Bill is dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. And with this paraphrase of Dickens’ opening line from A Christmas Carol, I will tell a tale for which it is important to understand how surprising, how unfortunate and how utterly predictable it may be that Bill died fourteen years ago. You see, at one time or another every one of his friends vowed to kill him. He never learned and he frequently took risks that got him in trouble.
Having said all of that, Bill was a friend. He was part of a group of college buddies that I joined later than the rest. But I was quickly included in escapades that included, among other things, several weekend trips to a lake house in Wisconsin not far from the Dells and its active bar scene. And it was there, fueled with alcohol, that Bill’s normally outgoing personality became energized and singularly focused to the exclusion of all else. But I’ll come back to that.
Bill was a good-looking guy. He had piercing blue eyes, a disarming smile and a personality that my grandmother labeled, “A worm.” Grandma saw right through the act he employed to disarm younger women. Bill could talk the bark off a tree, the bark being pants and trees being college aged girls. If you had a girlfriend you dared not turn your back, for there would go said girlfriend having forgotten from whence she came. If confronted about such a dalliance, Bill referred to his own ten commandments of girlfriendhood. These commandments often amounted to, “Yeah, but…”
Bill could also be playfully, aggravatingly combative. Another in our circle of friends once argued with him beyond exhaustion, finally issuing the ultimatum, “Bill, if you say one more word…”
Bill, grinned, shuffled his feet, glanced from side to side at those around him and said, “Word!” For that he was throttled, and undoubtedly his attacker yelled, “I’m gonna kill you!”
Bill, grinned, shuffled his feet, glanced from side to side at those around him and said, “Word!” For that he was throttled, and undoubtedly his attacker yelled, “I’m gonna kill you!”
Another time I went to visit Bill at his dorm when he somehow got into medical school. Doctor Bill. That irked us. Now he didn’t have to talk women out of their clothes, he could just demand it. I washed my bright yellow Corvette that morning and drove it down Chicago’s South Lake Shore Drive to Hyde Park, locating it safely where I could see it from his window. When it came time to return home, I exited the elevator, crossed the lobby and walked toward my car. From far above me came a shout, “Bomb’s away!”
Leaning from his 18th-floor window, Bill tossed a moderately large red water balloon that tumbled end over end, arcing outward from the brick building toward the ground as I ran toward my car, unable to prevent whatever was about to happen. I swear, the missile whistled as it flew. As the projectile approached terminal velocity it became clear that it was not going to hit me or my car, but upon impact with the rain-soaked, mostly dead spring turf, it exploded in a shower of brown thatch and mud that left a shallow crater and covered the side of my pristine fiberglass. Had it landed on the hood it most likely would have splintered it into yellow toothpicks. Relief turned to anger as I looked up and shouted, “I’m gonna kill you!” This is not something you should normally shout in Hyde Park. Bill was laughing hysterically two hundred feet above.
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