Dinah and Rich immigrated to the United States in 2007. Dinah quickly became Carren’s best friend and Rich became the closest thing I ever had to a son. Dinah’s husband had died a few years before when they were still in Kenya, so Rich grew up with hardly any memories of his father. Dinah lamented that Rich didn’t have an adult male influence in his life and she thought I could fulfill that role.
Not having a clue how to approach this new role, I just played it by ear. She would drop him off for a weekend at our house and we would get in as much trouble as possible without female supervision, unless Carren was home and we had to behave. We had marathon sessions on the PlayStation until the wee hours, or until Carren would wake up and come to the basement with a stern look that needed no words.
Rich didn’t grow up with American sports, but we watched enough Reds and Bengals games at our house that he became quickly familiar, and of course there was the Premier League. He didn’t have a favorite team and I’m a Liverpool fanatic, so he watched Liverpool games with me and at least pretended to support them.
It turned out that we had the same taste in movies, or he was going along and following my lead. Either way, many a weekend included a trip to AMC and a couple buckets of popcorn, with the agreement that, “I won’t tell your mom if you don’t tell my wife.” We thought we were being slick, but I figure our women knew about the excessive popcorn consumption and just chose not to say anything. We were living large in conspiratorial glory, though.
The first time we went out in my canoe was a lively affair. He had never been in a canoe before and I’m something of an old hand, having had one for twenty years. Here we were in a perfect afternoon on Winton Woods Lake, paddling away, and something caught his attention. He moved one way and the canoe started rocking, nothing serious, but a little swaying. I wasn’t worried. Rich, on the other hand, overreacted and shifted his weight too far the other way and there was nothing I could do. In a moment we were in the lake and the canoe was upside down. We swam to shore, dragging the canoe behind us, got everything back to my van, and prepared to head home. Unfortunately, the clasp on the dry box wasn’t secure and water got in, ruining my cell phone. This was during my over the road days, so I had extra clothes in the sleeper area of my van, so we got in the back of the van and changed clothes. He was 13 at the time and quite a bit smaller than me, so when we arrived home with Rich wearing my baggy khakis and a polo, my wife thought the look to be quite comical.
The next few years followed this trend, especially after I quit driving over the road. He spent weekend after weekend at our house, playing video games, attending Reds and Bengals games, going to movies, going to church, and talking about life. I was watching this kid mature into a young man right before my eyes, and eventually he grew right past me, topping six feet by the time he was 17. Then came graduation and a full ride academic scholarship to a small university in Alabama. Three years went by and he would stop by when he was in town, coming back up here during college breaks and during the summers. Last summer he took a job until it would be time to go back to school.
His boss had seats in the Champions Club at GABP and sometimes Rich would call me last minute and say that he had tickets for a game. We would go to the game, gorge ourselves on the free food, and catch up. How was work going? How was my current novel coming along, etc. On June 6, he called me about 6:15 pm.
“Got tickets for tonight, you feel like going?”
“I’m pretty wiped out. It’s been a long day.”
“Come on, it will be fun. All you can eat.”
“I don’t have time to pick you up and make the game.”
“I’ll just meet you there.”
“Ok.”
We met at GABP, grabbed a ridiculous amount of food, and went to our seats, and witnessed Scooter Gennett’s four home run game. When the fourth ball sailed over the wall, we both stood there jumping up and down like little boys and screaming our heads off.
Rich went back to school, then went to visit friends in Colorado for Christmas break, since his mother had gone back to Kenya for a few days and wasn’t expected back in the States until around New Years.
Fast forward to December 23. Carren does home care on weekends and this one was no different. She was taking care of an elderly lady in her home and I was home by myself. I woke up that morning to the sound of my phone vibrating on the night stand. Carren was calling. What in the world would she be calling me about at this hour on a Saturday morning? I answered and she didn’t respond right away. I said hello again and then I heard her crying. She finally composed herself and all she could manage to say was, “Pray for Dinah, Rich is dead.”
More tears and finally she managed to tell me that it had been a car accident in Denver. Someone went left of center and he was killed instantly in a head on collision. That was a rough Christmas and the months since then haven’t been easy either. What started out as watching some kid for the weekend had developed into something more. He was like a son, and eventually a close friend. When I started writing my novels, I could bounce ideas off him and he would help me come up with character names. It was a mutually beneficial relationship, a boy without a father and a grown man without a son. It just worked. Now every time Scooter hits a homer, I think about him. That was the last time I saw him alive, yelling our fool heads off at GABP.
So that’s how a 21 year old Kenyan and Scooter Gennett will always be inextricably linked in my mind, and how the success of one will always bring memories of the other. Reds in peace Rich.
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