In late 2013, a recent USF journalism grad from Bradenton named Mike Tokars came to see me about an internship at TBT. He was talented, driven, wise beyond his years, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with him while he was on our team. The two of us socialized from time to time and enjoyed many long, memorable conversations, which made it even more difficult to learn that he’d passed away in Los Angeles earlier this month.

Tokars was the grandson of Dr. John Ambrusko, a renowned New York surgeon who went on to become Manatee County Health Director after cataracts ended his surgical career. Dr. Ambrusko was also the Associate Medical Examiner for the State of Florida from 1980 to 1995. He would wind up raising Mike and his brother Rick after the tragic death of Ambrusko’s daughter, Sara. Sara Tokers was murdered, shotgunned point-blank in the head by a hitman in the front seat of her car while a four-year-old Mike and his six-year-old-brother watched their mom die from the back seat.

As if that weren’t tragic enough, it would soon be discovered that it was their father who’d ordered the hit. It would turn out that Fred Tokars, a high-powered Atlanta attorney, was actually what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution described as a "consigliere to Atlanta drug lords." The reason for the murder? To avoid an expensive divorce and the chance that during it, his wife might reveal his illicit connections.

The story was one of the most sensationalized and revisited murder cases in Atlanta history. Retrospectives, anniversaries, even a 2018 episode of the Oxygen true-crime series Abuse of Power, each of which must have been excruciating for the entire family, let alone the two boys. Mike was forever tied to the tragic tale, the cute little toddler in the picture of a young and beautiful Sara and her two kids that seemed to be shown in each and every account.

Despite that horrid start to life, under the stewardship of his grandfather, Mike still managed to thrive in Manatee County. He was described as a sweet and precocious kid who, despite his athletic build and six-foot-four-inch frame, gravitated toward the arts, gobbling up books and playing bass in local punk rock and ska bands while a student at Manatee High. TBT’s Undine Shorey, who was in the class ahead of him at Manatee, said she didn’t know him much back then but never forgot his distinctive presence. "I remember Mike so vividly in high school with his buzz-cut blonde hair, roaming the halls in the music building," she told me after informing me he had passed on earlier this week.

When Mike came on board at TBT as an arts & entertainment writer, he and I immediately hit it off. We shared a reverence for gonzo journalism and both idolized the work (and other escapades) of the great Hunter S. Thompson. We were each working on novels and would share pages with each other to get feedback. Mike would sometimes come over to the small bungalow I was renting where we'd have a few drinks and listen to music–me turning him on to the early punk I was into growing up or the jazz I’d gotten into later, and him bringing me up to speed on stuff that came along farther down the line. I always appreciated the fact that he could bridge me to the tastes of a younger generation.

We were both nostalgia-drenched romantics who were into collecting old typewriters and vintage clothing. We also both felt somewhat lost in our own time and would rant about which era would have been coolest to have been born into. Would it have been best to be with Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein as part of the Lost Generation in post-World War I Paris, on the road with Jack Kerouac in the Ô50s, covering Woodstock boots on the ground the following decade, or on the campaign trail with Dr. Gonzo himself in Ô72?

"As coworkers at TBT, I knew Mike as a gentle and friendly soul," said former TBT reporter Jackson Falconer. "I came to know him better as a writer, and the real love he had for music and politics. His written words were plain evidence for the great outlet that writing had been for him, and I can still recall articles from years ago; a punk rock show review that almost doubled as a happy reminiscence of part of what made punk great in its prime days–how the flippant disregard for personal space required by its live shows created a self-enforcing camaraderie that didn't just transcend but also reinforced punk's brilliant simplicity; a long-form profile piece on Jeb Bush's 2016 plans weeks before his campaign launched, featuring a quip imagining Jeb as secretly "cool enough" to be the kind of 60-something-year-old pol to casually join in on an off-the-record weed session at parties. Mike poured his gentle yet lively spirit into his writing, and I know his spirit was etched onto not just internet and paper pages, but also the people that knew him."

When Mike left TBT, it was on a scholarship to the prestigious Columbia School of Journalism, and I truly believed he’d one day achieve the kind of success that might cause people to doubt any story I might tell recounting how he’d once been in my employ. He left me with a touching note written on a framed drawing of Mckechnie Field he’d won at some event which still hangs above my desk, and I gave him a tattered paperback copy of Generation of Swine.

Mike went on to do some magazine work in New York and continued to show the promise I’d seen while he was a writer/editor for our short-lived A&E weekly, The Local ARTery. From there it was a stint in LA. We kept in touch but, eventually, he started to fall off. He’d ask to do freelance pieces, then miss the deadlines, apologize, and pop back up from time to time to ask for a reference or another chance.

At some point, Mike started going down some pretty dark roads and our last communications, regretfully, were in March of 2018, me gently deflecting a few more pitches to submit work from someone who’d simply become too unreliable and had made public associations that complicated things further still. There was never a harsh word between us, it just became impossible to continue a professional relationship. I was never angry or even frustrated, probably because I couldn’t imagine someone ever coming out the other end of what he went through even functional, let alone highly-talented and generous almost to a fault. His demons were many, but they were the hard-earned sort that no one should have to navigate, let alone be asked to master.

As I understand it, Mike drove back out to Los Angeles just before his passing looking to make a new start right as the world was about to shut down. Things didn’t go well. It seems he may have developed blood clots in his legs on the long drive, and Mike ultimately died of a pulmonary embolism while hospitalized in California on April 3. It was a sad ending to a sad story that was always punctuated by glimpses of the tremendous potential he had exuded as both a writer and a human being.

In my 45 years, I’ve been around a lot of people who’ve endured awful tragedies in their childhoods–rape, molestation, physical abuse, parents who’d taken their own lives and other appalling events. The story never seems to end on a positive note. But I can say with certainty that I’ve never met someone who was dealt a hand quite as dark as Mike’s. And while 31 is too few years for anyone, to get even as far as he did in this life, given that dark hand, speaks volumes not only to his talent but his passion and desire to share those gifts with the world.

In another time and place, or just having been blessed with an honest chance in the here and now, I really believe Michael P. Tokars would have realized those lofty ambitions and we’d be celebrating his success instead of mourning his loss. Godspeed, my friend. Thanks for the words you’ve left behind.

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Dennis Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County governmentsince 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University, where he earned a degree in Government. He later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Clickherefor his bio. Dennis's latest novel, Sacred Hearts, is availablehere.