For Dave

Dave's funeral is tomorrow. We still haven't heard from Zach.

Dave and another Marine had an apartment near Camp Pendleton and Zach stayed with them most of the time.

Just before Thanksgiving, Zach's girlfriend's dad accidently smashed the side of his car in their driveway in San Diego. He felt terrible about it and put in the shop for repairs. Zach needed transportation in the meantime (Camp Pendleton is at least an hour from San Diego), so Dad rented a car. Because of technicality issues, the car was in Dad's name and he was supposed to be the only one to drive it.

I got a panicked phone call late Thanksgiving night. It was Zach saying the rental car had been stolen.

Holy crap.

Zach had let Dave borrow the car to take his girlfriend home - or pick her up, I'm not sure which - and when he came out of her apartment, the car was gone.

We agonized over what to do, until finally Zach decided to call the cops to report it.

After the cops got there, they found the car. It hadn't been stolen. Dave had forgotten where he parked it.

He was my kind of guy.