This is about my friend Chris that I met in September 1986.
I met Chris on the first day of school in 1986. It was my second year at James E Allen and at that time I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be there. But to be honest I only had myself to blame for that. It didn’t take long for us to become friends. One of our friends at the time had given him the nickname Disease. The only possible reason I can come with is that Chris was always hyper.
In first few years of knowing Chris, I learned a number of things when it comes to Chris and phones calls.
1) He would call to ask me a question and always seem to forget what he called about. It would often take at least three phone calls for him to finally remember what he wanted to ask me.
2) He had the habit of calling me as at 2:30 am just to ask me what he considered an urgent question. It wasn’t uncommon for his urgent question to be related to Star Trek.
I would often say to him, “You called me at 2:30 just to ask me about Star Trek?”.
Chris has always been known to tell me about things he was going to do and never following through with it. It got to the point, where I said to myself, “I will believe when it happens”.
Back in the year 2001 Chris said he was moving. I asked where and when this would take place. He said he was moving to Florida and that it was going to happen soon. I dismissed this as yet another one of those things that wasn’t going to happen.
One day in October of that same year, his mother called to ask if I heard from him and I had not. Later on that night she called again asking the same question and I still did not hear from him. At the very moment, I realized that he must have followed through with it and I was right. It turned out he decided to run off with somebody he met online. To be honest I was sure he would come back soon. But he lived there for 10 years. In that time, he got married and I was there to be his best man. Although the marriage did not last, her family wanted him to stay in touch.
He said he was going to stay in Florida. But I knew he would return and indeed he did.
Chris continues to call to ask questions and sometimes forget what they were. But he no longer calls at 2:30 am. To be honest, Chris was known for calling me numerous times a day and that really didn’t happen while he lived there. In fact I had forgotten about how often he was known to call me. But I was reminded of that once he moved back to Long Island. In the years I have gotten to know him, he has become like a brother to me.Granted a brother that drives me crazy at times. But that is Chris for you and I cannot imagine him any other way.
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