The decision to head north and visit Sean's Uncle Johnny in Harbor Springs, Michigan was easily made. We were 18, just out of high school, soon for college, and we had zero responsibilities. Sean had talked about Johnny before. He retired from teaching in the Chicago area to move north and sing Irish folk music and fix up old sailboats. I liked him already. I even had a tape in my car for a few months with two of his recordings: "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" (better than Gordon Lightfoot's, in my opinion) and the theme song for the U.S. Marshalls.
So, I don't remember exactly how it went down, but knowing how we were back then, our conversation probably took place on a tennis court at 11 o'clock at night. Sean and Jay, our Korean connection, were there.
"So, what do you guys wanna do now?"
(momentary silence)
"I don't know."
(scratching head)
"Let's go up and visit your Uncle Johnny, Neil."
(laughter, then silence)
"Sure."
"Oh wait, I have to work tomorrow."
"Then tomorrow after Binski gets off work?"
"Alright."
"Cool."
"See ya'."
The preparation for our little eight hour journey took even less time, at least for me. Gas money, sunglasses, a change of clothes (maybe??) Jay was always the most prepared. I think we took his car. He was in charge of pictures, and he loaded up his trunk with precautionary things like blankets, food, and maybe even a little barbecue grill. You never know.
Jay and Sean were part of my "crew" from high school. There were 5 or 6 of us who did the tennis thing. Mostly this consisted of meeting up at the tennis courts at 7 or 8 PM five nights a week, playing deep into the night (if we couldn't find a lighted court, we'd use our headlights), and then off to some body's house for cards and grilling. Most of the time we weren't savvy or cool enough to get booze. Still, I've never laughed harder or more often than the time I spent with them. And boredom was nonexistent. I had every one's phone number memorized. This was just before the digital age of cell phones. I think they had just come out with those huge clunky ones that looked like walkie talkies. They stilled called them "cellular" phones. Who even knows what that means anymore? But I digress. Every day I would go down the list one by one to find out what everyone had planned for the night. There were plenty of plans to sort out. Which court are we going to? Do we have enough balls? Gatorade? Who's bringing the boom box? Important stuff. We'd play for hours. There was really nothing else to do, anyways. We did find one apartment complex with a swimming pool that was half outdoors and half indoors. We would sneak in through the fence at midnight, jump in the outside section, and then swim underneath the glass divider so we could go inside and sit in the hot tub.
What a summer! I hadn't really started hanging out with them until my senior year of high school. I moved to Chicago in 10th grade from Muskegon, full of hope that I had left behind the idiots and cliques of my old school. I found that not only was it basically the same at Hoffman High, but there were more of them! My class alone consisted of 512 kids. I had only one friend those first two years. He had orange hair, wore flip flops in the winter, and spent most of his time listening to The Who and Pink Floyd. How many times was I over at his house listening to "Tommy?" But most of the time I was just a lonely, bored kid. I didn't study much. I didn't have to. I was almost exclusively in those "Advanced Placement" classes for college prep. When I graduated high school I had nearly an entire year of college credit and a scholarship in hand for the University of Michigan. I still can't believe I had gained such a head start and then proceeded to through it all away over the ensuing years. But that's another story.
Since I was in college prep, I knew the same 20 or 30 kids, for just about every class, every year. And there was no way I was talking to any girls. Even now, going through the old yearbook, I don't think there is a single girl who would remember me! But, eventually, my life kind of grew around Sean and Jay and Rob and Darren and Jack and Bashir. Most of us found our common bond in tennis, and they became the only group of friends I would ever be a part of. We stayed close for 7 or 8 years after high school, gathering for New Year's parties and weddings, although usually only 2 or 3 of us would be in town together at the same time.
Sean was a behemoth of an Irishman, standing 6'5" with a hearty, irrepressible laugh that could shake walls. He lived a couple blocks away from me, so I got to know his parents pretty well. His mother was always welcoming and warm to all of us. She made it so comfortable that we would easily rotate from his house to mine, and sometimes to Darren's (especially for Bulls games). Sean's house was the home of Nintendo hockey. We would have tournaments and yell at each other and call each other names and listen to the Spin Doctors. We, at least once, had a New Year's party over there. his dad insisted on us being there. He was dying of cancer. All of us were there. Sean's dad stayed with us all through the night. Once in a while he'd throw in a joke, but mostly I think he was just happy to see Sean surrounded by such good friends. (Oh God, it's still emotional). His face was lit up like a Christmas Tree. We were fucking around, joking, watching football, downing beer by the bucket, teasing each other. We all had crazy nicknames. I was called, at varying times, Binski, Polaski, Ski, Dumbinski, Da' binz has got da' runs. You couldn't be too cocky around these guys. Later, when I grew my hair long, I would walk in the door bragging that some girl gushed that I looked like Michael Hutchence from INXS or Jim Morrison from the Doors. Haha! They told me I looked more like Richard Simmons, fitness guru. Anyways, that night with Sean's dad was absolutely incredible. He hugged us all and told us he loved us. We didn't talk about what was to come, but we all felt it. I missed his funeral. I'll never forgive myself for that.
Jay was my closest friend for much of the time after high high school. He took me in when I split with my fiancee at 22. I told the girl, when we first started dating, that I'm not the kind of guy who hangs around when he's not wanted. So when she told me on the phone that she thought we should separate for a while, I told her I would have my shit packed and out of our apartment by the time she got home. She said I should stay until we could figure something else. I left anyways. I was running. I drove down to Champaign, where Jay was going to school, with a suitcase or two. I was devastated. I was a zombie for the two weeks I lived there, but Jay never judged me. I ended up moving to Detroit (for the first time). She called my grandmother's house a few weeks later, crying and saying she had made a mistake. I told her we'd see what happens. I saw her once more, in the cafe where I used to work when I visited home a few months later. I have not seen or heard from her since.
Jay also took me in when I wanted to move back to Chicago from Grand Rapids a few years later. He had a little studio apartment just north of Wrigleyville. He slept on the futon and I took the floor. We ate Korean food that his mom sent (it looked like eyeballs, floating in a jar, like in some science lab. I couldn't stand it). Nevertheless, how's that for friendship?
One summer Jay and I had a lawn-mowing business. He had bought a beat up station wagon (Plymouth, I think) for the job. It went 35 miles an hour max and huffed fumes and smoke everywhere we went. We painted "Love Machine" on the hood and doors. And somehow, when we pulled up to a stoplight, we always seemed to end up next to a shiny red convertible full of makeup-obsessed girls. God that was fun!
The summer of 1990, though, held no such trials as described above. We just wanted a road trip. No plan, no nothing. We wanted to hear Uncle Johnny sing, so we hopped in the car and headed north.
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