Adventures with Vince

July 31, 2011 | Jim Brady

Vince and I discovered, to our astonishment, that we were both named James Vincent. It was back during one of the attendance roll calls at the beginning of the year at St. Mary’s. We were probably in first or second grade. I was just amazed that you could go by your middle name if you wanted to. I went home and told my parents during dinner about it. My own father shrugged and said that was his name to his friends. What? My mother explained, “Yeah, his buddies called him Vinnie.” Now I was floored! “But your dad’s name was Thomas – Vince’s dad is James – so why did they call you Vinnie?,” My dad shrugged again, and chuckled for second. “I don’t know. They liked calling me that. It sounds better.”

After that, I eyed Vince differently - convinced that Vince was destined for something I would later know as “coolness,” but in our nonage I just took to be some mystique, something that made for that smile of his. And, for the time being, I felt like I was the proud owner of a discontinued item every time they called out “JAMES BRADY?” and had to admit, “Here.”

In second grade we prepared for the Sacrament of Communion, as well as First Confession. Between Kevin Sweeney, Vince, Ed Scott and John Manley, not one of the deeply serious reviews of easy question-and-answers transpired without a disturbance. The disturbance always involved one of us getting some irreverent, and I’m sure immature mockery going, knowing full well that the worst thing would be to be found laughing while the rest of the class was contemplating how our sins caused Jesus direct personal torture. And, particularly, the discussion of partaking of communion was prone to inspire some strange responses from one of us. The unspoken contest was to see who would lose it first and blurt out laughing.

So Vince and I spent a few times standing in front of the class, or standing at the back of the class facing the wall, which caused us to further giggle. Therefore, we spent time in the hallway, where it did seem serious when our teacher spoke to us. The worst timing was being in the hallway when Monsignor McGrath came striding down to talk to our class about this special event coming up. We thought we were going to be condemned to hell, but instead he just glanced at us as he went in. The teacher motioned us to return. By then we weren’t feeling giggly.

When the big day came and we were all in our suits, I passed Vince in the orderly rows to and from the communion rail. For the first time since I knew him, Vince was not grinning, just cast with an angelic innocence on his face, and we were singing like we were supposed to be. I was sure this was a holy event by all measures.

In high school when we got our licenses, life truly began. Driving around looking for exotic places to party was the eternal quest. One such mission took us to the wild tangles of West Virginia, with Brad Railing at the wheel of his Rambler. I was riding up front, and Vince and Ed Scott were in the back. The roads were twisting past farms and down into low country, tangles of wilderness. Suddenly, a large dog walked into the road, and we slowed and looked at it. It wasn’t the usual farm dog barking away, but seemed lost. We all had the same reaction: Cool dog! It was some mix of Irish Setter and something, and looked like one of us would have a new pet. We stopped, flung the car door open and the dog bounded right in. We instantly reeled and gagged – this dog was covered with burrs and mud, but worst of all, had been sprayed by a skunk! We did our best to drive on with the windows rolled down and our own heads sticking out, but this dog stunk really bad. We couldn’t take it anymore. We quickly decided he’d have to find his way back home, or somebody else would get to keep him after the skunk wore off. So we stopped, and just as eagerly as the dog hopped in, he jumped out.

And, right at that moment, a car with two young women came over the hill and saw us closing the door and driving away. They gave us the dirtiest looks – we had no way to gesture that it wasn’t our dog, that we weren’t abandoning this poor pet. We all slunk down in our seats. But – when we got to the top of the next hill and saw the door to the girls’ car open and the dog hop in, we cracked up laughing again.

We loved Vince’s Cougar. That car was the kind that threw you back flat against your seat, and you could tell he loved it. I always thought that at least among my friends, Vince was a good driver-at least a careful one. I wasn’t aboard when he wrecked it, and don’t remember the story. But he needed a place to tow it to, so I volunteered the street in front of my house.

There it sat, probably from April to June. But to my father, it probably felt like forever. After the first month, he inquired what Vince was going to do with it. I dunno – I guess fix it up. After a few more weeks, he asked me to check with Vince to see where he might take it. I think I never bothered to ask Vince, because I knew he felt heartbroken about that car. I can’t remember the details, but Vince eventually sold it as a wreck to somebody, and the space in front of our house was without the dramatic trophy of catastrophe.

After we graduated in 1975, Vince was kind of on limited time, in my mind. He had signed up for the Navy, and would have to report in October, I believe. I just remember how different our dispositions were. I didn’t realize that I was still in my shell -  I just thought, wow – how could somebody sign away six years of their life?! That seemed like forever. That, plus in the Navy, wouldn’t it be, like, people telling you what to do?

Yet, Vince in that period was the opposite of any boxed-in, committed person. He was doing all these road trips. He went to Alaska for the summer. And when it got to be September and I was telling him I was going to drive up to Massachusetts to see my girlfriend who had gone to UMass, Vince just asked, “Mind if I ride along?” Just like that.

We set out in my 8 year old BMW – a $600 car – with its awful 8-track. That was a 400 mile drive from Hagerstown to Amherst, and we got to talk about a lot of things, nearly all of which escape me now in the particulars, but really were focused on what to do with our lives. I got to liking Vince’s plan, once I understood it. He was getting paid. He was going to have education benefits. And he was going to get to go places that he never would get to see any other way. That was good for him, I thought, but I was hung up on my girlfriend, hung up on not wanting to commit to something that made you cut your hair. Vince said he didn’t care, and I envied him that he had the ability to let go of the known and step out into something really different.

Vince stayed with a friend of Sally’s in one of the dorms – another example of rolling with it, finding a place for the night – and the next day we three drove around the Berkshires, enjoying the twisty roads and the fall leaves. We left kind of late Sunday, and drove back kind of zombified, getting home around midnight. I dropped Vince at his place, and that would be the last time I’d see him for quite a few years, till he returned from Japan in 1980.

Jim Brady: Vince’s friend from St. Mary’s, St. Maria Goretti and North High.