By. Brendan Ruggieri, guest columnist.
Let me set the stage for all of you. My name is Brendan, I wrote the bowling article about our friend nick…anyway I first met Zachary James Pike back in 1992 at Dake Junior High. First thing you have to know about 12 year old Zach, or maybe he was thirteen because he went to the timeshare program known as “ pre-first” grade. But what you should know is that Zach could hardly talk….boy how times change. A side note, all Bills fans should be sent there post haste. Again, the first thing you noticed about 7th grade Zach was his hair and his penchant for the Bills. Zach reminded me of a dinosaur, he had no hair anywhere on his head except for one little patch up front that looked like a horn, or maybe something Stephon Marbury had during his one year at GT. Now combine that haircut with a fresh pair of red, white and blue zubaz bills pants throw in a pair of white Asics, and you got yourself one sweet looking seventh grader.
Zach and I became friends despite the fact that he was a Bills fan and I am a Giants fan, now had we met in fifth grade, we’d be sworn enemies….or as Milhouse once put it, “ you’ll never get Skinner and Krabapple together, they’re like two negatively charged Ions”. That would’ve been us, luckily that was not the case, otherwise I would have missed out on years of flea bites in his basement, anti-Italian comments from his mom and the scar on my pinky from a run in with pugsly a few summers back…not to mention the sheer horror of seeing him in sandals, for those of you who now what I’m talking about, sorry….they’re like the skyline of Manhattan, there’s big ones and small ones jetting out all over the place and none of them match.
Anyway, back to the event at hand. I’m not so much a Giants fan as I am an avid Bills hater. Back in seventh grade I was quite a Dan Marino fan, this was around the time when the AFC east came down to Miami and Buffalo every year, it was about the time that Brian Cox endeared himself to me by flipping off Rich Stadium. Now Zach will have you believe that our Bills-Dolphins wage occurred in lunch recess. But, as I remember it I was wearing my Dan Marino shirt, one of the ones that looked like a football card, remember those? The bet took place in our gym class during volleyball, we made a bet, probably some wear in the neighborhood of a 1992 lunch price, maybe 1.50, I don’t really recall. Now this is wear it gets fuzzy. I, to this day contend that we bet on the game where the Dolphins waxed the Bills by quite a large margin, but Zach didn’t pay up because he didn’t see the game because his dog ate his TV…but Zach would have you believe that we bet on the second meeting that year where the Bills won. Sufficed to say, we have not come to a conclusion, or some sort of out of court settlement. I figure that Zach owes me anyway for the countless times I put my life at risk riding in his Dodge Omni during high school, again, any of you who have ridden with Zach know what I’m talking about. I remember once driving back from Darien Lake in the Pike family Minivan, when Zach, because he was too busy picking his nose, drove over the rumble strip for a few hundred feet, or the time Zach peeled off after a bum washed the windshield under a QEW overpass without paying him first. Zach, being the single minded Bills fan he is, refused to listen to reason, the only solace I had was watching the Bills lose a few more superbowls. I wont even mention the Music City Miracle, when Mrs. Pike put Zach on suicide watch.
The debate continued all throughout junior high, high school, college and to today. The amounts have varied, the setting is still in dispute and the debts go unpaid. Now a small dollar and a half bet is bound to accrue some interest over the course of 12 years, despite the flagging economy. That one single bet has ruined me and Zach from betting each other anything. I mean the possibilities are endless: the number of times his brothers will do over-niters in county, whether or not the ill fated 1972 BMW will run again, can Jim Kelly survive in 6 inches of water? Did Drew Bledsoe buy a house on Irondequoit Bay? And the ever present when will Britney Spears appear on Cinemax porn?
I think that Zach’s refusal to pay off this debt is a signal of a larger problem, one of a history of denial and delusions of grandeur. How else can you explain a kid who earnestly believed that the Bills would win the Superbowl despite the fact that Todd Collins was their starting QB? Or a kid who can’t take the Bills all the way in Madden with the penalties turned off…or a kid who tried to run for High School Class President on the Communist ticket, despite my plan for a “ vote for Zach, if you were running he’d vote for you” platform. Or how bout how Zach brags, to this day, that he was tied for the team lead in interceptions his JV year? With one interception by the way. The point is that Zach is delusional and probably isn’t even a Bills fan, and couldn’t remember 7th grade, let alone last weekend. Luckily I missed out on the Zach who gets drunk and pees on laptops, but still once you’ve been burned by Zach you never forget.
As Homer Simpson once said, “ The only monster here is the one that took a hold of your mother… I call him Gamblar….damn you Gamblar!” Zach clearly has a gambling problem, not so much that he gambles frequently, but that he refuses to acknowledge a loss and take it like a man, like Jim Kelly did four years straight. But I have a solution, if Zach were to renounce his Bills fandom I will consolidate his gambling debts to me.
Some other Highpoints of the Zach-Brendan Relationship.
1) Zach would make me walk home from school when he had masterminds, so one day when he did give me a ride home, he stopped to get gas and asked for money…..so I , out of spite, which I know Zach can appreciate now, got out of the car and walked the rest of the way home….a dick move maybe but, it was pretty fucking sweet at the time.
2) Zach once tried to pee on me a few years ago, it was about 4 am and he kept trying to nudge me off the couch while he was sleep walking telling me to “ move over” while he stood above me…..Zach later told me that he was probably about to pee on me…..bet settled as far as I’m concerned.
3) This is a sad one…..Junior year of high school, while everyone else was at the prom, Zach and I went to go see Jurassic Park II, and Zach as always insisted in taking off his shoes in the middle of the theater.
4) Kicking down the mural wall at Woodstock 99
5) Last but not least, my favorite Pike moment….This was in high school, me and Zach went out to a movie or something, and we went to Schallers afterwards in Zach’s sky blue Dodge Omni and , what a surprise the car didn’t start when we left!….so Zach calls his uncle to come jump it and what does he show up in?…..a white omni, I shit you not. It was priceless
So I guess the moral of the story is, we may never know which game we rightfully bet on, but we do know that the Bills are the worst franchise in professional football, and Jim Kelly was a bald, over hyped version of Neil O’Donnell. But then again a kid who cites “ finders v. keepers” on a law school test can’t be all bad. And the delusions still continue to this day. Talk to Zach and he’ll have you believe that the Bills will somehow miraculously move up in the draft to take Kellen Winslow Jr., sign restricted free agent Steve Smith, trade for Jevon Kearse, reverse the spin of the earth to save Abraham Lincoln, and Steve Tasker will take over for Star Jones on The View.
In the end, 7th grade football bets, like most other things are just better left unsolved.