I received this message:
“Hello Jaclynn, this is Susanna (Peter’s partner). I see that you tried to reach him. My dear Peter passed away. I’m texting because calling makes me too emotional.”
I told her: I had hoped this wasn’t the message I’d receive—but I also wondered. Peter was one of the dearest friends I’ve ever had. Consistent. Beautiful. A man of the highest integrity. He was my family. I’ve heard so much about you, Susanna, and appreciate your care for him. I’d love to talk when you’re ready.
What a gut punch of news. Scrolling through our texts, I can still feel him—his no-nonsense yet playful ways, his straight-shooter approach to life. He was a Sunset Strip used car owner and salesman who once sold to Marvin Gaye and rode shotgun in Liberace’s Swarovski-encrusted ride.
Peter alluded to secrets I never pried into. I just listened—to tales of a nudist colony he called the “Oh My Godders,” to his early years living in a father figure’s airplane hangar, to the goddess-like artist in Florida who chose him over a line of suitors because of a single whispered Peter-ism.
He was no womanizer, no showboat. He was direct, unwavering. Something about that unlocked things in people they didn’t know needed unlocking.
I remember sitting at the table in his RV-turned-school-bus as he told me, matter-of-factly, that no one would care when he died. That he’d leave his daughter just enough for a round-trip plane ticket plus a dollar. I was appalled—not just by his resentment, but by the fact that he didn’t understand the impact he had on people. Now, a decade later, I don’t judge him for it. I understand.
His friendship is vaulted safely within me. Spending time with him was like reading a how-to manual. At first, his rules—like how to put a spoon away in his bus—felt rigid. But over time, I saw the why, the efficiency, the coloring outside the lines to create his own. Like never paying for trash pickup—just setting a five-dollar bill on the curb and watching it disappear.
I meant to visit him again. In Humboldt County. Or Venice Beach, where he was at the end. I loved the simplicity of his space, Thoreau-esque—a one-room cabin with a wood stove, though he often preferred his bus.
He was German through and through. I loved how he spoke about Black women, as he was untouched by American racism. He’d see their perms and made up faces and tell them, “Baby, with me, you don’t have to do any of that. I want to see your natural beauty.”
When I dyed my hair platinum blonde, he was furious about the chemicals on my head. To this day, when I see a gray hair, I think of him. And I doubt I’ll ever dye it again.
He had long, beautiful white hair, sometimes braided in two, out of respect for Native Americans he said.
I could go on forever. Memories snap open like doors. The dinner on a mountaintop with the “Lady of the Mountain,” who lost her husband to suicide. His German mechanic friend in Reno. His neighbor Shannon, another woman he mentored.
But I don’t miss him. He’s alive in me. And I am stronger because of him.
Love,
Jaclynn
Here are the two other posts I’ve written about our friendship.
Going On 40 