A Don story

Photo courtesy of www.flickr.com

At the considerable risk of getting some of the details wrong and not being able to convey the humor and tone of brother Don's outrageous stories, I feel compelled to share them anyway. He hasn't made an appearance on Ajax Rock to talk about his own adventures, but some of them are too good -- too "Don" -- not to share.

One of the last times I saw him, he rolled up the sleeve on his arm, the one with the black panther tattoo, and commanded me to look at a small scar. Like everything else about Don, the scar had a story behind it. It was neatly stitched about two-thirds of the way across, then abruptly ended in a small mass of scar tissue.

Turns out that he had had a cyst removed and had negotiated the price with a "Jew doctor" to do the work, paying the fee in installments. When he saw how simple the surgery was and how little time it took the doctor to do it, he hollered that "If that's all there is to it, I'm not paying you the rest of what I owe you" -- to which the doctor replied, "Then I'm not going to finish stitching you up!" And he didn't. The last part of the incision was left to heal itself.

Don carries his scar as a badge of honor now, a visible sign that his daddy didn't make no fools.