WebKittyn Warbles
Saturday, May 20, 2006
You Ask, I Answer - The Past
I was asked to explain the 'Vinny the guinea' story I mentioned a few entries back. I had forgotten you asked me, my apologies. I was just sitting here talking to the Great Roman Emeror Gotardus and it came up in conversation and it still makes me laugh. Then I said 'oops' and remembered I said I'd tell you.
I'm sticking it behind a cut so people who don't give a crap about my past are spared. Ok, story time.
Keep in mind this was the late 80s - early 90s, we were stupid then. We also had CBs. Everyone had CBs. My father parked me in front of a CB when I was five and I grew up talking to truckers and listening to country music. I called myself the Purple Chicken, I thought that was the greatest name ever. As puberty hit I changed it to Brandie but Purple Chicken will always be special to me.
I first started talking to Vinny when I was 13. I was kept under close rein at 13, there was no way I was getting out to meet Vinny and I really didn't want to but he was fun to talk to. Vinny was 16. I spent a lot of time talking to Vinny. He was funny and strange.
I grew up talking to Vinny and as I got older the whole Vinny-hlyn thing sort of shifted gears. I started talking to him on the phone, although only when he would call me. He wouldn't give me his number. Vinny was strange and I was about to find out exactly how strange.
Somewhere around 17 Vinny started coming up around my house. He'd sit around the corner in the back so I could see the car and I'd talk to him on the CB all night. All night. Nothing cheeky, always a channel where anyone could chime in and they all did. Vinny came from a very Italian section of the Bronx where everyone talks like a Soprano and they guys are abrasive and everyone said 'howyadoin?' long before it was trendy. Vinny was sort of the leader of the pack down there. Sort of. Vinny's best friend was a guy named Mikey who was a male model and oozed charm, he more than made up for Vinny being odd.
And odd Vinny was. Vinny wouldn't meet me. Vinny didn't meet anyone. Meeting Vinny was like meeting Jesus, only the very select got to meet Vinny. Vinny didn't leave his house much except to drive around, come up to sit outside my house and go home again. He would call me and proclaim his love and angst over the fact that he couldn't meet me.
I was young, I was full of stars and romance. It was like some Shakesperian romantic tragedy and I was completely caught up in it. Everyone knew Vinny, he was always there. He would sit there while I was in school so he could be there during lunch when we were outside but if I walked over he'd book ass out of there. Even my mother got to know Vinny since he was always outside. She thought he was peculiar but he'd been around for so many years she knew he was harmless.
18 I got a car and decided it was time to turn the tables and we would spend the weekends Vinny hunting. We'd go down to Morris Park in my car and hang out with his friends wherever they were and eventually Vinny would come by. We'd chase Vinny a bit (never won, that man could drive) and try to convince him to stop the car. We spent damn near every weekend hunting Vinny, Faith and I. The guys in the Bronx were funny as Hell to hang out with so it wasn't so bad.
Life went on and Vinny was always there in the background. We would stop talking for a while and then one night out of nowhere I'd see his car sitting outside. I was dating and hanging out in the bar so Vinny wasn't always on my mind but when he would come around it would start all over again.
When I was 24 it all changed. We were all at the bar and when the bar closed at 4 AM we decided to take a Vinny run. I had the Great Roman Emperor Gotardus, his friend Randi and our friend Marie with me in my Z28. Two black guys and one very short and very round white chick in bright blue spandex looking like a giant blueberry ass and me looking like a hooker in a short black dress and 5 inch resd heels going down into hardcore goombah territory at 4 in the morning.
We got down there and it was kismet. No sooner did we park on Vinny's street, down from his house, but Vinny drove by. I immediately jumped out of the car as always and stood there looking forlorn when he stopped. Stopped his car. After 11 years, Vinny had stopped the car. I looked back at my three friends all looking stunned and I walked over to the car, it was the slowest walk I ever took. My legs were shaking in my 5 inch heels and I felt like I was going to throw up, it was finally happening. I kept expecting him to pull off but he never moved.
I opened the door with fear and anticipation and 11 years of insanity and there was Vinny. It really was like meeting Jesus. He wasn't the greatest looking thing in the world but I didn't care, he was Vinny and I was about to get in his car. I hugged him, I thought he was going to have a heart attack and die the way he tensed at first but I hugged him and he relaxed a bit. He still wasn't talking and then he looked at me and just said 'howyadoin?' and it was the ice breaker to end all ice breakers.
We watched the sun come up from the car, sipping coffee and talking and hugging and talking more and it was to this day the single best night of my life (followed by the bank Christmas party and the Merryl Lynch booze cruise). I completely forgot I had left three people in my car and they were probably tired. I didn't care, I just sat and talked to Vinny.
Unbeknownst to me, a police car had pulled up to my car and saw three sleeping people in it. What a sight they must have been, I can picture it in my head. From what Gotardus told me, the conversation went something like this.
Cop, tapping on window: What are you all doing here?
Gotardus: Visiting a friend.
Cop: What friend?
Gotardus: Vinny.
Cop: Vinny who?
Gotardus: (thinks a second) the guinea.
Needless to say the cop was not amused.
Vinny and I got back at that point, everything got cleared and I sent Gotardus home with my car so I could continue on with Vinny. I didn't want to sleep with him but I wasn't ready to give up that first night of looking Vinny in the face.
Gotardus is lucky they all didn't get hauled off to jail.
Years later, Vinny tried to kill himself and after spending some time in Jacobi Hospital it was determined he was bi-polar. Well no shit, only 15 years too late, dumbass. Made it a little easier to understand the moodswings and the strangeness and the many years of not being able to connect. I've left a lot out of this, maybe someday I'll cross with Vinny again and he doesn't need his dirty laundry here. So far all of this is public knowledge. I wish I had understood back then, I would have stuck with him and saw him through whatever treatment he needed because he was Vinny.
He dedicated Journey 'Separate Ways' to me a thousand years ago. One of the few songs from my past I still have a hard emotional time listening to.
I don't know where Vinny is, I hope he's married and happy and I hope the demons have finally left him alone. I hope he hasn't forgotten me. I'd like to think he hasn't.
<-- Steal me!
