The Fruit Man

Sometime in the summer of 1978 I was walking down West 4th Street in NYC when this guy beckoned to me from the back of a truck. Actually it was a step-van, but the guy was using it as a truck. He was selling fruits and vegetables out of the back of it to passers-by. He held out a big juicy peach and being from South Jersey that's a hard thing for me to resist. At the very last moment as I was about to take it from his hand, he put it in his mouth and took a big bite. Then he held it out to me and I took a bite, too, and the next thing i knew we were locked in an embrace and rolling on the floor of his truck. 

The fruit guy, whose name was Jeff, and I had a thing going for a couple of years. It wasn't the healthiest of relationships but we had some good times. He had a huge black dog named Walter who lived with me most of the time. Eventually Jeff and I split for good and he moved to Seattle to get married to this actress he'd met in NYC named Sherry. The main thing I remember about Sherry was that she Wasn't Jewish and that she was Born Again. I think for awhile Jeff was Born Again. 

Flash forward to me googling around on the Sunday night of 4th of July weekend, 2008. Randomly typing in names, I typed in his. Lo and behold, Jeff has become a playwright. He's had his play produced. He also seems to have had a fruit business in Seattle called Congo Fruits and now appears to be a mortgage broker who helps people buy houses. There's an entire page of testimonials from happy clients. But the most amazing thing is how the same Jeff looks after all these years. Maybe he looks so much the same because he kept all his hair. During our time together Jeff bought me a Movado watch. He bought me a Raleigh bicycle. He bought me Hanro underwear. But the thing I liked about him the most was that he brought me peaches, bushels of peaches. And huge boxes of Washington State cherries, too.