Remembering Charlie

Before I begin this remembrance, let’s set the scene correctly. It’s before dawn on a weekday morning in early winter at the Starbucks at 5th and Lamar. An amber light emanates from within the store, light that’s just a bit darker than late summer’s tallow honey. And Charlie, probably in a burgundy pull-over knit shirt and dark grey slacks, is sitting in the corner, tapping away at his notebook computer. You know he’s sending somebody emails. He looks up and sees blue-black grackles gathering one by one on the telephone wires; then it’s two-by-two; and then it’s an entire, raucous flock. These are birds that don’t really sing so much as declare themselves and hang question marks in the air. And he thinks to himself that the birds’ gathering is a kind of omen. There’s the faintest hint of a smile.

When you know somebody for around 15 years—and have regular conversations that were hardly ever what you would call “small talk”—you will—if only because of repeated exposure—pick up themes in that person’s life, patterns: their ways of perceiving the world. 

Charlie and I pretty quickly realized we weren’t gonna do small talk. We were gonna talk about our lives, childhood, women, failures, anxieties, the life of the spirit, work, and family: the whole gamut. 

These were conversations that you can’t really summarize. Or replace. Then when others would amble toward the table in the mornings, we’d put all those topics away. We’d settle into the carnival atmosphere one would expect from a table with a bunch of guys of a certain age… who had only one common interest: beautiful women. Let me pause for a moment to remember the names of the Starbucks Beauty Pageant winners: Kristin, Michaela, Jackie, Shelby, and Sage. And those beautiful women—who were just trying to get their coffee and safely go about their days—had only one common interest: absolutely zero interest in a table with a bunch of guys of a certain age. 

One of the first things you would notice about Charlie was he had the ultimate poker face. He could be holding a golden hand, let’s say a royal flush, or a cold plate of suck and you wouldn’t be able to tell it by his expression. 

But, let me be clear: He had a poker face, yes. But he was anything but a detached or cool personality. Charlie was wound tight. He was, in a way, tenacious. 

You would also notice that Charlie was a creature of habit and routine. He was highly disciplined, you might even say obsessive. He had rituals. There were places that he would always go. Hyde Park Grill. Starbucks. Mozart’s. There was a rigorous… Olympian-style… workout routine he would put himself through most every morning. 

He was disciplined in other ways. He was reading at least two books at any one time: one of which would have to be about self-improvement. And in those self-improvement books, which were of far higher quality than the usual crap, you’d find key passages underlined and exclamation marks. 

Pretty much every morning he carried a little clear plastic packet that contained the ways he would chemically balance himself for that day. Sometimes, there were amber-colored capsules in addition to lithium salts inside. He was always tinkering with his chemistry. 

Like I said, the guy was wound tight. 

In later years, you got this feeling that Charlie was, every night, negotiating with various spirits and forces… just to be able to get to sleep. He was also managing, as best he could, growing and mysterious pains. He had all these various tricks, including taking a bath and eating a certain kind of meal. 

You know… generally speaking… we are all mysteries to each other. And when you get right down to it, we don’t really understand what another person’s pain—whether physical or emotional—is like. We may think we have some, limited understanding. But we really don’t. 

I should add at this point that… I think… around the edges of Charlie’s terrific discipline and many routines… you would occasionally catch a glimpse of a young boy… who had experienced either regular disrespect or some traumatic breach of trust. 

For what seemed like a small forever, Charlie was working diligently on “the screenplay.” Oh, my god, the screenplay! And so he was always in front of a computer screen. I don’t know a single thing about that screenplay. But I happen to believe, that every single day, he was working with great care and love on a much bigger screenplay. In that one, we all had roles. Mine was a bit part. His family were the stars. And that screenplay, my friends, got produced. 

He also had a characteristic gesture, hands pointing upward, as he said, “The guidance isn’t allowing me to do that now.” The guidance. By guidance, he meant: the world of the spirit. He would regularly submit himself to and honor the world of the spirit. 

Sometimes, in the middle of our conversations, I’d bumble into some keen observation and he’d point at me and yell, “Brujo!” I had no idea what that word meant… until I looked it up after his death. 

Then, of course, there was Charlie’s dancing. Some mornings you’d get to hear… little, tense scenes from the night before. Dance halls (or just dance floors) are places where everybody’s unresolved issues from high school play themselves out. Oh, I know it’s more than that. It’s a fun night. Or so I hear. But there are some familiar themes from high school. The most graceful, beautiful, and swift are, again, to be admired. There are mating displays. There are dance-partner squabbles. Tough conversations in the parking lot. It’s a perpetual prom night, except prom nights don’t have the grim knowledge that only comes with decades: the knowledge that things will suck and that you aren’t the King or Queen of your world. 

I now think of these dance nights as a somewhat weathered Adam and Eve returning to the 

Garden after a decade and a half or so in a broken world. With the distance of time, wouldn’t they share little inside jokes about the snake? Wouldn’t they put on a few old records and dance a bit closer… in the full knowledge of how quickly all that is Eden can be ripped away… will be ripped away? There is something… different… richer… in the joy that knows the reality of despair. 

The most important theme of Charlie’s life, by far, was… his absolute adoration of and devotion to his family. “Vovo,” I think, loved being the patriarch. He loved being useful to and supportive of every family member. He took pride in their achievements. 

He told me once about his El Paso Congressional race in 1992 that… had he won it… he would have lost everything that was his soul. He would have lost his family… to ambition and ego. He knew how he would have been tempted. 

And another theme in Charles’ life was a near limitless capacity to advocate for people and issues. When he was committing himself to a cause, there would be no holding back. He didn’t have the usual 10% setting. It was 187% or nothing at all. He stood up for forgotten homeowners who experienced regular flooding. He stood up for people who were being beaten down just because of their ethnicity. He always stood up and was counted. And he was always right. 

And, of course, that advocacy meant he’d send something like 2000 emails every month… to make sure that everybody in a three-county or three-nation area knew where he stood, what he stood for, and why it mattered to the world. 

He was a fighter. I think he had been fighter his entire life. That constant urge to go to battle—and the energy to do so—propelled him into a great Little League Baseball career. It led him to be a young superstar in El Paso commercial real estate. He then created El Paso’s Hispanic Chamber. Ran for Congress. The guy was set on go. And if you’d ever been in the uncomfortable position of trying to STOP him from going into battle, let me tell you… that was no easy task. And, in reality, the best you could do… was delay the inevitable. 

The only true words I’ve ever written are these: There are no saints on Twitter. But finishing a close second in truth-telling are these words: There are 3 types of people in the world. 

The first type was Instagrammable before there was Instagram. These are folks, fewer in number than social-media status updates might indicate, who’ve never experienced gut-wrenching tragedies or setbacks. They live pretty lives. They think pretty, sunshiny thoughts. And so they’ve never accepted the invitation that grief offers: An invitation to think about life in fuller ways. 

The second type? Well, this a larger group. These folks have had as many setbacks as the rest of us. Maybe even more. And they DO accept the invitation that grief has sent them. They spend a month or even six months wondering about their lives… their roles in their tragedies… how to be better and do better. But… and you know how this… old habits die hard. And, bit by bit, day by day, the memory of loss or great disappointment fades and they return to the habits and ways of dealing with the world that feel so comfortable. Oh, they will tell you, they have changed. But they haven’t. 

Then there is the third type. These are the folks you want to know. The people you admire and want to be around. They’ve experienced loss and tragedy. They’ve accepted the invitation that grief sent them. And they then spend the rest of their lives tinkering with their own formulae, learning more about how to live a life that is kinder, more attuned to what really matters, a life that doesn’t damn others but lifts them up. 

Charlie was in the third group. He was always fighting and trying to improve. And he left the world a far better place than the way he found it.

So, Charlie—the fighter, the dancer, the man of many routines and great discipline—is now in the company of God. And, I assure you, he is helping God fish out the 20,000 or so emails Charlie sent him over the years… from God’s gigantic spam filter.

The last time I saw Charlie… on this earth… I knew he was dying. You get to a certain age and you know these things. But I’m choosing to not remember Charlie that way. 

You see, he visited me one last time in a dream the night after he died. In that dream, he and I were on a Hollywood set with all kinds of extras and actors. He seemed absolutely at home in this environment. So did I, for that matter. He came by a table where I was visiting with some the crew… just to say goodbye. We shook hands. Something we seldom ever did in life. And then… he was gone. 

And, at least for now, we leave our subject where we found him. Maybe we don’t want to leave. But we have to. Charlie’s sitting in the corner of the Starbucks, on a weekday winter morning, marveling at the raucous, prophetic birds. Even they will soon be leaving, leaving the way they came: in ones and twos, then in swooping waves. Not all of them though. A few older or more stubborn of their members will remain, situated like sparse notes on a mysterious scale. 

Goodbye, Charlie. The pain of this place is no longer your pain. You are free. Thank You, Charlie, thank you for everything. 

Chris Maher