Brian Trevino
Brian Trevino was a Louisiana Creole DJ from New Orleans who worked weddings and corporate events and also drove for Uber. He was the romantic partner of Jared Dawkins, with whom he shared an apartment in Ridgewood, Queens. Brian had PTSD following his father’s death and managed chronic asthma.
Early Life and Background
Brian grew up in New Orleans’s Ninth Ward. His father was a DJ with a warm, outgoing temperament and taught Brian the craft while Brian helped with equipment and learned to read a crowd. When Brian was seventeen, a fight between two patrons at a venue escalated; his father was stabbed and killed while Brian was there assisting with the equipment. A DJ mentor who had known his father helped Brian keep working after the loss. His mother remained in New Orleans when he moved to New York. They stayed close, although distance and their shared grief complicated their conversations.
Career
Brian worked as a DJ at weddings and corporate events. He also drove for Uber while developing and publishing his own mixes on Mixcloud. He wanted the mixes, rather than the paid events and driving shifts, to become his principal work. His father’s unrealized ambitions remained part of what he hoped to carry forward. Brian’s DJ equipment occupied part of the Ridgewood apartment he shared with Jared; his father’s records were among his small vinyl collection. He could command a crowd from behind the decks, though performing in venues also meant returning to the kind of place where he had witnessed his father’s death.
Ezra first recognized Brian’s production skill through a custom ringtone Brian had made for Jared. After hearing it at the Band House, Ezra asked to hear more, and Jared shared Brian’s Mixcloud link while insisting on his partner’s privacy. Ezra began making introductions, leaving the decisions about those opportunities to Brian.
Main article: Jared Dawkins and Ezra Cruz#Brian’s Music and Jared’s Privacy
Cultural Identity and Heritage
Brian was Louisiana Creole with Black and Hispanic heritage. His New Orleans background remained connected to his music, cooking, and professional identity. He spoke with a lasting New Orleans drawl and sometimes used Creole French fragments with family or when his emotions ran high. He called Jared “baby,” “babe,” and “cher.”
Health and Disabilities
Brian had PTSD associated with witnessing his father’s death. He noticed exits and preferred to face doors, including when he otherwise appeared relaxed. His symptoms included hypervigilance, disrupted sleep and insomnia, nightmares, waking in a sweat, and freeze responses to unexpected loud sounds. The deliberate volume of a gig did not affect him in the same way as a car backfiring, an object falling, or a sudden shout: at those sounds he could go still, with his hands and humming stopping. His late DJ schedule sometimes concealed the difference between chosen wakefulness and nights he was avoiding sleep.
Brian had lived with moderate asthma since childhood and used both daily controller medication and a rescue inhaler. Heat, humidity, poor ventilation, fog machines, and physical work around venue equipment could aggravate his breathing; he had turned down gigs because of a venue’s air quality. He also smoked cannabis regularly, though not heavily, to ease insomnia and anxiety. Smoking complicated his asthma, and Jared worried about it without pressing him to stop.
Physical Characteristics
Brian stood approximately 5‘7” and had a compact, stocky build, broad through the chest and thighs. Hauling speakers and equipment had added strength to his frame. His medium-brown skin had golden undertones and deepened in summer; his palms were lighter than the backs of his hands, and his knuckles darker. He had warm brown eyes, a medium-bridged nose with wider nostrils, and a broad, frequent smile. His lower teeth were slightly crowded, with a gap between his front teeth.
His locs fell past his shoulders. He maintained them with coconut oil, a familiar part of his scent along with whatever he had recently cooked or brought home from a venue. He ran warm even in winter. His hands were small, quick, and dexterous, with short nails and calluses from handling equipment; he wished they were larger. Faded stretch marks crossed his sides, and he had a childhood scar, small work-related nicks, and a burn mark from a hot speaker grille. A fleur-de-lis was tattooed on one inner forearm and the waveform of a song on the other. He wore small studs in both ears, a thin chain, and a ring with personal meaning.
Brian’s voice was a warm baritone; his New Orleans accent became more pronounced when he was tired or emotional. He could shift from commanding a dance floor to speaking softly with Jared late at night. His usual clothes were graphic T-shirts, jeans or joggers, clean sneakers, and sometimes a Saints cap; he wore button-down shirts for wedding and corporate gigs.
Romantic and Significant Relationships
Jared Dawkins
Main article: Brian Trevino and Jared Dawkins
Brian and Jared became partners before Jared joined Ezra Cruz’s security detail. Their schedules often kept them apart because Brian worked late gigs and Jared’s security hours varied. They maintained contact through late-night phone calls and shared domestic routines in their Ridgewood apartment.
Brian cooked for Jared and adjusted the apartment during Jared’s migraines. Jared monitored changes in Brian’s breathing and recognized signs of PTSD-related distress.
Their care took different forms. Brian’s warm voice, touch, cooking, and company helped Jared rest; Jared’s quiet attention gave Brian company without a demand to perform. Jared read changes in Brian’s humming as well as his breathing and distinguished chosen late hours from trauma-related wakefulness. During Jared’s post-show photograph crisis, Brian stayed on the phone, helped Cisco understand the apology-and-nausea loop, and described Jared’s support of Ezra as care rather than professional failure. His reassurance did not immediately stop Jared’s OCD, but he remained with him through the illness.
Main article: Brian Trevino and Jared Dawkins#The Post-Show Photograph
Personal Life
Main article: Brian and JD’s Apartment - Ridgewood
Brian and Jared rented a one-bedroom apartment in Ridgewood, Queens. The living room also served as Brian’s mixing and practice space.
Brian drove a Honda Civic between gigs and home. Its auxiliary cord did not work, and he often called Jared during late-night drives.
Music, driving, and cooking helped Brian settle himself. He mixed or listened through headphones when his PTSD symptoms were loud, and late drives gave him time to process after gigs. He made rice with browned-to-burned sofrito and other Creole dishes learned from his family, often feeding Jared or someone else while he cooked. He could also take too many gigs and driving shifts or stay occupied deep into the night to postpone sleep and the nightmares that might follow.
Brian was outgoing with crowds and acquaintances but kept a small inner circle that included Jared, his mother, and the DJ mentor who had known his father. His humming gave Jared a way to read him: louder and varied when he was happy, a quiet repeated phrase under stress, and silence when he was deeply upset. Brian’s hands gestured or tapped when he was at ease, cracked their knuckles when he was nervous, and went still when he was angry. He could keep smiling after those other signs changed.
In conflict Brian sometimes withdrew into silence, then raised his voice when pushed too far and regretted the escalation afterward. He was proud of his locs and smile while remaining self-conscious about his height and hands. Colorism and other people’s judgments about Black hair had also affected how he understood his appearance. His father’s death left him afraid that the same world of music, venues, and crowds might cost him Jared too, particularly when Jared’s detail work took him into those spaces.
Main article: Brian’s Honda Civic
Related Entries
- Jared Dawkins
- Brian Trevino and Jared Dawkins
- Brian and JD’s Apartment - Ridgewood
- Brian’s Honda Civic
- Ezra Cruz Security Detail