Mike

Mike the Whip was the first friend I ever had.

His family lived right across the street from mine, on Runyon Avenue in a small New Jersey town.  Mike and I met when we were three years old, and for the better part of twelve years, we encountered all sorts of relatively mild adventures.  Whether we were imitating our hero Evel Knievel or busting light bulbs at an abandoned toy factory, Mike was always the star of the show.  He was fearless, fun-loving, and couldn't say no to a dare.  Everyone should have a friend like Mike the Whip.

For a number of reasons that I won't get into here, Mike's childhood was shorter than most kids'.  When we were twelve, his family moved a few miles away, and we lost touch.  But a couple years later they returned, so Mike and I were classmates in ninth grade.  He'd only been gone a short time, but a lot of changes happen between the ages of twelve and fifteen, and I noticed that Mike was somehow different . . . edgier.  Don't misunderstand, he was still a loyal friend with a good heart, but a lot of the "fun" was gone.  He was more serious about things, and seemed to be expecting the worst in most situations.  For example, our friend Paul and I had been receiving a lot of harassment from a kid named Gordie, who lived down the street.  Nothing too serious, mainly threats and verbal bullshit, but when Mike heard about it he decided to take care of things.  The next time Gordie showed up on our block, Mike walked up to him and without saying one word, blasted him in the jaw with a right hook.

The harassment stopped.

Then my family moved to Southern California and although I never heard from Mike again, I never forgot him.  I've greatly enjoyed sharing our adventures with all of you, and while I'll admit to a certain amount of "artistic license," the Mike that comes across in these stories is a reasonable facsimile of who he was as a kid.  Over the years, I've tried to hunt him down on the web, Google searches and what not, and until recently I had no success whatsoever.  A few days ago, through a friend, I found out that Mike changed his last name when he was eighteen . . . he took his mom's maiden name as his own.  With that information, I was finally able to track Mike down.

Here's what I found out.

After high school, Mike lived for several years in a town not far from where we grew up and worked as a bartender.  After that, he got married, moved to Florida, and became an ironworker.  This is not a great deal of information, but it was something, and I would have been very happy to have learned at least this much if not for one detail.

I was reading it in an obituary from 2002.

Mike the Whip died at age 37 as the result of "a tragic accident at work."  Knowing Mike, he was probably doing something difficult or dangerous that no one else wanted to do, but needed to be done.  That's who he was.

Fearless.

There are many more Mike the Whip stories that I want to share from our youth, but those will have to wait for another time.  For now, I want to remember who he was, think about the man he became, and mourn how he left us far too soon.

Take care, Mike.  We won't forget you.


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