryll Dutton
Dave told me yesterday that Darryll Dutton had died the day before. Heart attack.
At first, I got hung up on trying to put the two things together: Darryll Dutton dead, heart attack. Separated, they made no visceral sense at all. Guys just a year older than I am don't have damn heart attacks... do they? And Darryll Dutton can't die, he's forever lodged in my mind as the smirking high school kid seen in this picture - immortalized.
If you knew Darryll, you'll never forget either the smirk or the level gaze. The level gaze was mostly constructed of high-purity defiance. I think there was a certain degree of bluff to the level gaze, too - at least back in high school. But the degree of bluff was always unknown, and there was a promise of a solid core of mysterious "you don't know what I know" packed in there - all of it defying you to find out the hard way. In all the time I spent with Darryll, he never bent his knee to admit deference of any sort - to us brainy nerds he hung out with (but he wasn't one himself), to the brawny jocks that preyed on us (but not him), to the teachers (who generally failed to teach him), or to his family (despite the pain it caused him). The smirk was another story.
Nobody could invent that smirk. Which is not to say that Darryll always pulled the smirk out completely free of guile, because sometimes he wore it to help cover when he was in too deep. But the genesis of the smirk was clearly the illicit liaison between wryness and amusement, possibly conducted in the back seat of a car equipped with vinyl bench seats that left interesting patterns on amusement's butt-cheeks. Darryll enjoyed stuff. He would do what he wanted. Sometimes that would work out fine, and the smirk would be easy and relaxed. Often, though, things wouldn't work out very well, but the smirk would still be there - just harder, and more poignant. None of us would have been likely to admit it back then, but I think our whole pack of misfits were envious of Darryll for that smirk.
Darryll was the bravest of us. Which, I have to admit, is tainted with a sense that he was one of the most foolish of us. But it was a glorious kind of foolishness. The kind of foolishness that let Darryll be brave enough to live independently in a way that none of the rest of us could execute. It was the kind of blazing bravery that let Darryll woo women while the rest of us boys could only gape in amazement. Darryll was the kind of brave that is wasted in peacetime, and it is fortunate for all the rest of us that we were not in a circumstance that would have let Darryll unleash his bravery to become true heroism.
I'm ashamed to admit that the Darryll I'm describing can only be vouched for until about 1991. After most of us graduated in 1990, I was among those who went on to college and university. Darryll was not. And with a lack of pomp that is to Darryll's credit, and my regret, Darryll moved mostly out of my notice. I assume that he continued to work and play as suited him. I hope the intervening years allowed him to stay true to his smirk and level gaze.
Farewell, Darryll. As with a lot of life's experiences, you went first.