I came to know Jay through the friendship between our mothers. Both were nurses and they shared a mutual fondness for one another that manifested in family gatherings at holiday time. But it was through Jay's exploits at Jr high school that I came to know him well by way of reputation.
Mr.B. was an ancient and embittered science teacher who was called Prune Face due to the wrinkles furrowing his visage. His class was on the first floor and one day Jay gathered with a couple cohorts in the classroom directly above Mr. B.'s and wrote a message on a piece of paper. Jay then attached the communique to a length of string which was affixed with a rock. He dangled it out the window and tapped the rock on the open window below. Mr. B. who did not like to be interrupted for any reason went over to the source of disturbance and read the fluttering message, Fuck You. He promptly had a heart attack and was rushed away in an ambulance, never to return.
One day during civics class when the lights were turned off and Mr. K. manned a slide projector Jay was seated towards the middle of class directly behind Robin S. In an act of acquiescence that would later see her labeled a whore and him a casanova Robin allowed jay to fondle her breasts through out Mr. K.'s slide show presentation.
Not one in favor of a full day of schooling Jay found an ideal place to skip classes. It was up in the rafters of the building several feet above the drop ceiling. He would lurk over classrooms below and giggle with his fellow class skippers at what they were getting away with. It was a perfect set up and remained so until the morning Jay slipped off the rafters and came crashing down through the drop ceiling and bounced off someone's desk mid-sentence in Mr. Pasternak's history lesson.
When we were both fifteen a youth center opened up in town. It served as a nexus of our overlapping circles of friends and soon I was hanging out with Jay off and on. One night with another friend we perpetrated a burglary. But most nights we just hung out drinking beer, smoking pot, and enjoying one another's company.
Then one night in Jay's sixteenth year he went missing. The days that followed were marked by worry and rumor. Some weeks passed before his badly decomposed body was found.
The wake was duly noted as a sad affair by attendant reporters and photographers. For most of the young mourners who numbered in the hundreds it was there first encounter with death. The music in the funeral parlor was Jay's favorites, all rock and roll. Atop the closed casket was a framed and ghostly black and white photo of Jay. It would later grace the front pages of local newspapers with accompanying stories of his unsolved murder. On the day of the funeral I served with five others as a pallbearer.
After a couple weeks without the murder leading to arrest I wrote a letter to a local newspaper in which I said that even though I often called cops pigs I would help solve the crime in any way I could. This led to two detectives paying me a visit. They questioned me and showed me what evidence they had up until then. There were two different suspects who looked a lot alike. And each also happened to own a red van, a vehicle in which Jay was last seen alive.
In those years Connecticut unlike most states had a Statute of Limitation on murder. And the Statute of Limitation on Jay's murder passed before a winnable case could be brought before the courts. Jay's case would lead in large part to Connecticut rescinding that hotly vilified Statute.
Eventually Wilmer Paradise was charged with and found guilty of violating Jay's civil rights by taking his life. He served his sentence and was later set free.
Many years later I can still hear Jay bellow, "Rock N Roll," into the night with the wild abandon of unfettered youth.
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