Hello,

I realize this is a little late, but I only recently uncovered the notes I

took from the day I spoke with Chad's dad. Must have been a couple of years

back... I was stationed with Chad in Scotland, in the Navy. '91-93. He was

one of my best friends there, and I missed him like hell when he transferred

out ahead of me. I kept in contact with him over the next few years, and I

remember getting a letter from him once mentioning his new found love for

racing. I could understand that, he would have loved it! That's what he was

like. That, and surfing. We tried to make plans for me to come visit, but I

had a lot going on them, having just left the Navy myself, trying to start

over, get into college, etc.

Lost track of him for awhile, heard from him again. He called one day, we

had to cut the call short. That was it.

I wrote him again when I moved to South Carolina, telling him there was no

excuse why we couldn't get together and have a few laughs now, I was right

up the coast line! I got a call a few days later from his dad, giving me the

bad news. They had received, opened and read the letter. I thought about

what a sting that must have been for the man, to lose his son like that and

then be reminded of it as he was trying to heal. I was really crushed.

I went through the next few days in a stupor, wondering what happened. Who

his friends were. Kicking myself for not getting to see him again. It was

only recently that I came across a short story I wrote about getting that

call, and decided to look it up and pay some kind of respects.

I've come full circle; out of the Navy, a few years as a civilian, back into

the Coast Guard. I wonder what he'd have to say about that.

So thank you for giving him a job, a new thrill in life, and for being his

friends. And thank you Joe McKay for your kind words. I still think of him a

lot; there were three of us that used to hang together then, a lot of good

times. I haven't heard from the other guy in a few years, but now I'm going

to try to find him. Maybe get together for a few laughs while we can.

The following is an excerpt from my book, no where near complete. I hope it

casts a favorable light on the Chad you knew...

...I was having breakfast the next morning when the phone rang. Naturally, I

answered it. The voice on the other end asked for me by name. "Speaking," I

said, hesitant. Leery. I thought it might be a collector, the small matter

of my overdue student loans. There was something about his voice. He

didn't't sound greedy or domineering. Heavy, slow. Sad. "This is Chad

Matteson's father. We got your letter a few days ago and we read it, I'm

afraid Chad's not going to be able to get in touch with you, he died back in

October in a motorcycle accident."

Oh, S---

I sat down hard on the floor, receiver still in hand.

The room got quiet. Chad Matteson and I had served two years together in the

Navy as Minemen, stationed in Macrihanish, Scotland. He looked and acted a

lot like Randall, a character in the indie-smash film 'Clerks', and he was

known as the Unknown Roommate during my humiliating stay at the Navy's Fleet

and Mine Warfare Training A-School, Charleston, South Carolina. He lived off

base with his then girlfriend, and we wouldn't see him for days. I remember

him being very approachable, no attitude, nothing. Likeable. I could almost

hear his laugh. God, that f-----g laugh of his, like he was trying to keep a

terrific force prisoner deep in his lungs, it burst out under its own power

like a shot, like a jailbreak and snorted it's way back in, his shoulders

shrugging with the effort. And the way he used to exhale air up his forehead

to resort his hair.

The year was 1992, and I worked in the component test building on the far

side of the Royal Air Force compound doing a very boring job that I won't

get into here. Anyway, when Chad got transferred to the supply department,

he'd come by in the commands' deuce and a half stake truck claiming he

needed me for some menial job. Neither one of us were worth more than the

other in the overall scheme of things, but the ploy always worked. We

didn't. Oh, don't get me wrong. He was an awesome worker, but he had things

he'd rather be doing. One of them happened to include driving around eating

microwave egg rolls and listening to thrash metal tapes; cruising the

compound on the government's dime, killing time and having a few laughs.

Life was simple then. We showed up, did our jobs, knocked off and headed to

town at the first sign of liberty.

I turned him onto a little known industrial act calling themselves '1000

Homo DJ's' and he dragged me all over Glasgow on a road trip to find their

'Supernaut' CD single. Why does that come to mind suddenly?

All the while, these memories are flooding through my head. The voice on the

other end of the line belonging to his father kept talking, telling me in

deliberate, weighty tones the details of his sons' demise. I should have

paid more attention; I should have had my priorities in order, written

something down. Its' never been a strong suit of mine.

The memories and his dad's voice kept coming, battling for my attention:

memories of the five-day concert hop we took with Ian, a road trip to

Glasgow to see Rage Against The Machine and Blind Melon; we stood in line

for four hours to see Rage, and met Blind Melon. The three of us couldn't

shut up about that for days. We each got our CD signed. Remember the way he

always laughed at the cashier at McDonalds, looking over at me in that

laughing, shrugging way? "Dude, these f-----g idiots have the window on the

wrong side! Unreal!"

When we got the word from the higher ups to close the base down, we set

aside an hour each day to throw rocks through window of the empty supply

warehouse where he worked; he always hit the window he called, like the Babe

Ruth of vandalism. He totally hated that job. I think it was his boss; his

boss was always coming down on him, heaping more on his shoulders than he

really wanted to be responsible for. This wasn't him. He had problems with

his girlfriend, too. She was a local girl. Pretty, very pretty. Hot headed.

Scottish. A lot of ugly scenes, all unnecessary. He'd get his fill and break

it off, agonizing over the love he obviously felt for this girl, and she'd

come back days later, crying, ready and willing to make up. A few days

later, they'd be at it again. Her ex-boyfriends coming to his place causing

trouble. Break up, make up. A vicious cycle.

He spoke fondly of surfing, living on or near the beach and spending his

days in a fictitious blue water paradise. And remember the shirt? He always

wore the same damn blue plaid flannel shirt. He was so f-----g anal about

keeping his room neat! The trashcan, he used to rinse out the trashcan! And

the bag had to be perfect.

All this sh--; these memories. My eyes are watering. None of it matters now.

What happened? When? I can't ask his dad, I can't bring myself to do it. I

can't even speak. My throat feels like it's been bricked over. All of this

takes place in about ten seconds and Chad's dad is still talking. I tuned

back in to hear him mention a website dedicated to Chad under Quantum

Motorcycles, something like that. I tried really hard to focus on what he

was saying, trying to get it all down. I didn't want to hear it at all, but

you know how that goes. About half of that conversation is lost to the wind.

I told his dad how sorry I was, that I was really sorry, and that Chad was a

good kid. The best. I was so sorry. A good friend. I made no sense. He was a

blast to be around, and that I'd really liked him, and we had a lot of good

times together and that I was writing a book about some of the things I had

done, places I had been and had been planning to include him in my book. I

had told him so in the last letter I sent. It suddenly occurred to me how

cruel that must have been; to lose your son and then get such a cavalier

letter from an old friend he hadn't heard from in years.

His dad replied, "Yeah we heard about the time he and Ian rolled the car."

They were coming back from seeing Faith No More, 2 in the morning, Chad

drinking salsa right out of the jar to stay awake. He nodded off, a passing

car high-fived the drivers side mirror, the next thing Chad knew they were

upside down in a ditch. Both OK, got out, walked back to the base. Laughing

about it, just another story to tell.

His dad's voice won a battle, had my attention. He went on to say that I

should write that book, because they (his parents) didn't know too much

about the Scotland years. I promised him I'd send him a copy of it. More

memories, flashing past. I didn't have so much as a picture of him, and I

could feel a lot of the contact I had with him just drifting away, like the

wreck of a cotton barge, drifting away, drifting away in the current,

washing up somewhere down stream. Never to be found, never to be seen. I see

his face again; his eyes squinted under a mop of feathered hair. Both of us

had been chewed out for our hair being too long. He kept his under an Ugly

Kid Joe hat, turned around backwards. High tops, didn't he used to wear high

tops? And a motorcycle jacket, too. That's right, he had a picture from the

back of a Guns'N'Roses album hand painted on the back, a handful of

different pins in his hat, that piece of sh-- blue Honda he rolled...

memories, all gone now. Just cotton... drifting.

I thanked his dad, hung up the phone and just sat there staring at

the cartoon network for a while, saying nothing. Tears burning in my eyes,

my throat constricted. S---.

V/R,

Thomas McKenzie SN

P.O. Box 866

Neah Bay WA.98357

tmckenzie@pacnorwest.uscg.mil

Phone: (360) 6452236

Fax: (360) 6452026

"We are what we repeatedly do."

-Aristotle