My day would start out with Tom knocking on my front door, inviting me to this or that: going to a fight, playing over the line, going to a movie watching him make out with a girlfriend, sneaking a smoke, and listening to the latest Elvis Presley song.
Tom was three years older than me. He was thirteen and I was ten. That made all the difference in the world. He wore Levi’s with the belt loops cut off, I wore heavy duty jeans with extra padding in the knees.
Tom was the fourth toughest guy in junior high, I was in elementary school where up until fifth grade I was still on crutches from having suffered from polio.
Tom wore his hair in a jelly roll and started looking like a hood. I had a flat top and resembled a skinny little blond runt.
But through it all, he took me with him wherever he went and with whomever he met. Even to a summer hardball baseball league where he did his best to fit me in at times.
By the time I was a senior in high school and he had already done a hitch in the navy, our lifestyles had separated. But, One night after a high school football game had ended, the crowd was descending the stands. To my surprise Tom appeared in the crowd. I was still on the field saying goodby to players and fans alike. I was the head yell king at the time. Tom and I locked eyes.
He shook his head in disappointment. “What you doing down there?” He said his lips pierced with anger. Out of the clear still autumn night, he said, “ you should have stuck with me.”
By this time Tom stayed at 5’6” and I was just peaking at 6’. “Sure Tom,” I shouted back half sardonically.
He exited the stadium and I never saw him again. But, as I was going home that night, whatever Tom meant when he said I should have stuck with him, I felt, on second thought, he had the best of intentions in mind. He defended and involved me when I was learning to walk again. I do truly believe he was looking out for my best interest.
Just one last thought. An ironic one at that. As I drove home in my own car, I remembered being told by our common neighbor that Tom still had no car. And I was preparing myself to enter college – that has redounded to me the rest of my life – I remembered that Tom still had not finished high school. And still he was looking out for me. That was right out of the cult movie hit American Graffiti – our childhood heroes never seem to leave us.