4-2-09

Stock broker, dinner guest, and taxi driver; the best Boston friend around

I have used so much of Cox Communication ink to print stories about my hardships, good times and family life. We all know each other well enough for me to tell you some stories of my unusual friends.
I would not be the man (most would still say I’m a kid) that I am if it wasn’t for my friends. Combined, they have taught me so much and have helped to mold me into the strange and politically incorrect person I am today.
Robert Nagel is in the top five of my list of best friends. An odd person that part of me wishes I could be, he reminds me of a cross between Seth Myers from Saturday Night Live and, sadly, was a spitting image of Daniel Pearl, the journalist that was killed overseas by terrorists in February ‘02.
Anyhow.
Robert, Leigh and I all lived in the same pink-painted building on Michelangelo St. in Boston’s historic North End. The first time I met him was at 1:30 in the morning on a Tuesday. I stomped down a flight of stairs to the “New Guy’s” apartment who thought it was appropriate to blast the Red Hot Chili Peppers after coming home from an evening out with his friends. With a tight fist, I tried to bang a hole through his apartment door. The volume on the radio went down and he opened the door.
“What the h*!!’s wrong with you, I’m trying to sleep up there,” I yelled and pointed towards my apartment door. I could tell right away that he was upset that he had upset a fellow neighbor and responded, “I am so sorry, we just got back from a party and had a bit too much to drink. I am so sorry, I’ll turn it down. Sorry.”
I turned and walked away without saying another word. I laid back down in my bed and felt bad now because I just yelled at a very nice, polite neighbor.
I’m unsure of how the next few weeks unfolded, but somehow we ended up spending a lot of time together on the roof of our six story apartment building. We would sit up there drinking beer, talking, and watching the lights of Boston. We just hit it off famously.
Robert was a stock broker by day and worked in the financial district in town. He loved making money. Robert was good at it. All day long he would be on the phone with clients, trading information, stocks and a ton of money. Funny thing is, he couldn’t do it for himself. He lived off of commission. Some weeks he was living high on the hog, dropping by with Chinese food for all of us and other times he would poke his head in our door and ask what WE were having for dinner. Leigh and I didn’t mind, he had turned into the best friend anyone could ask for.
When the 9/11 stuff happened, he was having a hard time making money during the day, so he decided to find another way to make ends meet. Robert had a friend that owned a cab company and said the he would give Robert a route if he got his license.
He did and got his route.
Now, Robert wasn’t happy with just making the normal fares like every other cabbie. He decided that there was more money working the late night / early morning shift. Robert would catch the “T” (Boston’s subway) to the cab station, get his car and drive to the “packie” (package store, liquor store). Robert filled his trunk with beer and liquor.
He would drive by all of the high end clubs and hang outs around closing time to find his fares. When driving them to their end-of-the-night destination he would remind them that all of the beer stores were closed. Once he hooked them, Robert told them that he could get them whatever they wanted. Pulling over in the next parking lot, he would open his trunk and sell them whatever they wanted to drink to finish off their evening at an inflated cost. Supply and demand. A man after my own heart.
One of the advantages of having Robert as a friend was that we had a free cab ride anytime, anywhere during the weekend. Leigh and I would call him on his cell and he would answer on the first ring. “Where you at?” I would give him my location and in about fifteen minutes he was screeching to a halt in front of us.
When Leigh and I left Boston, Robert was the only friend that showed up to help us load the moving truck. Jessica, my sister, did fly up to help us and I need to say that or else she would hit me next time I saw her.
Robert drove his cab to our house at eight in the morning after driving all night long. He made sure we were all set, loaded up, hugged us good bye and drove his cab back to the shop.
That was the last time I saw him.
I have exhausted every avenue that I can think of to find him. Google, Facebook, calling mutual friends, I can’t find the man anywhere.
During one of our late night conversations on the roof overlooking the “Old North Church,” (the tower that Paul Revere hung his lanterns in at the beginning of the Revolutionary War) he told me about his sister who was married to a man in Mexico that owned a copper mine. He said that the living was good down there and the copper industry was lucrative.
After all of these years of looking for him, I think that Mexico may be the last stop in my quest for contact with Robert Nagel. The only problem with this is that I don’t plan on heading down there anytime soon.
I don’t do the “Spring Break” stuff anymore, I don’t surf and I refuse to travel farther than Food Lion for a good price on alcohol.
The only way, I think, that you will find me driving fast across the border into Mexico is if I am running from the law in a ‘62 Caddy, and I don’t plan on doing that... anytime soon.
Bryan Pinkey can always be found searching for a ‘62 Caddy or at bpinkey@nccox.com. You can also read an archive of his past articles at www.jbryanpinkey.blogspot.com.