If you cared for him, loved him, knew him for even a moment, I am so, so sorry.

Courtney Brousseau was taken from us on Friday evening. It was a senseless act of gun violence, a drive-by that he found himself in the crossfire of. He’d had a good week. A really good week, a rare occurrence in the uncertainty of the last several months. He had just been enjoying a socially distant burrito at Dolores Park, and was on his way home. He was almost there.

COVID-19 has made everything more challenging. But his family is together, and they were able to say their final goodbyes while he was kept on life support. For that, I am grateful. I know they appreciate all your generosity and support. Courtney passed away peacefully yesterday evening.

What can you possibly say in a moment like this? It’s impossible to make sense of, because it doesn’t make sense. It feels like it isn’t fair, because it isn’t. There have been instants in the last few days where I’ve wondered if perhaps I’d managed to break my tear ducts. But no, there, suddenly and randomly, they still work. He was my friend, my roommate, and long ago I thought of him as a mentee or protege. He outgrew that quickly.

I don’t know how to talk about this. But I’ll tell you what I do know.

Courtney loved trains more than life itself. Courtney liked to drop a few raspberries in his wine, and he could carve a pineapple like nobody. Courtney would beat you at your favorite board game. Courtney was a builder, with coding languages or LEGO bricks. Courtney was an advocate, with a microphone or a keyboard. Courtney was really insecure about his smile, which I always thought was funny because he’s just objectively a very handsome dude. He would always force this chuckle while posing for a picture, and we would tease him for it endlessly. I can hear it now. Courtney believed Hamilton was a masterpiece. And I won’t be the first or last to tell you, there’s a million things he hadn’t done. That’s a reference.

I was lucky to be there for so many of his biggest smiles. The look on his face when he opened a happy birthday video I was able to coordinate from his favorite BART Board Director, taking Muni to the beach, looking over the Bay from the Fire Trails, experiencing the wonders of Yosemite, graduations, Wine Wednesdays, and so much more. But perhaps my favorite Courtney smile was when I got to document his first ride on BART’s Fleet of the Future trains. Had I ever seen such pure, unadulterated joy? Just euphoric. There’s a recurring them here, did I mention he loved trains?

When I left SF General on Saturday afternoon, I hopped on a bike and did a lap by Dolores Park, where he’d spent Friday evening, before zipping up to the BART Station to head back to Berkeley. Bikes & transit, as he would have wanted. And when I got to the station, there was a shiny new BART train waiting for me. As if summoned by Courtney himself.

In Courtney’s name, fight for public transit, for bike lanes, for civic tech, for public schools, for queer equality, for the future he dreamed of but won’t get to see. But more than anything, fight the scourge of gun violence in this country. Because he would have done it all if his life hadn’t been cut short. You could have done so much more, if you only had time. That’s another Hamilton reference. He would have appreciated it.

I’m moving soon, and have been slowly packing up my apartment. This has been hanging in the hall since we lived here together. It might have ended up in a box at my next place, but I think I’ll want to keep him watching over me.

I wish we could all say goodbye. I miss you, Brousseau Sprouts. And no, I won’t stop calling you that. We’ll tell your story.

— Rigel Robinson