They called him Rudy
To many, he was the unknown victim of a traffic accident. To his friends, he was much more.
By KELLEY BENHAM
Published October 27, 2005
ST. PETERSBURG - To the motorist who struck him, he seemed to drop from the clouds. He was just a guy crossing 34th Street S a week ago, perhaps too slowly, or too unsteadily, in front of the wrong car.
He'll be remembered for being carried 3 miles on the windshield of a Chevy Malibu, driven by a 93-year-old man who didn't realize what had happened.
The Pinellas County medical examiner said Wednesday his name was Rade Zec.
But his past, sketched by friends and public records, is still unclear. Police are still looking for relatives and won't officially release his name until today, they said.
Even the people who lived with him at the Crystal Inn, near the site of the accident, didn't know his exact name. They asked a reporter how to spell it.
"I don't know how to pronounce it," said his friend Jimmy Lee.
Lee, 46, and his wife Maria, 43, saved money by rooming with Zec in Room 251. The Lees took one double bed. Zec took the other.
"He had so many aliases," said Jimmy Lee.
They called him Rudy.
Zec told the Lees he was Serbian and he had shortened his first name when his grandparents brought him to the United States as a child. Public records say Zec was 52. He told everybody he was 59, and they say he looked it.
He grew up in Illinois and told his friends he'd been involved in gangs in Chicago. He told them he was a Marine who served seven years in Vietnam.
Records indicate he lived in Pasco County in the early '90s, then moved to St. Petersburg. He was a painter and worked in construction, his friends said. He told them he'd been married 26 years, and that his wife had been afraid of him after the war. He talked about sons and a daughter. He said his wife left him.
He spoke Polish, Czech, Russian and Serbian, they said, and could speak fluently to two Czech hotel maids. He was tortured by nightmares about the war. That part the Lees are certain about.
"He'd wake up in the middle of the night, talking in his sleep," Jimmy said. "Man, I tell you what. He'd wake us up, hollering and cussing in some foreign language."
He didn't talk a lot about his past. They spent their time drinking and smoking; he was particular about unfiltered Camels and Natural Ice. He had a learner's permit but not a regular driver's license, which his friends are glad about.
Jimmy would play guitar and Zec would gripe about it. But if they got him in a good mood he'd sing. He knew the words to Puff the Magic Dragon and Bad Mood Rising. Sometimes he tickled Maria's feet when she slept. He hated to see her upset, and he'd pinch her nose to make her laugh.
In recent years, he'd been drinking harder and had gotten too old and sick to work, they said. He would stand out by 54th Avenue S with a sign that said Disabled Vet.
"That man didn't lie," Jimmy said.
"I could trust him with my 18-year-old daughter," said Toni Nardulli, 49, who lived downstairs and said she'd known him 12 years.
"I could trust him with my wife," Jimmy said.
"He'd damned sure do anything for anybody and we gosh darned loved him," Nardulli said.
At one point he checked into the VA hospital at Bay Pines to sober up. He was planning to go back, they said, but didn't want to leave his roommates without his share of the $40 per night rent.
He could hardly walk. He'd taken shrapnel in his right leg in the war, they said, and it was missing a chunk. His left leg was being eaten away by diabetes. He walked with a limp so bad he had to put out his arms to steady himself. It looked like he was waving.
When he crossed the street, he waved harder to tell the cars to slow down.
"It was a week ago tonight we were watching the George Lopez show," Jimmy says. "To him it wasn't entertaining."
Zec was sitting on the end of his bed, nodding off. Jimmy was teasing him to just go to sleep. It was time for their regular trip to McDonald's. Zec always ordered a chicken sandwich, double cheeseburger and caesar side salad.
Jimmy stops, takes a drag on his cigarette. Nardulli starts to cry and walks out of the room.
"I'm the one that always goes to McDonald's," Jimmy says. "Because I could walk faster. But I wanted to watch the show."
A little while later Nardulli came upstairs from her room to visit. Everyone noticed that Zec had been gone too long.
They opened the door and saw all the police lights. Yellow tape.
Jimmy went to look for Zec. He saw a police officer he knew, who told him Zec might have been hit. Then he saw his roommate's shoes in the street. An orthopedic shoe for the left foot, a regular shoe for the right.
The car had severed a right leg. Police were looking for a body.
Jimmy came upstairs. Everyone held hands in Room 251 and said a prayer for him, then Jimmy got out his guitar.
Times staff writer Alex Leary contributed to this report.