Gabe

When I was growing up one of my best friends was a guy named Gabe. Gabe was a year or two older than me. He was thin and somewhat wiry with glasses and a big nose. He had dropped out of school to work and while he wasn’t the brightest bulb on the tree, he had a good heart.

Gabe was one of the best friends a guy could have, because in many ways he was like hanging around with a cartoon character. For instance, Gabe was the only person I have ever known who has been stuck by lightening. He even had the charred bicycle wheel and melted tire to prove it.

Gabe was always working on some kind of interesting mechanical project. When we were younger this usually meant some sort of crazy bicycle contraption; something with long raking forks. One day he was riding down the road in the pouring rain. He was riding past my house, hurrying to get home. Unfortunately, he did not see the parked cars at the side of the road. He hit these going a good clip and sent himself airborne. The extra forks on his bicycle simply carumping like they were made out of aluminum foil.

As we got older, Gabe’s interest turned to motorized things. He always had a mini-bike, go-cart or something that he was playing with. Often these things lacked any sort of safety feature, often not even having any brakes. Gabe’s sneakers, and mine, were often worn right down as a result. One mini-bike had no brakes and the throttle was either all or nothing.

When he became driving age, he approached his motor vehicles with the same zeal. He was always fixing up some van or car. Often these things would only work for limited periods and they spent more time up on blocks in his yard, than on the road. One of Gabe’s best vehicles wan an old station wagon. We loved this car because it had a rear facing third seat and it could handle 9 people easily. We would do crazy things like switch seats, going from front to back and vise versa, by crawling out the window and down the roof of the car. We would even sit up there on the roof as we drove down the highway.

I remember one time Gabe was trying to replace the glass in the rear window. He had gone to the junk yard and had gotten a new piece of glass. He put it in and just as he was making the last adjustments, the things shattered in a million pieces. Gabe never said anything or even got mad. He just went to the junk yard and got another piece. As he was putting in this second piece and again as he was making the final adjustments, he broke this second window as well. After that, Gabe always had a piece of plywood for a rear window. Again, he never got mad or even said a word about it.

While Gabe was a dear friend to me, he could be a terror to others. One time he was riding this kid’s bike around the playground of this abandoned school near where we lived. There was a wooden shed attached to the rear of the building. For no reason and without notice, Gabe got up a head of steam and crashed the bike into this wooden shed; jumping off at the last minute and casting the bike headlong into the sheds wooden door. The door splintered and broke under the assault and the bike crashed into the dark recesses of the shed. Gabe stood there laughing his ass of and the bikes owner just stood there not knowing what to do or say. Just then, the front wheel of the bike popped back out of the door and slowly rolled on its own accord down the playground. With that I was in hysterics too. It really was like something out of a cartoon.

Another time, Gabe and I were coming off the highway. At the end of the ramp there was a kid hitchhiking, one foot on a skateboard. Without a word Gabe aimed right for the kid. The kid, wisely, jumped and ran, but unfortunately left his skateboard on the road. Gabe drove right over it without pausing. I turned to look in time to see two pieces of skateboard fly through the air.

One time we had stopped in the middle of this small town to check into renting inner tubes for tubing on the river. It was a warm day and the small downtown area was doing a brisk business with cars and people everywhere. When we left the store and were returning to his car, Gabe suddenly jumped up on the hood of a Mercedes that was parked there and ran up the roof and down the trunk, jumping off the car in a flourish. Unbeknownst to us, the cars owner was right behind us. She yelled, “what did I ever do to you?” Nothing of course, but she just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. We had to take off like a sot because I am sure she called the cops, but we did not stick around to find out.

Most of the time though, Gabe’s was the victim of his own antics. There was this particular playground we used to hang around and it large truck tires embedded in the ground. For some reason, we got the idea to dig the biggest one up. It took awhile, but we did it. Once free from the ground we stood it on end to check it out. Gabe climbed into the middle of the tire and asked us to push it with him in it, which we of course obliged. The tire did not make even one full revolution. There was still a large chunk of mud in the tire and when that was over Gabe’s head the whole thing fell on him. The tire then fell over and all you could see was Gabe’s ass sticking out of the hole. After we stopped laughing and pulled him free he was filthy from the mud!

Gabe’s family was French Canadian. His parents were very “old school” and none of them spoke English, only French. Gabe ( whose real name was Gabriel ) spoke both, only after I had been friends with Gabe for quite sometime was I allowed in his house. It was one of the tiniest houses I have ever seen. The interesting part was that Gabe had several brothers and sisters and they all occupied this one tiny home. From the outside you could barely seen the place because there were large shrubs that covered the entire side of the home that was visible from the road. Inside the home had the impression that he was more of a cabin than a house. It was unfinished in a number of places and in some rooms, Gabe’s for example, there was exposed plywood on the floor. I don’t think Gabe’s parents liked visitors to their home, or even cared for Gabe much. They always seemed to be yelling at him when I was around.

Gabe was a lot of fun at parties. He usually didn’t drink much, but when he decided to, he got stinking. It was usually about this time that he would pour ketchup on himself and pretend that he had been stabbed. He’d run around with the “bloody” knife shrieking and really going at it. Another time, we were at a party and we were walking out together, just walking and talking, I wasn’t looking, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gabe disappear. I spun my head and didn’t see him. It was pitch black. I yelled his name and he said “I’m here”. The voice came from below me. He had just fallen flat out drunk on the ground.

One of my favorite Gabe drunk stories was this time we went to the movies. We used to take the bus to Westfarms Mall to see the movies. This one time Gabe was trashed. We were sitting right up front as we usually were and the place was packed. Gabe was sitting in front of us sorta by himself, when a popcorn fight ensued. At first it was just a few kernels, but Gabe was one to do things in a big way. Suddenly he just threw the whole bucket over his head. He had bought the jumbo size so he just trashed us in popcorn. He then threw the bucket at us too. Shortly thereafter, he threw up all over the floor. We handed him his popcorn bucket back which still had a few kernels in it and he began to eat it, rather then what we intended, which was for him to barf in. He then got up to go to the bathroom.

He was gone quite awhile and so I went to check on him. There were two stalls in the bathroom and only one of them was occupied. I looked under and it looked like Gabes sneakers, so I said “Gabe, you ok?”. There was silence. So I tried again. Nothing. I rapped at the door, “Gabe, man, you OK, in there?” This time I got a groan out of him. I said, “c’mon, Gabe, the movie is playing.” Just more groaning. I got tired of this and went back to the movie, but as I was walking by the outside door, I saw what looked like Gabe sitting outside. I went outside and it was Gabe. It was somebody else in the bathroom!

Gabe was always acting up in public. Another time we had gone to the movies, but had gone out to eat before. Gabe had lobster and he insisted on continuing to wear his bib all night, but he turned it around like a superhero’s cape. One of his favorite things to do was go to the drive through, order something and when they repeated it back, he’d say , “No, I did not order that. I ordered such and such.” He was always doing things like that.

Then there was this one time we had all gone out “partying”. We were really stoned and sitting in Gabe’s car at McDonalds. This car pulled up next to us and a person got out. The person had really long hair. I think Gabe could barely see, but he starts making faces, saying, “oh, yeah, I want that. She’s hot” etc. Then the person turned around, having heard what Gabe had said through his rolled down window. It was a man! Well, we NEVER let Gabe forget that! EVER

As we grew older, we grew apart. I went to college and moved out of town. We stayed in touch for awhile, but when we got back together his antics seemed less funny and simply more… juvenile.

A number of years went by and I hadn’t seen Gabe in all that time. Then one day I ran into him in town. We talked about old times and such and since I was having a party that night, I invited him. When he showed up he was with this really weird other kid. Gabe hadn’t changed much and he acted like a dufus most of the night. After he left, I went in the bathroom. Gabe was the last to use it. He had wiped his hands on my towels and they were all covered in black grease stains. My soon to be wife was not amused and I had to hear it for several months after that about how weird my friends were. I guess you can never go back.

However, I look back at those times as some of the best times of my life. It was a magical twilight period between childhood and adult hood and what person wouldn’t want to have a cartoon character as a best friend as they grew up? I did. Here is to you, Gabe!