Wreckoning

On August 24th, one of the best friends I’ll ever have died at thirty-eight. He’d had his demons and after learning the specifics, despite how depressed it made me, I believed he’d found the peace he needed. When Norm Macdonald—probably his favorite comedian—died a few weeks later, I (selfishly) wondered if The Universe decided that if it couldn’t have them both, it couldn’t keep them separated.

While I’m not adept at receiving compliments, there’s one that moves me to tears whenever I think of it: “This dude is the funniest person I’ve ever met.” Travis was a student of comedy—movies, stand-up specials, TV shows, possibly even mimes for all I know—and the fact that he said it in mixed company about me on several occasions led me to believe he meant it. I never told him, but his encouragement became the primary driving force after I conceived the idea of writing a humorous essay collection about my life. Spending time with him was a true challenge: I always strove to be funnier than I’d ever been in his presence, and no matter who else was around, said outlandish things solely to see how he’d react even if it meant offending everyone else’s sensibilities, offended sensibilities he’d usually apologize for on my uncompromising behalf while still laughing. The fact that he could’ve paid the same compliment to himself was never lost on me, but reflected how generous, kind, and genuine he was. 

I can’t deny that most of our funniest memories were made while drinking or smoking or often doing both, but despite being casual friends in high school, we truly clicked during some of the darker days of our twenties. We picked on one another endlessly, aware that faux loathing from a friend was more encouraging than the self-loathing we both routinely practiced in solitude.

Upon learning that his sister, Sam, will be having an intimate get-together of friends and family to reminisce about him in two weeks—jerseys and loose-fitting pants are encouraged to honor the man’s sartorial preferences (even though I mainly picture him in button-down collared shirts and jeans)—I spent several hours digging through old journals and Word documents to unearth my most cherished memories of a guy who never made me smile more than when he was calling me a “fucking asshole” for the umpteenth time. There have been a handful of phenomenal partners-in-sarcasm I’ve had in this life; New England’s biggest Kevin Pittsnogle fan was the best of ‘em. Rest in peace, you rascal.  

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

2005
October 22nd
“Your knowledge is so gay,” our friend Steve tells Travis and me as our team keeps winning a game of Scene It?: Movie Edition.

“Yes, our knowledge is so damn homosexual,” Travis replies.

“Knowing the answer to this clue about Back to the Future is exactly like one man inserting his penis inside another man’s mouth,” I say.

Travis begins to describe how a correct answer about The Silence of the Lambs is like consensual man-on-man sodomy until Steve tells us to fuck off for beating the joke to death for a half hour.

Oddly, our pal Timmy only calls me “weird” when I reference Stephen Sondheim.

December 17th
A group of us visit Jimmy’s Pub, a local Italian restaurant-slash-dive bar, because Timmy met a girl there the previous weekend and hopes she’ll be present yet again. At one point, I encounter a former high school classmate.

“You sold me Diet Pepsi at Shaw’s,” I tell her, unable to make a normal human connection.

“I worked at the service desk.”

“Then you sold me newspapers!”

Travis tells me that because she did speak words to me, we’re returning on Christmas Eve in case she’s there anxiously waiting to become my girlfriend. Most of us leave but Timmy stays behind in case his elusive spouse-to-be surfaces. We proceed to break into his house while his silent dog wags its tail, empty out the snack cupboard, and drink as much beer as possible from the fridge. Then we visit Taco Bell while shitting on Timmy’s subpar taste in processed food and the Grateful Dead collar he put on his pleasant pooch. When Timmy questions if we committed larceny, I react with mock contempt: “This isn't the type of attitude I expect from a guy who believes in peace and love!”

2006
December 31st
Go to Timmy’s for New Year’s Eve and puke in his bushes.

“Don’t leave the door open!” Travis says about Timmy’s gelid living room. “You’ll let the heat in.”

After Timmy tells us to fuck off, I mention the vomit outside.

“You’re gonna need to clean that before you leave!” Timmy insists.

“You own a hose!” I tell him. “So, you clean it!” 

Then I crack another can of beer as a puke chaser.

2007
January 6th
“Well, Travis, it’s 1 a.m. You think your sister’s getting assfucked right now?”

“Dude!” is the only response he can muster.

January 12th
Travis shows up to Timmy’s house shitfaced and argues with some kid about who is a better NFL quarterback: Rex Grossman or Chad Pennington. They argue forever, so at one point I hand the kid a penny from my pocket and tell him it’s for his thoughts. Travis winds up betting the kid that Grossman will win Super Bowl MVP. If Travis wins, the kid owes him one hundred dollars. If he loses, Travis merely must admit that Pennington’s a better QB. Truth be told, Travis should’ve placed more drunken wagers with this delusional stranger.

January 21st
Christal (Travis’s mom) starts talking shit about his dad, prompting me to say, “Well, you did marry the guy…” Travis tells me that he cannot believe I had the balls to say this to her, never mind how stunned he is that I didn’t get thrown out.

Following the Bears victory in the NFC Championship Game, Travis giddily unearths a rare DVD he owns. 

“Most guys have porn hidden,” Christal says, “but my son has the Super Bowl Shuffle DVD.”

January 25th
I casually reveal to my friend Moore that I have a baby photo of Hitler in my wallet.

“I’m using it to own Travis next time we hang out because I keep telling him he looks like Anne Frank. If I unexpectedly die beforehand, I need an alibi.” 

March 17th
Go to The 99 with Travis to watch the NCAA basketball tournament. The bartender scoffs when I ask for a bottle of Miller High Life, but not when Travis offers to seat a random couple. Travis debates ordering a final drink and I tell him, “Oh man, you broke down a lot of cardboard at work this week! You owe it to yourself.”

April 10th
Travis calls Timmy because he doesn’t believe Timmy’s excuse that his mother is sick, meaning we can’t hang out at his house. Later, I call Timmy and tell him to draw a warm bath, grab a toaster, and play an Elliott Smith record. That escalated quickly. I then debate with Travis if Elliott Smith or Jeff Buckley, one of Travis’s favorite singers, is a better suicide soundtrack all while he keeps telling me to shut the fuck up between uproarious laughter for several minutes.

April 11th
My mother tells Travis that it was nice to meet him for the first time.

“I think we’ve met before,” Travis tells her.

“Oh, I was probably drunk or high,” she responds.

Travis and I walk her shih-tzu, spending the entire time making jokes about how homoerotic this might seem to my neighbors.

“Who do you think is the bottom?” he asks.

“Whoever picks up this fucker’s shit,” I reply while attempting to forcefully hand him a plastic bag.

April 13th
Travis and I split a pint of Captain Morgan at a screening of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters, still the only time I’ve consumed liquor in the sacred space of a movie theater.

We leave the theater and I insist on visiting Bookends, an adult bookstore in town, and purchase a copy of Pirates for sixty clams, still the only time I’ve purchased anything in a pornographic retailer.

After joking about masturbating to the “motion picture” together, we visit The Outback and keep yelling “GO ANGELS!” every couple minutes to piss off a bar full of Red Sox fans. Can’t say I blame our waiter for the phantom twenty dollars he added to our bill, but Travis caught the error and I tipped less than I should’ve due to spending such an absurd amount to watch Carmen Luvana and Janine Lindemulder use lit candles as dildos on one another. More than just meat indeed.

May 19th
Travis praises bygone photos of UConn women’s basketball player Pam Webber in our local newspaper: “When you were thirteen, you could jerk off to the Journal Inquirer.” 

May 31st
Travis lays out his philosophy about discussing one’s job: “No more than five minutes, and it must be funny. Six minutes but still funny? Fuck you!”

June 1st
Hang out with Travis in the afternoon and watch a Cubs game. We split a fifth of cheap vodka, prompting me to accost his mother for not mowing her own lawn well, explaining that I’ll re-do the job after the game. As it concerns my passion for yardwork, I attempted to drunkenly eat a plant in my mother’s garden several hours later. Things always have a way of evening out, but typically not that fast. Friends and family believe I was drugged while substitute teaching or that Travis put LSD in the vodka, but the reality is that I drank ten shots in three hours on an empty stomach. Worst part? I detest vodka.

June 2nd
Travis finds my cellphone on his windowsill.

“I hate to break it to you,” he says, and after a dramatic pause adds, “but my mother did a helluva job on the lawn.” 

November 30th
Beat Travis in a game of Tecmo Super Bowl, which he claims is his first loss in “twenty years,” an obviously hyperbolic number. To mark the occasion, I sing Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over” to him.

December 30th
Christal asks me what I use for the homepage on my laptop after I chide her for predictably using Google.

“Fuckmyblackpussy.com,” I tell her while Travis barely avoids spitting his drink on the coffee table. Christal’s face suggests she’s just seen a ghost rape a mirror.

2009
June 8th
We go to Tony’s house (Sam’s boyfriend) where his sizable father is walking around shirtless and bitching that it’s too hot. Having just met the man moments prior, I recommend that he also take off his pants.

“It’s your house after all, sir.”

2010
January 6th
While he’s bowling a perfect game—Wii bowling, not the real thing—Timmy pantses Travis repeatedly as I keep telling him how renowned strike-chucker Walter Ray Williams Jr. certainly keeps better company.

January 13th
Meet Travis and Brett at The 99 after attending a wake. Timmy shows up an hour later and asks if I keep in touch with my dad, to which I reply, “I keep sending letters to heaven, but they come back marked RETURN TO SENDER!” Timmy reminds me that his father’s also dead, which I tell him is “why we’re sitting together.” Tell Laurie, our bartender, to not charge Timmy tax on his dollar ninety-nine Bud Select because he only has two dollars on him. I’d never seen Travis more mortified by my actions in public. 

January 20th
Brett calls while Travis and I watch an episode of Modern Family. Rather than invite him over, we attempt to convince him that we’re drinking at the Pumpernickel Pub, a restaurant that closed ten years prior.

“That place didn’t re-open, did it?” the ever-gullible Brett asks.

“It’s in a smaller location behind Kohl’s,” I tell him. “The fish and chips is great!”

February 15th
Leave his bathroom and tell Travis that it smells like Natalie Merchant’s hair, which enrages him for some unknown reason. He tackles me in the hallway only for me to inexplicably end up sitting on his chest and telling him I could choke him out, but I’m a better friend than that. Sam arrives home at this exact moment and yells, “YOU ASSHOLES DRINK LIKE TWELVE-YEAR-OLDS!”

February 17th
Brett quotes a line from Caddyshack 2, which leads to Travis and me mocking him so mercilessly that he leaves soon thereafter.

“Bet he left to watch Tremors 4: You Complete Me,” Travis jokes before saying Brett has the worst DVD collection of anyone alive. Ah, best friends. 

February 26th
After passing out on separate couches the night before, Travis and I wake up, both puke, get high, and he makes us tea before watching Fletch Lives. Rumors about Brett’s DVD collection may have been exaggerated.

March 3rd
Have an air hockey tournament in my basement with Travis, Timmy, and Brett. Travis proves to be unimaginably awful at air hockey (whiffing while attempting to hit the puck numerous times), Brett asks Timmy if Timmy and his wife ever play “Marv Albert and the Intern,” and I play one game sans pants to motivate Travis out of further shaming himself. He loses.

March 24th
Travis comes over after being sent home from work for consuming apple juice and vodka on the clock. He passes out on my couch because I won’t let him drive home. Go to bed and leave him an extra pillow, blanket, Willie Nelson DVD, and a note in his shoe wishing him luck when he’s forced to explain what happened to his boss. Strongly debate putting his hand in a warm bowl of water but opt against it given I’d have to scrub piss off the couch. If it was his couch, however…

May 28th
My phone rings at 2:30 a.m. while I slug from a can of Heineken.

“Hey, you awake?” Travis whispers as if he’s clueless about how answering phones works, proceeding with the details after my affirmative. “Brett got a DUI. I told him he was gonna get one, but he wouldn’t stay here. Then he got one.”

“I respect your prescience. Surprised you didn’t know I was drinking too, Miss Cleo.”

“I’ve obviously been drinking. Any chance you can go get him?”

“Didn’t you hear me? I’ve been drinking!”

“Yeah, but you’re a good drunk driver.”

“I’m not going to a police station after eight beers.” 

Travis texted me while I slept that he quickly guzzled down coffee and went to bail out Brett before his parents were alerted. Unfortunately, lost in his brief flirtation with clairvoyance, Travis seemed to have forgotten that Brett’s parents weren’t illiterate. They read about the arrest in his old cum rag, the Journal Inquirer.

June 21st
Sam calls me: “This is the Town of Enfield reminding you that you’re overdue for your next haircut,” she says only for Travis to howl loudly in the background and ruin her ridiculous prank. My head was freshly shaved at the time. 

July 31st
Enter a blackout while hanging out with Travis and Brett on Brett’s deck. Travis needs a ride home, but I won’t wake up no matter how loudly he yells at me while I snore on the deck. Not known as the world’s finest problem-solvers, Travis and Brett proceed to kick me several times to wake me, which doesn't work. Travis relates the foot pummeling anecdote after waking me at 6 a.m. for a ride home. When showering, there’s not a single scratch or bruise on my body. The War on Terror is officially declared over.  

August 3rd
Visit The 99 with Travis and Brett. Laurie (the bartender) attempts to convince Travis to bowl her manager in a round of Wii bowling, saying his meal is free if he wins. Brett encourages him to play, which prompts Laurie to hypothesize that he must be skilled at the game.

“He doesn’t have a job,” I announce to everyone within earshot, “so he’s gotta be good at something.”

2011
April 11th
Tell Travis that we should go in the library with open cans of beer and browse until someone threatens to call the police. Several miles later, I pull into the library lot and park.

“Are we doing this?!” he asks me.

“No, I just have books to return.”

We both comment on our relief at conquering our combined terrible impulse control for once. Not long afterward, we’re buzzed so Travis calls his bank and confirms he has fourteen dollars and thirty-seven cents on his debit card before offering to treat to Taco Bell if I drive. I pretend it’s the greatest Mexican pizza I’ve ever eaten in tribute to his financial sacrifice. 

2016
November 2nd
I text with Travis on Facebook Messenger throughout game seven of the World Series. Despite keeping in touch on an extremely limited basis for several years—he’d moved to Illinois then Florida—he was the biggest Cubs fan I’d ever known so I messaged him periodically during the playoffs. The Cubs had a three-run lead in the eighth inning only for it to disappear. The game was tied through nine innings until a sudden rain delay halted play for close to twenty minutes. Travis asked if he could call me.

We spoke on the phone until the game ended. He chain-smoked Marlboro Lights, informed me that he was drinking a pot of black coffee at a halfway house (wishing it was vodka), and was surrounded by strangers who couldn’t comprehend the depths of pain he’d experienced in his years loving the Cubs. He apologized for giving me so much shit all the times the Yankees had won, not realizing the stress involved in rooting for ultimate baseball success.

Despite cynically saying that the Cubs would blow the lead they acquired in the top of the tenth inning, his team ultimately won on an infield groundout. The line went silent for a couple minutes before he told me, “I’m gonna go figure out how to process that the Cubs have won the World Series.”

It was the last time we ever talked. After all the years of jokes, I take solace in knowing we closed our time together with a moment of genuine (shocked) happiness. I’ll save an egregiously offensive comment about this reveal for when I’m surrounded by his loved ones in two weeks. Hope like hell that I won’t regret not having him nearby to defend me.