Mike Fitchett..Part One

 

Jesus, where do I start? Mike Fitchett was my best friend from the time I was 9 years old until he passed away on July 12, 2011. 2011…it seems like yesterday. Mike was such a big part of Margaret (My sister) and my life.

Friends think I’m funny, today. I would not have ended up this way were it not for Mike. Mike was to humor, what Freddy Powers was to music, for me. You had to be able to keep up to be around him. It was like growing up with Robin Williams or something. He was ALWAYS on.

He LOVED old movies and movie stars. My wife and I will be watching some old movie and I will say “That’s Elisha Cook Jr” or “That is Ward Bond” or “That’s Mildred Natwick”and she will say “How in the hell do you know who that is?”. I picked it up from Mike. He had a huge collection of autographs. He was a “Pen Pal” with Agnes Moorehead, who played Endora, Samantha Stevens’ mother on “Bewitched”.

His parents didn’t have a typical relationship and they didn’t really value their kids, in my opinion. Mike was gay. That never mattered to me. He was just my best friend. His father, Set, was one of the top ballistics people on the East Coast, in fact, Set, his brother Tom Fitchett, brother-in-Law John Denning and Howard Donahue, who owned the local gun store, were 4 of the 5 people who tested the rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald used to kill JFK. Mike was a crack shot, who hated guns. I still laugh, seeing him in yellow shorts and Sperry Topsider loafers, rolling his eyes at me and yelling “Pull!” at the skeet range with his dad. Yeah, he barely looked at the clay discs, but he won the trophy, anyway. Hahahaha…

Once, when we were in our teens, his sister, Karen, asked Mike to buy Tampons when we went to the store. The clerk at the cash register smirked and said “What do YOU need these for?”….”Nosebleeds” was his reply. Didn’t skip a beat.

Mike and Karen Fitchett. I had such a life-long crush on Karen. She never knew.

We would laugh into the wee hours of the morning. We would also tell ghost stories, walking home, in the dark and terrify ourselves until we would start running.

Running. Mike ran like a gazelle. He would yell obscenities at people an the street and take off, leaving me in the dust. We would be out and he would say “I’ve gotta be home by 5” and pffft! He was gone. I’d try to keep up for a block or two but he could do a 4 minute mile…..backwards. “Call me tomorrow!!’

I laugh as I write this, but, one time we were in an Ice Cream Parlor, where they had a player piano. Mike put the player roll in backwards, on purpose and you have never heard a sound like that in your life! A keyboard flipped over….Every head in the place was, like, WTF????? Hahahaha.

He could draw amazing things, free hand, I would always find scraps of paper around the house and save them. More on Mike, later, but here is some of his art..

I went to Paris, after he died, in 2011 and I took pieces of his art to Pere Lachaise, a cemetery I know he would have loved. I took his “Hippie” drawing to Jim Morrison’s grave,, his “Dancing Rasta” to Edith Piaf’s grave (She sang “La Vie en Rose”, his favorite song), and his Sammy Davis Jr, “Candyman” drawing to Oscar Wilde’s grave, another riotously funny Gay man.

Mike never “Came out” and he died alone and, I am sure, lonely. The nicest, funniest, most talented and lovable man I ever knew died without even telling me he was sick. I heard about it on Facebook, Pancreatic cancer. 2011 and I’m still not over it. Margaret and I think about Mike every single day…..

From Margaret Carter (My Sister) Has it really been 6 yrs? July 2011 I lost my beloved friend Michael. We met Baltimore MD when I was 11 and he was 9. Mike was my brother’s lifelong best friend. We corresponded for 40+ yrs, first letter 1968. I have them all. Of course, Michael grew up flaming gay. He drove John Waters crazy by going thru his trash for mementos. JW would come out and yell at him to stop but Michael never did. Once when JW was away he convinced JW’s house sitter. (his friend Bobby Adams- google him) to let him in. Michael got so excited he had to pee. He used the basement bath room and on the way out he noticed a pimple on his face in the mirror. He leaned in to get a better view and in doing so pulled the sink away from the wall including some of the wall. Quelle horreur! He pushed everything back best he could…..it was a mess, Bob wrote. Michael was in there 1/2 hr. Bob was freaking out WHAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN THERE! He didn’t tell him what happened.

Rubber Face

Mike Fitchett with Al Garth (Loggins and Messina)