As I lay on the bed staring at the ceiling, being grateful for the night I’d just had last Tuesday, I received some very sad news from my brother. He had sent me an article from our local paper, Death of the cool: Farewell to Johnny McNabb, the Dallas rocker who became a big part of New York City’s fashion world by Robert Wilonski. I knew immediately what it meant but I really didn’t want to believe it.
I always say that whenever I hear someone has passed, I can literally feel a vacancy. As if a stool at the counter of life that was reserved for them is now empty and is just swiveling about. But it was a little more than that, in this case. See, I was Facebook friends with Johnny McNabb but that was pretty much the extent of it. I didn’t go to school with him because he was 7 years older than me and he was in my big brother’s class. I never knew him in New York, never played music with him, never saw him when he played with Ryan Adams and never worked with him on a shoot. So why, when I heard he had passed away, did I feel such a deep sadness?
Maybe It was because of all of the personal stories that his friends and family were sharing on his Facebook page or Matt Hillyer’s words in the Wilonski article or the fact that his fellow Episcopal School of Dallas classmates had just celebrated their milestone 25th high school reunion or that I couldn’t help but recall that about a year ago, a mutual friend of ours in LA said they wanted to set us up.
Or maybe it was because I remember my big brother showing me pics of his middle school trip to England when I was 5 and seeing this super cool guy with the most rockin’ hair and punk clothes, wearing a cutoff, sleeveless Def Leppard shirt. My brother and I recalled this memory the other day when we talked about his death. However, he also recounted that, at the time, he was trying to be as cool as Johnny but didn’t quite make the cut as he opted to wear his Def Leppard shirt over his polo. Maybe it’s simply because there are a rare few who are so innately cool that all we can do is aspire to be as cool as them…oftentimes, falling short.
I only knew him as a kid sister looking up to her big brother’s too-cool-for-school classmate but I am not ashamed to say that I’m already feeling his absence in the world.
I knew him in that way you know someone when you’re an always-watching little sister who has a kid crush on a cat way cooler than you’ll ever be. The kind of guy who could actually use the word “cat” to describe someone and not be laughed at…unlike some of us.
He symbolized a timeless rebel of the likes that our school had never known. He was dashing, a tad bit dangerous looking, with crazy talent and, I’m told, the most loving heart and generous of spirit. He was the most threatening kind of Texan to be unleashed upon the world and yet, from all that I have gleaned through the friends we share, he was the kindest of men.
When I got my first glimpse of Johnny McNabb in that photo all those years ago, I stared. I had never seen a kid look that cool. To this day, I still don’t think I have. I think he was so cool that the world can’t help but feel a little colder now.
To Johnny’s family and friends, I am so sorry for your loss. If it wasn’t before, heaven sure is gonna be a rockin’ place, now.
