The Days With Dre
My 20's wouldn't have been the same without this guy.
Like anyplace you work there is an ecosystem. That delicate balance can be thrown out of whack by introducing something new to the environment.
In my case, it was the new guy in the produce department.
In 1987 I was toiling away on the overnight stocking shift at the Winn-Dixie in Cocoa. My shift started at 9 PM and ended when all of the stock was on the shelves, around 6 AM. I usually worked Friday and Saturdays as normal people were out enjoying themselves. It was a meager existence.
The only way out was up. Being promoted into another department and back into the land of the living.
But then I saw the new guy setting up the produce section one morning and I was crestfallen. I had to wait behind another person now.
Right away you could tell he was different. I recall him wearing a purple dress shirt with gray pants and these white leather shoes. I chuckled to myself thinking how dirty they would get.
He drove a black Pontiac Fiero and backed into the parking space pointing the car at the store from the back of the lot.
He was good-looking and all of the girls were whispering about him. His name was Andre.
It was like the Fonz moved into our neighborhood.
Of course I didn’t like him in first.
A few months later I started working with him and that all changed.
Our department was small, only a handful of us. You either worked 5 AM – 2 AM, 10 AM – 7 AM or 3 PM – 11 PM. Everyone had to pull their weight. A bad closing meant a bad opening the next day.
That made us automatically dependent on each other.
At first Andre and I didn’t work together much. When we did I found him a little complex. We made small talk and that was about it. But our friendship blossomed with every shift.
Andre was from Merritt Island, a more affluent area sandwiched between Cocoa and Cocoa Beach. The mall was there along with a host of other businesses.
We started going to lunch during the day. His car had a thumping stereo and we jammed out to Bobby Brown's amazing album “Don't Be Cruel.” He also turned me onto LL Cool J’s “Bad,” which I quickly memorized to impress him.
One weekend he invited me out. I met up with him and a couple of his friends. We hit the usual party spots – humpback and under the 520 Causeway Bridge.
They had a case of Natural Light in the trunk, and it was half warm. Not wanting to be a Prima donna, I choked down a few of them. Over time I acquired a taste for a better quality of beer. But at the time Natty Light was a dirt cheap 10 bucks a case.
Going out with him was a different experience. All the girls either knew him or wanted to. He had confidence and swagger, two things I sorely lacked. Andre had chiseled features and fabulous swooping hair. He was a preppy dresser, always looking sharp.
He was also sharp-tongued with an intelligent sense of humor. That’s where we found a lot of commonality.
Andre inspired to me always look my best and dress more stylishly. He helped unleash my inner preppy.
He also encouraged me to expand my geographic horizons by leaving my hometown.
The idea to move to Orlando germinated from somewhere. It was difficult for me to pull the trigger for many reasons, but in the end, I always thought there was more to experience in the world than Cocoa. My mother encouraged me to travel, and I took her up on it.
The plan was to move into a three-bedroom apartment with Andre’s friend Rob and a couple that would live in the master bedroom. Andre and I would share a room.
We drove over to find a place. I had only been to Disney World which was miles from downtown. We spent the day cruising around.
This next part may sound a little ridiculous, but I promise it’s true.
I can vividly recall how giddy we were driving downtown and marveling over the half-dozen skyscrapers that seemed to scratch the sky. For perspective, back home there was no skyline. The tallest building in our area besides the Cape’s Vehicle Assembly Building was probably 10 stories high.
It also felt like we were part of a busier world. We looked forward to life in the big(ger) city.
I arranged for a transfer to another store. Andre got a job at the Cape. We rented a nice apartment near UCF.
When you room with someone, nearly everything is on full display: their habits, their idiosyncrasies, their likes and dislikes.
It was my second time living with a roommate, in this case three of them were strangers. For the most part though, our apartment life was a positive experience.
Except for the trash. We seemed to have a contest on how far we could stack the garbage above the can before having to take it out.
Garbage Jenga if you will. To be fair, the dumpster was a long way down three flights of stairs.
We worked during the week and then on Fridays and Saturdays we let loose. It started at our apartment with some drinking games such as three man and quarters. Then we’d head out to a club near the house. We weren’t 21 so we had to hit the 18 and over spots.
I never had luck at the bars. Andre was in his element, and I learned to play his wingman. He would have a steady stream of girls to talk to. Me, I had to turn on my personality to have a chance. I had to play the long game.
I met most of my girlfriends at the Winn-Dixie. It was much easier to get to know people that way as opposed to yelling over music to each other in a smoke-filled club.
One of the first things Andre taught me about in Orlando was the greatness of March Madness. Andre was a massive Tar Heels fan, having family in North Carolina. I was more of a football guy and never really watched hoops.
He taught me about the seedings and how a 12 nearly always beats a 5. How at the time a 16 had never beaten a 1. We watched the 1990 final between Duke and UNLV. It wasn’t even close as UNLV won by 30.
But I was hooked after that. The next year a friend of mine going to Duke told me she was dating a player on the team, and I became a fan.
To this day, it’s one of my favorite sporting events.
Andre was a massive Michael Jordan fan and we watched all of those epic battles with the Pistons and when the Bulls won their first championships.
He also taught me how to play basketball. Showed me the proper way to take a jump shot and practiced with me. I was terrible at first but he never made fun of me for trying.
In 1989 we decided to go skiing in North Carolina. We would stay with his grandparents in Mount Airy (birthplace of Andy Griffith) and drive to the slopes in Boone.
We packed up my red Mazda pickup truck and started the journey. It had been an unusually cold winter even for Florida. I recall having to help customers pour warm water into their car key holes because the key didn’t turn the frozen lock.
We first saw snow in Jacksonville. We knew it was going to be an epic trip.
Like most best friends we developed our own language of sayings and inside jokes.
We called people we didn't know, “Gus.” As in, “What's this Gus doing?”
At a gas station in North Carolina, we were looking for help and Andre told me to ask that Gus over there. I walked over to talk to him and sure enough guess what was on his name tag?
Gus.
That was peak Gusdom and we both howled with laughter.
Mount Airy was an idyllic small town and Andre’s grandparents were lovely.
It was a two-hour drive to Sugar Mountain. We left early in the morning to maximize our skiing time. They offered day and night sessions, and we signed up for both. The slopes were perfect. It wasn’t too crowded and there were plenty of trails to explore.
We took a break for dinner and then went back for night skiing, which was a surreal experience. They were running the snow machines so an eerie mist reflected off the floodlights and hung above us.
The session ended around 10 PM. Exhausted, we piled into my truck to make the drive home. We came off the mountain and took a right turn hoping to find the highway soon.
We rolled through small town after small town, buildings dark and the sidewalks seemingly rolled up for the night. After a couple of hours or so we realized that something was wrong. The gas tank dwindled toward E.
And then we saw it. A corona of light from a gas station. It was open! I thought I heard a choir of angels.
We pulled in, gassed up and headed in for snacks and to use the restroom. The store was brand-new and barely had anything on the shelves. It had been open only a week. If it wasn’t there we would’ve ended up in Texas or something.
We asked the lone attendant how to get to our highway in North Carolina.
He gave us a quizzical look and said, “You’re in Tennessee.”
That choir of angels was now laughing at us.
We pointed the truck toward the right direction and made the long(er) drive home. At one point, Andre took over driving to give me a break. I woke up to him swearing. He had missed the exit and we had to drive into Virginia to turn around. So it was a three state trip. We arrived home when the sun was coming up. When we went back for another session, we made damn sure to make the right turn… I mean left turn off the mountain.
I was the last one in the apartment to turn 21. For that special occasion I went out with Andre and a couple of work friends.
I started by going to Albertsons to buy a six pack of beer. I wanted to be officially carded. The cashier didn’t even ask for my ID.
We went to Hooters for wings and more beer and then onto Orlando’s strip clubs. I drank myself nearly blind. I needed help getting up the stairs and slept in my clothes.
My timing couldn’t have been worse. My birthday is on August 29, and our lease was up at the end of the month. We had rented a townhouse over by UCF and had to be out quickly. I could not stand up without feeling dizzy almost the entire day.
I laid on the couch and every time Andre came by with a box he swore at me under his breath. It was totally justified. I promised I would rally, and I did after a coworker brought me some Gatorade.
The townhouse had three bedrooms and two baths and featured a living room with 20-foot vaulted ceilings. We roomed with a mutual friend. Our place was behind the Sigma Chi house on fraternity row. Every weekend they would blast music through their massive PA system and rattle our windows.
My mom bought us a nice wooden mini basketball hoop that we hung on the wall heading into the foyer. We would have epic games of horse and one-on-one battles. That was until Andre happened.
During a heated two on two game, he drove to the hoop and threw down a James Worthy-like tomahawk dunk on his opponent and tore the rim off the backboard with authority. We all stood slack jawed.
Life at the condo was a blur. Andre had a great job at the Cape, but he worked nights and I didn’t see him as much. I also had a girlfriend, and we moved in together at the end of that lease.
It didn’t last as we had a bad breakup and I retreated to Jacksonville to coalesce.
We kept in periodic touch for those years.
I traveled down to see him a couple of times.
Then one day in 1992 he called me about seeing U2 at the Georgia Dome with Public Enemy. I was definitely in.
Our roommate from the condo moved up there and would put us up for the weekend. I drove up on the day of the show and we started reminiscing and drinking.
On the MARTA train to the Dome, I had a verbal joust with a homeless man (I did not start it). He asked me if I was playing games with him, and I challenged him to contest of Parcheesi. I think that’s the hardest I ever made Andre laugh.
My alcohol tolerance had waned significantly. It was that and the terrible acoustics of the dome that sent me to the bathroom where I got sick. Mostly the beer.
I spent most of the show in the airline crash position with my head on my arms on top of my knees.
At the end of the show our roommate’s boss, who had met us at the venue, started poking fun at me. It wasn’t in a amusing way. Andre nicely asked him to back off and the guy wouldn’t. The next thing I knew, Andre was on this guy giving him the business.
It may not have been the right thing, but I loved him for it.
The next day I was so sick again, a repeat of my 21st birthday. While everyone else went out to tour Atlanta, I stayed on the couch. Andre gave me a ration of hell with a smile on his face.
When I was in Jacksonville I bought a drum set and joined a band.
At one point, Andre had moved back to his grandparents’ house in North Carolina. We made plans for me to drive up and take my vacation to visit him. I even packed my drum set for something fun to do.
We caught up during a low-key week. I taught him some basics on the drum kit, and he loved it.
I drove him back to Florida and we said goodbye. That is, until we were roommates again.
I moved back to Orlando in the mid-90s. My father was promoted and was relocating south to Deland. I wanted to stay in Jacksonville, but I had more friends in Orlando. Thankfully, I was able to rent my own apartment.
Andre and I linked backup. He was working at the Orlando Hard Rock Cafe.
I met a girl at my store, and we started dating. My time at Winn-Dixie was coming to an abrupt close as I simply couldn’t take the miserable hours and working conditions.
Taking my grocery experience to rival chain Publix didn’t provide a respite. I walked away from grocery forever. Best decision of my life.
I had zero money saved and no job prospects.
But I had my friend Andre.
He helped get my foot in the door at Hard Rock in the merchandise department. While it was a step down in pay, the work was mindless, the people an eclectic mix, and rock music pumped through the speakers. I loved it.
Andre was in security and whenever there was a celebrity coming through, he was responsible for them. He would also let me know where I could meet them. I fist bumped Shaq and exchanged pleasantries with Charles Barkley and Horace Grant.
I couldn’t afford my apartment so we rented a two-story house in downtown Orlando with Joel also from the Hard Rock.
Those were some of my favorite times with Andre. Our friendship was deep and meaningful. We could talk to each other about anything. We always had each other’s back whether it be money or just moral support.
Our friendship wasn’t perfect. We sometimes bickered like brothers. But we never exchanged blows and always forgave each other.
But our time as roomies was ending. I was getting married and moving to Lakeland to work for my dad.
The years hit the fast forward button.
I divorced and remarried. Became a sportswriter, then left that field and moved to Atlanta to change careers and start technology training.
The last time I saw him in person was in the early 2000’s. I was in the Orlando area for a project and called him up. He invited me to his house. He had married one of the girls from Hard Rock and they had a young son.
We caught up on the years we missed. I noticed a big change in him. He had become more of a redneck, and I mean that in the most endearing way. Maybe it was his North Carolina roots.
He was into fishing. He was dipping (which I did not approve of) and he loved his riding lawnmower. He looked content, happy.
I received a Facebook message from Andre February of last year. We hadn’t spoken in 14 years.
He told me he was messing around on his drum kit and thought of me.
I broke the news of my illness to him. Also told him about my first book and that he was mentioned in it.
It took him aback at first. He bought my book and read it, telling me how much he liked it.
He said that he could imagine me speaking to him while he was reading. I’ve heard this from a few of my friends. It’s a fantastic compliment which means that I’ve kept my true voice when I write.
We arranged a video call.
His familiar face filled my screen and my heart warmed.
Andre always had a habit of placing a piece of hair between his index and middle finger and then flicking it with his thumb. He normally did it when he was in deep thought or relaxed.
He was doing it as we talked and it felt like we were sitting on the couch in our apartment again watching tv.
After some initial pleasantries the words stopped.
He was choking up. I followed.
We shared a look that only close friends can. It said everything.
I wanted to tell him all of this. Things I had thought about over time. His impact on my life. The gift of his friendship. How we faced our 20s together and started to grow up.
It was sometimes a tough and unforgiving environment, but we made the best of it and I’m a better person for knowing him.