RIP Sonny

Sonny wasn’t a close personal friend. He was barely an acquaintance. But he was one hell of an interesting guy.

Sometimes life affords you the opportunity to make connections with people with whom you don’t have much in common. Sonny was one of those.

Sonny was an Argentinian with impeccable political connections in the country. Back in the “dirty war” era his name came up on a People’s Revolutionary Army hit list. As a dyed-in-the-wool pacifist, I’m not for hit lists, but I have to admit that my sympathies were more with the ERP than with the folks on their list.

I first met Sonny in the ’80s. In addition to being a card-carrying member of Argentina’s landed aristocracy, he was also a dedicated public servant, and it was in that capacity that he made occasional visits to Canada, where it turned out we had mutual friends.

He was a bit of an eccentric. Back home on his latifundia, he wore a revolver on his belt and drove a ’20′s era Model T Ford that his father had bought new. When that car came up for sale a few years ago I briefly toyed with the idea of flying down to Argentina and driving the car back to Canada.

On sober second thought, after outlining my possible homeward bound routes on a map, I reluctantly came to the conclusion that there were far too many places along the way where the locals would be happy enough to shoot the gringo in the head and steal the car.

That was the end of that.

One thing we had in common was a robust contempt for political correctitude. Sonny was extremely well-travelled (at the expense of his perpetually bankrupt state), and his vacation pictures always included scantily clad young women frolicking in the fore-ground of his touristy holiday pics. When questioned on this happy coincidence, Sonny would reply, “What? You thought I was a homo?”

I hadn’t seen Sonny for a few years, and I knew he was crowding 90, when I recently bumped into one of our mutual acquaintances.

“How’s Sonny doing these days?”

“He’s dead.”

“Oh shit! I was looking forward to having a pint with him…”

“Not anytime soon, I hope,” came the reply.

Me too.

RIP, Sonny.