Remembering Dennis "D.J." Jackson

I don’t expect everyone to appreciate what I write here, but D.J. will. And, if he doesn’t, he ain’t here to defend himself. So fuck ‘im.

He might have been the most cantankerous person I ever met. I’m pretty sure he was. Stood about five foot three and weighed maybe a buck and a quarter soaking wet, he had a voice as big as Dave “Six Days on the Road” Dudley’s. Most people these days knew him as a guy in a wheel chair who played guitar. He performed for small audiences all over Topeka with his service dog Satin and his backup singer Donna right up to the week he died. He could light up a room with his music or depress the literal shit out of you, depending on his mood. He loved making enemies almost as much as he loved making music, but I was destined to remain his friend.

I only want to tell a little story about him that happened last fall. It was just one of a hundred idle conversations until he let loose a thunderbolt that changed my life. Our best conversations were about martial arts because we are both rather warlike people. Most of his friends today probably didn’t know he had achieved the rank of brown belt in kajukendo when he had a stroke twenty years ago that left him with Tourette’s syndrome and difficulty walking. Even after the stroke, he attempted to adapt many of his techniques to the wheel chair. Twenty years later, he still loved to talk about the beauty and power and grace of martial arts.

It was during one of those conversations last fall when he asked me how I was doing. I knew he meant the chronic depression that I have had all my life. I wasn’t doing well at the time, and so, since he asked, I told him. I said, “Oh, I just keep having these thoughts that I’m no good. I shouldn’t be alive. I’m a failure at everything I do.” D.J. stopped me and said, “You wouldn’t let anybody else talk to you that way, would you?” I froze. I had nothing to say. I stuttered a few times. Then I said, no I wouldn’t. I couldn’t believe how clear that was. We had just been talking about fighting. How much we loved it. How it clears your mind. And he very blandly pointed out that I was beating myself up. I was my own worst enemy. If D.J. was the most cantankerous person I ever met, that was the most enlightening conversation I have ever had. That made more sense than anything any shrink or priest or book ever told me. And I got the point. Did D.J. cure my depression? Hell no. He just made me a better fighter.

Now that he’s gone, I hope somebody else will step up and be just as big a son-of-a-bitch as he was. I’m going to need more kicks in the balls to get me through this life.