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 50th 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.