Remembering Bill

 

Woke up this morning to find another old friend had died. This is not an unusual occasion, for at this age there are more former friends in the obituaries than on the wedding page.

I usually don’t write elegies on people I knew, but Bill and I went way back.

When my family moved to Richmond, I didn’t have any friends. We didn’t interact with the neighbors so the first kids I met were through school.

Don’t know what drew us together. Bill had a stutter so he was quiet in class. I couldn’t see the blackboard so I was also quiet. We lived five blocks apart; within walking distance. He started coming over to my house and we’d play with toy soldiers on the steps. My mother couldn’t understand how we communicated, but I seemed to. We were comfortable in each other’s company so we didn’t have to say much. In the afternoon, he’d walk home.

I went to his house a couple of times. He had an older brother (just like me) but his house was much neater than mine. His father was a scientist and their house had a lounge with lots of books. His mother put jelly on a peanut butter sandwich which I’d never eaten before.

Our parents didn’t know each other. They were not members of the country club. They went to a different church. Our connection was through school.

Neither Bill or I were doing well in school so one year, we both were held back. The rest of the class moved onto another grade and we had a whole new set of classmates to repeat a year. Perhaps that strenthed our bond.

Bill and I would walk to Cary Street every Saturday to spend the day. We’d stop at High’s Ice Cream for a milk shake and a package of Nabs. We’d walk to the hardware store, stop in the bicycle shop, look at the camera store and the bakery next door. We’d finish up at Bob’s Hobby Center which held all the model cars and paints and little armies in boxes that were within our price range. There was a train running all around the store. Sometimes we’d go to the Byrd Theatre for the matinees show of cowboy movies and popcorn.

Bill didn’t go to summer camp with me. We went on separate family vacations. There were no backyard cookouts. We didn’t join any sports teams. We didn’t trade bubble gum cards.

My brother got a Santa Fe train set, but it was big and clunky. Bill got the cool small HO train set up in his bedroom. I got a race car set, but Bill got the cool HO race track.

Bill started taking music lessons on Saturday so I lost track of him. We went to different middle schools. We had fewer contacts.

We met back in high school. We were not in the same homeroom but would walk the halls until the bell rang to start classes. That is where his future girlfriend, then wife, would corner him.

Bill played clarinet in the school orchestra. Still quiet and unassuming yet attentive. Another friend told me later that Bill would correct him for being out of tune.

I was playing in garage rock bands and invited Bill to join us on saxophone. He was too disciplined to follow the black dots on the page than our free form improvisation of popular songs, so it didn’t work out.

We both took a mechanical drawing class. T-squares, triangles and lots of erasing. Bill was much more precise than I was, so his final drawings looked professional. Good thing, because he went to work for an architectural firm doing renderings.

He was spending more time with Mary and we hung out with different crowds and went to different parties, so I lost track of him again.

After high school I found out he was going to the same college I’d been accepted to. He had a dorm room on Harrison Street for his parents had moved out of state, while I commuted from home. Second semester he was moved to a ratty broken-down hotel that was too far from school to visit often. We were both majoring in art, but had different classes.

Sophomore year, our mothers decided we should get an apartment together. It would keep him in school and get me out of the house. 1024 W. Franklin Street (there is a song about that). A block away from campus, but it was the third floor. Talked some friends into hauling a bed, desk, chair and stereo up three flights of stairs. I didn’t sleep there the first night. When I finally moved in, Bill’s cat ‘Ming’ had taken over my bed. She became my sleeping buddy from there on. The first of many cats in my future.

Bill was the perfect roommate. He was never there. When he wasn’t in class, he was with Mary.

We didn’t have any wild parties or even have a drink together. Some mornings we’d go to Dutch’s for breakfast. I was working at the train station after classes and was hanging with friends in the fan, so our paths didn’t cross except to sleep.

Across the street there was an apartment full of girls. We’d turn off the lights and watch the shapes with my opera glasses. They knew we were watching.

I don’t remember any deep discussions. We did sit in on a poker game and Bill got upset by losing money. It did teach me if you are going to play a game of chance, only use the money you are prepared to lose.

The memorable event was when he and Mary made some meal and left the dirty pots in the sink. I wasn’t going to clean up their mess, so the pots and pans sat in the sink. Anyone who came over commented on the stench, but I held out. Finally, someone cleaned up the mess and we got back to a normal routine.  

There was a land lady, Mrs. Pen, who would barge her way into the apartment unannounced. She’d look around to make sure we were not performing any debauchery then sit down and smoke a cigarette. I was not fond of the interruption, so I went down to Sando’s Book Shop and bought a pile of recycled Playboy magazines. I cut out the centerfold and covered a wall. Her next invasion into our space was quick and she never came back.

Bill was seeing a doctor who was pricking him with pins to test of allergies. Seems he was allergic to just about everything, but he seemed pretty normal to me. When he went to get his selective service physical, he showed the results and got out of the draft.

After the year, the lease ran out and we moved to Monument Avenue. Again, the third floor. This was our summer refuge.

Bill had changed majors to sculpture and I’d changed majors to marketing and advertising. He grew a mustache; the first of all my associates to grow facial hair. He got a job at a bank up on Church Hill. He would come home late because he had problems balancing transactions. One day the bank was robbed. Bill quit.

I was moving into drugs, but Bill never participated. Young ladies would come by for a rousing bout of teenage exploration, but no one stayed overnight.

Bill and Mary decided to stop fooling around and get married. I was invited to participate in the ceremony. I had to rent a tux. The families had a rehearsal dinner at the Clover Room, but instead of a full meal and alcohol, we had ice cream. After the church performance, I wanted to soap his car, but his brother hid it until they left.

Mary was moving in the Monument apartment, so I was moving out. I tried to find another roommate but finally moved back home.

Again, lost track of Bill and Mary. I heard they moved out of town but couldn’t find an address.

The last time I saw Bill and Mary was at our high school 50^th reunion. He said they had two children, a boy and a girl. He said he had lost a house and a job and was working at a grocery store. He reminded me the time when I did projectile vomit in elementary school before I had my appendix taken out. It is strange what we remember.

Bill was always intense on whatever he was focused on. His hobby was shortwave ham radio and Morse code. He was a dedicated fan of the Washington Nationals, but we never discussed sports.

From the photos online, Bill was a family man and enjoyed his children and his grandchildren. He also married Mary forever.

     I won’t be attending his funeral but think of his family in this time of mourning. Bill was a nice guy.