tile cutters and little princes.

i don't think about it often. when it happened, i had left this town and this life and this world that was, for me, too small. too the same.

during high school, i worked at an art studio. i worked for two amazing women who i am lucky to count among my friends. i helped them build the studio. literally. building, sanding, varnishing, counting. laying exhausted on the cold concrete floor in mid july drinking a smoothie while we all envisioned this space. it was - it is - an amazing place. to see it would convince you. but having helped bring their visions to life made that place one of my most treasured spaces.

i was 16 when the studio opened. i'd been working for one of the owners since i was about 12, helping her run art camps out of her garage. and when i say art camps, i mean art camps. we taught them to mosaic, let these kids use tile cutters, and mastic. and grout. oh, the grout. we painted. on canvas. every morning, we sketched in our sketchbooks. these kids spent four hours a day surrounded by art. by other artists. by stories of great artists.

the vision, though, outgrew the garage. and the studio was born. people can come in and create art. all kinds of art. anything they can imagine, they can create there.

by the fall, the owners had to hire more people. the few of us that had been it for the long haul were skeptical of these new people (yes. we were possessive. it wasn't ours to possess. but our sweat and our blood were all over that place).

that's when doug started working with us. i wondered what this man - this grown, attractive, eloquent man - was doing working in the studio with us. but one evening, as the two of us closed the studio together, a dar williams song came on over the sound system. i sang along quietly (iowa. it was iowa.) as i swept. the next thing i knew, doug was belting out the chorus from one of the back rooms. thus began a friendship that was both an oddity and a treasure.

doug and i always tried to work together. really, it was about being able to control the music. one can listen to the shrek soundtrack only so many times. but we balanced each other out. where i was easily overwhelmed, he was steadily calm. where doug took things too seriously, i found a way to laugh. the kids, the parents, the reluctant visitors who weren't sure where to begin - they loved us.

at the time, using aim was still the usual thing to do. our friendship grew outside of work. we learned so much about each other. he was, really, the one person i could say anything in the world to. and i did. it was my mistake to not share our friendship with the world. but at 16, at that age where the entire world looks like one giant knot of impossible tangles, i was worried about what people think of my friendship with a 34-year-old man.

so i didn't really talk about it. and i should have. because he saw me through the thing i thought i would never recover from. (in retrospect, i was right to be so heartbroken. so shattered. so deeply and immovably sad. i didn't believe it at the time. but he did. and every tear, every moment of panic - they were more than valid in his eyes.)

i came back from school. my freshman year. we had talked - exchanged emails, text messages - but not the way we had. leaving for college was, for me, a chance to really start again. and i was intrepid in doing so. i came back to his absence. i had been in spain.

no one thought to say anything to me. not until i asked. this isn't really my story to tell, but the bare details are that he had gotten involved in some credit fraud thing. he killed himself before the FBI could get to him for questions.

they told me this with sadness, but not with the caution warranted by the friendship he and i shared. but they didn't know. they didn't know. and that was my fault.

i was so angry with them. with him. (how could he do that? didn't he know - a white collar crime, white collar time? sure, it may not be they hyatt, but it's a least a red roof inn. how could he just go? was it really that bad? what had he done?) he left us all here to stand in the wake of the truth about his life and the shock waves of his death.

i found the book he gave me for my high school graduation. a collection of drawing and stories. they are cryptic and sometimes dark, but mostly they are just like doug. intelligent, wry, and witty. he wrote on the title page, "to taylor: everything you need to know about life is in these pages. read carefully. love, doug."

so i packed it up safely to take back to milwaukee. and to finally, finally face the fact that i never grieved for him.