Tommy
Mayor of the Block. That was Tommy. Though I think his jurisdiction may actually have extended a bit beyond the precise block borders. He knew everyone, and was almost eerily up on everything that happened throughout the neighborhood. He knew about houses bought and sold, of course, and nearby stores arriving and going out of business, but his specialty was really the gossip with a bit more meat on its bones.
Tommy lived right across the street from us, in the house where he grew up with his six brothers and sisters. We met him within a day or two of moving in. It was August, and Tommy was typically out of doors most of the day, tooling around in his adjustable-position motorized wheelchair. He greeted us heartily, in his thick local accent, and genially pumped us for information about who we were and where we came from and what we were doing here. He knew about trash pick-up and recycling, about the previous tenants of our apartment and the character of the landlord, about the history of the neighborhood housing stock. (He was strangely uninformative about where to order pizza from, though--maybe his budget didn't allow that kind of luxury?)
A week or so later, the moving company finally saw fit to deliver our furniture and boxes, and it was time to take 18-month-old Cassie to "school" for the very first time so that we could start unpacking. We asked Tommy for walking directions to the day care center. He delivered in characteristically voluble style, and included a lengthy aside about the corner five blocks away where we were to turn onto Birch Street. It seemed that a day or two previous, a police cruiser had somehow managed to crash through the hedges of the house on the corner. The homeowners were irate because they'd had an ongoing dispute with the town about their bushes blocking motorist visibility, and had finally relented and at substantial expense had torn up the old hedge, moving the line in and planting lower shrubs to be in compliance. And now there was an ugly, crushed and battered gap in the line of newly planted bushes, courtesy of Oldhill's finest. (Now, if this was the sort of thing one ended up knowing by asking for directions, imagine what one might have learned by asking for juicy gossip.)
Tommy was also a great giver-of-shit, particularly to the men of the neighborhood. He had a distinct salty, old-school chivalrous streak, and you can bet that Pete would hear about it later if Tommy ever saw me shoveling snow or lugging anything heavy by myself. Pete, for his part, loved to stand around and take the abuse, and then segue to sports talk and general shooting the breeze.
I never fully understood the ailment that put Tommy in his wheelchair. I know that it was something he was born with, and he had numerous operations on his spine throughout his life. He was able to walk as a boy, though, and it wasn't until he was 19 or so that he began his exclusively wheeled existence. He lived with his brother Jimmy, who provided a lot of his care, though he also had daily morning home health aide visits and periodical nursing visits as well. Jimmy is two years younger than Tommy, a plumber forced out of work by an injured arm. Shyer than Tommy, he has a pink slab of a face with little pale blue eyes, and a somehow jolly-yet-beleaguered manner.
It was from Jimmy that we learned the news. Pete came in from taking out the garbage and the recycling with an odd, frozen look on his face. "Is it really cold out?" I asked, confused by his expression, not able to read it. Cassie was sitting next to me on the couch, watching Peep. Pete looked at her--she was fully distracted--then mouthed to me, "Tommy died."
It wasn't actually that unusual to see a fire truck or an ambulance outside Tommy and Jimmy's house. Sometimes Tommy would have trouble with a transfer from toilet to wheelchair, or otherwise end up in a jam, and if Jimmy wasn't home, be forced to call for help. One night a couple weeks ago, though, as I was coming home from work, I saw them actually loading Tommy into an ambulance. I tried to catch his eye to wave, but I don't think he saw me. It seemed a little concerning--Tommy would occasionally end up in a hospital or rehab facility for a week or two, but usually those were planned admissions. I never did find out just what that was about (the neighborhood information network is more sluggish during the winter, for lack of people out on the sidewalk), but he apparently never made it home.
I've since heard from a neighbor up the street that when they took him in, they found something on CT scan in his head. Third-hand medical accounts being what they are, I'm not 100% clear, but it sounds like maybe he had a couple of clots, determined to be inaccessible surgically. Then, last Monday, his sister was visiting him in the hospital, and Tommy asked her for the clicker to change the TV channel. She turned to get it, and when she turned back, he was out. He never regained consciousness and died later that day. He was 50 years old.
Pete and I couldn't make the funeral on Friday, but we did go to the wake Thursday in the early evening. A grandfather clock in the entryway of the funeral home had a little brass plate affixed that read "Tempus Fugit." "Oh, shut up," I thought. Who thinks a memento mori is necessary in a funeral home, for godssake?
Tommy's body in the casket looked like a distant relative of the deceased, with a coat and tie and a sober expression. Fortunately, there were lots of photos displayed around where the man himself was much more in evidence--caught in the middle of laughing and joking and ragging on somebody, or beaming with nieces and nephews. Most of Tommy's siblings seemed a little awkward and uncomfortable, standing there in a kind of receiving line, but Jimmy was beyond that, fully present and wet-eyed in his grief. He seemed startled when I gave him a hug instead of just shaking hands, and I hope it wasn't too out there. A handshake just seemed so inadequate.
And so goodbye, Tommy. Spring won't be spring around here without your reemergence onto the street, your street.
Tommy lived right across the street from us, in the house where he grew up with his six brothers and sisters. We met him within a day or two of moving in. It was August, and Tommy was typically out of doors most of the day, tooling around in his adjustable-position motorized wheelchair. He greeted us heartily, in his thick local accent, and genially pumped us for information about who we were and where we came from and what we were doing here. He knew about trash pick-up and recycling, about the previous tenants of our apartment and the character of the landlord, about the history of the neighborhood housing stock. (He was strangely uninformative about where to order pizza from, though--maybe his budget didn't allow that kind of luxury?)
A week or so later, the moving company finally saw fit to deliver our furniture and boxes, and it was time to take 18-month-old Cassie to "school" for the very first time so that we could start unpacking. We asked Tommy for walking directions to the day care center. He delivered in characteristically voluble style, and included a lengthy aside about the corner five blocks away where we were to turn onto Birch Street. It seemed that a day or two previous, a police cruiser had somehow managed to crash through the hedges of the house on the corner. The homeowners were irate because they'd had an ongoing dispute with the town about their bushes blocking motorist visibility, and had finally relented and at substantial expense had torn up the old hedge, moving the line in and planting lower shrubs to be in compliance. And now there was an ugly, crushed and battered gap in the line of newly planted bushes, courtesy of Oldhill's finest. (Now, if this was the sort of thing one ended up knowing by asking for directions, imagine what one might have learned by asking for juicy gossip.)
Tommy was also a great giver-of-shit, particularly to the men of the neighborhood. He had a distinct salty, old-school chivalrous streak, and you can bet that Pete would hear about it later if Tommy ever saw me shoveling snow or lugging anything heavy by myself. Pete, for his part, loved to stand around and take the abuse, and then segue to sports talk and general shooting the breeze.
I never fully understood the ailment that put Tommy in his wheelchair. I know that it was something he was born with, and he had numerous operations on his spine throughout his life. He was able to walk as a boy, though, and it wasn't until he was 19 or so that he began his exclusively wheeled existence. He lived with his brother Jimmy, who provided a lot of his care, though he also had daily morning home health aide visits and periodical nursing visits as well. Jimmy is two years younger than Tommy, a plumber forced out of work by an injured arm. Shyer than Tommy, he has a pink slab of a face with little pale blue eyes, and a somehow jolly-yet-beleaguered manner.
It was from Jimmy that we learned the news. Pete came in from taking out the garbage and the recycling with an odd, frozen look on his face. "Is it really cold out?" I asked, confused by his expression, not able to read it. Cassie was sitting next to me on the couch, watching Peep. Pete looked at her--she was fully distracted--then mouthed to me, "Tommy died."
It wasn't actually that unusual to see a fire truck or an ambulance outside Tommy and Jimmy's house. Sometimes Tommy would have trouble with a transfer from toilet to wheelchair, or otherwise end up in a jam, and if Jimmy wasn't home, be forced to call for help. One night a couple weeks ago, though, as I was coming home from work, I saw them actually loading Tommy into an ambulance. I tried to catch his eye to wave, but I don't think he saw me. It seemed a little concerning--Tommy would occasionally end up in a hospital or rehab facility for a week or two, but usually those were planned admissions. I never did find out just what that was about (the neighborhood information network is more sluggish during the winter, for lack of people out on the sidewalk), but he apparently never made it home.
I've since heard from a neighbor up the street that when they took him in, they found something on CT scan in his head. Third-hand medical accounts being what they are, I'm not 100% clear, but it sounds like maybe he had a couple of clots, determined to be inaccessible surgically. Then, last Monday, his sister was visiting him in the hospital, and Tommy asked her for the clicker to change the TV channel. She turned to get it, and when she turned back, he was out. He never regained consciousness and died later that day. He was 50 years old.
Pete and I couldn't make the funeral on Friday, but we did go to the wake Thursday in the early evening. A grandfather clock in the entryway of the funeral home had a little brass plate affixed that read "Tempus Fugit." "Oh, shut up," I thought. Who thinks a memento mori is necessary in a funeral home, for godssake?
Tommy's body in the casket looked like a distant relative of the deceased, with a coat and tie and a sober expression. Fortunately, there were lots of photos displayed around where the man himself was much more in evidence--caught in the middle of laughing and joking and ragging on somebody, or beaming with nieces and nephews. Most of Tommy's siblings seemed a little awkward and uncomfortable, standing there in a kind of receiving line, but Jimmy was beyond that, fully present and wet-eyed in his grief. He seemed startled when I gave him a hug instead of just shaking hands, and I hope it wasn't too out there. A handshake just seemed so inadequate.
And so goodbye, Tommy. Spring won't be spring around here without your reemergence onto the street, your street.
posted by Rosie Bonner at 9:08 AM
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