How To Live: Dennis

Last Saturday I met a stranger at a BBQ restaurant at 2 pm in the suburbs of Atlanta. An older man with a hat who looked like your grandfather. Harmless, cute, and quaint.

A friend told me I should meet this man because he has an interesting story. I like interesting stories.

“Hi, I’m Trey.” I reached out my hand as I approached the table.

“Dennis,” he replied with a big smile full of white teeth. He was wearing a sweater with a collared shirt underneath and some khaki pants. Standard old man attire.

We chatted a minute then got in line for some BBQ. My friend Ilene showed up a few minutes later. We like interviewing interesting people. We never show up with an agenda. We aren’t organized enough for that. Two weeks ago, we interviewed a lady who was attacked by a raccoon and before that, a man who milks Cobra venom in Miami.

As we sat down at the table I tried to figure out how to start the conversation. I knew almost nothing about the man. It was silent for a minute then Dennis said, “Well, let me tell you the short version of my life,” as he slowly nibbled on some BBQ.

“I have no meat in my ass anymore so sitting on these seats hurts like hell.” He grinned and informed us he weighed 290 pounds a year ago and now is down to 170.

He only eats one meal a day now. Apparently, he used to eat everything.

“I finally went ahead and spent $53,000 on new teeth after mine were beaten out of my head when I was attacked by six prisoners at the Federal Prison. They stabbed me 38 times and beat my right eyeball out of the socket…” he mentioned casually.

What?

Dennis grew up in Atlanta. His mom was the secretary to the President of Delta Airlines. He and two buddies stole an alligator from the Atlanta Zoo when he was in high school and carried it to the top of the Henry Grady Hotel (now the Peachtree Plaza Hotel) and put it in the rooftop swimming pool. Then they went to jail.

“We had to put a trench coat and hat on the alligator to disguise him in the elevator on the way up to the pool.” Dennis smiled.

The three boys were sentenced to community service for the summer which was cleaning all the animal cages at the zoo.

“I have seen enough shit to last a lifetime! Turtle shit is the worst. It is as long as the turtle.” He held his hands apart to show the size.

His parents sent him to military school after the alligator heist to finish high school. Shortly after he was sent to Vietnam for a few years.

“I have absolutely zero stories from Vietnam. I was nowhere close to the front line. Hell, I had my own tent. The only story I have is when I tried to climb up on a tank to take a picture to send my dad. I slipped and broke my ankle. They tried to give me a Purple Heart for it!” He laughed as he told us how he turned it down. “It was more Darwin award worthy than Purple Heart!”

Dennis came home from Vietnam and went to college in West Virginia. He walked on the football and baseball teams and graduated with a 3.6 GPA.

“I always got good grades in high school and aced the college entrance exams but I paid a girl $100 a week to take all my classes in college. I never went to a single class in four years.”

Genius. I went to all my classes and ended up with a 3.0 which landed me an internship at the Atlanta Zoo cleaning gorilla shit. True story.

“What did you do after college?” I asked.  

“Well, I came back to Atlanta and my mom said I should be a lawyer. So, I became a cop.”

“Why a cop?” I asked.

“Sounded like fun,” he answered. That seemed to be Dennis’ answer to almost everything turning point in his life.

“My first day on the job I went to domestic disturbance call. When I walked in the home a 420-pound lady was chasing her 104-pound husband around the kitchen table with a butcher’s knife. Half his arm was laying on the table and there was blood everywhere.  I screamed “Stop” and made them sit down. There was blood was all over the place and shooting out of the man’s arm like a hose!” He held up his arm to show where it was cut off.

Over the next few years Dennis was shot by a neighborhood vagrant, dealt with pimps, had a homeless guy lock himself in his police car.

“Then you went to work in the prison?” I questioned.

“Yeah, it sounded like fun,” he replied. He was promoted 14 times in the first four years.

The Atlanta Federal Penitentiary looks like a damn medieval fortress. It is 300 acres and was the largest prison in America holding up to 3000 inmates. It has fascinated me since I was a kid.

Ten years and two months into his career at the prison Dennis walked into a room at the end of a day to shut off the lights. When he stepped into the room he discovered six inmates who were trying to escape. They had created fake dummies in their beds and snuck all the way to the group meeting room.

“I knew immediately bad things were about to happen,” he said.

They jumped him, stabbed him 38 times, and beat his left eyeball of the socket. They blew out all his teeth and left him for dead. Another inmate discovered his body and rang the alarm. He was rushed to a hospital and put into a medically induced coma. He lost half of his kidney. The prisoner who found him and pulled the alarm was released from prison that very night.

“When I woke up in the hospital my dad told me there was a difficult to understand man who had been waiting to talk to me for three days. He sat outside my room the entire time. So, I said bring him in.

“Your Trustees wanted me to let you know the six guys that attacked you all committed suicide.” the man said in a broken New York accent.

Then he left.

“I had four trustee prisoners who were all mafia guys serving time for white color crimes. They liked me and sent this man to relay the message.” Dennis said.

“Poor guys. I guess they just couldn’t live with what they did, huh?” I replied.

“Yeah, I guess it weighed too heavy on their hearts,” he smiled.

Earlier in his prison career, he shot and killed Willie Foster Sellers – Head of Dixie Mafia – from 160 yards away as he was trying to escape.

“I hit him three inches to the right of his ear, dead center. I regret shooting that man. An FBI agent was standing next to me and gave me the order. However, I wish I would have shot him in the leg. I will always regret that.” He looked away.

It seemed that although Dennis lived a crazy life, he has a solid code of ethics. He has never been inside a strip club, never did drugs, never cheated on his wives, and lives with the regret of shooting Willie.

After getting the shit kicked out of him, he could not go back to work in the prison so he took a job running theft prevention for some retail stores in Atlanta.

“A buddy had some retail stores in Atlanta and asked if I would help him reduce theft in the stores. I said sure. It sounded like fun.”

Since then Dennis has been in sales selling security technology. Last year he was the top sales guy out of 248 people across the country.

“Not bad for 72!” He smiled.  

Not bad at all.

“Have you ever been in love?” I asked wondering about the other side of his life.

“Yes. I married a good-looking Delta flight attendant and came home early from a work trip one day and walked in on her having sex with a guy I knew since kindergarten on my rug in front of my fireplace drinking my wine. They were both butt naked. I sat them both down without letting them get dressed and had a conversation. I told them they were never going to see each other again. I never raised my voice. He was a deacon at the church and didn’t want his wife to find out so agreed to my demands.” Dennis said confidently.

His marriage ended and then his ex-wife got married seven more times.

“I met my second wife in a bar in Dallas, Texas. I walked up to her and said you look exactly like my second wife. She asked how many times I had been married. I said once. A year later we got married in Las Vegas in a small chapel. Joan Collins was in the same chapel and got married right before us. She stayed and was our witness for our marriage and then told us she had rented out a restaurant for her reception but was heading back to LA so we could have it.”

Here is the turn.

Dennis was married for 24 years to that woman, the love of his life. She was an oncologist. They lived in Nashville. One day she came home and told him they found out she had cancer. Nine days later she died.

He had two sons. Both died of heroin overdoses. Five years apart. Both at 31 years old.

In 2005, his wife, son, and mother all died in the same week.

There I was sitting across from one of the happiest guys I have ever met who lost both his sons, both his wives, was shot, and damn near beaten to death in prison.

“How have you overcome such tragedies in your life?” I asked.

“The rear-view mirror is small and the windshield is big. The tragedies don’t go away, they just get further away. We have to move on and honor the memory of those who have passed.”

“I have lived a charmed life. I really have. I have been blessed to have the courage to always do the things I wanted to do instead of what others wanted me to do. Bad things happen to all of us. 90% of life is attitude.”

Wow.

I learned many lessons during our three-hour conversation. Life is what we make of it. Our attitude determines the quality of our lives. Never steal an alligator from the zoo.

Halfway through the interview, Ilene asked him if he has a photographic memory.

“It seems like you remember everything,” she mentioned.

“Yes, for some reason I almost have a photographic memory.” He replied.

He was a remarkable storyteller who relies heavily on his memory. I am trying to learn how to be a better storyteller. My memory is garbage.

When we first sat down he told us when he was young, his aunt gave him a book of 101 poems and offered him $100 for every poem he memorized. He memorized 50 of them and recited one for us from memory.

“When I turned 16, I bought my dream car with the money I earned from memorizing poems. A yellow convertible corvette for $4800.”

That was it. That is how he built an amazing memory. A smart aunt challenged him to memorize poems.

“I still have that Corvette. It has 555,000 miles and I drive it all the time. It’s my retirement fund.”

Dennis wants to have I Did it My Way played at his funeral. He certainly has done it his way. When I asked him what he makes of his life he said,

“I’ve been playing what if and why not all my life.”

At 72 years old, Dennis isn’t done yet. He is hellbent on getting into Cuba and still sings in bands around Atlanta. He has his pilot’s license, reads four books a week, and is dating a new girl.  

“Thanks for talking to us today, Dennis. What are you doing tonight?” I asked as we wrapped up the conversation.

“Oh, I am going to Hal’s Steakhouse to see my favorite piano player. I think I will have two old fashion drinks and two shots of 1942 tequila from my favorite bartender and smoke a cigar. That sounds like fun,” he said.

Maybe we all need to have a little more fun. Maybe that is the secret.

As we were all walking out of the restaurant, I asked one last question.

“What is the secret to life?”

“Take what you’ve got and make the God damned best of it.”

Trey