Better In Heaven

This day marks ten years that he's been dead. (I'll call him V.) When I began serving in the U.S. Air Force Reserves, V. was my first supervisor. He was a Staff Sergeant and four years my senior. I came to the base fresh from boot camp with a wild crew... we were all in our early to mid 20's and none of us had any stripes; therefore, we had no fear and no responsibility. V. understood us... he and his crew had all been what we were... the young terrors on the base. These guys were now in the midst of changing because they were starting to get promoted and had a little responsibility. The same would happen to us in a few years too.

V. and I became fast friends. We were both raised in the same part of West Philadelphia, had a penchant for the ladies, and had been burned by love. It would take a book to talk about our many adventures and mishaps in the Air Force and I don't intend to talk about them all here. I'll just go over the basics.

V. met me at a time in my life when I was going through a change... I was 26 years old, starting to think about my future, and beginning to tone down all of the wildness of the years before. I had finally listened to my mother and started socking away some money. I already met the woman I was going to marry and my entire attitude had changed. In effect, I was no longer any fun... I stopped drinking, cut down on the partying and staying up late, and I was starting to move up the ranks in the military. Me and two other guys (I'll call them E. and S.) eventually equaled V. in rank and were no longer his "charges" but rather, his contemporaries.

My fun came from living vicariously through V. He had gotten divorced before I met him and had just married wife number two. He was constantly battling wife number one over issues of child support. Then, he and wife number two had a baby. While we were all over in Europe, she neglected to pay any of the bills for the house they rented and subsequently, they all got evicted. V. and his new family had to live at his mother's house, which was around the corner from my aunt's house.

When we went back to Europe, V. got involved with a beautiful woman whose father was an African American G.I. and mother was a German civilian. The entire time we were there, he stayed at her home in Amsterdam. E. and I covered for him when he didn't show up for work. The woman wrote him a beautiful letter, put perfume all over it, a lipstick smudge, and mailed it to his home in PHILADELPHIA. The letter beat him home and his son from his first marriage opened the letter and showed it to his step-mom!!! Well, that pretty much ended marriage number two.

V., E., and I went to San Antonio, TX a few years later and V. got involved with a much older woman (she was 50 years old). Mind you, we were by then in our late 30's. Her husband had been some kind of "negro first" something or other in Texas, died, and left her a pile of money. She bought V. clothes, let him drive her cars (I did say cars... she had a black Jaguar and a white Mercedes Benz), and she gave him money. V. would come to the base, pick us up, and we would go out on the town and have a high time.

One time, we met these girls from Philly who were visiting for a few days and they wanted to party. I was married by then and in a rare moment of good judgment, I elected not to go with them to the party. Just as I was getting out the car (the Benz), his woman drove up in the Jaguar! She yelled, "Get them b-----s outta mah car, nigguh!" E. Looked at me and I motioned for him to come with me. He did and we both went back to the barracks.

Later that night, V. knocked on my door... his clothes were torn and he was a bloody mess!!! The woman made him get in her car, they quarreled, and she drove at speeds of 80 and 90 miles an hour while screaming, "If I can't have all of you then, I'm taking us both to the grave! V. leaped out of the car and she drove the car into an embankment. I know this wasn't funny, but I had to walk into another room to keep him from seeing me laugh... the woman wound up in the hospital and all of us returned to Philadelphia.

Right after that, V. realized that he needed a change in his life so, he married a church-going girl. He even got saved himself and he left the Air Force. He got a good civilian job and he and his new wife moved into a small home in the Mt. Airy section of Philly. I went to Italy that summer and returned to Philly in August. One day, I was walking down the street towards my block and saw V. with his wife. He had on a very nicely tailored suit and was all smiles. We embraced and I talked about my trip to Italy. He told me that he and a friend were going to go partying the next night and he asked me if I wanted to come. I declined but told him I would drop by his house and see him in a few days. Unfortunately, that was the last time I would ever see him alive. I never knew who the "friend" was that went with V. to the party but apparently, they went out and got an "8 ball" of coke (not the soft drink) to get high. V. subsequently went into cardiac arrest and died. He was only two weeks shy of his 44th birthday.

I had just turned 40 years old a couple of months before this happened and, it felt so weird attending his funeral. Every guy I had known throughout my Air Force career was there. It was like a reunion of sorts... guys I hadn't seen in years, guys who had retired, transferred, etc. And women!!! All three of his wives were there, his four children, and past girlfriends. It was like a rock star's funeral and V. WAS a rock star. Everybody had a funny story to tell about V.(celebrating his life). As I walked by his coffin and looked at him in his full military garb, I couldn't cry... in fact, I smiled because I remembered all of his misadventures with the women (and there were a lot more than the two I talked about here). Then, I silently said to my friend... "I hope the action is better for you in Heaven."