Men celebrate their 50th birthday. Women avoid the date with a cloak of forgetability. Age means little to men. To them fifty is the old age of youth and the youth of old age. I never expected to live that long. 50 came as a surprise and I started the party in Pattaya to Bangkok to New York to Boston and finally Watchic Pond in Maine. None of my friends used the word 'old' in my presence, I had all my teeth and hair, and my waist didn't rival my age. 50 was nothing to a man and I toasted my friends and family with wine and humor.
In vino veritas.
We were fearless in the face of truth.
Several years later a friend asked me to speak at his 50th birthday party. I was surprised by Lonnie Boy's request, but we went back to the early 80s. Never a bad word said between us. He was Richie Boy's best friend. I told RD that it would be my pleasure. I didn't write down anything, because I can not really read anything with feeling. Every lines was memorized in sequence through countless cerebral rehearsals. The honorarium was something close to perfect.
Lonnie D had done well in life. He was a CEO of a major clothing line. As a father without my kids I like going over to his house for dinner. His young boy was a prince and his choice of wine was beyond my salary.
Like I said he was doing good.
His income was a just reward for his efforts, although I was surprised that he had rented the entire ground floor of a classy Soho hotel for the evening. 200 guests wandered through the garden.
The music was 80s.
The heyday of Richie Boy and Lonnie Boy and their teammate in madness, Herthel, once the Meanest Man in the World. I currently held the title. My drunken comment had brought Richie Boy's wife to tears. I had no idea what I said to hurt her. Drunks never remember yesterday.
Herthel gave a few jabs in my direction. My living overseas was a betrayal to America. I never picked him for a patriot, then again the factory owner relished making people feeling bad. Especially his friends. The barbs ran off their backs. I was the Meanest Man in the World. I felt nothing.
Dinner was exquisite. The wine plentiful. Our company the best of friends and family.
Before dessert several people raised their glasses to Lonnie Boy. His Wife and mother of his son. His Schwule Austrichen freund roasted RD about a gym exercise. The gathering laughed at their host's expense and then RD pointed my way with a nod.
It was my time to speak.
My stammer was under control during my address to his remaining parent, his family, friends, and his love for the nightlife without any confessionals.
"Finally I'd like to close with one thought. Lonnie Boy is our friend, but even more he is a father and a husband and with all the things that he had achieved, including the miraculous regrowth of his hair." His hair doctors had sworn the truth to the grave and they are Jains.No one more honorable than a Jain. "The most important was his meeting the woman of his dreams and their giving birth to a son."
I remembered his name despite the numerous glasses of wine that I had drunk throughout the night. Glass raised to the stars I asked for everyone to do the same.
"Lonnie Boy's 50. Close to 80 than 20, but still 15. To him."
Clinked glassed were drained by the multitude of guests. I sat down in my chair, relieved I hadn't forayed into bad language. LD's wife thanked my kind words, as the waiters served a potpourri of desserts. The Gambian chocolate mousse was my favorite. Several guests complimented my speech. Richie Boy was one of them. He was proud of me.
"I knew you were a great writer, but never a poet."
"Thanks." It was a free-style remembrance of the birthday boy and I hit the nearest bar to quench the dryness in my throat. My stutter returned after the second Jack. I hit my bed fifteen seconds before a coma. I was 57 years old and dawn broke on my centuries-old bones with a vengeance.
"Never again."
And I coasted into the future thinking about wife, children, and wine until Herthel mentioned that he was having a 50th and expected my words at the dinner. The destination was the premiere fish restaurant in New York. 50 of his friends. I was told not to bring a date. Everyone else was with their wife or girlfriend. I knew a couple of girls who might have been impressed by the restaurant choice of the host. They were high-class epicures. It wasn't my soiree, so I refrained from any mention of Herthel's stinginess.
"You mind if you prepare a few words for the dinner."
"I'd be happy too." Even though I had never eaten at Herthel's house. We went back to the 80s too. I had once raced him for a cheese sandwich when I didn't have any money. He had broken someone's nose in front of everyone for grabbing coins out of his coin bowl. Herthel was still the meanest man in the world, because I never did anything that mean other than a few things in Paris. Those things don't count in the USA due to the different time-zone clause on culpritability.
The week before the party I constructed a minute-long speech. There would be no mention of Herthel's mishaps or accidents as a youth. At 50 those mistakes are a smudge of the distant horizon. I would relate racing him down 25th Street to win enough money for a sandwich, otherwise my words would compliment his accomplishments and family life. He was a good father and husband.
The night of the soiree my back was aching and I took a pain-killer. I arrived at the mid-town seafood bistro on time. 50 of Herthel's closest friends were at the bar in the private dining room. All were successful. They were mostly his age. I was the oldest man. The women were in their prime. An afternoon at the beauty salon had subtracted a few years. Maybe it was the lighting, but after two drinks I thought that they were in their 20s.
Dinner was delicious. I had Atlantic Sole. A fish on the verge of extinction.
Before dessert several friends toasted Herthel and then he called on me to say a few words. I had it down to 200. JFK spoke at 345 words per minute. I'd take the full 60 seconds with my pauses to still my stammer.
"I've known Herthel since he was a teenager and...."
"I was 17." Herthel interrupted my opening sentence and the second and the third. I couldn't find my stride and stuttered on several occasions. He made fun of that. For some reason he didn't want me to do good and that was because Herthel was the meanest man in the world, so I wrapped up my speech swiftly, "Here's to Herthel. Once the meanest man in the world and now a loving father and husband. Happy 50."
I sat down disappointed with my performance and you're only 50 once.
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