It Is Goodbye

(Originally published 8/31/18)

Recently, I thought of an essay that was published in my Manhattan College Commencement program. Its anonymous author, a 1929 graduate, eloquently expressed the melancholy of the achievement and what it augured. He ended his piece as follows: “The moon grows pale and drops down and down. The shadows encroach further and further. The breeze sighs mournfully. A subway train rattles away into the distance. I sit alone on the Chapel steps. It is goodbye.”

Last week an old friend, neighbor, and fellow Jasper passed away. Mere words cannot do the man justice. Suffice it to say, Richie was a one-of-a-kind personage—a true original—whose likes will never be seen again. When I was growing up in the Bronx’s Kingsbridge, he was a ubiquitous and enigmatic presence on the block. He had the X-factor.

Riche was considerably older than those who hung on his every word and relished time spent with him. But his inimitable personality and audacious spirit added layers of color to the childhoods of those who experienced him up close and personal. You just had to be there.

Richie was the guy who taped oak-tag signs to his father’s dark brown Ford LTD that read “Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians” and “Bob Hope in Car.” He would then drive around the neighborhood with his youthful entourage. We would watch people stare, often gasp, and occasionally laugh. On a whim, Richie might ask, “Do you want to give the fist?” I don’t exactly know the origins of this peculiar pastime, but it involved shaking fists from the moving car’s windows at unsuspecting passersby on the street. It was harmless fun that—on the very same thoroughfares today—would probably put one’s life at risk.

Forty-one years ago this month, Richie, my older brother Joe, and I traveled to Boston to see the Red Sox in Fenway Park. Believe it or not, this was a monumental adventure for a fourteen-year-old boy and for our fearless leader—eleven years my senior—as well. We scrupulously planned the trip in an age before the Internet as if we were going around the world in eighty days. Money was pretty tight. By the end of the two-day journey, our coffers were nearly depleted. In fact, Richie loaned me five dollars along the way, which I agreed to work off at a future date by washing and waxing his car.

During those two days in Beantown, we ascended the Bunker Hill Monument, trod the grounds of Harvard University, and toured Old Ironsides. We also saw a game at Fenway alongside a grandfather affectionately known as “Pops,” who was quite shaky on his feet, and his doting grandson. Sitting next to me, Pops was concerned that I might be a “California rooter” and antagonistic towards his beloved Sox. I assured him that I was a Met fan from New York who wouldn’t be rooting for the Angels.

Two short weeks later—with the same cast of three—Richie plotted a fun-filled encore to the summer of 1977: a jam-packed day trip that commenced at the Brigantine Castle on the Jersey Shore. This haunted amusement was incessantly advertised on local television back then and Richie wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It turned out to be much ado about nothing and we promptly headed south to nearby Atlantic City—in its pre-casino days—and finally to Philadelphia. There we checked out Liberty Hall and that cracked bell. Our nightcap—the icing on the cake—was a game at Veterans Stadium. The Phillies versus the Braves in that cookie-cutter monstrosity lasted fourteen innings and ended near midnight.

Upon our return to the Bronx, Richie was noticeably drowsy behind the wheel of his beloved Mustang. We had, after all, left home at six o’clock in the morning. To give him a much needed break, seventeen-year-old Joe, who had just gotten his driver’s license, offered to take over for a spell. Allowing an inexperienced driver such an opportunity in the middle of the night—and in the middle of what seemed like nowhere—was hardly a slam-dunk decision, but an exhausted Richie ultimately relented. He would turn over the reins for fifteen minutes, he said, and take a brief catnap. After a two-hour snooze, Richie arose from his slumber and we were ever so close to home.

These memories are just snippets from decades of them. But they are reminders that life is fleeting and, really, about moments. And when time draws to a close, the moments to remember are the freest ones—simple, innocent, and absent of drama. Richie…it is goodbye.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)