When people think of a 20-year anniversary, it's typically a wedding, a position at work, retirement or some other life "milestone". In some cases, and this is one of them, it's not always the "good kind" of celebration, but you try as best as you can to balance the bad feelings with good ones, and hopefully the celebration or remembrance can be as healing as it is painful.
20 years ago tomorrow, on July 1st 1997, "P.J." (his nickname, from always wearing actual pajamas to bed), one of my best friends from college abruptly took his own life. In the late night or very early morning hours, he shot himself near his home on Cape Cod, in a cemetery where some of his other family members are buried. Of the few people in his life he called a friend, he chose to send me his suicide letter, which I received a few days later.
The reason I wouldn't find out about it until a few days later is because I was on Martha's Vineyard enjoying the hell out of a week-long vacation with my buddy Chris.
Now for the backstory to bring you up to speed here...
Chris and I had gone to see "Face/Off", the new movie with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, and had enjoyed it so much, we watched it twice while we were on the island--a rare thing indeed. It was a week filled with our typical crazy, silly behavior. Lounging on the beach, driving around to various places on the island we both loved to visit...there's a reason I've been going there my whole life.
When I got home, the first thing I did was buy the CD soundtrack to the movie, hoping that one piece in particular would be on it. It was an action-packed score, but there was one piece of exceptionally powerful/emotional music used at the end of the film--if you've seen it, you know the scene--when Travolta's character returns home to his family. That small piece of music, coupled with a small, but memorable gesture Travolta and the others in his family make to one another throughout the film just made it especially sweet, and I wanted that music. Happily, it was indeed on the CD, right at the end.
The next day while I was listening to that track on the CD, I was also going through my accumulated mail from while I was away that I had retrieved from the post office. I noticed P.J.'s tell-tale perfectly neat handwriting on a regular white envelope, and I set it aside while I navigated my other junk mail and--naturally--bills.
Just a couple of days before I left to meet Chris to go to the Vineyard, P.J. called me to say hi and whatnot, and I asked him if he wanted to come over for a day and hang with us, have lunch or whatever, since he lived so close on the Cape, but he declined, which was expected. The thing is, P.J. called me from a PAY PHONE, but that was just part of his quirky sense of humor and "left of center" personality. I didn't really give it much thought...until days later after the vacation was over, when P.J. clarified why he called from a payphone in his suicide note to me. He didn't want my phone number to appear on his home phone bill after the fact. Yeah...he planned this out pretty well.
If you knew P.J., you knew he wasn't exactly the "social butterfly", and was only really close friends with a few people in college, which I was one of very soon after I got there in September of 1988....we were next door neighbors in our unit for my 4 year stint, and after I graduated from college in 1992, P.J. was there another year or so I think, but the people who were his friends had known for a long time, he really wasn't there to earn a degree, he was just...there. His backstory is an interesting one for sure, but I won't get into it here...it's not a very happy one, and let's just say he felt happiest when he was there at Roger Williams with us, his friends, more than anywhere else.
Anyway...once all my other mail was attended to, I turned my attention to P.J.'s envelope and slit it open. The music from "Face/Off" was still playing--I think I may have even set my CD player to repeat that last track, I was loving it that much! As was usually the case with any letters and cards from P.J. in the years following my departure from college (and there were a lot of 'em!), he had a small picture or smiley face at the top of the letter. In this case it was a smiley face. Also, in typical P.J. fashion, his letter started off with a crazy remark. This letter was no different, and the first sentence was a doozy to say the least.
"Jonny...I have strange news. On July 1st, I killed or tried to kill myself. This was not a cry for help."
Honestly, my heart sinks even just having to recall the words to type them here.
P.J. then proceeded to explain his actions. Why he did it, where he did it, how he did it. He also made a few requests of me with regard to who he wanted me to find and tell, and who he did NOT want me to tell--which was pretty much anyone--with very few clearly stated exceptions. His reasons were uniquely his own, and in the 20 years it's been since he's gone, I haven't judged them...or him. I won't do that now, either.
The strangest sensation came over me as I read the letter (the first time). I thought initially he was pulling my leg. Throwing down another classic "P.J. Moment" that would be followed later in the letter with a "Boy, I really got you good, Jonny!"
No. No such luck there at all. As I would very quickly come to realize, this was no joke.
I read the letter again. Every word, every possible inflection in his voice dancing around in my head as I tried to convince myself this was all a load of bullshit and a huge prank to get me all riled up. At some point, I decided that the details he was giving me were too involved to be a joke, and maybe I needed to make a few phone calls and see what's what. I called the local police department where P.J. lived, gave them my name and some details from the letter, and asked them to help me get to the bottom of the situation. I wasn't sure what had happened, but the police were the only ones I figured would have the information I was now very anxious to receive.
After a few brief moments on hold, the officer I was talking to got back on the phone and confirmed my fears--"Yes, sir...I do have to tell you that your friend did kill himself over in the cemetery where some of his other family members are buried. It was a shooting."
His body had been discovered by another cemetery visitor later that morning of July 1st. Apparently, P.J. chose the very early morning hours to carry out his suicide, and some other poor woman happened to find him. How many times I've played that scene out in my head I can't tell you.
I'll never forget the feelings that instantly came over me. I was dizzy, confused, short of breath, and I sank to the floor of my bedroom where I was making the call. The officer on the phone with me asked me where I was calling from and if I was at home. I told him I was, and he said he was going to call my local police department and he wanted me to stay on the line while he did so. I did as I was told.
He came back on and told me that a White Plains police officer was on the way to my place, and when they arrived I needed to let them in. 8 years later, when I would be an EMT working in White Plains, I'd come to know this as a "welfare check", and I'd go on a TON of them with police officers whose job it was was to make sure a distraught individual was ok, and if they needed help they would render it. For a while that evening, I became the patient...
I thanked the officer on the phone and hung up. Within 10 minutes, my doorbell rang, and (now former) WPPD officer Mark Gilbert was at my door, asking what happened and if I was ok--which I was clearly not. Mark sat with me and listened to me go on and on about who P.J. was for about 20 minutes. I told him dumb stories of things we did together in college with other friends like Gerry, George, Katie and others...I think I showed Mark the letter I had been reading over and over, but I don't exactly remember that. After a while, when I had regained some of my composure, Mark left.
Again, 8 years later, when I started working EMS in the city here, I responded to a call and the officer on scene was Mark. I hadn't seen or spoken to him since he visited me that night in 1997, and when I started to refresh his memory, he instantly got clarity and gave me a huge hug, telling me how happy it made him to see me and that I remembered him. I can't say enough about Mark...he helped me immensely that night, even if I didn't realize it at the moment.
So...after he was gone, I sat in my living room, thinking of what the hell had just happened, and what I was going to do from there. I had a few phone calls I knew I wanted to make, to find out more information and of course, to reach out to my friends who were also close to P.J. and let them know what had happened. At some point though, I remember starting to cry. It was terrible grief, and also...I was furious at P.J. for doing what he did and dropping it in MY lap. My attitude would change down the road, but for the moment, I was just beside myself...
To say those were "hard" phone calls to make is a huge understatement. I found myself NEEDING to hear certain voices of people who I had spoken to not too long ago as well as REALLY long ago, and by some strange luck, I was able to find my friends relatively quickly as compared to the usual "leave a message and hope for a callback". I called Katie...George...Gerry...Audra...Sarah...even an old unit-mate named Steve, who I hadn't seen or spoken to or stayed in touch with on any level for five years, but P.J. had specifically asked me to find him and tell him because they were good friends...and no way was I not going to follow through for him.
Now...all the while...literally...the soundtrack piece from "Face/Off" played over and over in my CD player. I had long since tuned it out while I was attending to my calls and such, but I do remember it always playing through the those initial chunks of time that day. The piece of music (far more than the film) has long since become synonymous with this tragedy for me, and so as much as I do still love the music and the movie, they do conjure up some memories of that evening as I read the letter from my friend and realized that he was never going to write or call me again.
Within a few short weeks...maybe just two or so...Gerry, George and I met up in Bristol, RI where we all went to Roger Willams College together with P.J. We needed to go to the cemetery and...I don't know...just BE THERE with him in some way, and try to say goodbye. So we did that. We also visited our old college campus, and revisited some of our favorite places on it. For sure it made a horrible event just the slightest bit more palatable. Not by much, though.
We even cracked jokes, laughed a lot, told LOTS of stories of "back then", and celebrated the crazy, odd, OCD, neurotic, hilarious and quirky friend who we had just suddenly lost and could never ever get back. The smiles were strained to say the very least.
20 years have now gone by, and as I sit down to type this out, I think of so many memories of "P.J. Adventures" we went on...whether it was just he and I or with some other friends--typically it was George, Gerry, P.J. and myself--four friends--finding new ways to be morons, or just maybe expanding on the usual older ways to do it. We were certainly together more than not for the years we were up at Roger Williams, and even after we left and had gone back to our post-college lives. P.J. and I always stayed in touch. He would write to me, call me, leave me crazy hilarious phone messages, and I thank myself now more than ever that I had the forethought to save them all, and I have re-discovered them recently and listen to them once in a while and forget how brilliantly warped and funny he was. They really do make me laugh, but it's still bittersweet, especially as this 20th year without him rolls into view.
So...next Friday, just a few days after the actual 20th anniversary of P.J.'s passing, we'll all be together again. I have been organizing a mini-reunion for myself, Gerry, George (who I haven't seen since 2011) and hopefully a few other friends from the Roger Williams years. We will meet up in Bristol next Friday, do some memory-recall, tell our stories, have a load of laughs, and raise a glass or two...or three...to P.J. We'll have an "Awful-Awful" at Newport Creamery, share some Classic pizza...the usual Unit 2 stuff we always used to do.
On Saturday, we'll go visit him on the Cape for the first time since we lost him, and that's going to be extremely rough, but also--I know--filled with love for our buddy. It will be a short and sweet visit for whoever is there to share it with us next weekend, and I am really looking forward to being back in "that place" again. Hell, I even ordered a new and funky pair of those crazy, baggy workout pants that I used to wear a lot back in college, just to really bring the vibe of that time back, even if it's just for a few hours. You know what I'm talking about...those things are REALLY comfy! Don't hate!
Hard to believe 20 years have gone by...hard to believe that it's been that long since my friends and I have been able to enjoy the "wit and wisdom" (aka "insanity") that was P.J. I'm so thankful for having his close friendship for the years I had it. I often find myself thinking of him over the years, and I even have an original piece of "P.J. Artwork" hanging in my apartment! "The Assassination of John F. Bassuk"...it's so warped and offensive...but it's just brilliant...and classic P.J.
Sometimes I've also asked myself "Why did he send ME the suicide letter? Why ME? P.J., you fucking selfish prick...how could you do this to me, and make ME the one who has to get that letter?"
Well, I've kind of come to terms with it this way: he sent it to me because we were best friends.
When first arrived at college, I instantly discovered he was a little "odd" or "different", and some of the other people we lived with enjoyed poking some fun at him for it. I stuck up for him because I guess in some way I felt like that was me, too--"different". I had to think he was hurt by a lot of the things being said about him, so I pretty much stuck up for him and told him that I wouldn't be like those other people. I'd be his friend, and I guess that's what it took, because he stuck with me like glue for the entire 4 years I was there and for 5 years after I left...and that friendship was MY privilege to have.
He chose to send his last letter to me because--maybe in his own way--I'd like to think he loved and trusted me to receive it, more than anyone else, and I guess he felt that I was his closest friend...well, at least that's what I'd LIKE to think. When he died, P.J. sadly didn't have very much family left to mourn him...there's a sister, and I think that's it. So it was me...and his handful of other pals, who still remember, miss and love our friend. Each of us in their own way, but what I know for sure is our lives are better because P.J. was in it. I'll be telling stories on him for at LEAST another 20 years...especially next weekend! The video store in the Swansea Mall? "Are they for you...?"
Y'know...in his letter to me, one of the things he said was that he would try to haunt me forever.
I'm 100% positive he's sitting in his big comfy chair somewhere, looking down on me as he listens to Paula Abdul songs (only from the "Forever your Girl" album, though!), playing "Bases Loaded" on his Nintendo system, eating Domino's Pizza and laughing his ass off knowing that the attempt at haunting has been working just fine for the past 20 years. Although I don't know if I'd call it "haunting"...I think it's more like "in my heart"...and I'm glad for it.
So tomorrow, on July 1st, I'll watch "Face/Off" (in my living room instead of on Martha's Vineyard this time!) and spend a bit of time with memories of my friend...and then really look forward to next week when a few of us can be together, go back in time, and remember.
I promise you I'll always remember. I miss you all the time, "Jamas"...my friend.
