“Dave Is Dead” is the sequel to “The Sad and Improbable Story of Mousey Connexion.” George A. Walker is an award-winning wood engraver, illustrator, teacher and author. These engravings are from Images from the Neocerebellum (Porcupine’s Quill, 27) and represent Walker’s dreams.

DAVE IS DEAD

“Dave is dead.” I was told after a long meal in a crowded restaurant. “He was hit by a car.” I had one arm in my winter coat. I let the other arm dangle. I’d always figured Dave would die in a pool of his own vomit. The blunt force of a Ford Taurus fender is no way for a rock star to die. Alone. At five in the morning.

THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS DAVE

Dave often wore a gas mask on stage, sometimes a tutu, occasionally flippers. For a man who’d once picked a shard of glass from his cheek while laughing, Dave sure could write a pretty melody, even if he was hell-bent on burying it beneath layers of distortion and noise. Perhaps that explains the need for the gas mask.

MEETING DAVE: THE IDEA OF ORDER AT A BAR CALLED THE COPACABANA

Given our mutual acquaintances, Dave and I were not unaware of each other’s existence. As such, I tried to avoid eye contact as he entered the bar, ducking down into the worn paperback I was reading. The book had a coffee stain shaped like Newfoundland on page 19 that grew steadily fainter through the 12s and finally disappeared on page 178, sinking into the Atlantic. “Fuck,” he said to me. “Wallace Stevens. You must be depressed.” I wasn’t sure if he was making fun of me. He sat down before I could think of anything to say.

DAVE IN LOVE

Dave talked a lot about the girl he loved back west. Her name was Mousey Connexion, and when they were in the same city they’d share lead vocals. Dave was tall and dark, and the broken nose and various facial lacerations—from assorted fights and moments of self-injurious clarity—gave his soft, boyish face a broken-down appeal. Mousey was small and fair and always looked as if she’d just rushed in from the rain. In the end, she died before Dave. Before all of us.

DAVE MAKES FRIENDS

Dave was unconcerned with being liked. In fact, he derived great pleasure from inducing disgust in others, particularly if it led to physical violence. We were sitting at the bar once, as the lights came up on the end of a long night. His jaw clenched and his back straightened, before it happened. He stood up from his barstool, put down his empty beer glass, turned and dove, arms flung out wide at his sides, across a table of khaki-wearing sports fans who’d just finished shots of Jägermeister. Everyone, even Dave, was a little surprised. Then they beat the shit out of us.

ON THE TOWN WITH DAVE

It was an ugly summer. And though friendship can describe many things, it was not exactly what we shared. There was a dingy bar down the hill populated largely by aging, alcoholic punks and unlucky Indians, both groups attracted by the unbeatable all-day, all-night 2-for-1 drink special. That, rather than friendship, is what Dave and I usually shared.

DAVE AND HIS MANY PALS

We were in the back room, about six of us, around a single table. There was no air conditioning, so the door to the fire escape was open. The breeze was a little too warm and got into places it shouldn’t have. I knew most of these men, but none very well. The conversation was a bleary concoction of lies, exaggerations, half-truths, fabrications, bluster and guff. Beneath most of it lay a need to confess and a desperation for absolution. But none of us were capable of either.

DAVE’S ARCH-ENEMY

When most people, in the course of casual conversation, mention their “arch-enemy,” they are employing hyperbole to emphasize their dislike of an individual. Dave, however, really did have an arch-enemy, a splenetic film writer named Patrick, who, until Dave’s arrival from the west coast, was the resident hell-raising sloppy drunk. Though he was diligent about it and tried every night, it wasn’t long before Patrick realized he couldn’t compete with Dave’s casual genius for unpleasantness. And he hated him for it.

DAVE TAKES A PISS

Dave had gotten up from his seat—a repurposed diner chair with shiny purple upholstery—to take a piss; the rest of us were playing a little