Sunday, March 29, 1998

Cousin helped pave road to manhood

By Leonard Pitts

I don't want to give you the impression that my cousin Dave was an angel, because he wasn't. He was blunt, cantankerous and unsentimental, a bald-headed, bandy-legged ex-Navy man with a glare that could freeze magma. Loved Camel cigarettes, women and jazz, probably in that order.

Definitely not an angel. Just watched over me like one. Beginning when I was in my early teens he was, by turns, my personal counselor, chauffeur, driving instructor, auto mechanic, loan officer and role model. He was everything a father should be.

Except, of course, that he wasn't my father. My actual dad was absent -- first figuratively, because of alcohol, then literally because of cancer. Dave was my father figure.

Long before Hillary Clinton ever heard of the African proverb about villages and children, we knew that a community was an extended family, a safety net that caught you and a hand that lifted you. And if you were a boy whose father wasn't around, there came into your life this surrogate -- an uncle, a big brother, a grandfather, a family friend -- a man who stepped into that vacated role and pointed the way toward manhood.

We call them mentors now, and the pairings are apt to be done through some charitable organization. Same thing, though: a fatherless boy and a man who shows him the ropes. I wonder if such a man can ever truly appreciate what an important thing he does.

Boys need men. Need them to give advice and teach driving. Need them watching from the stands during the basketball game. I still remember how much I loved going to martial arts movies with Dave. It's not that I cared about Bruce Lee. It was being with Dave that was important. Knowing that he thought me worthy of his time.

I used to watch him so closely. Studied the way he applied his cologne and carried himself in the world, tried to glean from him anything I could of manhood's mysteries. Dave seemed so self-possessed and confident, so certain of himself. I wanted to make myself like him.

I never told him that until just recently. There was a flicker of ... something in his eyes, then he just sucked hard on one of those Camels and whatever it was disappeared in the smoke.

I knew I had embarrassed him. Worse, in the very act of speaking gratitude and affection, I had tacitly acknowledged something that hung silent between us like the smoke. That he was dying of an aggressive cancer.

But I had to put this thing finally into words. Our relationship had been shaped for so long -- too long -- by his aversion to sentiment. Even our ritual greeting was a verbal punch on the shoulder.

"Hey there, Ugly," one of us would say.

To which the other would reply, "How you doing, Fat Head?"

Listening, you might never have known that I loved him. Or he, me. And I wanted it known, at least once.

We went to dinner a few nights later with my baby sister and her fiance. Dave was ghastly and skeletal, so shrunken that you could follow the linkages of his bones, see tibia meeting femur right before your eyes.

My sister's fiance had a camera with him, and after dinner, he offered to take a snapshot of the two of us together. Even on his best days, Dave hated having his picture taken.

But he paused anyway. Lifted his hand to my shoulder. I draped mine across his and stared ahead. My thoughts were tumbling, spinning back across old days and good memories.For almost 30 years, he had met me in life's rough passages and treacherous crossings. Watched over me like a father. And a friend.

And this was the last time. I would move on from here without him. I knew it and I guess he did, too. Already I felt alone.

But I inclined my head toward his and smiled into a flash of white light.

Dave died late Tuesday evening.

I'm going to miss you, Fat Head. Goodbye.

Leonard Pitts is a columnist for the Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132. Readers can call Pitts toll-free at 800-435-7578.

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