Giant Imperial Quarts

How good a judge of character you are may depend on the nature of your character. Back in the sixties, I learned this lesson while camping out with a bunch of Folkies on Boston’s Beacon Hill. It was a “crash pad” with a varying and various group of characters. As a known venue for continuous parties, it attracted all the riff-raff (like me) who happened to be passing through.

One of the regular visitors was our “Amost-Friend” John. We termed John that because he was a con artist, and considering him to be a friend could be dangerous to your wallet or well-being. So we always kept John at a distance. John was helpful, though, when we sought opinions on various issues.

One night, we were sitting around having a nice, peaceful candlelight discussion of character. Why were we doing this by candlelight? One of the guys offered to take out the trash this morning and take the payment for the electricity to the drugstore, too. As usual, The bill was overdue, and they would shut the power off. Well, Petey didn’t bother with the trash or the payment and just took the money and left for points unknown. As a result, we were discussing character in the light of candles.

At some point in this discussion, probably halfway through the Giant Imperial Quarts of Narragansett beer case, our almost-friend John joined us. As always, he had an opinion, but it caught our attention this time. John opined that you tended to judge the character of others through the filters created by your own. “In my case, I’m a con artist; I’m suspicious of everyone. I’m worried they are con artists like me.”

Over the next hour, or until the case of beer was empty, we loudly discussed his point of view. By the time the case was empty, we were all too drunk to go to the store and get some more. Since John was a late arrival, relatively sober, and had a car, we nominated him for a beer run. John suggested that we pony up for two cases.

We dug deep. After the missing electrical money, we didn’t have much money left. But this was beer we were talking about. So, we handed over the cash, and John left.

We waited and waited, and John never came back. So there we sat in the candlelight. We discussed character, especially John’s. And how we had been set to pasture with no beer by a man who had none.

Now, there is an epilogue to this story. Several months later, on a Friday evening, John walks in. Being about three-quarters of the way through a case of GIQs, we are mellow enough to listen to his explanation. He explains that little in life impacts philosophical discussions, as in an example drawn from real life. “It makes the lesson concrete and impacts your understanding of the nature of the universe,” he said.
After careful consideration, we all agreed, and John never progressed past the point of being an almost-friend. Lessons with him were too costly and made sobriety too concrete in a cruel universe.