I heard this week an acquaintance was murdered in Chicago a coupla weeks ago.

He was a real character. Born to a very wealthy family, his father was one of the funding partners of one of the top 50 accounting firms in the US. I'm not qualified to psychoanalyze the guy but it seems like he spent his whole life rebelling.

He was a gifted bass player and played with the Vassar Clement band for several years. He left the band because of his over indulgence with drugs and the party scene. The word on the street is that he was killed because of a drug deal gone bad. There was a rumor about that he was a narc, having been busted for some drug charge he decided to talk to get out of it. It was also rumored that he was in the thick of things in the big drug bust at O'Hare airport involving cabbies and immagrants about ten yrs ago.

The last time I saw him he was a balding guy, about 5' 10" and rapidly going to seed. He'd screw ya in a heart beat and the truth was often a stranger to his lips. He seemed to be obsessed with keeping his crotch busy. In addition to owning and operating a small cab company he was running a few hookers in Chicago.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread and that could be said of him. The Chicago area is pretty saturated with cab companies except for certain neighborhoods that are so bad even the cops don't go there except for extreme emergency. Thats where he set up his outlaw cab company and ran his hookers out of.

The stories I could tell about him! He used to work for a used car dealership in the central Wisconsin town I live near. I worked for the same place. The "specialty" of the dealership was sales to the cab industry. We'd buy fleets of retired squad cars then sell them to the cab market. The dealership had a sales guy in Chicago and one in the twin cities area. I was hired to serve the twin cities area and the guy I'm talking about was transferred to Chicago to join the other one to set up a sales lot.

I remember one time he'd brought a car up from Chicago to the dealership. He spent alot of his time being stoned and was subject to the memory lapses thats noted for. Well, the car was parked in front of the office building and they were showing it to a customer. They opened the trunk and there sat two pounds of MJ, right out in plain sight. He'd forgotten about it and he absolutely freaked. "Ohhhmygawd!" he yells. "This musta been a narcotics cops car. I gotta get this stuff back to them." He jumps in the cars and takes off, leaving the customer standing there bewildered. Hilarious!

But in spite of his numerous integrity shortcomings I liked the guy. There didn't seem to be the slightest bit of racism in him. In fact I don't think I ever saw him with a white woman. He was funny, charming, even caring. I don't remember him EVER saying anything negative about another person nor do I remember him ever being mean to another.

Somehow I thik the world will be a little poorer without him.

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2002

Answers

John, my heart goes out to you for your loss, we know folks like your friend too, being truck drivers for so long, as well as being "bike people" ( I refuse to use the derogatory term "biker"), we have known more than our share of good friends who choose to walk the "other side" of conventional law. Strangely, the ones who walk on the farthest side are usually the nicest people. Kinda of like an inverse relationship thing.

Now to clarify to everyone who are thinking the worst about me, and to fend off the Men In Black who might read this, me and DH have been 99.9% clean and sober for the past 20+ years ;-)!!!

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2002

Bless you John, what a very interesting story you wrote about your lost friend. Bless You! yes the world is a poorer place without him, but your heart is richer for having known him.

Love TRen

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2002