John Died

          My friend John died on Friday.  He beat the cancer and the heart attack, but the ALS was inexorable and unrelenting .  Some months ago I asked if he was going to get an eye-controlled computer, and he told me "I'm not going to be that guy", his way of saying he would die when he could no longer function.  When the pneumonia came, in the hospital he said in his own way, "I'm all done", meaning that he would not take the ventilator.

            John said a lot of things like that.  He spoke in simple, direct statements, unadorned but full of meaning, and he was incapable of any form of bullshit.   In some ways John was a series of contrasts.  He had a round red face from a light complexion that might have made him look angry, but he was a pussycat.  He was a soft spoken and always-polite general contractor.  He was successful in his business but always drove a Ford, particularly to job sites so he wouldn't stand out.  The banker noted that his company overhead is unusually high, which only means that John kept a few of "the guys" on the payroll doing odd jobs.  John chaired the Boys Club annual dinner and raised all the money for the event and then skipped the dinner because he didn't like that sort of thing and might have been asked to speak in public.  He was well known in his community, in business and had close friends, but he was painfully shy with other people.  We saw a door mat we wanted to get for John - where most of them say "Welcome"  this one said "Go Away".  

            If it is a possible concept, John lived the good life in an unassuming way.  He disliked suits and always looked uncomfortable when someone made him wear one, so at most business meetings he was in khakis and a polo shirt, making him look casual, but they were both from Brooks.  His house was on the water, but in a town off the beaten path, where it is magnificent but does not stand out.  The boat he kept at the dock was rigged for fishing which he enjoyed.

            People sought out John because he did the simple things.  He said "yes" and "no", and when he bought something he made a deal and wrote a check.  He landed a big corporate customer that got his construction company to another level and worked for most of  his clients repeatedly for decades.  Telling the truth cost him bidding opportunities, but it won him more than it lost.  In a down time in the 90's he designed and built our beach house which I love and in which I now sit, me whining for 20 years that he overcharged me and him complaining that I didn't ask for any change orders.       

            John and I met in in business in 1988  and we bonded in an overnight drive from Jackson Mississippi to Mobile with an after-midnight stop for grits off Route 98 in Hattiesburg.  It was quite a night. John has appeared in these pages before, mostly as a traveling companion in Argentina and on Route 66.   Trophy Wife counted that we have taken 7 trips over 15 years with John and Maureen.  I'm not so easy to spend that much time with, a tribute to John's patience, flexibility and willingness to stay at the Hilton Gardens.

             In fact, it is amazing we were friends at all, but we filled some need in each other.  John was born in Sri Lanka and grew up in the 50's and 60's in India, the child of an oil expatriate.  He didn't know about the TV shows we grew up with or the music of the 60's.  He went to a Catholic community college, knew how to use tools, put my worm on and took my fish off the hook when we went on his boat (and filleted, wrapped and packed the bluefish in ice).  In all those things, in an entire life of background John was on paper the opposite of a Jewish Ivy League contrarian.

            And yet we could sit and gab for hours like teenage girls.   About business, about family, about our contrasting backgrounds, about traveling or food, about deals we had done, missions accomplished, disasters avoided.  On the boat, out for dinner or driving a thousand miles on Route 66, being with John was just plain comfortable.    When I went to the hospital to say goodbye – actually what I said in our style was “Do the best you can” -  he wouldn't talk about himself beyond "I'm all done".  He asked about Shorty, and his last words to me were "You have to go home" - a joke between us that in the middle of a deal I would abruptly end phone calls at 6:15 because I go home for dinner at 6:30.  I told John that I had planned on seeing the rest of the world with him over the next decades, and that maybe I'll spend the time with Shorty.  I touched his head, held his hand and went home for dinner.