The say-anything manner of Chicago firefighter Mike Lopez left people bobbing in the wake of his personality as he made his mark at places around the city.
There was the red bench outside his Bronzeville firehouse, where he cut it up with colleagues and passersby. And Section 429, Row 10, at Bears games and the lot where he tailgated. Huddles at St. Cajetan elementary school, where he coached football.
“His unique talent to turn any situation into a laugh riot was unrivaled,” his friend Steve Urbon said.
Mr. Lopez died from complications due to diabetes Oct. 27. He was 49.
He was a curse word virtuoso and a storyteller and quipster with little regard for audience — abrasive and endearing, friends said.
“He was one of those guys you just could not be mad at,” said retired Chicago Fire Department Lt. Bill Smith. “He’d always make you smile. He was like a son to me.”
Mr. Lopez left regular firefighting duties when, in 2021, an infection in his right foot led doctors to amputate several toes, and later, his leg. Using a prosthetic, he continued doing what he loved: going to Bears games, bowling, concerts and coaching.
He once proudly hoisted his prosthetic to be used as a beer mug at a party and on another occasion stationed it atop the bar at McNally’s, an Irish Pub on the South Side. His brother Mathew Lopez, a Chicago police sergeant, grabbed it off the pine for safekeeping.
McNally’s, one of Mike Lopez’s favorite South Side bars, honored him upon his death.
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Mr. Lopez was 21 and a huge fan of live music when he took the exam to be a Chicago firefighter in 1995. Then, for the most part, he forgot about it.
“It wasn’t like a lifelong dream or anything like that, but our next-door neighbor growing up in Beverly — a close friend of the family — he was a fireman,” his brother said.
Mr. Lopez, a graduate of Mount Carmel High School, got his fine arts degree from Columbia College Chicago and moved to the North Side, not far from Wrigley Field, to be closer to his favorite music venues. The location also suited him because he was a massive Cubs fan.
“The bands that kind of changed our perspective on the world were the Pixies and Smashing Pumpkins,” his friend Bill Phelan said.
Mike Lopez (right) with his friend Bill Phelan.
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“Pumpkins at the Metro in 1993 was pretty epic,” Phelan said. “Just to the right of the sound booth, that was our spot. We also saw the White Stripes at the Empty Bottle in 2000, when they were still selling their own CDs.
“Mike was mostly a foot-tapper, a head-bopper, with little bursts of excitement, a fist-pump kind of thing,” he said. “He was a big dude. You didn’t want him dancing in a crowd.”
Post-college, while working as a clerk at a law firm, Mr. Lopez began an email campaign to stop the Fox television network from cutting its daily time slots for “The Simpsons” from two to one.
In 2002, he was watching a football game at the Beverly bar Cork and Kerry when he met his future wife, who was on a pub crawl sponsored by the radio station WXRT. Mr. Lopez handed her and two of her friends business cards, each with a laughable pickup line and his phone number.
“He was everything to me,” Katie Lopez said. “I remember one night we sat and looked at Yes album covers for, like, two hours and compared them.
“He was exceptionally sensitive and extremely sentimental. He kept every card he ever got. He was also very intelligent and a talented artist and writer, and he never gave himself enough credit for that.”
She said they recently divorced but remained best friends.
A sketch Mike Lopez did of a friend’s new home,
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Friends encouraged him to showcase his art but said Mr. Lopez was self-conscious about criticism, probably from critiques he received as an art student.
He was tapped by the city to become a firefighter in 2006 at 32 — 11 years after he applied for the job.
“You could just tell he liked being at the firehouse,” Smith said. “It’s like a family.”
“A lot of people who passed by the firehouse or the scene of an event probably have a story about Mike, people who met him once,” Phelan said. “Loud. Loved the city and hated the city. If you’re a true Chicagoan it’s never just one.”
A painting by Mike Lopez.
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When Mr. Lopez lost his leg, “His firefighter friends built a ramp for him at our home,” Katie Lopez said. “They were visiting him at the hospital and in rehab. And, if it wasn’t them, it was their wives and girlfriends. It literally brought him to tears countless times.”
Mr. Lopez was born in June 1974 to John and Meridith Lopez. His father worked for a company that leased fleet vehicles. His mother was a nurse.
Mike Lopez’s niece Claire McKeon shows sketches she did with her uncle shortly before he died, hers on the left, his on the right.
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His death was unexpected. The day before he died, he’d been teaching one of his nieces to use shading to add depth as the two sketched flowers in a jar.
Services have been held.
