My friend George Antico killed himself at the age of 34, I found out the details the day of my wedding. Steve Mosher told me while I leaned against his truck in my driveway. Steve was in Maine for this my second marriage, he attended both while I missed his. I missed his wedding because I had no money and didn't even own a car. I never told him why and he never asked, though I'm sure it hurt. He is the oldest friend I have, even older than Antico who is dead, and you can't get any older than dead.
We called him the Twone, because we, his friends, felt an obligation to constantly remind of his Italian heritage. The name George didn't quite do it for us so we at first called him Antione, then Antwone, finally we just chopped it down to Twone. Don't ask me why, these things seem to have a life of their own. I think some people leave their home towns because of things like this. I've known grown men, pillars of their community who are known as "Bunky", "Boomer", or [God help me], "Pud." I was known as "swampy" for a brief time, but now have more respectable titles such as "asshole", "shithead", or "Mr. Hillman", as in "Mr. Hillman are you happy with your phone service?" I doubt our nicknames drove him to his demise, besides we caused more physical than emotional pain.
George's parent were from Italy, what we called "right of the boat." His dad owned a dry cleaning business and his mom was the stereotypical Italian mother, five feet tall with her hair in a little bun in the back. She spoke to George in half Italian half English, when we asked what she'd just said he would mumble, "I dunno." The Antico kitchen was an amazing place to three american white boys, home made pasta drying everywhere, spices hanging from the ceiling, parmesan cheese that wasn't in a plastic bottle. Were we ever invited to dinner? Nope, our Italian meals were prepared by Chef Boyardee and involved extensive use of a can opener. I think Mrs. Antico was lost in a strange land and found her son's friends frightening. How unfortunate, we could have helped her feel more at home and she could have fed us.
I said three boys because there was a fourth member of our group, his name was Neil Wetzler. His mother was not an American either but spoke English as a first language, being Scottish by birth. She accepted her son's friends but knew how to put us in our place. What I remember about both households was they were strictly run, and because of this we spent most of our time at my house. My mom ran a wide open town, no reason to check your guns at the door. My parents had five kids and when friends were factored in there were anywhere from ten to twenty kids running around. To George who lived in Italy at home and America every where else the place was a revelation. We pretty much did what we wanted. One day I made French Toast for us and George liked it so much he asked if he could cook some more for himself. He made himself three more helpings while Steve Neil and I looked on amused. I don't know what he liked more the taste or that I could cook whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.
Neil was a pacifist so he never tripped George when he was running by or floored him with a chocolate morsel to the eye, or head butted him out of a chair because Boomer Scott hit a homer off Al Hrabosky. It's a good thing too because poor George didn't need another friend like Steve and I. I can still see it like it was yesterday, we were sitting in the Mosher's living room Steve is flipping a wooden baseball bat back and forth, George sitting across the room happily talking about who knows what. We were sixteen so it could have been anything from Fred Lynn's most recent injury to who "put out" at Wilmington High School. The bat flies from Steve's hands, I watched as it did a loop across the room then impacts with the unsuspecting skull of the Twone, then the tragicomic twist of Steve yelling, "look out", a millisecond too late. Being "good friends" we laughed into seat cushions for some time before inquiring as to George's health. Steve and I spent one whole winter stuffing the Antico mailbox full of snow every night, which George had to dig clear every morning. One February night in a particularly evil mood we dumped a gallon of rancid corn chowder in there. It was extremely hard to keep a straight face the next day when George described how he had to pour hot water in the box to melt it, and the smell!
The thing that brought us all together and nearly ripped us apart on a daily basis was a tabletop Baseball game called Strat-O-Matic. We each had our own teams and all the major league players had individual cards. I could bore you with stories of the leagues that we created and destroyed, trades, near fist fights, [including the aforementioned headbut], Giant Enrique, tape recorded cheers, nick names. Real Baseball had Shoeless Joe Jackson, our league had "Batless" Eddie Murray, so named because of his prolonged slumps. We also had "Sweaty" Luzinski, ".336" [this was Ken Griffey's nickname, said derisively because he had a .336 batting average but never got a hit for Steve's Reds], "Dead man" for Danny Thompson who died in the off season, and "Giant Enrique." George was the luckiest kid alive with a set of dice in his hand, if he could have gone to Vegas at the age of 16 he would have been set for life. He won so often we always were trying to come up with ways to put him off his game. Neil Wetzler was the only one to succeed. He had a pitcher named Enrique Romo who was practically unbeatable, so one day he buys a 2 foot by 3 foot poster board and perfectly recreates Romo's card then hides it behind the piano in his house. We all went to the Wetzler's for some Strato and Neil gets George to play his beloved Royals. "Who's Pitching?" asks George, "Hah" says Neil and pulls out the poster board yelling "Giant Enrique!" Like I said George was lucky, one day he and Steve were having a game at the Mosher's and George beat the hitherto unbeaten Randy Jones. As if this weren't bad enough he did it with a lame ass pitcher named Dick Bosman! The first I knew of this world shaking event was when George flew off the Mosher's back steps on the point of Steve's size 12 sneaker. He tucked and rolled then came up laughing, "I just beat Randy Jones with Dick Bosman." Steve looked at me then slammed the door. It's hard for me to make the leap from that picture to a man who felt his only option was death.
So on the morning of my wedding I heard the details. George had lost his job. The next morning he took his two children to his mother's like he always did before work. He drove out to route 128 and parked, he got out and stepped in front of the next vehicle that came along. The police were suspicious of the driver until they found the suicide note.
I hadn't seen George in fifteen years and it's not likely I ever would have again, but you never know. Facebook makes anything possible. Perhaps we would have reconnected and laughed about the old times, I'd finally confess to putting his bicycle on my garage roof but never to the corn chowder, let Steve take the blame for that.
Eulogies bore me, they are usually a lot of bullshit about how great the deceased was, when everyone there knew what he was really like. I hope at my funeral the sentiment is "He was an opinionated pain in the ass, now let's crack the keg." There are some tributes however that are beautiful. After Stevie Ray Vaugh died his brother performed on Austin City Limits and dedicated an Aaron Neville song called "Six Strings Down" to him. It's about a blues guitarist's trip to heaven, "See the voodoo child holdin' out his hands, been waitin' on you brother welcome to the band", on the word band the backing vocals rose like a gospel choir. When Johnny Cash passed the band Nine Inch Nails blacked out their website as a tribute to the Man In Black. By far the most eloquent eulogy I ever witnessed was for a high school student who had died on the road. He wasn't drunk or speeding, he was riding his motorcycle home one night when a deer ran in front of him. As the funeral procession passed slowly down main street his friends squealed the tires on their pickup trucks filling the air with the smell of burning rubber.
Here is my long over due tribute to The Twone: George Brett at the plate, George rolls 3-4, BOOMANO!
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