One held on to bachelorhood until he was 38, the other until he was 40. They were roommates for six years. They worked hard, partied hard and kept the details to themselves. And when they met the right women and fell in love and decided to get married, they talked it over. They talked over everything. That’s the way the friendship worked.

Jeff Harris says it’s as if he and Ray Jefferson were brothers all their lives.

“He’d come to me for advice,” says Harris. “I had a different experience, with the Marine Corps and everything. He’d come to me and I’d come to him. We always consulted with each other.”

Harris and Jefferson went back a lot of years, to the early ’90s when Jefferson interviewed Harris for a job in his fledgling TV production company in Rhode Island. Jefferson asked Harris what position he was interested in. Harris, who had no experience in the field, said he was thinking about director. He had been a platoon sergeant in the Marines. He had some take-charge credentials.

The production company didn’t work out, but the friendship grew.

“He had a keen interest in my experience in the Marine Corps, and I wanted to learn the ropes in the TV/video industry,” says Harris. “We both had experience working with live bands. Ray showed me that to get things done, I did not necessarily have to put my head down and run through the wall, which was generally my way of doing things.”

They had the friendship some never have. They shared darn near everything, including the moment when Ray proposed to his wife, Diana. They talked about what they hoped for, what they dreamed. They were welcomed warmly and completely into each others’ families.

“Ray was the big brother I never had,” says Harris. “He was the best friend I ever had and he was the best man I ever knew.”

Next Sunday, June 14, Harris will celebrate his friend in a way that he knows his friend would have appreciated.

“People need this,” says Harris. “We talked and we decided ‘let’s get together and have a kick-ass party the way Ray would want to have it and share some memories.’ ”

The party starts at 1 p.m. at the Hawk’s Nest Tavern, just a few minutes up the road from Providence on Plummer Avenue in Whitinsville, Mass. The tavern is owned by Jefferson’s sister Cheryl Pichel and her husband, Phil. The party is called the Circle of Friends Festival on the posters and fliers. It’s to benefit The Ray Jefferson Memorial Scholarship Fund for Jefferson’s son and stepson.

Harris was in Florida in August of last year when he got a phone call telling him a vital part of his life was gone. Ray Jefferson died at the cruelly young age of 46. He had been doing yard work at his house in West Warwick and getting ready for a family barbecue when he told his wife he didn’t feel well. He drove himself to Kent Hospital. He died of a heart attack.

At the wake at the Thomas & Walter Quinn Funeral Chapel in Warwick, Jefferson’s father insisted that Harris take a place in the receiving line with the family.

And there was this line in Ray Jefferson’s obituary: “He also leaves his best friend, Jeff Harris, who he loved as a brother, and his devoted dog, Dash.”

The friendship endures. There’s no leaving Ray Jefferson behind. There are a lot of times, says Harris, when life will seem headed for the dumper and he will ask himself what Jefferson would have done in the same situation.

“It’s not fair that Ray was taken so early, but Ray would be the first one to tell you that life is not fair and you have to go out and make the best of it.”

The word of Jefferson’s death spread to a lot of places because he had a lot of friends.

“He was passionate about his family, his friends and his career,” says Harris.

The career took Jefferson, and Harris, to Orlando where they worked in TV production on the lot of Universal Studios for six years and had one hell of a good time.

Love and other job opportunities brought them back to Rhode Island. Jefferson was video director for (add)ventures, a Providence communications firm, for the last 10 years of his life. Harris is now a lead inspector and risk assessor. He can come in to your house or building, tell you how environmentally messed up it is and how to correct it.

But right now, there’s this party in Whitinsville next Sunday in honor of the big guy with the shaved head who people called “Ray-J.”

“He’d be the first one who would do this sort of thing,” says Harris. “Yeah, it’s a fundraiser, but it will be a healing too.”

The Ignitors and Treasure Chest will play on the outdoor stage. The Ignitors played at the Jeffersons’ wedding. There will be a pig roast and raffles, horse shoes, kids’ games and plenty of parking for motorcycles. It’s the kind of party Ray Jefferson would have been right in the middle of.

The suggested donation is $20. For information, go to www.rayjmemorial.com.

bkerr@projo.com