Dear Jon...

Okay... I'm a bit toasted here but I want to pay homage to a dearly departed bud who didn't survive all the shit. JP had an extremely oversized ego and just couldn't deal with the rising tide of disaster. As I mentioned earlier, he had lots of 'straight' connections and made many things possible for me that were just not happening without his help. He was a truly intense individual who would not just light up any room he walked into but who would also sap the energy of anyone he connected with.

JP was smart... in some ways, JP was brilliant. But he didn't have a brake to slow himself down when speed was a disadvantage. He helped us create our fleet of I95 Caprices. He connected me to the incredibly talented accountant that put us in our house and kept us legal for over a decade. He had a successful jewelry and collectibles retail store that was filled with merchandise that reflected his great taste. He had lots of great things happening at all times... And a beautiful wife and truly precocious daughter.

Unfortunately, he was also an unbelievable egomaniac who tied his entire existence and reputation to how he was perceived by everyone he knew. It was the end-all (literally) for him.

Loving, caring father and faithful husband... JP could have had it all... except his ego would not allow it. As the weeks and months wore on, and the case became more and more serious, he shrank into his own world. Until, one day in late August of that year, I got the call... "Jon is in the hospital."

I can't guarantee that JP did himself in... I wasn't there and I didn't have a clue. But he had the jewelry business and he turned up at the local hospital with mercury poisoning. When I heard this, I looked into it and immediately knew that he was in deep shit. Once it enters the body, Mercury does not leave the body. It is a virtual death sentence in lethal quantities. There is no cure and no coming back. It takes a few days but then body shuts down... You swell up and and ultimately death is inevitable. And that's what happened to JP. He was gone by September 1.

And it was ruled an accidental death since he had the jewelry business. You see, mercury was a common jewelry cleaner and it's presence in his body could not be certified as intentional. He certainly denied it at the hospital.

Which meant that his family could collect the life insurance... and he could be gone before any indictments came down... I absolutely fucking hate that he had to die in the midst of this bullshit chronicle. I miss him today and I can promise the world that our lives would be enriched if he was still around.