Bumper Stickers and an Embarrassed Wynn

Here, in this picture I took when we were in high school, Wynn shows off his famous leg in the TPP shack. The TPP, short for "Three Penny Press," was Bellaire's newspaper, which Wynn copy-edited and I associate-edited our senior year. The shack was this wonderful temporary building that housed, among other things, an old printing press named Bertha, a ratty couch, a group wayward over-achieving youth like us, lockers that no one used (because they were so gross), a Kraft American Cheese single pinned to the bulletin board (that somehow was NOT gross), a storehouse of all the books read by IB English students, and a passel of "No Thanks I'm Driving" bumper stickers.

Those stickers provided Wynn and me with hours of inappropriate fun. We cut up the letters and rearranged them to create such custom messages (which I then affixed on my car) such as: "No, I'm not Tom Hanks," or "No thanks. I'm Sondheim."

Flash forward about fourteen years. Wynn and I had reconnected for a few years and arranged a dinner to reconnect Renée James with me. We met at Pico's. He told me he had a present for me. Wynn and I had coincidentally came out around the same time and when we reconnected, we recounted how many of our friends in high school had come out (and which objects of our affection were sadly not gay). So the gift: he pulls out a sticker he had crafted from those famous bumper stickers. He had saved some over the years and gave me a custom-made sticker that read: "No t*ts, baby, I'm a man's man." As fate would have it, I found the scrapbook containing the sticker a few days before Wynn died.

During one of my visits to Houston, Wynn and I decided we would go back to Bellaire. Like Wynn, I also look young. We thought we would go to Ms. Quaite's junior-year English class and see how long it would take for her to recognize us. During her class, she had to leave for a few minutes. Wynn took that opportunity to leap to the front of the class and teach Waiting for Godot in Ms. Quaite's absence. And in the following years, he often visited her classes to offer other pearls of knowledge.

Wynn had a way of making a home wherever he went. The TPP shack was ours - Renée's, Wynn, mine. I know he made a home at Rice and, in a larger sense, Houston. Whenever I have returned home in the last eight or so years, I always had adventures with Wynn - especially with food - and in a Fast and Furious ride down Allen Parkway in the Miata. The last time I saw Wynn was at Café Europa. He was like Norm in Cheers - everyone knew him, and gave him free coffee.

His visit to New York in 2001 was a turning point for me - he came about six months after my Mom had died, and his visit marked the first time that year I really got out and enjoyed life to the fullest - I was with Wynn, after all. He showed me the Cathedral of St. John the Divine which, despite being only 12 blocks from me, I had not explored. We went to the Broadway revival of Rocky Horror Show with my writing partner and my cousin. My cousin's shouting at the stage actually embarrassed Wynn. Yes, I had the privelege of seeing Wynn's eyes spring to amazement as if to say "He said WHAT?!"

I have a character in my musical whom I based on Wynn. Before Wynn came in town, my writing partner and I were working on a song for that character. We were stumped. After spending time with Wynn, we broke through and wrote the song a lot of audiences consider to be the funniest in the show.

About a month after that trip, Wynn was the first to email me the morning of September 11. He was such a healing force. When he decided to become a nurse, it was a natural progression - his humor and love, at their essence, were about healing.

Wynn, it is hard to believe you are gone. But part of the reason is that you were hard to believe in life - but wow, what a rich experience it is to believe in you and have you believe in all of us. You did not care if anyone thought any less of you for being who you were - and in return, we all think the highest of you.

I know you're making a new home right now - and everyone is getting to know you up there. Ted Geisel is laughing at your poems; Julia Child and you are cavorting in Heaven's Kitchen. And back down here on earth, we will strive to follow your legacy: to live life to the fullest, to be creative and design and live the life we want.

Sammy Buck