I love a good direct question.
“Hey new guy. Who the fuck are you?’
That was Dave Wyatt’s first question to me.
I met him in 2012 at a festival safety meeting the night before the show started. Shaynee had brought me on to work late night golf carts, and Wyatt was part of the four man crew along with Steve and Matt.
I’ll never forget being the “new guy” and watching Wyatt walk into that meeting rocking a black hoodie with a punk-band logo painted on the front, a New York Yankees flat bill, camo cargo shorts, mid-length socks, and some sneakers.
He was definitely the “cool kid.” Regina George, if you want a movie comparison — minus the wicked soul. Was she wicked, though? Tina Fey, can you weigh in? Tina Fey is a HUGE fan of the blog I heard, and reads it religiously.
I never have been one to bend-the-knee to the cool kid. Hold on. That is a lie. I did do this from time-to-time up until the 5th grade.
I remember some kids didn’t invite me to a party or some shit like that and I was tripping out that it was my clothes, personality, or appearance. My pop’s saw me start to bend that knee and conform so that I could be cool. He quickly impart wisdom appropriate for a 5th grader.
“If they don’t like you, fuck them. There is no one else like you. Remember that.” The eloquent phrasing of my pop’s cannot be understated.
So when Wyatt asked me his direct question, I responded with, “Greenberry.” Just my name and nothing else.
I wasn’t angry or anything by his directness. His tone and body language wasn’t that of a person who was threatened or trying to embarrass. He was genuinely curious of whom this new person among his familiar circle of friends was. And that’s fair.
“Greenberry,” he repeated back to me with his dumb-Wyatt-faced expression I grew to love. “Bullshit.”
I pulled out my license and handed it to him so that he could inspect it for himself. “Greenberry…BUSH,” he said looking at me, followed shortly by, “No fucking way. That’s rad.”
After that, I was “Little Greenberry” and he was Wyatt.
For show days, we’d start around 4:30 pm and close down shop about 5:00 a.m the next morning. During show hours we would drive artists, VIPs, and other folks to stages and various locations on site. At night, we were released into the madness of the mad exodus of show-goers. We were tasked with getting them to their personal vehicles, campsite, or ride-share.
We were not allowed to charge people for rides, nor did we ever. Our job was to help people get from Point A to Point B. However, we could dictate who we picked up. And we most certainly had a hierarchical view on what patrons had priority to ride in our chariots.
It went like this: 1) disabled individuals, 2) sweet elderly people that had taken their son/daughter/grandson/granddaughter to the show, and 3) people that were visibly distraught because they had forgotten where they parked.
The last mother fuckers to get a ride were the people yelling, “I’ll give you a $100 just to get me to XYZ.” It’s not hard to envision what this person looks like or sounds like. Wyatt and I despised them and would cruise past these individuals waiting for the follow-up comment, “Fuck you then!” they’d scream as we drove past.
Later when they still hadn’t found their way, we’d pull up to them and ask, “Didn’t you scream ‘fuck you’ to me earlier?” If they were cool and offered some sort of “my bad” we would give them a ride. If they were not, we would punch the gas and leave them hoofing it to wherever they couldn’t find.
If it was slow, meaning no stragglers or people in sight, the whole crew would meet up and talk.
I honestly didn’t engage with Wyatt much the first year I worked the show. I was on the brink of an acute agoraphobic episode — mentioned in the Shaynee Lee story — that would set in about a month later, so I was suffering a lot of panic attacks and therefore withdrawing from people.
When we’d get home at sunrise, Wyatt and Steve would always ask me to come have a beer — I never did. Wyatt didn’t give up, though. He never did. Not for the people he cared about.
I made it back to Alabama after the month in California. This is where I would spend the next year of my life wading through the agoraphobia and all of the awesome stuff that comes with that.
Shaynee encouraged people to reach out to me. Wyatt was surprisingly one of those individuals that reached out. At least I thought it was surprising at the time. He sent me the following text:
“Hey buddy. Heard you went crazy.”
“Is this mother fucker serious? Maybe he really is an asshole,” I thought. So, that’s exactly what I texted him back. “Fuck you asshole,” I wrote. A few minutes later, my phone was ringing and the name WYATT was on the screen. I answered reluctantly.
Tripp: Hello?
Wyatt: Hey buddy. It’s Dave.
Tripp: Cool. What’s up?
Wyatt: Just checkin’ in on ya. Shaynee told me what was up. It sounds fucking rough.
Tripp: Yeah. It really sucks *starts to cry*
Wyatt: I know a lot of people that deal with mental health stuff. It will be OK, buddy. Are you seeing a therapist or anything?
Ok. Now I was confused.
Was Wyatt being nice? Was it the same guy that tried so hard to get me to hang out and drink beer at the buttcrack of dawn after we just worked 12-hours straight?
So much can get lost in translation, man. And that’s exactly what happened when I read his text. To be fair, I knew Wyatt, but I didn’t really know him. Like, I didn’t understand his humor, sometimes a little dark, and how effectively he used it to disarm serious situations and move into a deeper conversation. He was so awesome, ya’ll.
I grew to love that sense of humor. I miss it a lot. I miss Wyatt. A lot.
Shaynee, Wyatt, and the rest of the crew were with me (even though very far away) throughout that whole year. Wyatt would always say, “When you get out to California to work this year…” And I would be like, “IF I get out to California.” He would just let out a LONG sigh and then say, “You mean WHEN, little Greenberry.”
Surprise. I got out to California.
Shaynee picked me up for the airport, even though she had a million things going on at the office. She dropped me off at the place I would be staying and I waited for cool friend Wyatt to get there.
He rolled up on his motorcycle — spoiler, that is not how he died — busted in the house and said, “Come here you little mother fucker!” and wrapped me in a big bear hug.
His essence was this mixture of “I-care-about-the-people-I-love-so-hard” and “fuck-all-the-people-who-are-dicks.” He knew EVERYTHING about music. He knew everything about baseball, which I don’t care about but I appreciated how much he loved it.
“Did you go get your creds (credentials) yet,” he asked, letting me go and giving me a look over to make sure the crazy hadn’t eaten me alive. “Not yet. Shaynee dropped me off.” He looked at his watch and then back at me, “Still go time. Let’s go get them.”
It wasn’t until I was locking the door to our house that I realized there was no car, just the motorcycle. Wyatt reached into the saddle bag of his bike and pulled out what looked like one of those old-timey helmets that people wore in sidecars on black-and-white movies. He, of course, had some macked-out helmet on with a face shield and shit.
“Dude. What do I hold on to? What if I fall? I would fuck my face up!” I said. He gave me an ambiguous two word response, “Don’t lean,” and the he shoved the helmet into my stomach.
I shit you not that’s how I got around the California desert for an entire month. On the back of his motorcycle. He instructed me to hold on to these TINY rails, but I bear hugged that fool anytime we were on there. It was truly terrifying.
The part that really sucked is whenever he’d ask if I wanted to do something I would get so excited only to be met with raw fear that I had to hang onto him while riding this death trap!
“Want to go in a little early and check out Ghost with my buddy Derek?” A new band I’d never heard of? Hell yeah. Wait…fuck, I have to ride on the motorcycle.
“Want to go see #42? That new Jackie Robinson movie?” Oh hellll yeah. I love movies. Get me a coke (death water, as Wyatt called it) and popcorn. Wait…fuck. I have to ride on the motorcycle.
That was my response for an entire month. He was a pretty good driver, I guess. I’ve never ridden on another so I do not much to compare it to. When we would head in to work, he would zig-and-zag through gridlock traffic. That was cool. One time someone ALMOST HIT us by trying to change lanes in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Wyatt swerved and missed.
He pulled up next to the car, which had “FESTIVAL NAME OR BUST” painted on the back and window. He pointed his hand down, tapping his pointer finger toward the earth, creating the universal sign to roll your window down.
While that was happening, he turned around and said, “Give me your helmet real quick, little Greenberry.” His voice was calm and composed. The car next to us rolled their window down. It was some turd with his friends blasting shitty music..
Wyatt then twisted his hand in half circle motion, like he was turning an invisible nob. Now he was signaling them to turn the music down.
“What,” the kid said, pulling his douchey shades down the bridge of his nose and making eye contact with Wyatt’s shielded face. “You guys almost hit me and my buddy here. Could have really hurt us.” The kid shot back with an insincere apology, and shrugged his shoulders.
Wyatt chuckled and shook his head. BAM!
I could feel the air breeze on my face as he swung his right arm down with brute force. He was holding my helmet — the really safe one he was letting me borrow — and made direct contact with the driver’s sideview mirror, completely shattering it.
The people in the car didn’t say anything, but their faces said it all. “Holy shit this guy is going to kill us.”
After completely destroying their mirror Wyatt said, “Sorry isn’t going to put the next motorcyclist you hit back together.” At this point he had flipped his cool helmet shield up so they could see his face. “Sorry about your mirror, but you didn’t seem to be using it. You better get that shit fixed so you don’t almost kill someone again. Have a blessed day.”
He handed the helmet back to me and we zig-zagged through traffic until we made it to our destination. I released my death-grip from around his waist and got off the bike and handed him my helmet.
“Told you this fucker was tough,” he said while giving the helmet a thump and then grinning at me.
