Farewell To The Five-Deuce

About two weeks ago, JB sent me a text message. His text message was somewhat out of the blue, in that we normally text each other on our respective birthdays as a form of checking in. So, getting a text message from him in mid-December is definitely out of the norm and nothing that I had expected.

Sadly, he hit me with some tragic news.

DT (AKA The Five-Deuce), our good friend from college, died in early December. He had succumbed to multiple sclerosis. MS is no joke and it just ravages the body in its latter stages. That same condition had also taken out Richard Pryor, Annette Funicello, and in due time, it’s probably going to take Montel Williams’ life. I hadn’t had any contact with DT for many years and I’ll admit that we weren’t in the habit of staying in touch. For the time that we were at USC, we were decent enough friends. I believe that JB had remained in better contact with DT, but I’d also say that DT and JB were much closer that he and I were.

Still, this would be a loss, regardless of how close DT and I were or how often we had spoken through the years. DT would be the first in our small circle of friends to pass away. DT was a good guy. He was a communication major and from what I gathered at the time, he seemed to be a smart guy. Our paths happened to cross during my freshman year when we became co-workers at that wonderful work study job that we held down. When I learned that he and his roommate, Tim, lived in the same building that I did, this opened the door for them to meet and connect with JB. JB and I weren’t roommates at the time, but he spent enough time at my apartment to where he might as well have been. Tim and DT first met JB when all three of them happened to be at my apartment one afternoon, eager to engage with each other in a few games of Tecmo Super Bowl for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Tim and DT were immediately taken aback by JB’s outright arrogance, not only with regards to “Tecmo” (as we would refer to the game), but even in a general capacity. JB is probably one of, if not, the most confident people I know. Tim and DT picked up on it fairly quickly and his blatant arrogance, as dumb and misguided as they thought it was, didn’t offend or keep them away. I assume most people aren’t always drawn to JB’s arrogance, but Tim and DT didn’t mind it, and they found it to be quite hilarious.

DT played sports video games, which was how JB and I connected with him and to a lesser extent, Tim. Tim and DT were already friends before they came to USC and wound up as roommates. They were both from Las Vegas, NV, likely from the same high school. They might have gone ever further back. JB might have known this. I do not. It was a regular thing for us to get together and play video football, Tecmo, if not Madden NFL on the Sega Genesis.

I could go on, but at the end of the day, DT is gone. Though we hadn’t been in contact since he graduated, even if I wanted to reconnect with him, I no longer have that opportunity. Such is life and I suppose, as the current case may be, such is death.

As I close this entry, I want to refer to the song above, to which DT had introduced me. When we were still at USC, he was in my car once, as I was giving him a ride to a local convenience store (some people might call it a liquor store, but whatever), when the song below was playing. He noticed that both songs had similar sounding beats, to where he first mistook Masta Ace Inc. with Thug Life. I told him that I wasn’t aware of the Thug Life song to which he was referring and told him that I was listening to “The INC Ride”. He later let me borrow his Thug Life CD so I could check out the song he was talking about. In hearing “Bury Me A ‘G’” for the first time, I immediately heard the similarities that DT had honed in on. Both songs, in similar but different ways, had sampled The Isley Brothers, “For The Love Of You”.

Maybe DT was buried a “G”? I’ll never know. What I do know is that he’s gone now.

DT was a good guy regardless. This goes without saying, but he will be missed.

Rest in peace, Five-Deuce. We’ll keep fighting on for you down here.