Kevin Anderson

Kevin Anderson, 37; father, connoisseur of all things '80s

Kevin Anderson was a guy happily stuck in the 1980s.

He collected hundreds of CDs of his favorite bands from that era, including Metallica, Def Leppard and Great White.

"We used to go to the pawn shops and Wal-Mart and buy them," says Dave Penny, one of Kevin's many "best friends."

Kevin, 37, was so into the 1980s that he dressed from that period and wore long hair.

"My kids called him 'Uncle Dude,' " says his sister Sue Sylvia.

"One night he was in a club and a guy came up to him and said, 'You ought to get out of the '80s,' " she says.

Lori Lacques, a former girlfriend, explains Kevin's fascination with the era: "It was his teenage years."

Kevin also loved his white Chevrolet Corsica. "You could eat off the inside of that car," his sister says.

As a child, she says, Kevin liked bicycles -- "He was always fixing them up."

Kevin was on a crew that cleaned air ducts in restaurants, but he had to leave that work because of a heart ailment. "He got tired because of his heart problem," Dave Penny says.

He and Kevin grew up together in Warwick, where they attended Pilgrim High School. "I loved the guy like a brother," he says.

Kevin had an 11-year-old son, Kevin Gage. The boy's mother, whom he never married, calls him "an awesome guy."

"We had our differences, but he was my best friend," Melissa Bloomingburgh says. "When I needed a friend to talk to, he was always the one I called."

Just two weeks before the fire, Kevin moved into a new apartment on Pilgrim Drive that he was fixing up so he and his son could get together to listen to music and play video games. That weekend was supposed to be the first time they would be at the apartment together.

-- Bob Jagolinzer, Providence Journal staff