It was obvious when you observed Robnoxious with his wild eyes, rockstar hair, and verbose posturing that he’d perish one day of a heroin overdose.

He ran an arts collective out of an old fur vault in the depressed, decrepit mill town down the road from the state college with its drunk and horny boys and girls and disaffected townies with moms and dads who taught and their bitter counterparts with moms and dads who ran the garage or the cleaners or the package store. It was a fire trap, a dark and dirty hole; it was the only place in fifty miles where anything unpredictable or new was happening.

He held a photography exhibit on the theme of dog feces. I stood with Rob and the woman whose work was on display. “What I’m saying is, art is the same as the shit that comes out of a dog’s ass,” she explained. Robnoxious nodded approvingly.

My band played there a few times. Once we opened up for a herky jerky prog-rock ensemble. Or did they open up for us?

“Everybody’s gotta die,” sang the singer. “Everybody’s gotta die.”

For the longest time I thought he was saying everybody’s got a dime.

Up the road I was still taking classes in the vain hopes of a degree. Rob was in an American lit seminar with me. He was loud, argumentative, disruptive almost. Always had to disagree. We were reading Henry Miller. I remember him saying the word bourgeois with his punk American sneer: bore JWAH. No one in class liked him much, least of all the teacher. But you know? He said something. He opened up his mouth. And now he’s dead.