princess and chris

i first met chris bartok at university, in the midst of my painful sophomore year. caltech was a very small school [900 students] but was shockingly segregated into the 7 different houses. my friend maria decided to hook up the only two openly gay students she knew, me and chris. after lots of chatting online [back in those days it was through unix shell prompts at the ugcs cluster], he finally persuaded me to pop over to his room in dabney house to say hi.

it was one of my first times crossing the olive walk in months—it was unusual for anyone to actually visit the other houses. as his door opened, i couldn’t believe my eyes… cute boys [from off campus!], random girls, people chopping up coke or speed, and a few uniformed security guards hanging out with some booze. it was the most unpredictably shockingly decadent scene i could’ve imagined happening at my sleepy little school.

chris and i became fast friends… he never ever attended classes or did any homework until several weeks after it was due. yet, he was brilliant, and always was there to help with my cs 144 or ama 95 problem sets. so many evenings i’d be sat in my room in lloyd house, and hear chris coming down the hall… some cocktail shaking loudly in his cocktail shaker, two martini glasses clanking in-between his fingers. he’d come in, not say a word, sit on the floor [he hated sitting on couches, chairs] and pour the cocktails. sometimes i wouldn’t even acknowledge his presence for 10 or 20 minutes just to play with him. he was quirky, but that’s why i loved him.

chris on my floor, as always

he was one of my first gay friends, and, being local to southern california, he introduced me to my first clubs and bars, like magic wednesdays and the coconut teaser. we’d have coffee and pretend to do homework at the abbey [back when it was a sleepy café and not a trendy bar] and gossip about all of the asexual/straight/confused/page boys at school.

in 1998, just after my 21st birthday, i dropped out of school and snuck over to london for a few months to sort myself out and live life a little. i had a brilliant awakening, started to actually live life, and this inspired chris to follow in my footsteps. he moved to london just as i was returning to california, and, through laziness or just coincidence, he ended up taking over my java programming job at the webdesign company i was working at, and, also ended up moving in with my wild flatmates [princess, elden, alon, nicola and the new guy, duane who i eventually tricked into being my boyfriend and is now one of my best friends].

i returned to london a few months later, and chris and i went on a tir na nog tour across southern ireland, where we lived off of guinness [skinny chris always outdrinking me by a factor of 2 or 3], were always getting in trouble [getting lost, breaking furniture in the hostels, missing the bus] and just having a wicked time.

there was constant sexual chemistry between the two of us, and it manifested itself in a variety of ways, usually ending up in friendly slumber parties and drunken snogs. i remember him as being so intelligently bitchy, but at the same time so understatedly caring. the last time i spoke to chris was when my sweet friend steve committed suicide a few years ago, and he called to break the news to me. the three of us were close, but over recent years we had each let the friendship deteriorate.

i found out today that chris‘ body was found in the potomac river in washington, dc where he was attending law school. he was last seen at bar celebrating the end of finals with his friends. foul play is suspected.

i wish i had a chance to say goodbye to chris, to see his big ears and big smile, to share one more cocktail and take one more late-night stroll around campus. i hope he and steve are having a wicked party up in heaven right now, which i’ll be joining in due time. take care, babe.