“HEY JUNIOR, IT’S ME…IT IS I…YOUR PAL…CORPORAL SCHLEY…PROFESSOR SCHLEY…I’M SORRY…I LOVE YOU…PLEASE CALL ME BACK…THANKS…”

“Hey Junior. Am I catching you at a bad time? Just calling to check in really.”

And at this point, my pal Schley and I would engage in one of our multiple daily conversations.

By his reckoning, he and I spent each day (365? 730?) in some form or fashion, together — not together with the connotation of today’s parlance in mind — but physically together playing sports, eating, drinking and debauching.

We had so much fun unless — or inevitably until — the corporal/professor decided to don the cloak and carry the dagger of a loudmouthed, oafish egocentric pig.

I hate pigs.

Always have and probably always will.

I dunno, I never cared for those who talked too much in general and then were prone to overdoing it especially with no backup quotient, i.e. the ability in some compelling way to unequivocally — absolutely and without a scintilla of doubt — support what they may say or do.

I was in a real “quandle,” as one of my sisters-in-law, a premier Mistress of Malaprop, would occasionally say.

(The word is quandary).

What to do?

I loved Schley but hated his mouth.

Well the circumstances here were mitigated somewhat because he had balls.

Sack. Gonads. Rocks. Peas. Nuts. Cojones.

More than “a pair.”

(Please allow the record to reflect this fact: I love people with guts as much as I hate a pig).

And he had to work like mad and be tough enough to cash the checks his mouth was writing because he never stopped talking.

Never.

But he had other things going for him. He was funny. He was smart, clever and humorous in word, mannerism and action.

Don’t get me wrong.

It’s not like Schley was some klutz, some dweeb with a big mouth. He was very competitive and a pretty fair athlete to boot. And he didn’t like to lose.

But his mouth ran wild…always.

I’ll never forget the time when he and I were in college and home for Christmas break.

(I am a year older than he; in fact some remarked that he did everything I did, just a year later…and maybe even better — editorial addendum courtesy of the scribe).

So the corporal was down at the high school gym running some full-court hoop.

During a break in the action some kid with whom we grew up at the park — our second home — approaches him and says, “Hey M.A….y’know you used to be an asshole…and you still are!!!”

As the word “are” rolls off this kid’s tongue he sucker-punches Schley on the side of the head close to his left eye.

My pal never had warning nor did he have the opportunity to retaliate as whatever this was, or was going to be, had no chance of escalating.

It was immediately broken up and snuffed out.

Now it is true that Schley mercilessly tormented this kid when we were all younger and also that he was very friendly with the kid’s older brother who was in his class.

(Interesting dichotomy).

And to his credit, the corporal/professor and this kid became tolerant of one another; though well short of being friends, it was a step in the right direction.

Were I to speak for him I would say that he admired this kid’s tenacity of purpose but didn’t necessarily cotton to the technique and execution of said ‘purpose.’

That was New Year’s Eve day and Schley and I were going out that evening with two babes in whom neither of us were really interested.

He had two heads — literally, a result of the one-punch scuffle earlier at the gym.

He was a handsome guy and to me at least he had acquitted himself nicely. He looked pretty good all things considered.

So we’re sitting at a table in this joint, the four of us talking about absolutely nothing — and with no real hope of talking about anything meaningful — when my pal and I look at each other.

Unspoken was our mutual acknowledgement that this was never gonna work and had to be addressed pronto.

If we were able to extricate ourselves, as gentlemen of course, we could salvage the rest of the evening.

To our great joy, the girls were thinking the same thing.

Done.

We took them home well before midnight.

The corporal/professor and I are still tighter than tight working on a friendship that spans over fifty years.

In that time we have made plenty of memories.

That New Year’s Eve was simply a precursor of what was in store.

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in August 2016.]