A few weeks ago, a solid, insightful, kind and loving man from my home town took his own life. I knew him a little, and what I knew made me like him. He laughed easily and tended to townie business with class and grace. His family owned an East-facing boatyard, not far from an actual round house.
I wish I’d known Jim wasn’t feeling okay so I could have reached out to help him when he was suffering. I feel like I could have helped him to see another day. We had both liked A Course in Miracles at one point, and I was surprised to learn that when I came back from New York that we had that kind of spiritual seeking in common.
And of course, we shared the same home town. He for generations, me for just under one. Such is life. He had a wide network of good folks around him, yet even with that, it’s apparently not always enough to want to survive for another sunrise.
I remember once asking Jim and his pal Don if I could join them to watch Band of Brothers on HBO. They didn’t drink and we were all friendly. I knew them to be decent guys. I was living alone in Jamestown, making websites and waiting tables a few nights a week. I wanted to have some friends outside of work. Fun pals. My question gave then a surprised wide eyed smile plus a lovely scoff “no, it’s band of brothers!”
It was the clearest of nos, downright clarifying even: bands of brothers watch bands of brothers.
Years before, I’d been a little sister in another band of brothers. Maybe a mascot who dressed in oversized tweed blazers from vintage stores (it was the 1980s and I listened to alt rock on WBRU). I adored all those guys, and it was so fun being with them. They helped me grow up.
It was a gift getting in good trouble with a merry band of gentlemen, all 3 years my senior.
The lot of us would nearly pee our pants driving through McDonald’s drive through backwards, and we’d shock ourselves by actually getting served pitchers for effortless underage drinking at the University Pub in Providence.
In Joey’s 280Z or Dave’s big black Impala, we’d spend late nights driving the North Kingstown “strip,” stopping to smoke and sip coffee at Niknud Stunod (Dunkin Donuts backwards). Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel shows on special occasions too.
They were “almost of age,” and that was enough for me “clearly not of age” to get in.
On home-bound nights we attended to watching David Letterman on a sectional couch at Dave’s house. Larry Bud Melman and Stupid Pet Tricks. Chris Elliot too. I still don’t fully get that guy.
David Letterman at 12:30 am was our touchstone. Most of us smoked like chimneys. I sure did. We’d share Marlboro Lights. Smokes were cheap back then. Sharing was caring.
These guys completed me in part because, my older brother had been sent away to prep school (because he was smart and deserving of a great ‘upperclass-type’ opportunity), and I missed him. The universe sent me lots more good guys to take his place, and I was always looked after. And I giggled like crazy. Maybe that’s why they kept me around? I was an odd duck, that’s for sure. But I was part of the gang. And I’ll always love those guys.
I was most clearly under the wing of Joey, a born again Christian who looked like – and was freaking funny like– John Belushi. Joey was always the designated driver, and a crazy speeder as born out by an earlier accident, yet my mom loved him, so as long as I was out with Joey, she say okay.
He’d come over and try to convert us both.
Joey really wanted for me to become Christian, and even said warmly, “I’m sorry but you are going to go to hell,” because I liked astrology and read tarot cards, but that didn’t bother me one bit. Joey was a friend. I was officially a Christian, and totally down with Jesus, I just also thought eastern spirituality was cool too (ashrams and Bodhisattvas and snaky Kundalini). All good.
Joey and I became friends in Newport Hospital. I believe he was 18, so I must have been 14. He had hit a cow on his motorcycle and wound up in casts and traction. I’d worked with Joey at Ken’s East Landing restaurant, where he’d sweat profusely over cracking flats of eggs while serving up the Sunday Breakfast rush.
I remember wondering if the sweat made the breakfast eggs saltier.
That’s who helped me understand ‘back of the house’ too: Joey.
I took the bus over (the route went from Jamestown’s East Ferry to Newport’s Washington Square, which was just a short walk to the hospital). We’d talk and he’d tell me how he fell in love with Vanna White of Wheel of Fortune.
“She’s just so nice,” he’d say. True, she has always been nice. Turning letters for decades.
I think I may have brought him a card, but mostly we just talked. ‘That flippin cow’ he’d say with a semi-raspberry and a disbelieving winking shake of his head. The cow had come out of nowhere on Eldred Avenue, the road that used to intersect Conanicut Island from East to West. And yeah, he hit that thing hard and totaled his bike.
Flippin cow is right.
After those hospital visits, Joey brought me along with his band of brothers, and it was the best time ever. How happy I was to be included in the mayhem, protected by the funny man and falling in love all the time. Those guys were friends, crushes, and big brothers all in one. I hope they are all doing just fine.
When the year was up, the guys moved on to college, and I still had lots of high school to go.
Still going, in a way, to school that is.
Wishing Jim, Joey and all my guy pals all the best moving forward. May they find the fun they made for many, and find the peace they brought to my heart in theirs.
