11. Becoming A Family Under The Worst Circumstances
I was working out of town, which is pretty common in my line of work, touring with bands. We had just started a new tour with an artist, but as a crew, a bunch of us had been working for several artists over the last few years. When you work these long hours, sometimes under ridiculous pressure and circumstances, and live on a tour bus, sleeping a few feet away from 11 other grown adults, one of two things happen:
- You just get in with it, drink away any sadness you have from being so exhausted and missing your family and friends because you haven’t seen them in months
- Or you become incredibly close, like a family. You’re together through everything, long incredibly hard days, or experiencing the joy of something or somewhere new.
On this particular tour, it was going to be a smaller group of us than the last tour. No need for a video technician. But we really liked the video technician. We had done a year or two together, and he was a really great kid. Always saw the bright side of everything. You could always count on him to have a smile on his face, no matter how many hours we had been working.
Lucky for the tour, more video equipment was added, and so he came out to join us right as we were going into rehearsals for the tour.
We went through a week of rehearsals, then took a ferry to Victoria from Vancouver, to start the tour. First show done, we all had such a great time, a really easy first day; load in (the install) went quickly, the show went off without a hitch, and we finished a few hours earlier than we expected.
We went to back to the hotel to get some food and have a drink. Our rooms were next to each other. It was a nice spring night, we sat outside on our adjoining balconies. He was a wine expert, he loved red wine. I had an unopened bottle of red in my room, and he had an unopened bottle of white in his room, which he knew I liked. He leaned over his railing to pass me a bottle, which I easily grabbed from him, the balconies were so close together. So I passed him the bottle of red from my room.
But he slipped, on the wet balcony.
After this point, I have no memory of any sounds. But everyone on the tour staying on that side of the hotel, heard me screaming.
I saw him go over the railing. I saw him hit the side of the hotel. And I saw him land, 50′ below me.
I ran to the elevator, yelled at the front desk to call 911 on my way past. But it was too late. It wouldn’t have mattered.
I got to him and looked into his eyes and they were lifeless. A large piece of the back of his head was a few feet from us. I held his hand and sobbed that I was sorry until a security guard pulled me off.
From that day, we were a tour family, connected by the worst bond imaginable.
