My Great Uncle Timmy and Me

Had Me a Real Good Time

My great uncle Timmy was a first-rate reprobate but somehow, also, a good man. I’m still struggling to work out that incongruency. Timmy died at 62, and in all the years I knew him he left no turn unstoned. A legendary drinker, drug abuser, and cocksman, Timmy was a problem. To be sure, he had problems, but he was also a problem in the best possible way. He loved to tell a story about how he was once arrested for eating fried chicken in a car but cackled in laughter as he finished the punchline by revealing the car was stolen. He was loyal to a fault, but his German-Polish ancestry and a healthy dose of Catholic guilt kept him up late doing things that would make Keith Richards offer advice to “maybe slow down a bit.” He was a notorious birth control device tester, with several notable failures; Timothy, Jared, and Troy, not to mention the unknown ones from his years in the merchant marines.

He was the funniest human being I’d known, and his worldly education filled me with envy. He had always maintained that once I came of age and was appropriately seasoned, I could come drinking with him. I genuinely longed for that occasion, but then aren’t we all complete fucking morons in our early 20s?