by Ashley McCullough
The fact that I’ve spent the last 4 days trying to think of a single Rob story that would be fit for public consumption and literally CANNOT speaks volumes to who Rob was and what our relationship was. Rob was, to me and maybe to all of us, everything we would be if the id took over and wasn’t moderated by anything that would make us all quiet our desires and most insane thoughts. He was an unbridled and unmitigated human that no one could help but love.
I would always tell people Rob is one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, and the only one who uses all of his intelligence to be funny. Decades ago, he said to me: Ash, I’m the underachiever of my family. I think by that he meant he was the only one without a doctorate. But he was also maybe the only one who could construct a worldwide community of humans who loved him and loved each other in a laugh-til-you-pee-yourself, eye-rolling, can’t-believe-anyone-would-say-that-out-loud kind of way.
I realize that maybe a third of the people I know in my life, I know because of Rob.
The first time I went to Italy, Rob told me to take a train down from Germany and get off at this rural little nowhere stop in Tuscany where as soon as you exit the train, literally nothing else happens there until the same time the next day. No one steps onto the platform. Not a cat wanders by. The wind doesn’t even blow. He said: just get on a train, be here tomorrow, and we will come by the station every couple hours and look for you. Like, how is that supposed to work? But, guess what. It did. And for days, we rode bikes and ate ourselves half to death and drank wine like it was water and spent like 50,000 Lira on dinner every night.
Rob and I lived together in a warehouse South of Market in San Francisco one year. But we decided it was too expensive to each have our own rooms, so we shared a room. He’d sleep on the couch and I’d sleep on the loft above and he’d flash his disgusting parts at me at all hours of the day or night. I couldn’t look up without seeing something I wished I’d never seen. We rode our bikes and made big dinners (with our 17 roommates) and went to yoga down the street and ate burritos in the Mission, And then one day he decided to move to Alaska. Kind of out of the blue. But kind of exactly as I’d expected. Rob wasn’t going to just stay put and live in one place. He was going to drive “Little Red” (the car that mostly would start but sometimes wouldn’t and that he said someday he’d have to take out back and shoot a million holes in to put it down) up the Alaska Highway 60 hours to Denali. OK, Rob. Just let me know you get there. I knew he made it by the pictures of wolves and grizzlies all summer in my email.
One time I had to go to Austin for a bike race and Rob told me to come stay with him at his friend Alec’s place. He said: take a cab to this address, we won’t be there and Alec has a 200 pound dog that mostly doesn’t bite but will bark at you a lot. We’ll leave the door open. Just come in. It will be fine. Again, what? But I showed up like I was told and Sugarbear didn’t bite me and it was all basically fine.
When we first became friends, we both maybe thought we might date. This was like a thousand years before he met Rebecca and knew what actual love was. But one time he was staying with me and Cyclocross Worlds was in San Francisco. And we went to the race. And then we walked back to my car and he kissed me and I immediately threw up. We never tried that again.
And then came Rebecca. I just remember one time he called me and was all in a twist. He loved her so much but was also really upset because he had thought they had discussed both not wanting kids and then suddenly she was feeling like she did want kids after all. And he didn’t want to lose her but didn’t know what to do. I asked him how he really felt about it, if he dug deep. And he said he just felt blindsided. But in less than a week, he called me back and said: look, I can either be that aging guy in Boulder with a soul patch hanging around on Pearl Street doing the same old cool shit over and over again. Or I can decide to go on this other whole new adventure with Rebecca and do something I’ve never even imagined. He said he was going to do it. I think it was 9 days and 47 minutes later that he called to tell me Rebecca was pregnant. With twins.
These last years I hadn’t seen much of Rob. Maybe not once since he and Reb and the boys moved to Chamonix and back. But at least once a season he’d call and ask me to come on one of the ski trips. And about once a year he’d call out of the blue from an airport waiting on a delayed plane or while driving somewhere and we’d talk for an hour or two. Every time, as soon as I heard his voice, every practical, level-headed adult part of me went out the window and we’d just go back to our crass, juvenile selves and we’d say a million things I’m glad no one else heard or recorded.
I can’t really believe Rob is gone. Though I don’t think he is. I think if you ever knew Rob, you can’t help but adopt a little Rob in your own life. You can’t help but be more brash. More unhinged. More in your face. More unapologetic about pushing buttons. More trying to get people to pee themselves. More terrible techno and creepy gold thongs. More everything. Just more.
I’m not willing to say goodbye right now. Maybe someday I will be ready but not now.
