If you knew Fred D., you loved and respected him.
At 6’6” and probably 300 pounds or more, respect was never even an issue. Fred also had a black belt in karate, just in case. His voice was so deep and so resonant that the first time I heard it, I looked skyward expecting to see the clouds part and some Monty-Python like vision of God talking directly to me.
Everything about Fred was big – his body, his voice, his smile and especially his heart.
I’d met him a few times, but it wasn’t until I started bartending at my uncle’s restaurant in the spring of 1994 that I got to know him. Fred was a regular. So regular, in fact, that he had his own stool, and everybody respected Fred’s stool. Fred showed up nearly every day during the 4-5 year span I worked behind the bar there, and I learned a lot by asking him for advice. After all, he was Fred, and if you’re twenty-something years old and need advice, who better to ask?
Fred was much more than a customer, see. He was a mentor, friend, surrogate father, the voice of reason, etc. I sought advice about girls, school, work – anything and everything. If I was wrong or being dumb-headed and stubborn about something, I could count on Fred to point me in the right direction.
One time, when I just started dating my wife, she invited me to a family wedding. This was right after our first or second date, though we’d been friends for a few months already.
“Fred, I don’t know about this wedding business. I’m not sure I want to meet her family yet.”
“Do you like this girl?” he asked.
“Yeah, she’s all right, but it’s going to be her whole family.”
“The thing of it is that sometimes you just have to do things you don’t want to do to get where you want to go.”
He was always saying that. “The thing of it is …”
Fred taught me a lot about the union, too. Even though I grew up in a union house (my dad is a Steelworker, my mom a social worker), I don’t think I knew exactly what role a union had in the mid-1990’s until I asked Fred what being a “shop steward” for the Teamsters meant.
“It means I drive around and pick up garbage from four in the morning until noon; then I go down the union hall and help folks with their own personal garbage until I come here. The thing of it is that sometimes they follow me here, too.”
He was active in his union and a member of the Teamsters’ National Black Caucus. He was proud of it too. He was much more patient with the folks he dealt with than he had to be. And the guys who followed him to my bar respected him for it, too.
What I’ll never, ever forget though, and what I love Fred for, was the time in the summer of 1995 that he invited me and my girlfriend at the time to his house for barbecue. Fred had once given me a jar of his homemade sauce, and I never stopped bugging him for another. After a couple months, he asked me if I’d like something better.
“Fred, I can’t think of anything better than your sauce,” I told him, “but what do you have in mind?”
“How about you and M- come on over to my house on Saturday for a cookout?”
“Are you serious?”
“Sure I am. The thing of it is that I’m making a batch of sauce and you won’t want to use it.”
“Now I know you’re full of it. If I come to your house, I’m getting some sauce.”
“You try my ribs first; then tell me if you want some sauce. Here’s my address. Come on over about ten.”
“Deal.”
So we go over there. He lived in a tough part of the east side, a few blocks from where the girl lived. I knocked on the door tentatively. His wife, who I’d never met before, observed “You must be Tony.”
She invited us in, and ushered us into the kitchen. “Fred’s been foolin’ around with that pot on the stove all morning. As long as he cleans up after himself, I just let him go.”
Now, to be clear, I’d never seen real pork baby back ribs barbecued in a real charcoal smoker before. I had no idea what he was doing, and it would be years before I finally tried to use Fred’s technique on my own. I watched his every move, nonetheless, taking mental notes on the way he peeled the membrane off the underside and dusted them with salt, pepper, paprika and garlic powder. Finally, he slid the two slabs of prepared meat into his homemade smoker, already billowing white clouds of hickory out its top and side vents.
Anxious for the next step, I asked, “What’s next?”
“We wait,” he said. “The thing of it is that I brought us out some appetizers.”
He reached into a cooler and pulled out the two biggest steaks I’d ever seen.
“What’re those?” I asked, confused.
“Porterhouses – they’re the appetizers.”
“Do you think we’ll be able to eat the ribs after we eat those?”
“We’ve got another five hours,” he said.
He fired up the gas grill and cooked those two steaks and two more for the women. We ate. And ate. And finally, Fred pronounced that the ribs were ready.
“Remember the deal?” he asked.
“Sure, buddy. No sauce until I try the ribs without it first.”
And once again, Fred was right. His ribs didn’t need sauce. They were sweet as candy and fell apart when I lifted a bone. Of course, I had to try some sauce on a couple anyway, and he wasn’t offended. When I left, he sent me home with two jars of my own.
I never made it back to his house, but I did get to see his wife again from time to time. She was always sweet, and sometimes brought their grandchildren down to the bar to visit.
After I left town, I stopped down my uncle’s place for a late lunch on purpose whenever I’d pass through. Sometimes he’d be there. I asked after him a few times.
“Oh, Fred doesn’t come down as much as he used to,” the new bartender would say.
Last August, I ran into my uncle at a picnic after my brother got married. I asked again about Fred.
“Oh Fred’s not doing so well these days. He’s in pretty bad shape.”
Cancer. There was a huge (“Fred-sized?”) tumor on one of his kidneys that was too big to remove without severely damaging other vital organs. Even chemotherapy wasn’t an option. They were trying to shrink it with radiation therapy to see if maybe they could get it down to a more manageable size.
I went home and called him the next day. He was excited to hear from me, but he sounded … small. The deep, booming voice I expected wasn’t there for the most part. At first I remember I wasn’t even sure if it was him on the other end of the line.
By the time we finished talking, I was practically broken up, but he was sounding exactly like I remember him – strong and confident and wise.
“I’m gonna fight this, Tony. It’s gonna maybe take some time, but the thing of it is that I’m gonna beat it.”
I told him that my wife and I were coming to town that weekend and that we’d love to stop by and see him, wherever he was. I promised I’d call again before we left on Saturday to see if he was up for a visit.
Terrified of what condition I’d find him in, I called that morning, and the machine picked it up. I left some lame-assed message and my cell number, but he never did return my call. I feel like shit that I never tried getting in touch with him again, but I did keep tabs on him through my uncle and cousins. The reports weren’t good.
On Monday night, I got a text from Cousin Joe, and it was bad news. The worst, really …
“Fred died today. We lost a friend.”
Fred died on Labor Day, and the symbolic associations I could get into are too many and most too facile to even try any more now.
Nevertheless, I will continue to look skyward from time to time and always remember how much larger than life he always has been and that “the thing of it is” that I’m lucky to have known him, as are the rest of us who did.
I’ve missed you, friend, but I’ll never forget.
