Crazy Uncle Mike

The Death of Aloysius McGillicutty

Today I was informed of the death of Aloysius McGillicutty. That’s not his real name, he was my constant friend, companion and partner in crime from ages ten to sixteen. Our paths began to separate once we hit high school and eventually we would drift apart. We reconnected a few years ago over Facebook, we reminisced, but soon it became apparent that he’d become a full-on MAGA nut and quickly every conversation turned to politics so I had to break off communication. Even so, he was someone who if I turned a corner and saw three men kicking his ass I’d be in it, immediately with no thought of the risk, I always know he would do the same for you. We spent so much time together in really formative years, we had huge impacts on each other, hell, his sister was the first older woman I ever hooked up with.

That he died at 59 seems sad and too young, but in one way it isn’t. Somewhere around 1978 on a sunny fall day we were laying on the basketball court on the playground we’d grown up on. Somehow the topic of the year 2000 came up, I did a quick bit of math in my head and noted we’d be thirty-six at the millennium. There were a few seconds of silence and then we both burst out into laughter because we didn’t think we’d be alive at thirty-six.

When we were running together as kids we had the cops called on us all of the time. Sometimes it was justified, sometimes it wasn’t. We were certainly delinquents but we were also just kids. We had the cops called on us for throwing a baseball, playing football, hell sometimes the cops were called just because we were sitting on a porch or standing on the corner. Of course, this was also part of the excitement, in our town in the 70’s there was no juvenile hall and we knew, until we were sixteen, the police really couldn’t do anything but take us to our parents. Of course we didn’t want that either, so we ran, we always ran. The fact is I can only remember being caught by the cops twice.

One time I was caught, I was maybe twelve years old, the cop was pissed and he put me in cuffs and threw me in back of the cop car. They’d done this do other guys, they would drive you the six blocks to the station then tell you to walk home. Knowing this my attitude was not what the cop wanted, he wanted me scared and I was obviously not afraid at all. At the station he talked with another cop for a minute, the officer went inside and came out a few minutes later. So they took me into the station in cuffs and brought me to a holding cell. In the cell on one of the benches a big, hairy, scary looking dude was cuffed to the bench. The cops brought me in and cuffed me to the other one then they made a crack about how they hoped I didn’t get killed and left me in the cell. They were convinced they were scaring the hell out of me, I’d played along as soon as I saw the guy and as soon as the officers walked down the hall, my cousin raised his head and said, “what the hell are you doing here?” Ooops.

The only other time I was caught I was nine or ten and I was with my friend. His attitude was even worse than mine with cops, the cops had chased us for about thirty minutes and we thought we were clear and were walking back up the alley. As we turned toward the street the cops were waiting for us. One right in front of us, one in the other direction, we turned to run and there was another behind us. The cop grabbed us and asked us our names. My friend looked at the officer and said my name is Aloysius McGillicutty. The cop said, “spell that,” and without blinking an eye, my friend said, “fuck you, you want to write it down, you spell it.” The cop was so pissed! He stood there angry, dumbfounded for at least a minute, then he said, “fuck this,” and just walked back to his squad car, got in and peeled out down the street. We laughed about that day for years, if was the first thing we talked about when we re-connected.

A part of my youth died today, but I’ll never forget Aloysius McGillicutty.