Eulogy for a Friend

Eulogy for a Friend

    Richard Coggins died on my sixty-fifth birthday, four years ago. Since then, it’s difficult for me to be one-hundred percent happy on April 6 because sometime during the day, I will think of Rich. What’s particularly painful is I already had an airplane ticket to visit Rich the very next week.

I made it to Tennessee the day after his service. Rich’s mother and the folks at the assisted living facility in Clarksville were pleased to see me, and they shared how excited Rich was that I was coming, so I guess he died happy. Some consolation, I guess.

In 1975 Rich and I were in the Air Force together, we met when stationed at an airbase in northern Italy; we shared a dorm. Our jobs were to provide night shift security for the aircraft at the base. After we got off duty we often played chess well into the afternoon. We shared bottles of cherry brandy, early Elton John records, cigarettes, and a whole lot of conversation. I was twenty-two, and he was a year younger and both of us a long way from home.

As security guards, we had a couple of close calls with groups like the Italian Red Brigade and the Baader-Meinhof Red Army Faction whose members wanted the United States military out of Italy. One or the other shot at us a couple of times at night, but we survived those encounters; it was the cigarettes that eventually got Rich.

Long before his health failed, though, there was one time I thought I was going to lose him: a traffic accident. We traveled from our armory to the guard stations in a large vehicle that was basically a painted Air Force-blue version of a school bus. Rich was driving that night in the fog, failed to see the cargo van stalled on the road, and plowed into its rear. Seatbelts were still new in 1976 and Rich, not wearing one, hit the windshield. I was with him when he awoke from his concussion three days later. We played a lot of chess in the hospital until his release.

Our chess games led to many debates and discussions. Rich was a Democrat and I a Republican. Rich also had political aspirations of his own: he wanted to be a senator from Tennessee and vowed to take on the Gore family dynasty someday. Sure, I said, and I’ll be your political advisor. (Vocalized words take on a life of their own, but I didn’t know that then.)

There’s a saying that when we are drinking we tend to say out loud what we think of when we were sober, so it should not be so surprising when the truth sneaks out of the alcohol. At one of our barracks booze-based blowouts, Rich put his hand on the knee of another airman who reported the encounter the next day.

In those days, it was pretty much against the law to be gay and a person who admitted it in the military would be court-martialed out of the service. Rich denied every accusation and nothing was proven about his sexual leanings. None the less, doubt crept into the barracks, the other airmen stayed away from Rich, and I remained his sole friend. A few months later, Rich was reassigned to a base in England, and I went to a base in Texas.

Rich and I stayed in contact, especially after any major election year. We would often debate the pros and cons of each candidate, trying to sway the other to our own political viewpoints. Rich, later reassigned to a base in North Dakota, came to visit me in person and the debates would go deep into the early mornings fueled by bourbon and pizza. Rich continued to express his desire to enter the senatorial race in Tennessee, and he started taking classes at night towards a political science degree.

One year, Rich invited me to his family’s house for the annual Memorial Day celebration. I would meet many of his friends and family, was given a gallon of really smooth moonshine as a present, and heartily enjoyed the roast pig that the cooks had buried in a pit and covered with coals.

During this visit Rich confessed to me he finally accepted that he might be gay after all; however, he was intending to marry a high school sweetheart anyway and prayed his feelings would sort themselves out. He asked me to be the best man.

The marriage was two months later, and I returned to Nashville to stand beside Rich. I toasted the new couple and wished the bride, Caroline, well as a new military wife. Rich gave me a silver banded ring as a thank you gift.

Rich and Caroline split up within the year. Seems he bared his soul to her, and she was not ready to understand or analyze the relationship, but she was angry enough to report Rich to his commander. Unable to recant or call his wife a liar, Rich was relieved from duty. Caroline left that week and filed for divorce when she got back to Tennessee.

Rich’s enlistment would expire in a few months, so the legal beagles saved the cost of the court-martial and let Rich serve the next sixty days doing menial work around the base. Once discharged, he came to stay with me for a few weeks and we rehearsed conversations he would have with his mother and others he knew would confront him when he got home.

Rich faced the music alone, although he would call and update me every couple of days. He got through the months as well as he could and moved from Nashville to Clarksville. He entered college full time and focused his energy on his degree program.

In 1987, Rich got a position on Senator Al Gore Jr’s staff. This was one of the major highlights of Rich’s life and I’d never seen him as happy as then. He also fell in love again, with another man who worked in politics. Both the job and the relationship lasted until Gore became the vice president of the United States 1993. The Gore team offered a position in Washington to Rich’s boyfriend but not to him. Rich was despondent for weeks, but we talked enough that in time he backed away from the ledge and started forming his own plan to run for senate.

Now, about that political advisor promise from years ago. When Al Gore departed Tennessee politics, Republicans came to dominate the senatorial positions, and Rich wanted to take them on head-to-head. He believed he had made enough political connections and had the financial support to run for senator.

He and I had many long telephone calls discussing the what-ifs and wherefores about running. One pain point though, kept coming up: was Tennessee ready for a gay senator?

We rehearsed debates where his opponents would likely attack his sexuality. We talked about how his mother would handle the gossip from neighbors and church members. We even went to the possibility that Caroline and their failed marriage would enter the mudslinging (she had remarried and now had two young sons).

These telephone meetings and a couple of face-to-face trips went on for years. I was now retired from the service and had a family; I was starting a new career in business. Rich never dropped the pressure, though, on my promise that if he did get elected senator I would be his advisor in Washington. Sure, I said, but my instincts told me I needn’t worry about it too much.

Each time we talked, I could hear the hoarseness in his voice getting worse, and I noticed he coughed more and more. He admitted he still smoked over a pack a day.

Over the next few years, despite his convictions, Rich never followed through with any of his political plans. His health deteriorated; he had COPD. He started writing his personal memoirs, although he had used a journal off and on for years. I kept promising to come out to visit, but my own life kept interrupting any plans I tried to make.

In January 2019, I had one more call from Rich and he all but begged for me to come to Clarksville. I made the commitment for the week after my birthday, but you already know this story does not have a happy ending.

Rich’s mother had set aside for me the onyx chess table and brass pieces we used in Italy over forty years ago; she kept his journals and notes. We hugged and cried together.

On that trip, I wore the ring Rich gave me on his wedding day, but I now have it safely put away in a drawer, along with my remorse.