Cherished Memories of a Funny, Decent Sort of Guy

The last time I saw Jay, he was dancing.

It was in a bar in Long Beach just a few weeks ago. I was there, and Jay was there, and so were a dozen or so of our fellow actors. We had just finished a murder mystery dinner theater and were sharing a drink and a laugh and a rehash of the performance as we often did after a night’s work.

For 2 1/2 years I have been performing on alternate weekends with Jay Mead and the others; some have come and gone, but a core of us remains, and Jay is part of that core.

He is also one of the most talented and funny people I’ve ever known. He has that rare combination of perfect timing, quick wit and the ability to contort his face, body and voice into any attitude. Even when he’s offstage he never misses a beat.

But on Aug. 20, he missed a beat.

You see, Jay is not only an actor, he is also a stuntman--or was. That Saturday he took a routine fall off a 25-foot water tower during a mock gunfight at Knott’s Berry Farm. Every part of his body hit the mat below, I was told, except his head. Now he’s lying in a coma, hooked up to life support in an Orange hospital.

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First we were told that there was some brain activity and that there was hope he might recover. I imagined him suddenly sitting up in his hospital bed and tossing out some shockingly funny line.

But last Friday, I learned that he had had several seizures and that he “flat-lined”--meaning no brain activity, no recovery likely.

Jay is 29. He has a wife.

The doctors gathered the family to make decisions about his future. They decided to keep him alive for another week to see if maybe a miracle would save him.

I can only imagine the pain his family is feeling. Jay isn’t, or wasn’t, my close friend in the call-you-twice-a-week, help-you-move and have-you-over-for-dinner sense. But he wasn’t just somebody I worked with a few dozen weekends, either.

I’d talked to him at parties, before shows, after shows over a drink and, of course, onstage--I’d slapped him across the face many times after he’d called me some choice names (it was in the script).

He knew some of the intimate details of my life, and I knew some of his. When he was having some personal problems earlier this year, we all tried to comfort him. He was the kind of person everyone was happy to be around; even when he was sad, he was funny. Even when he’d spent a whole day doing stunts and came to the show exhausted, and sometimes injured, he gave it his all and never complained.

He was the kind of person you’d want to call if you needed cheering up, not just because he was funny, but because he was a very decent sort of guy.

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It strikes me as tragically ironic that the very thing Jay dedicated his life to--entertaining others--is now taking his life away.

The circumstances of his accident are being investigated. I don’t know how or why it happened. And I don’t know why we humans have an insatiable thirst for watching others in violent and dangerous situations.

I was watching a noon-hour circus performance last week with some co-workers. There were acrobats doing daring things on ropes and trapezes without nets. I couldn’t enjoy it. I wanted to flee, but I was frozen. All I could think of was Jay and how I would feel if one of those highflying ladies plummeted to her death in an effort to amuse me while I ate my lunch.

So far, only Jay’s family has been allowed to see him, but I was thinking of calling the hospital to find out if they’d let me visit. Maybe to say goodby, or maybe so I can accept that this wonderful young man is really dying.

Or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll remember him the way he was the last time I saw him.

The last time I saw Jay, he was dancing.