I met Spencer when I was 13. My first memories of him are not very flattering.

In 1994 I had moved for the 4th time in 7 years from Clewiston Florida to Savanna IL. Moving to Savanna had been difficult for me. I was happy to escape Clewiston and all the problems and violence I experienced there, but in a way it was out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Savanna was a crumby little cracker town. Poverty was bad and nearly anyone with any education had left. So 8th grade was a hard year. I was a quiet dorky kid and Savanna offered very few options for friends and no space to hide from bullies.

Spencer mostly singled me out as a link weaker the himself and engaged in some minor bullying of me. But I think eventually based on the fact he himself really only had one or two friends in Savanna eventually opened up and started talking to me.

I think he was mostly very bored. There weren’t very many kids around Savanna who had parents with a college education and I think I was a novelty in that regard. So we started hanging out. Mostly playing video games and some pen and paper A&D&D. We had similar interests in Science Fiction, Computers and Games. Eventually we became pretty good friends.

I wouldn’t say Spencer and my relationship was one of special magical friendship. He could be a major asshole. For example in 9th Grade I’m fairly certain he’s the jerk who stuck an extremely large pillow maxi-pad to the outside of my locker to embarrass me. I’m not sure why he did that. I think it was because he wanted me to hang out with him rather then play football, but whatever, studying the motivations of a 14 year old boy isn’t really worth much time.

Spencer had a good friend in 9th grade named Jared. In 9th and 10th grade Spencer and I grew apart a bit because I think Jared’s “coolness” and total lack of parental supervision meshed better with him. But at the beginning of 10th Grade Jared moved away and Spencer was stuck with only me again and we were pretty much think as thieves until the middle Senior year of high school.

I spent most of 10th and 11th grade getting into trouble with Spencer. We engaged in some fairly serious risky behavior. I’m fairly lucky that neither of us was hurt or hurt anyone else in any significant way. Spencer had a real nose for finding trouble to get into. Mostly involving trying to meet Girls who were at best vaguely interested in a pair of fairly twerpy guys or engaging in mild substance abuse. Spencer and I were a bad combination because I was pretty willing to push limits with him. I think we enjoyed the excitement of a partnership in crime. I’ve been “arrested” twice, both times were doing something stupid with Spencer. I do regret some of the behavior Spencer and I exhibited. I suppose some of this is shame that I really do miss some of it. We’d run around at trying to game a situation. It was pretty exciting. Together we weren’t afraid to do things that individually we would never have done.

Spencer could be fairly selfish and manipulative. He spent most of high school cheating to maintain his valedictorian status. He was a total kleptomaniac. He’d steal pretty much anything that wasn’t nailed down just to see if he could. He would steal all kind of random things from peoples houses he visited. He really liked shoplifting and was pretty much a specialist in it. I doubt he was ever caught doing it. He had no issue passing a bad check if he didn’t think it would come back to haunt him.

When I was 17 I finally got a serious girl friend who I developed an unhealthy attachment to. Probably the good thing about that relationship is that I grew apart form Spencer and started looking forward in life to something more. My relationship with Spencer was very much about our selfish enjoyment and chasing the next high. Having a serious girl friend pushed a wedge between Spencer and my bro-mance and by the end of our senior year we weren’t really talking.

I do regret how our relationship just fizzled out that way. I had become a little burned out on his lifestyle. While Spencer was really fun him basically being a criminal would make you not trust him. He also had a fairly exploitive relationship with a girlfriend that I wasn’t comfortable with. My girlfriend also basically hated him so that was that. We had some minor falling outs where I was kind of an asshole to him that I deeply regret. Sadly, I didn’t even say goodbye when he left for college.

The last time I saw Spencer was Spring 2004. I had just graduated college and was about to get married. We visited Kyle who was living in Chicago at the time. We went out, got drunk. Stole something from some asshole’s house and blundered about Chicago. I remember publicly urinating in the loop somewhere. It was probably not my finest hour but it was at least some closure to a relationship that felt unfinished.

Spencer and I really didn’t connect from 2004 - 2020. I think I called him about every 5 years or so. We’d have a conversation about things. It would be entertaining because our conversations always were but we didn’t have anything in common anymore. I was a married father who had a lot of responsibility in his life. Spencer was still Spencer, hustling through life. I guess he eventually became a Doctor around 2015 - 15 years after we graduated highschool.

Around New Years 2018 Spencer called me and we talked on the phone for bit. He apologized for some minor transgressions from our past and he attempted to reconnect with me by calling about every other week or so. I regret to say it but I took about two or three of his calls, then one day I didn’t pick up and I didn’t call him back. I regret this a lot because the next I heard about Spencer he was dead.

I guess he’s spent the last 15 years struggling with substance abuse problems. He’d burned many of the bridges with others and was fairly isolated. His Dad died on Feb 5 2020 and that sent him into a major bender that resulted in his death. Its unclear to me if this was on purpose or on accident, but I don’t know if it really matters. I feel a great deal of sadness because although I didn’t think Spencer and I would ever be good friends again I do think I would have enjoyed connecting with him again and going over all the crazy things we did together. Now all those memories are mine only and his side of the telling is lost.

Goodbye Spencer Kwak.