Active Voice:
It Ain't Over,
Darlin'! ~ My Vince Croome Memorial
by P. Kristen Enos
(Originally posted Apr 16, '10. All rights
reserved.)
On February 19th, I
had an opportunity to go to my company's Walnut
Creek office. This also meant that I finally
had a chance to get together with a long time friend
and former co-activist, Joseph Amster, who had moved
up to the Bay Area a couple of years ago. Over
dinner at a Chinese restaurant, he and I got caught
up on the full spectrum of each other's lives.
And of course, when you meet with someone you've
known for about two decades, you also expect to talk
about old subjects too, and one of these was Vince,
Joseph's ex-partner of over 23 years.
I think I met Joseph
and Vince around 1990, back when I attended UCI and
got involved not only in the local gay and lesbian
community but also with AIDS related causes and
events since the epidemic was on the forefront of
everyone's minds at the time. And even though
the three of us had different focuses and styles of
activism, we had enough in common that we often
shared causes and projects and crossed paths
frequently, especially when we worked for the Blade
Magazine and volunteered for Laguna Outreach.
While I admit I was a stronger friend with Joseph,
Vince and I became friends in our own.
Now, when Joseph and
Vince finally parted ways about five years ago,
common personal hobbies and
interests led me to retain my friendship with
Joseph. I'm not a believer in taking sides in
a domestic split, but it did show that Vince and I
really didn't have enough in common to maintain our own
friendship, especially since I had "retired" from
hard-core activism.
So as Joseph and I
chatted a bit about Vince, neither of us knew that
he had passed away on January 29th due to
complications from AIDS. (His official
obituary in The Blade Magazine is
here.)
When I received
Joseph's email on March 5th that had the word about
Vince's death, I had to admit I was more surprised
at the awkward timing of everything rather than the
news of the death itself, (we knew he was HIV
positive for quite a while.) And when Joseph
forwarded the information about a Laguna Beach
memorial service for Vince, I felt compelled to
attend mostly to honor a fallen comrade in causes.
Because of the close proximity and no conflicting
plans (for once), I had no reason to not go, and
I think I would have found a way to be there if something
had gotten in the way.
There's a tiny little
park at the end of Mountain Road (and Pacific Coast
Highway). It sits on the edge of a tiny cliff
that overlooks the Pacific Ocean and could easily be
missed if you weren't looking for it. There's
a bench with a perfect view of the beach below and a flag pole with a
rainbow flag prominently displayed in a park's
central bed of
plants and flowers.
So at 5 p.m. on
Saturday, April 10th, about thirty people gathered
to pay our final respects to a man who definitely
left his mark on individuals and society, even if
the society didn't realize it. And I admit
that I appreciated the fact that everyone who was
there acknowledged with painful honesty Vince's
flaws as well as his strengths. This would not
be an exercise of pretending he was someone he
wasn't.
Among those thirty
people of Vince's friends and relatives were also
former old friends and activist comrades of mine.
And sure enough, we proved why old habits become
habits for a reason: exchanged contact info (I
was horrified to I realize I forgot my business
cards), griped about the lack of name tags, talked about obvious community topics like
Rachel Maddow, and gossiped. Vince would have
approved.
For the actual
memorial itself, Joseph made his speech:
[Note:
Joseph and Vince were together for 23 years, were
one of the first couples to become domestic partners
when Laguna enacted it, served together on the L.O.
board, Laguna Beach HIV Advisory Committee, Queer
Nation and ACT UP, traveled together a lot to
Mexico, Canada and Jamaica. We both loved cats and
the Pet Shop Boys!]
"We
have gathered together today to remember our
friend Vincent Croome. What I remember the most
about Vince was his laughter. He had a-go-lucky
nature, and always seemed to be smiling. Even as
his life became more and more difficult, he
always seemed to find a bright side.
Vince could also be
serious, and cared about the lives of people
living with HIV before he even knew he had the
disease. An early member of ACT UP Orange County
and having served as a member of the City of
Laguna Beach HIV Advisory Committee, he helped
establish the Laguna Beach AIDS Memorial. It is
entirely right and fitting that we scatter his
ashes here today, not only because of the
memorial and the garden that contains the ashes
of literally hundreds of people lost to AIDS,
but because of Vince’s love of Laguna Beach, a
community he called home for most of his life
and where he spent his happiest years.
Vince loved to travel, and
while in his late 20s, set his sights on a
career in the travel industry, partially because
of the benefits—he got to see the world.
Vince was also deeply
concerned with the rights of lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender people, and was a
founder of Queer Nation Orange County and a
board member of Laguna Outreach for many years.
I still remember a night in the early 90s just
steps from here when Vince and I were passing
out self-defense flyers in front of the Boom
Boom Room for Queer Nation and suddenly an egg
came flying out of nowhere and struck him. He
was completely unfazed.
Vince was fascinated with
the sinking of the Titanic, and ocean liners in
general—probably his deepest passion. He always
said he wanted his ashes scattered over the site
of the Titanic’s sinking. [Joseph
pulls out from his pocket a toy ocean liner with
the name "Titanic" hand-scrawled on it. Trust
me, EVERYONE at the service got the joke.]
I probably knew Vince
better than anyone, yet he remains an enigma to
me. Who he really was and what motivated him, I
don’t think any of us will really know. It’s my
hope that he’s found peace and is in a better
place.
As many of you know,
Vince’s final years were not good. I don’t
really have the words to express how I feel
about that, but I found a song by Noel Coward
that pretty much sums up my feelings. [At
which point Joseph sung the song "Sail Away",
which I did not post because I do not have
permission to the rights.]"
Joseph's current
boyfriend Gav read this poem he wrote:
WE ARE WATER!
"We are water….
We are the wind….
We are ash…..dirt….all kin.
Remember me…say my name….
Did I know you?
or did I ?.... somehow?…..my kindred…my kind.
Like fire ,like ash, air & water of now. The
kisses or hugs, embraces that were never there…
“Suffer the little children…come unto
me?”…..your soul put to rest, the wind set you
free.
Like ashes, like ashes, we all fall down, all
glitter, feathers, and sequins left behind on
the ground.
Like water, the tides , comes in… go-eth out….
Our ebb…our flow…the love…never known…From wood
to ash,
We crumble…we climax…grow strong….but weaken
with pain, lost or found,
Pieces of fabric, from cloth all the
same.....glorious costumes, but for awhile…we
remain.
We live…we walk…we breathe…..we love….we win…we
loose…we pass our days…..gone too soon. A song
never heard. Words unspoken…
We listen, we listen ..for a sound or a word. A
bird, a whisper, the rush of a breeze,
We are here…we are now. Seasons have passed, a
page has been turned.
O Soul of a brother, lover, cousin or kin….this
mother’s child, commend to the wind.
Your Soul put to rest, the wind set you free.
We are water…..
We are wind….
We are ash…dirt….all kin."
So as we watched
Joseph and a few others scatter the ashes over
flowers and the toy ship, the stillness in the air
of so many people in one place yet not speaking
seemed to amplify the loud crashing of the ocean's
waves even though we weren't right next to it.
Afterwards, as people
said their farewells to each other, I stood by as
Joseph discussed with Gav what to do with the box
that Vince's ashes had come in. Gav suggested
burning it but Joseph pointed out it was plastic.
I, perhaps unhelpfully, pointed out that Vince
believed in reincarnation so perhaps it would be
suitable to put it in the recycling bin. (I'm
pretty sure Vince would have approved.)
My Own Final Words
I admit when I
thought of doing a write up of Vince's memorial, the
idea felt a little detached to me emotionally.
But even though Vince and I were no longer friends,
we were friends for the 15 or so years we were
actively in each other's lives, and that's not
something to take lightly. He and I had our
fair share of conversational moments, whether we're
killing time at a fund-raising event or staffing a
table at Pride, or watching some gay material or
anime, and/or eating home cooked food or in a
restaurant.
However, it wasn't
until I sat down yesterday to write my outline that
I remembered something that I had completely
forgotten, which was my unique memory of Vince:
To best summarize my
coming out story, I fell hard and fast for a woman
who was EVERYTHING: my first love and my first
(known) gay person I'd ever met. It was a very
brief and intense encounter that lasted only a
couple of months in the fall of my Sophomore year at
UCI. I fully admit that getting over her was
what made me take my initial steps into joining the
gay and lesbian community, which I eventually wanted to
fight for as a member of it
Vince was the
ONLY
person in my circle of genuine friends who ever truly
knew her. Most of my other friends' only context was
a vague coming out story involving someone that I'm
not even sure I would recognize if I walked into
her today.
I don't remember
exactly how or when he and I discovered this common point
but a subject came up in one of our casual
chats that made me wonder if he would have
crossed paths with her. So when I described
her, he immediately blurted he'd known her for years
and considers her a friend (as he does with most
people), and in fact sees her almost every day.
But when he realized why I asked and who she
really was to me (knowing my previously vague
coming out story), he declared in full approval that
she's an incredibly beautiful woman!
I remember smiling
and asking how she was, but definitely acknowledging
that she was a firm part of my past and I only asked
out of curiosity to know if she was doing well.
He rambled on a bit about her, with just glowing
and positive words. And I thought that would be
the end of the topic between us.
At the time, I was
still writing my column "Active Voice" in the Blade
Magazine. So the next time I saw Vince, which
I think was only a week later, he told me he gave
her a copy of the latest issue and showed
my column to her. Then he added (in full
gossip mode) that it was a
surprise to her that I was so prominently "out".
He even told me that he asked her the next day of
what she thought of the column. He relayed to
me that her first response was that she very
uncomfortable that I had used the word "dyke" (in
joking self-reference), which was not really
surprising to me.
I laughed and felt a
certain sense of confirmed closure that this was
proof, though I wish her well, it was the right
thing that she and I had parted lives the way we
did.
But leave it to Vince
being Vince to make that happen.
Vincent B. Croome
September 15, 1955 - January 29, 2010
(If
you really do "come back",
Vince, I hope you keep all of your good
qualities so you only have to keep improving the
others!)
...
And no, I don't know what Joseph eventually did with
the plastic box.
[Update
- 4/17: Joseph told me that Vince's Uncle
took the box to be recycled after all.]
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