By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
On this New Year’s Eve, my wife decided that we should watch hours and hours of Friends since they are taking off of Hulu tonight. (And she’s not feeling well and looking for something easy to take in.)
There are so many things to say about this torment, but several hours into the TV marathon, more than anything, I’m struck by the charity and goodness of a friend who had my back at a very young age.
The guy’s 12 years older than me— which is no big deal now that I’m 42, but meant much more when I was 17.
Especially since while I was a smart kid, I still had a lot to learn about just about everything.
He looked out for me— and I’m sure he did so in ways I’ll never know about… but did so in a “cool big brother” sort of way where it never felt that way to me.
I never felt like “the kid,” I was “one of the guys,” which was true up to a point.
Knowing his ball-busting skills, Chris Parker could have crushed the life out of me in half-a-second the time showed up at the radio station dressed to go out, and I said he “looked like he stepped out of an episode of Friends.”
It wasn’t meant as a compliment, and wasn’t received as such. Hahaha.
Anyway, the torrent of terrible, scathing things he could have unleashed on my little suburban punk ass would have left me broken like a mini liquor bottle-filled Rickey Henderson piñata.
Those comebacks are filling my mind even at this moment… but my man let this pup have his day… whenever that was— maybe 26 or 27 years ago.
Now as I sit here rubbing my own nose in it, thinking about the kindness showed to me that day, I know the reason he didn’t bust me into a pile of dust is mostly because he was a good guy who was watching out for the kid.
So mostly because he’s a good guy, but maybe… just maybe… he also knew there was also a smidge of truth in what I said.
Hahaha. Even as I’m subjected to this torturous binge watching penance I still can’t help myself.
And still, I imagine, the worst I’ll raise our of my old pal is an under-his-breath “asshole,” which— even though deserved— will be abated with a chuckle.
So thanks for looking out for me all those years ago, and thanks for always being one of the good guys. Happy New Year.
