we had spoken seriously about it for the last few weeks, he mentioned several times he had seen enough of humans, he was tired of it all, he was a big and generous soul who lived way beyond his means, he was a shark fisherman at heart, not a shark killer because he loved all creatures but of humans he had little or no respect. he loved me. he spoke about that often, asking me to move to cape tribulation in his big house, he figured we would have a simple life, be free, we spoke about how we both need a frontier town where there are no laws, only the real ones. recently he spoke about his esoteric life, he had dreamed of the gossamer webs connecting nature to man, he told me about how a book called 'i walked with jesus' once saved his life, although he was never religious or pious, quite the opposite he was a transgressive anarchist.
he disliked humans and he could not reconcile the fact he loved me, we became the best of friends and i made him laugh.
he introduced me to his fellowship one time last week, they were at a fancy palm beach restaurant drinking champagne and being reckless and i walked through, getting looks from everyone, being very out of place. he stood up and raised his glass and said to the table, and all in the vicinity, 'this is the most intelligent man i have ever met.'
embarrassing and not true, you know that because you read me, but he was serious and i joined the table and everyone was curious in me, asking me questions. i had just turned up to drive him home as he had been drinking all day, i did that for him occasionally. one of the people there was the producer of roger waters film 'the wall' he was with his dog, we chatted a bit about film. i told him to see 'dead man.'
get this, he wanted to die, he was ready, he said to me 'mission, i have just had enough of it all, apart from coffee with you, there's nothing to look forwards to any more, and i can't bear to watch what's happening to australia.'
saturday morning he dropped me off outside mission control in that beaten up black bmw, we sit in the car watching a raven pulling flesh from some roadkill, we watch, talk a little about ravens, i say, 'i'd like to have a pet raven.'
'they are very intelligent birds.'
and i think but don't say it, 'they are the messengers of death' and i wonder who they are here for.
i knew. deep down inside i knew but i couldn't say anything, i think you knew anyway.
later in the evening around 8 o clock i think about my friend, i think how he must be alone at home, watching channel 9 because he thinks it's the least depressing channel, or reading his book about the man who rows from yorkshire to france, and i think something's not quite right, so i fire off my text, a private joke about lizards and dinosaurs, a throwback to david icke whom he came to loathe as well, and i hope it makes him laugh but i couldn't feel it, and it's all feel with me, he was gone, rushed to hospital, brain dead, they keep him hooked to a machine until his daughter arrives from singapore, and then they will turn of the machine. tomorrow morning. 
but my friend had died a week or so before, i knew it, he wanted to go, he weighed up all his options and he said goodbye to me in his own way, and i will miss him, because he was one of a kind, a rare man, he was my friend. a good friend, slightly tortured by love and the various women in his life.
everyone in town knew him, people couldn't work out how we could be friends, a guy like that and me, people were frightened of him, people respected him, people were confused by him and they were amused by him but the one thing they could never figure out is how come we were such good friends. a man who could spend $500 on a bottle of wine, a man who would think nothing of giving hundreds of dollars to a waitress as a tip, a man who would take me out for a night that would cost $5000, old dr.crack had many strange sides, he was an enigma with his games and strange machinations. the more i knew him the more there was to know, he was prolific, he could talk about anything from the behaviour of insects to quantum physics and ancient indian temples, he was a roadie for ike and tina turner when he was a kid, as an adult he was the highest paid legal mind in australia, he's a gourmet chef and traveller of extreme environments, his favourite place was antarctica and one day we were going to the amazon together.  
his place was in the bush out at bayveiw, fantastic place, filled with art even his speakers were works of art, sculptures that belonged in a gallery, he owned a porche but preferred driving his old beaten up bmw, he always paid for my coffee. 
i met him 20 years ago, we were thrown together in some bizarre cult, we just connected and in all those years we never disconnected, sure there were times when i never saw him for a year or so, but eventually when we met again it was always with some new adventure on the horizon, he would just kidnap me, with his wild evenings out and take me on these crazy nights, he was a man of experience with the poets eye, he would watch clouds, surf and stop to admire a tree or wildlife, he was old school, an australian version of hemingway, a man with a huge appetite, and like me, he had seen to much. 
what do you do when some one like that leaves, let them go i guess, we were due to have coffee together this morning, like we have for the last few months, but he's left this world for the next, and from now on i guess i'll be having coffee alone, vale old friend, i love you dude, we had some amazing nights, good laughs and talks, and i guess we never made it to the amazon together to try those frogs and hang out with the cat people. i'll see you on the other side, and we will have much to talk about, we will have all the answers we need. my dear friend.