I’ve been lax about checking phone messages lately. Traveling for a week is part of it, but even before that, I just wasn’t getting many personal calls. Today, I scrolled through my phone and saw a few familiar numbers and one that caught me by surprise. An old New Jersey friend, Bart, called, and my word! I have not spoken to Bart in more than a dozen years. His name came up now and then, but I wondered aloud, “Why would Bart call?”
Uh-oh.
I knew instinctively. I did not have to listen to his message. My hand trembled as I called him back.
“Didn’t you listen to my message?” he asked, his tone imparting that he didn’t want to repeat the news. “It’s Jim. He passed away Sunday.”
Jim Conforti is a special kind of friend who comes along once in a lifetime, if you are lucky. In New Jersey, he became my brother, my friend, my wingman, my travel adviser and a fountain of sarcastic wit. We shared the same taste in women, scotch, Jersey Shore beaches and deprecation of N.Y. Jets’ fans. Once, on a return trip from the Shore, which involved sitting in heavy traffic for about four hours, we stopped at a restaurant that was far too fancy for our beach togs. Over our second glass of scotch, or so, he uttered the singular most funny line ever in the history of mankind. We heaved with laughter for more than twenty minutes, eventually at the point where we forgot what was said to cause our uproar. That, in itself, became the source of laughter for many years.
Many of our New Jersey adventures ended in a stop at the White Castle in Clifton, for a sack of sliders. Not the gourmet types served in restaurants today, but the original wafer-thin slices of beef and onion, each with four holes poked in it, steamed on a perforated pan, then placed on a steamed bun with the perfect combo of ketchup, mustard and American cheese. Jim maintained that White Castle burgers got their flavor from the holes.
Jim was with me for many of my best moments in New Jersey. After I moved to Rochester, he visited, just once, and we ventured north to Niagara Falls, in Canada, to experience “the Canadian Ballet.” It was a two-day expedition filled with laughter. As we left one bar to head to another, the bouncer gave us “you can’t miss it” directions that led us to a one-way, no U-turn entrance with a sign reading “Bridge to the USA.” We talked the tollbooth person into letting us back into Canada, and continued our adventure. The next evening, having believed that we had drained an entire nation of its alcohol supply, we headed for home. As an afterthought, Jim suggested that while we were there, we should at least see Niagara Falls. It was about two in the morning, nearly 3:30 a.m. with the Canadian exchange rate at the time, and it seemed there was nobody else there, although there are always people at the Falls. The mist rose in the January night, coating the metal railings with ice and icicles, and a thick, icy glaze covered the frozen sidewalks. Jim went down, and cracked a rib. “Leave it to you,” I chided him, “to fall and get hurt in a foreign country.” He replied, “I didn’t fall. Didn’t you see that? The world jumped up and smacked me!”
Shortly after that, Jim and his bride Kathy moved to Florida. He is one of the few Jersey friends I’ve stayed in contact with, and we’d have marathon phone calls debating football, when his beloved Dolphins played the Bills, and politics, where Jim’s sarcasm varnished every politician regardless of party or past. Florida life seemed a perfect fit for him, and he was forever urging me to move down there. I stubbornly persisted in my efforts to run my marketing business. After I ran into difficulty collecting from clients, and had my electricity turned off, he sent a check. I never asked. He talked to his wife, Kathy, who barely knew me, and sent it. It could have been a few hundred dollars, or a thousand, or a million. That’s between us. But I’ll share part of the note he sent with it.
He started: “… Anyone who chooses to live in Rochester deserves to freeze his ass off.” Then, he got sarcastic. “… we view you more as a hostage than a willing resident.” On the check was a post-it note, on which he wrote: “Of all my friends, you stand the best chance of becoming a millionnaire. I want in on that!” With that, he lifted me from feeling like a complete loser to a superstar just waiting in the wings.
He was diagnosed more than a year ago with stomach cancer. After his surgery, we spoke only once. He emailed me that he wasn’t ignoring my calls, but that he tired easily when talking. I continued to send emails to make him laugh. No reply.
Then, I got the call from Bart. Jim was dead.
Did you see that? The world just jumped up and smacked me.
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