An Unlucky Fellow
I ran into a high school friend, Bill Naiditch, one day at UC Irvine. He already had a Master’s Degree in Bio-Chemistry and was working on his Ph.D. and I happened to see him out in the park. At UCI at that time all of the buildings of the different schools were situated in a circle, with a lovely park in the center. There were many tall, and beautiful trees scattered about the bowl shaped area of the park, and the lush grass was criss-crossed by asphalt paths for the students to ride their bikes or hike between classes.
I spotted Bill, with his backpack slung loosely across his back, just as he was walking up the path to the Bio-Sci building, a squat rectangular shaped building filled with tiny laboratories that smelled of formaldehyde and radioactivity. We agreed to meet that afternoon at the bar across the street from the University. I always figured Bill for great things. He always seemed smarter than me and could grasp difficult mathematical concepts better than I could. I don’t know what his IQ was, but doubtless it was pretty high. And his mind was like a box of Forrest Gump’s chocolates – you never knew what type of a response you’d get. He didn’t just think out of the box, but was literally out there all the time, having mastered everything inside the box.
That particular afternoon, we had gotten comfortable, and each of us had a domestic beer sitting in front of us, and I began talking about the Orient as usual. It was still on my mind a lot then. I commented on the ready availability of women in the Orient, and how I had indulged a number of times. He asked me if I considered myself promiscuous. I blurted out some sort of response, but wasn’t sure of the answer myself. I knew that promiscuity implies a certain recklessness and lack of selectivity, and I had surely been reckless, but hadn’t I always tried to be choosy?
After Bill left, I thought I’d play some music on the jukebox, so I got up and put a couple of quarters in the machine. The music in the selection catalog consisted mostly of disco music, but I found a couple Gladys Knight songs and pushed the buttons. When “You’re the Best Thing that Ever Happened to Me” began to play, a black man who was drinking alone at one of the other tables looked up at me, and then got up and staggered over to the jukebox.
Catching hold of the Wurlitzer to steady himself, he looked at me and said, “Did you play that?”
I said, “Yes.”
“Do you know who that is?” He asked me.
“Sure,” I replied, “that’s Gladys Knight.”
“Nope,” he said, shaking his index finger at me, “that’s my ex-wife.”
“Really,” I said.
“The story of my life,” he said. “Right after I divorced her, she became famous.”
I wanted to talk to him some more, but having said what he wanted to say, he just went back to the table and sat there looking at his beer. I suppose I should have felt sorry for him, but I didn’t, in fact, I envied him. He had a hit song written about him, several actually.
Well, now I feel lucky on two accounts. First none of the three of my ex-wives are famous or talented. Somehow the agony of regret, such as the Unlucky Fellow experienced, has completely passed me.
Second, and with authentic happiness, I am feeling lucky to read your excellent blog.
I have missed our friendship. Only bits of our common experience connect to memory, undoubtedly distorted by time but seemly preserved as though encased like an object in the art museum, out of context to the roil and slog of my adult life, bent on career. I wished I had met your family, then. And at UCI I regretted not making more arrangements to meet with you. I feel you were my main collaborator in any effort to attend to interesting or meaningful learning during those teen years. I have missed that sharing of ideas and perspectives.
After reading your blog (in one sitting), I felt like I had been in your living room where you opened up your journal and read aloud. I am thankful and feel lucky.
Thanks Bill. Nice to hear from you. Sorry about the three ex-wives thing.
We must have been pretty good friends for a long time in high school, because I remember even in freshman year one afternoon I was shagging fly-balls out in the field trying to make the Frosh team, and you came running by on the track and shouted something over to me. Actually I even remember you from that summer Algebra class we took. I think Bob Rangel knew us both – I knew Bob from Little League. I don’t remember Fred until later.
My email address is billdubiak@verizon.net. Send me an email.