My Friend, James

This is the first picture of James I ever took:

It was taken on October 21st, 2010. Which is, at the time of this writing, roughly 12 years ago. The picture was taken at a volunteer outing he organized and led at Ung Bướu Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

James took his life one week ago today. I guess I kind of know why; he was kind enough to leave a note. To his credit- and he has a lot of credit with me- he was very concerned with how everyone who loved him would feel about this and took great pains to address those feelings and make sure everyone knew that he loved them and that there was nothing any of us could have done. I don’t know how true that last bit is, but I’d just as soon take a cheese grater to my face as sit with that for more time than the thought takes to inadvertently conjure and then immediately club into submission. As these sorts of things go, it was as thoughtful and as other-focused as he could have been.

I am heartbroken; utterly shattered. I can’t help crying thinking about how much pain he was in. How I will never be able to talk to him again. How the last thing we talked about was was what some very distant acquaintance of mine should do to edit their resume. Fuck, man. I love James. You would have loved James, too. Everybody who isn’t an asshole would have loved James. He didn’t deserve to hurt. He didn’t deserve to feel at odds with life. He didn’t deserve to suffer. James did more nice things- actual things; the actual work of making the world a better fucking place- than anyone you know.

James is my friend. He will be as long as I live.

I’m going to tell you a little about him and hopefully it will make me feel better.

James, the child-hating misanthrope

If you spent any time with James, you know how fluently and brutally he would excoriate humanity (sometimes to its face), children in particular. When talking about his students, he would pull this face where his nose would squish up and his lip would twist in disgust while cataloguing the ways in which they were too handsy, snotty and germy. He’d purse his lips and pop his eyebrows while savaging anyone with the unmitigated audacity to be anything less than considerate and well-mannered in his presence.

Amusingly, his misanthropy (and misopedia: a hatred of children; new word for me) had the fortitude of a wet piece of toilet paper (he would have hated this comparison because it’s vaguely gross). James spent more time helping people (children in particular!) than anyone I’ve ever met: cajoling others into volunteering, organizing charity events, managing groups of volunteers on site, finding funding sources, securing and remodeling housing for parents of children with cancer while they stayed in HCMC, doing regular arts and crafts with profoundly sick and dying kids; generally advocating for those who needed it most where and when they needed it most. He did this sort of stuff all the time! I would accompany him, sometimes, but these volunteering events were emotionally crushing for me. Spending time playing with little kids who would likely be dead within a month or two; I didn’t know how he did it at the time. In retrospect, it was probably a tiny blip on his emotional radar compared to what he felt generally.

Even more damning to his arch persona is a memory Stu shared with me the other day: Stu had walked to James’ classroom for one reason or another and found James in the middle of a child-pile, playing and laughing with a horde of munchkins, his TA making no motions to save him. Additionally, I can say James’ classroom management was par excellence. His kids behaved themselves. You could tell if you got a kiddo James had worked with. They were polite. And British-sounding.

Regardless, I do know this: James did shit. James got shit done. Most motherfuckers (me included) bitch and complain about how things are and how sad and crappy the world is and do fuck all about it. James put the work in to change the world. And he did. He was a great fucking guy. So, here is mess of pictures I took at volunteering events James asked me to attend (he needed someone to take pictures for social media and showing to investors or something):

James, the Autodidact

I don’t have a bunch of pictures of this, but James was constantly learning skills. Instruments, languages, painting and stuff like this. He read self-help books and paid attention to things like ‘careers’, ‘LinkedIn’, ‘clean underwear’ and ‘loan payments’.

James eventually gave me his piano, I think. I’m not sure. I do remember I started learning the piano after he moved from this apartment.

James was also a reporter/writer at Word Magazine- once the largest ex-pat magazine in Ho Chi Minh City. He got me my first job taking photos. I worked with the word for a long time. James was always so vibrant and busy and creative. He wrote beautifully and his editing game was strong.

James, Celebrating Guy Fawkes Day

Here’s a collection of photos from three of my birthday parties, which James always attended. Further, he always brought a present. His manners are beyond reproach.

James, Regulating

I’m from Iowa. I’m midwestern nice and also a huge pushover, generally. I had never been around someone with standards when they went out to eat. I would have difficulty sending back a plate if it had feces on it. And if I’m asked if I liked the meal, the answer is always “yes”. James was the first person I had ever seen send a plate back. This was in 2010 in HCMC. I was writhing with discomfort the remainder of the meal. Multiple times during a road trip we took in the states a member of the waitstaff at whatever restaurant we were at would come up and ask, “How is everything?” and James would say, “I didn’t enjoy this- it was not very good.” and I would go into cardiac arrest. He had standards and he would answer questions people asked honestly. Most people don’t do this. James was also really good at feedback. He would tell you with all candor what he thought about a piece of writing or theater or a movie or some art, even if it was yours and he thought it was terrible. He would give incredibly constructive criticism. He was an excellent writer, too. I liked when he proofed my stuff. Here are some pictures of us at restaurants. Many of these are for birthdays. I can’t remember whose birthdays or if they were just get-togethers, but whatever. There’s a funny series where Jackie told everyone you could open a wine bottle by snugging it into a shoe heel and pounding it into a wall. The bottle shattered in my hand, slicing it to ribbons. Spilled an entire bottle of wine all over the already perilous marble steps of my building and tainted the fish pond on ground level. Fuckin’ Jackie.

James, Fluent in Vietnamese

James had a hate/love/hate relationship with Vietnam. Despite this, he learned the language. He was very good at Vietnamese- his dấu were on point! He couldn’t practice, though, because many people would refuse to speak to him owing to the fact that they were too focused on his whiteness to consider that he was speaking their language. At the end of 2010, James had this interaction with a banana lady I will never forget. I took a bunch of photos. She tried to rip him off, super gonzo-style. He was arguing with her in Vietnamese and she was laughing and super uncomfortable. James kept thrusting the money at her and telling her it was a fair price (it was!). He was incensed about this interaction for 2 or 3 weeks. It was very funny. James makes some real ‘James’ faces in this series, too.

There’s a few more pictures. I’m just going to post them. This has taken 6 hours. I’ll make some notes on the photos.

These will be some photos from just before James left Vietnam and some from our road trip, plus a few miscellaneous ones.