Remembering an old friend: Driving to high school in a 1970s Mustang with no heat

Death’s bewildering nature stops us in our tracks.
When someone we know dies, we feel as if we should do something, but there’s usually nothing to do but mourn.
And mourning is a strange enterprise, specifically because those of us who survive suffer from an ineffable helplessness.
Dead is dead.
Gone is gone.
There is nothing we can do.
Deaths are even more poignant when the person didn’t make it out of their 20s or 30s.
I was scanning the headlines today and was saddened to discovered the death of an old friend.
Jevon Hollywood (born Hotchkiss) died Monday after being struck by a car on 7-Mile Road in the Detroit area, near where we both attended high school together in the suburb of Livonia. He was 34-years-old, a year older than me.
Jevon changed his last name to “Hollywood” when he became a radio DJ. I wasn’t surprised he became a popular disc jokey in Detroit. His last gig was at WDTW-FM, 106.7, The Beat.
My entire junior year, Jevon and I commuted together to a different Livonia high school for a three-hour radio and television class. This was back when I thought I was going to be the next Francis Ford Coppola and the class was the closest thing my school had in the way of film-making.
Jevon and I were the only students from Franklin High School accepted into the program at Churchill High School. He was a grade above me, but we knew each other socially, so he didn’t mind if I caught a ride with him in the morning and got a ride back to our own high school at lunch.
Even back then, Jevon had flair. We drove to the other high school in a 1970s red Ford Mustang he had somehow acquired. The car had no heat, and didn’t start reliably, but we usually made it without the help of parents.
I grew disinterested in radio and TV and dropped the course the next year. But Jevon kept going.
A few years later, I wasn’t surprised to hear him on the radio. He was also well known around town for hosting parties and other radio-related events.
I last saw him at one of these maybe five or six years ago. He was standing up on a podium with a microphone, pumping up the crowd at the bar a friend and I were at.
We shared a drink when he had a break. I asked him if he still had that old Mustang.
He smiled -- he had an infectious smile -- and said he’d gotten rid of that piece of crap years earlier and had moved on to a nicer car.
We shared a couple of memories about riding to school in the winter and having to be real bundled up because it didn’t have any heat.
We chatted for a few more minutes then drifted out of each other’s lives again.
Until now.
I wasn’t surprised to read in the Free Press’s account of his death that Jevon was probably drunk at 5 a.m. and walked in front of a moving car while it was raining.
Like many of those who bring bright, electric joy into our lives, Jevon lived fast.
But it doesn’t mean he had to die so young.