So I met one of my close college friends in the most early 80s, pre "Me, Too" sort of way: ogling a co-ed's enormous breasts. It was the Spring of 1981, and I was still pre Med, and taking Calculus. Knowing my strengths and weaknesses intellectually, I had as much business taking Calculus as I did trying out for the Hurricanes, but there I was.
Of course, I was soon lost and bored with the lecture of a kindly old professor named McDougle, who ended up giving me a gentlemen's C at the end of the class. But sitting next to me was a fellow Honors Student named Christine -- a Marine Science major who could have been Jayne Mansfield's sister. My gaze, no, stare, was upon her chest, and I looked up to see another face staring the very same way, from the seat on her other side. It was a comical face -- curly blonde hair, glasses, and huge nose. The fellow gave me the thumbs up, and we met after class.
"I see you're a man of similar tastes," he said, and I think I answered that any undergrad male who wasn't gay probably had similar tastes. We laughed, and a friendship was thus born. His name was Vince.
He had transferred in from FSU, where he partied too much and his grades were poor. His Dad, Vince, Sr. made him come home (he was raised in North Miami, back when they had a small Italian American section there -- now all Haitian) and gave him a final year of paying for college. "If my grades don't improve -- I have to work as a janitor in his clothing factory in Hialeah!" The parental pressure worked -- he got all As and accepted into UM's Medical School.
But first we had a lot of fun to add to our college memory list. We had a lot in common -- we adored our Dads . His was an Italian version of mine -- same high school in the Bronx, even, and like my late Dad, a self taught intellectual who prized education above all else in a man. His Mom was Irish, and less warm, but had a sharp sense of humor.
He used to spend nights at my campus apartment, and met his first wife Barbara, a pretty, smart girl from Chicago who ended up going to UM Law and becoming a US Assistant Attorney. Wifey and I attended their wedding, at Reflections at Bayside, and Vince's sister Lee remarked that it was filled with "pregnant pauses." Barbara's very WASPY Chicago family were no bunch of wacky funsters.
Anyway -- the marriage didn't last long, and Vince then married a Nurse Practitioner with whom he had his 2 kids, now grown with their own kids. His son was a troubled young man, and one of my worst jobs as a friend was staying on the phone with Vince as he had his 17 year old son "kidnapped" by a drug program which took him to rural Utah, too far to run away to anything, and tried to get him cured. I hope it worked -- at least according to FaceBook (tm), the young fellow seems to be doing well -- married and with a new baby -- never college educated but working, I think, in the marine industries.
And indeed it was FaceBook (tm) this am that told me it was my old friend's birthday -- I guess he is 63.
He had a pattern. When he was married, which was 4 times (the last 2 to the same woman, also a nurse) I'd hear from him infrequently. But when he was divorced, he was around -- a lot. Between his 3rd and 4th marriage, our friends Dave and Sandra were staying here from the UK, and Vince was there every day for 4 in a row. I recall Dave found that odd, but I was used to it.
And then came the schism. Vince asked me for a loan of $50K, to keep afloat a pain clinic he had founded. He had just paid 7 figures to his wife #3, who was later to become wife #4, and I asked why he didn't simply ask HER for the money -- since his ability to pay her alimony depended on his ability to make money. Oh no -- he said -- no way.
Well -- I had just completed a very bad deal with another college friend I'll call Jorge -- borrowed money for a donut business, and defaulted on several loans. Plus, I had a sense that many of these private pain clinics were headed for trouble -- audits for Medicare/Medicaid issues and the like, and I had zero desire to encounter the Feds as an investor in something like that. So I told Vince no.
He understood, or so I thought, and soon after married wife #3 again. And then I didn't hear from him for over a year, which was, I thought, the usual pattern. But then I reached out -- no, he said, he wasn't not talking to me because he was married again, but because I had broken his heart when I refused the $50K loan.
I thought long and hard about a response. Should I remind him of the laundry list of things I had done for him in his life? How I supported him through so many tough times -- represented him for FREE on two cases -- once when he was sued, and once when an insurer wouldn't pay for a sailboat destroyed by a hurricane? The legal fees for those two cases alone would have been more than $50K, and as I was reminded recently, lawyers often charge full price even to young people they've known since birth!
Nah. I let it go with a simple "Sorry you feel that way -- I wish you the best." And that was it.
His wife #2 is a FaceBook friend, now on her husband #4 , and over the years has reached out to Wifey and me about getting together. We took a Pasadena -- plenty of couple friends. And I told her I was thrilled to see her kids soaring.
Still -- when I got the FB notification this am, it brought back mostly happy, warm, and hilarious memories of our times together. And it turns out I'm not the only one who Vince jettisoned.
He has a friend, Al, a fellow North Miam Italian guy. They met when they were 9 -- Al married his Catholic high school sweetheart. We all recall with hilarity the best July 4 party ever -- July 4, 1981. Vince's parents were in the Keys, and we hosted a huge blowout. It ended with random people, passed out from booze and drugs, sleeping all over the house. I was working that Summer at Boca Hospital as a pharmacy tech, and a group of pharmacists and fellow techs all attended. My girlfriend at the time, a rich Colombian Jewess, saw how "crass and loud" the party was and made me drive her home. She was proud to be Chopin and not Skynerrd.
Anyway, a few years back, Al took a break from his lawyer life in Tampa, and moved back to the 305 to care for his declining mother. We had lunch, and of course talked about our mutual friend. He said that when he reached out to Vince as his wife Cristina was dying -- Vince totally blew him off. Talk about heartbreaking. So Al convinced me not to feel bad at all about refusing the loan - our old, mutual friend had some emotional screws loose, it seems.
Still -- I hope he's well, and gets joy from his grandkids. I think he's still practicing medicine.
So happy birthday, old friend. We're long divorced, but I wish you only well.
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