The Fine Night That Big Ray Didn’t Kill Me
I had a random thought today from 30 years ago, and I thought I’d share. I thought about Big Ray. I wouldn’t say he was a close friend at all – he was just a guy I knew in college – Northern Illinois University. He crosses my mind from time to time because he was unlike anyone else I’ve ever known. And believe me, I’ve known some strange ones. Yes, I know, birds of a feather and all that.
He was on another floor of our dorm. About 6’7″, 310 pounds. Scary. He wore a t-shirt that, in very large letters, said F-CK OFF, only with the “U”. I think it might have been against dorm rules, but nobody had the courage to tell him. Now, usually, I like to be liked. But in Big Ray’s case, it actually scared me a little that he liked me. He’d call out my nickname “Wizard” and punch me in the shoulder…hard. I felt like you might feel if a local grizzly took a liking to you…you go through each day hoping not to make a mistake that pisses him off. But I made it through the year without bear claw wounds, and we parted ways.
Two years later I was staggering past an apartment building late on a Saturday night. I’d had a couple of beers…well, a little more than the literal “couple”. I was a Stroh’s guy back then. There was a party going on in the little patio area of one of the apartments. I slurred out a little “Hello” as I walked past.
“Hi,” I heard back. “Wanna beer?” said the gentle voice of a long haired guy with a cowboy hat on. He convinced me.
So I grabbed a cup, pumped the keg, had a seat, and grabbed the guitar that someone had left out on the patio. Some chords are easy to play when you’ve been drinking, some aren’t. The chords to Neil Young’s “Sugar Mountain” are fairly easy, so I started:
♫ Oh to live on, Sugar Mountain,
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can’t be twenty, on Sugar Mountain,
Though you’re thinking that you’re leaving there too soon,
You’re leaving there too soon. ♫
I didn’t know these people but, when you start singing and playing guitar to a bunch of people who have been enjoying Cuervo Gold and fine Colombian… or beer… all night, you become popular very fast. I liked it.
♫ It’s so noisy at the fair, but all your friends are there,
And the candy floss you had, and your mother and your dad. ♫
Then everybody started singing:
♫ Oh to live on, Sugar Mountain,
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can’t be twenty, on Sugar…….♫
All of a sudden I heard a voice that blew out my eardrums, rattled my bones, and almost made me break the e-string. “WIZZZZAAARRRRDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!”
I looked inside the apartment and saw, standing haloed in front of the bright kitchen light, the silhouette of a Frankenstein. I knew the voice.
“Big Ray?”
He walked over and gave me a hug. Luckily I handed over the guitar to the cowboy just in time to save it from becoming an armful of splinters.
“Come inside, Wizard. I want you to meet my girlfriend!”
Yes, you know exactly what I was anticipating. A lady with in a flowing robe, with an ashen white face and blood colored lipstick, with gravity defying hair on her head. But, much to my surprise, she was quite attractive.
Big Ray put one of his huge arms around her, and one around me, and with a big smile and an intense stare, asked me “So Wizard, what do you think of her?”
I felt the moment coming at me that I had avoided two years ago…the moment I would piss off Big Ray.
My best survival skill, cleverness, rescued me. “Big Ray, she’s beautiful, and I can tell how much she’s into you. You two are a perfect couple. Right on, man!” and I high fived him.
“You wanna kiss her, Wiz?”
Gulp!
”You said she’s beautiful, so you wanna kiss her, right?”
”Well, Big Ray, no, because she’s your gir….”
”You don’t like her!”
I began to sweat. ”Sure! Sure I do, Big Ray. But…”
”Then kiss her.”
I looked at her and she gave me a little nod that told me it would be ok with her if it was ok with me. Actually, I told myself at that moment that I should enjoy the kiss, because there was a better than average chance that Big Ray was testing me, and that kissing her would be the last thing I would do in my life.
I kissed her. It was nice. I didn’t feel a giant fist come crashing down on my head. Instead, I heard Big Ray’s happy voice behind me blurt out “F-ckin’ A!”
After that, all was happy, but my survival instincts were still whispering to me “Wiz, get out of here.”
”Big Ray, I gotta go, but this was a great party.”
”Wiz, wanna beer for the walk home?” Yeah, I said, that would be great. Since they were out of cups, he dumped out a half jar of pickles, washed the jar out, and filled it with beer.
On the walk home, I had to throw the jar of beer away. It’s not that it tasted like pickles, but I saw a car coming and I knew if it was a cop, I would get busted. Turns out that it WAS a cop, but the jar was safely disposed of, and home I went.
So, if you’re sending your kids to college, share this story with them, let them learn to be just like me!
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Reach me at thinwizzyfit@gmail.com, and feel welcome to link up with me through Facebook (Mark Wierzbinski).
