Tommy Watts - Part III (Conclusion)

This is the conclusion, Part III, of a longer story. Go back two posts for Part I if you'd like to read the entire series. If you just need to read Part II, click here. I hope you enjoy the story. Feel free to leave a comment. ~~GH

There were classes I wanted to take during the school year that my parents wouldn’t agree to, but if I really wanted, I could enroll for them during summer school. I really, really wanted to take them, so I went to summer school every summer until graduation. As a result, instead of the 17.5 credit hours necessary to graduate, I ended up earning 25.

Although I feel sure my parents believed they did the right thing by forcing me to take summer classes for my electives, what they didn’t realize was the influence and the type of students I associated with at summer school. I would never have been exposed to the drugs and alternative lifestyles had I not attended summer school. I spent that summer hanging out on the front steps of Watts Elementary with a group of new friends that I met at summer school.

We smoked pot and talked about life, school, each other. The older guys raced motorcycles from one end of Costello to the other, always heading west toward Watts Street. The street was narrow, two lanes only, and one was always filled with parked cars so in actuality there was only the one open lane. It was suicidal, really, to hit the speeds these guys hit each and every time. Can you guess how fast they went? It wasn’t unusual for them to top 100 mph. If a car had turned onto Costello from Watts, someone would have been killed.

There were swing sets on the campus, but the Board of Education took the swings down when school let out, and there was nothing for kids to do. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, as they say, and we kept busy breaking out windows by throwing rocks. It wasn’t random vandalism. Not at all. We carefully chose, identified, made sure everyone knew exactly which window was to be broken, and then we took turns lobbing rocks from the playground until someone shattered the glass.

Nearby beside a graveyard down on Beech Avenue was a house of students – guys from Thailand who went to Morris Harvey, a private college in town. They always had the best hash and pot. The inside of the house was a living Black Sabbath poster. It was dark, the only illumination black lights. Neon colored black velvet art posters decorated the walls. Music blared from the open windows and wafted up the street at least a block in every direction. When we ran out of pot, a couple of us girls would sashay down to the Thai guys’ house and bum some. They were always generous with us as long as we sat and got high with them for a little while.

That summer, Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” played on the radio, and I didn’t understand what it meant. Tommy explained that the guy in the song dressed up as a woman. I’d never heard of that before, except in Vaudeville acts. He explained this was not like that, but didn’t go into detail. I had no idea what it meant to lose your head while you were giving head, or any of the sexual references whatsoever. Tommy did explain what “Valium would have helped that batch” meant. Sometimes whoever “cooked” the mix added Valium to a batch of speed in order to help with the sudden drop in energy as the drug began to wear off. Drugs, I was coming to understand pretty well, even though my experience was limited to smoking pot or hash.

So the group of teens hung out in front of the school all day that summer, listening to someone’s hand-held transistor radio, talking, sometimes throwing rocks, watching the motorcycle races, generally being bored and hot but it beat sitting at home. This was a new world for me, who’d always been an Upstanding Model Citizen – this world of vandalism and pot smoking, knowing the secret meanings of “then he was a she” and the other code language of rock songs.

One day, someone said it was Tommy’s birthday. I was surprised; I hadn’t known. I asked him about it, and he assured me it wasn’t true. I didn’t believe him. Come to find out years later, his birthday was the end of October so he had told me the truth. But at the time, I thought that day was his birthday, and since I had no money and nothing to give him, I decided I would surprise him later on by hiding in one of the guys’ vans and jumping out to wish him happy birthday. I was pleased with myself to think of it.

So later that afternoon, Tommy sat on the sidewalk and strapped on ankle weights before going someplace for a while. I slipped into the van behind a homemade curtain that separated the front seat from the cargo section, and hid. The driver didn’t know I was there, and neither did Tommy.

Tommy hopped up into the van and away we went. The driver careened at top speed around the hill. I sensed the hard ninety-degree turn onto Watts, then the sharp left onto Price Street. We plummeted down Price past Taylor’s Grocery and I was slung against the side of the van as we turned left on Greendale. It was like riding a roller coaster blindfolded. I loved every minute.

The driver and Tommy made small talk for a few minutes then the conversation turned chilling. He asked where Tommy wanted dropped off, and Tommy said to leave him out at a girl’s house we went to school with. They both laughed in a way that made me feel uncomfortable.

“Is she gonna give you your birthday present?” the driver leered.

“She sure is,” Tommy replied.

 The conversation got worse, more graphic, and I had to hold my hands over my mouth to keep from shouting out how angry I was. I was also embarrassed, and hurt, and wished I could just disappear. I could hardly believe my ears, that my sweet boyfriend who never ever stepped out of line, who always respected me and treated me like a queen, could be so disrespectful and think much less speak out loud the words he used to describe this girl and what he planned to do with her.

There was a tiny crack at the top of the curtain, and when the van stopped at a traffic light on Washington Street, I realized it would be stationary for a few moments. I opened the door, jumped out, and ran as fast as I could away from the vehicle. It took the guys a minute to realize what had happened, and by the time it sank in, the light had changed. Drivers in the cars behind the van honked their horns, and the van pulled away.

I ran all the way up the hill till I was almost home. I ended up stopping at my friend Fred’s house, and he immediately invited me inside his basement when he saw my red swollen eyes and face. Fred held me while I cried, and we listened to Elton John’s “Madman Across the Water” album until I eventually drifted off into a troubled sleep.

I never spoke to Tommy Watts again. I can’t remember but I feel sure he called me – he may have even come to my house to try and make amends – but I would have no part of it. Some damage is repairable; some is not. For me, where I was at that point in time, I could no more have forgiven him – or understood – than I could have flown to the moon.

Tommy Watts died at age 47, as I understand it, of a sudden stroke. Rest in peace, Tommy. I do forgive you. I’m not even sure you ever did anything wrong to me, really. So it goes.~~GH

[Tomorrow: The Baptist Preacher, Part One]

Tommy Watts - Part II

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[Continued from yesterday. To read the first part, click here].

I’d somehow finagled the right to check tickets at the door of prom, and so I got to wear a formal gown for the first time. Mine was sleeveless, with an empire waist that fit snugly under my breasts and flowed freely from that level down. The lower section was a fairly bright lemon yellow, and the upper part was white. There was a gathered ruffle, white trimmed with yellow edging, that ran down the middle of the front of the dress.

My left upper arm was easily twice as large as my right arm due to an allergic reaction to a tetanus shot I’d taken the night before after falling into a sewer before a softball game. Not only was it swollen, it had turned a bright, angry red as well. So between the deep tan I had from playing tennis and softball outdoors every day, and the tetanus shot reaction glowing crimson against the pristine white of my prom gown, I stood out.

Tommy could have attended prom with me for free – admission for two was one of the perks I earned – but he wanted no part of such things, and I agreed to his alternative plan. We would walk from the Civic Center to Shoney’s Colonial on the Boulevard, and have a milkshake and spend some time together talking.

He showed up in neat blue jeans, a white t-shirt, and blue jean jacket. I thought he looked like a million bucks. We strolled hand-in-hand the couple of blocks to Shoney’s. Because it was a Saturday night, the place was packed with a waiting line that snaked out the front doors and around part of the building. It was like that every weekend night if there was a concert, or a prom or other activity, or even if there wasn’t; Shoney’s was a destination in itself back then.

I expressed concern we would have to wait for hours and suggested we just go home. Tommy wouldn’t hear of it. He led me by my hand and we wove through the crowd until we reached the hostess. Tommy leaned forward and took her hand. He bent down and whispered in her ear, and she giggle and blushed, then looked down at her hand. Her jaw relaxed a little, the smile gone, and she stared into the palm of her hand. Immediately, her hand clamped shut, and she looked up at Tommy who by then had moved us away from the hostess

Pretty as you please, she called out “Watts, party of two?”

I opened my mouth to ask how, and Tommy shushed me. He tugged my arm so hard I nearly lost my balance, and before I knew it, we had been seated in a booth – a booth!  When there was just the two of us in that crowded Saturday night restaurant – near the back of the dining room.

We ordered a single chocolate milkshake and chatted about my adventure the night before. Tommy was so sweet and encouraging. He made me feel as if it hadn’t been the end of the world, and by the time our treat arrived, I had forgotten about my sore arm and wounded pride. We shared the milkshake, sucking up the thick chocolate ice cream through two straws like Archie and Betty at the Chok’lit Shoppe.

We continued chatting after we finished the shake, and Tommy began to fold a five-dollar bill into intricate shapes. It seemed random to me, sort of an absent-minded activity to occupy his hands, and I assumed he was curtailing his boundless energy in order to be able to sit still.

Finally, we decided it was time to leave and let someone else have our booth. Tommy called our waitress over. He rolled what seemed to be a die across the table. It was the five-dollar bill, folded into a perfect cube shape with the “5” on one face. “This is for you. That was one tasty milkshake you made; thank you,” he said and smiled. She beamed from the wide grin that spread across her face.

He and I strolled hand-in-hand the mile and a half to my house. Although he kissed me very sweetly – reverently but passionately as well – his hands never wandered off the hardtop. There was no surreptitious brushing of the back of his knuckles, or nudging of a breast, no accidental butt touch, nothing. Tommy respected my boundaries without exception. I loved Tommy Watts and although he wasn’t the white collar upstanding citizen my parents wanted me to end up married to, he seemed to be the perfect boy as far as I was concerned. He was smart, funny, clever, kind, talented, entertaining, and he respected me in a way I was unaccustomed to.

Everything was fine until the day that summer I decided to hide and surprise him. ~~GH

[Tomorrow: Conclusion]

Tommy Watts - Part I

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I was almost fifteen when I fell in love with Tommy Watts. He wasn’t much taller than me and usually I was attracted to taller guys, but his personality shone so brightly that I couldn’t help but be fascinated. He had strawberry blonde hair and a mustache, and facial skin so red he always looked as if he’d just ducked out of the grip of some mother hell-bent on scrubbing an invisible spot of dirt from his cheeks. And his eyes! Tommy Watts had eyes the color of cornflowers.

He was muscular in the way that not-so-tall men have – that Irish fisticuffs champion physique. I used to picture him in waist-pants and leather lace-up boots with a wide belt, his arms curled, fists balled, ready to box like pictures I’d seen of men from the late 19^th century. Tommy was always ready for come-what-may. He might not have been the biggest guy out there, but a girl knew she was in good hands when she was with Tommy Watts.

He was as athletic as a monkey. There was nothing I knew of that Tommy Watts couldn’t do with his body. He could jump into the air and twist around three complete revolutions before he landed facing you. He could do handstands, backflips, handstands that turned into backflips, backflips that turned into handstands. He could stand on his head. He could backflip and land standing on his head. The fact that he ended up making his living scrambling around in trees as a forester speaks to his athleticism. 

One of my favorite feats of gymnastics involved him flipping onto the roof that covered the back doors to the alley at my high school. But he did it with flare! He faced out into the alley, back turned toward the building’s wall. He’d jump up and grab onto the roof’s edge as if he were going to do a chin-up. Then he slowly extended his legs out, body straight and stiff as a board, until he was perpendicular to the roof. Magically, he’d keep his body perfectly straight and continue completing the arc until he was upside-down, face down, legs pointed to the sky. Then he would speed up and finish off the pendulum swing by landing on the roof on his feet. I once saw him accomplish this routine with a cast on his right arm. Yes, somehow he did it one-armed.

Tommy Watts had deadly aim with a rock. He would take fifty-cent bets that he could hit a specific window in a building with a rock. He never once had to pay off in all the time we spent together. The summer of 1972, he broke out every single pane of glass on the Costello Street side of Watts Elementary School (no relation), one fifty-cent bet at a time. That’s a tidy sum.

I will share my best, and worst, memories of Tommy with you. The best involves the day after I fell in a sewer. The worst involves the day I decided to hide and surprise him. ~~GH

[Tomorrow: Tommy Watts, Part II]