Something About Winston

SOMETHING ABOUT WINSTON

It's been somewhere in the back of my mind all these years, but I've just begun to figure out the significance of the event. This is not one of those stories where people recall things from the past, things previously experienced but largely forgotten. I'm not referring to catastrophic events, like being caught in a flood or seeing your mother shot and dying right in front of your eyes, or a schoolgirl's tale of incest with a close relative that she's forgotten until some hypnotist dragged it out of the bowels of her forgotten memory bank.

I've not forgotten anything. I just never realized what was going on. A few days ago, for some reason, the event popped into my head. and I think I was able to make some sense out of it. Until that moment, I never really understood about Winston. But's it's too late, I can't do anything about it now.

This event took place many years ago when I was a child. I don't know what made me think of Winston. These thoughts have only jolted me a few times, like when I met Mr. Neuman, our Junior High School Principal, in our town's Plaza Supermarket. My wife was substitute teaching at the school. We talked for a while about old times, and then it tumbled out of my mouth,

"Do you remember the kid who...?"

Of course, Neuman remembered, but some secret was hidden behind his slate-blue eyes. He responded sadly,

"That boy had a lot of problems."

Maybe it means nothing. It's so late in the game, but I want to get it straight, if only for my clarity. There was something about Winston that I still wanted to understand, some mystery that I wanted to unravel.

Adults see what they want to see, but children have a unique perspective on the world. They know what they see and what they have seen. Adults can hide the obvious, and the kids may never catch on to the underlying theme. For children, time is always moving forward. Summers pass slowly, and school years whiz rapidly by, like a train entering a tunnel. As we grow older, we view things from a different perspective. We see the present as a continuation of the past, and we interpret the present based on our experience with the past. Children have little or no experience to compare to new events.

For children, the time frame of observation and perception are simultaneous. An event occurs, and another follows. There is no time for analysis. Childhood memories may lie undisturbed for decades, and then out of nowhere, a recollection surfaces like a fart bubble in a bathtub.

To return to the little town where I grew up and where my dream memories reside, I follow a highway from the airport. A branch of that snaking blacktop will take me under a bridge passing behind the elementary/junior high school I attended.

The city contracted for the school's construction before the 1929 Depression,. At that time, the neighborhoods were home to wealthy individuals, New York theater celebrities, and some who went on to Hollywood, including Eddie Foy, David Sarnoff, Harry Warner, and the lovable Eddie Cantor.

These grand homes had Greek columns at the entrance and large porches for warm-weather entertaining. The residences were large, two and three-story, with an attic, garage, and a basement that you could walk around without hitting your head. Most of the original Victorian homes were gracious and large. The homes built afterward were smaller, with small front lawns and backyards.

The school building was more ostentatious than the surrounding homes that were built in the late forties and fifties. In recent years, contractors have built many smaller homes, and vacant lots have ceased to exist. That was when the city became home to important black celebrities, including Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Harry Belafonte, and Denzel Washington.

Our school was built to resemble a castle. The main entry doors that led to the central office were large enough to let King Arthur's knights ride in on horseback. The office was located to the left of the entry, with the principal's office situated behind. A large electronic clock, which ran on a perforated tape, dominated the office, clicking away the minutes and seconds of the employees' lives. The vice principal's small office, located to the right of the entry, was primarily used for disciplinary purposes. A large auditorium entrance faced the entrance hall, featuring an upstairs balcony on the third floor. Much like a projectionist's booth in a movie theater, a small room containing spotlights and a projectors, along with a wheel of colored filters, dominated the upper balcony.

The athletic rooms, gym, lockers and the coach's private offices were on the first floor. To the students, the first floor was considered a basement but opened onto the ground level. The real basement was a scary place where the boilers and asbestos were housed, where the janitor would often hang out of an open doorway while smoking.

Spread out in a U-shape to the right and left were the many classrooms on both the 2nd and 3rd floors. The classrooms were behind thick oak doors. Students' desks were constructed of solid oak and metal with an inkwell in the right-hand corner. Every morning, the ink monitor, a chosen student, would walk the aisles pouring foul-smelling black ink into the inkwells. This practice continued for twenty-five years. When ballpoint pens finally won approval, the inkwells were abandoned and became receptacles for chewing gum, paper clips, and boogers. Of course, the bottoms of the desks were where students placed their well-chewed gum. A custodian told me that the worst week of the year was the one preceding the school opening when the custodians used sharp metal scrapers to clear away the rock-hard gum stuck under the desks..

The blackboards were an engineering marvel. They rose up and slid down or sideways, powered by strong arms. Skilled cabinetmakers had built oak closets into the wall along one side of the room, where we hung our coats and cases. The heavy doors pivoted gracefully on polished brass hardware and closed flat against the wall. At the back of some of the larger rooms were custom-made cases for storage, and glass cabinets intended for scientific apparatus. One teacher brought two crocodiles back from a Florida vacation, and he housed them there in smelly fish tanks.

As a student, I was always aware of the school's elegance and how much effort had been taken in its planning and construction. Of course, that didn't keep us from gouging the desks and kicking the baseboards. Still, even with our abuse, the place held up remarkably well. That is why I could never understand why, in the name of progress, the city tore the s school down in the 1960s, replacing it with a smaller, modern, and antiseptic building further away from the original site at the noisy intersection of the winding highway. The new location was situated in the center of the old playground, which had occupied several acres.

Surprisingly, when they dynamited the old school, they did not disturb the bridge that crossed over the highway. The neatly cut stone veneer was left intact. At fifty miles an hour, I only had time for a momentary glance at the crosswalk that I drove under. I recalled the time when I used to follow Winston as we made our way through the teeming mass of children running free moments after dismissal.

Winston had a mop of thick brown hair that fell in unequal lengths, as someone occasionally plopped a bowl on his head and applied scissors. Due to his size and facial hair, I wondered if Winston had missed a year of school. That is to say, had he been left behind? I never questioned him, fearing I might offend him.

Once the two of us crossed the bridge and climbed down the long staircase, our eyes searched for his grandmother, "Ellie," who was usually waiting for us in her parked car. It was a peculiar vehicle, sort of an enclosed jeep with four seats. When I was a kid in the suburbs of New York City, no one drove Jeeps except Winston's grandmother. In retrospect, it could be a United Harvester vehicle. It certainly wasn't a Chevy or a Buick.

On the breezy October day we met, the roadway was littered with damp, fallen yellow leaves. The sidewalk and roadway were slick, and we were careful not to fall. Winston turned and saw me walking behind him. Some of the leaves were turning red, and the wind was swirling them high above us.

"Hey kid, we go by your house on the way home. Ya want a ride?"

I was in fifth grade and looked younger. Winston was probably two grades ahead of me. I never knew for sure. When we arrived at his grandmother's vehicle, Winston introduced her as "Ellie." She said they'd seen me walking home on many occasions, and Ellie told him to offer me a ride.

It was only a ride. There was never an invitation to accompany the two of them beyond the residential boulevard where I lived, but the offer of a ride became perfunctory. I'd spot Winston in the crowd of kids crossing the bridge; he was at least half a head taller than most of the kids.

If "Ellie" hadn't yet arrived, we'd wait off to the side of the road, where the Good Humor ice Cream truck parked during the warm weather, or a gruff Italian in an unbranded ice cream truck selling non-branded ice cream would station himself. Sometimes, a motorcycle cop would park his big Harley there. Once I sat on the motorcycle, it began to tilt to one side. I tried to hold it upright, but it was very heavy. Fortunately, the cop ran forward, steadied the bike, and I dismounted. It was a very heavy bike, and the loss of stability scared me. That day, the cool weather did not encourage ice cream sales, and the cop was nowhere to be seen. We waited on the damp, leafy pavement, hardly uttering a word.

I didn't converse much in the 'Jeep.' I wasn't a talkative little kid. Usually, there was some muffled conversation going on between Winston and Ellie. There were occasional references to a father, gone or arriving. I didn't always hear their comments as I was seated in the rear seat, but I never saw a father or a mother, and I never knew which parent Elly was kin to, if at all.

My impression was that Ellie was a sympathetic old-timer. She loved Winston and was very reliable; we rarely had to wait for her. Ellie never wore makeup. She always wore a khaki overcoat, and her hair was primarily grey with a few brown strands that matched the brush-like fur collar on her coat. The coat looked military. Even ten years after the war, people still wore army coats. Returning soldiers arrived with government-issued jackets. In my home, we still had my mother's dead brother's army coat hanging on a closet hook. He'd died in the Normandy invasion.

Ellie always had an unfiltered cigarette between the yellowed fingers of her left hand. A 'Camel's' crushable cigarette pack was usually lying on the dashboard. Ellie smoked slowly, inhaling deeply without allowing smoking to interfere with her driving. She took a puff occasionally and blew it out the small side window she always kept cracked open.

When I entered the car, Ellie always greeted me warmly, as if I were Winston's friend, which I wasn't. The time I spent with Winston during those months never extended beyond our five-minute drive time. I asked Winston several times who his teachers were, but he never said much. I asked who his rotating teachers were, those offering their specialties for a class period, such as the music or art teacher, but he never mentioned them.

We didn't exchange phone numbers or discuss seeing each other outside of school. I never saw him except after school, when he would miraculously appear on the bridge in the middle of a throng of children, being taller by half a head than the other kids; he was easy to spot

I was unsure of the private lives of Winston and his family. Once I asked if his mother was home, he looked down, and Elly shook her head just a degree back and forth. I don't think Winston even noticed. I stayed silent for the rest of the ride.

Winston and Elly were a strange couple. I might have been fearful of any entanglements with them, but none were ever offered. After a few months, it was as if I'd known them for years. These were the days before the kidnapping and torture of children were commonplace. I had no fear of them. Still, I never suggested we enlarge our time together by visiting their home or taking in a Saturday matinee. Their door never opened for that.

Winston's eccentricities were enough to bring him to the notice of the school bully. Although the bully's threat was passed on, Winston seemed unperturbed. Occasionally, he would mutter the bully's name and say he'd carve him up if ever bothered by him. Winston looked like he meant business. He was obsessed with military jargon. His school notebook was filled with sketches of exotic knives, assorted weapons, handguns, and highly detailed hangman's nooses.

Winston confided one afternoon that the vehicle was armored, and although the glass might break, a shot fired into the door could never reach us. I wasn't sure I believed him, but even if that was true, it didn't make me feel any safer. I didn't expect anyone to machinegun us a block from the school.

One afternoon, while we waited for Ellie, Winston took a long-bladed folding knife out of his pocket. The handle was bright yellow and had a grooved stone mounted on it.

"What's the stone for?" I asked.

"For sharpening fish hooks," he answered.

I'd never seen anything quite like it. It was a beautiful knife. The long blade was curved and graceful, sharp as a razor. There was a second, equally long blade with a saw-toothed edge and a forked tip. Winston explained that fishermen used the long blade to remove the fishhook from the fish's mouth. Just then, Elly arrived, and Winston quickly pocketed the knife.

Back then, it was common for school kids to carry knives. Fat black textured plastic handled Boy Scout knives on a lanyard or clipped to the belt of their uniforms were the most common. The rougher Italian kids carried switchblades, which were illegal, or slender black-handled folding knives used to play Mumbly Peg in the black clay at the east end of the playground, near the school garden. It was the perfect place. When no teacher was looking, we'd throw our knives into the clay, carving up the square until it was indivisible, and then the winner would be chosen.

After the winter vacation, I didn't see Winston. The season's first snow had fallen, and the kids wore rubber boots, scarves, and funny woolen hats. The thugs called us "Santa's little helpers and threw snowballs at us. I thought Winston was ill. It was the flu season, and everyone, even teachers, was out of school for a week or so. Then I got sick, and another two weeks elapsed. I returned to school on a Monday, but at the end of that day, my mother came to pick me up in the school parking lot at the front of the school. I had no reason to take the bridge to get home. Consequently, I didn't see Winston, but there was no question about his attendance.

On Tuesday morning, when I arrived at the playground, Winston had become the subject of school gossip. I asked everyone I knew what had happened, and there was a consensus. Fifteen minutes after the dismissal bell rang, Winston made his move. He climbed up the stairs to cross over the highway, but instead of continuing, he mounted the shoulder-high cement wall. A crowd of students was pointing at him, and one of the kids shouted, "Jump!" Another joined in, and pretty soon, some sixty or more kids were shouting, and Winston jumped from the bridge into the path of an oncoming car.

The driver of the vehicle must have seen the boy perched like an eagle on a cliff and hit his brakes. The boy who had launched himself into the air like a soaring bird met with a loud squeal of rubber and bending of fender steel as the car collided with him. Winston was thrown high in the air and came to rest on the tarmac amid the confused shrieks of the onlookers. Winston was still twitching when the orderlies rolled him onto a stretcher and carried him to a waiting ambulance.

None of us ever saw Winston again. For years, I assumed Winston was assigned to another school. As time passed, I stopped thinking about Winston. Several weeks later, workers appeared on the bridge and fenced in the entire walkway, including the area above it. There was no way another student could jump off the bridge without a heavy wire cutter.

Why had he done it? A story circulated that Winston had done it on a dare. Some unknown kid had dared him to jump, but no one ever admitted to being the one who had dared him. I found it hard to believe because Winston didn't seem to care about other kids or what they thought of him; he didn't even speak to them. The drop was at least twenty-five feet down, more if you were standing on the side wall. Only an idiot would have attempted such a thing.

In the weeks afterwards, whenever I crossed the bridge, I still looked to see if Elly was parked nearby, but I never saw her again.

Perhaps I've finally figured it out. Winston didn't jump on a dare. He didn't slip while trying to impress a crowd. Winston was trying to kill himself. At least, that's what I thought for the next twelve years.

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Fast forward twelve years.

I was now in college in downtown New York City, just a short distance from City Hall. The big shots stopped by frequently, and I was busy photographing dignitaries for the college newspaper. I had made plans with one of the staff later that evening to have a beer, and we were to meet at the Nudie Strip Club, where the beers were half-price before 7 pm. For some reason, my buddy didn't arrive. This was before the advent of cell phones, I had no notice of his cancellation and no way to contact him.

I sat down near the tiny stage and ordered a beer from the topless waitress. When she arrived carrying a tray with the beer minutes later, I tipped her a buck.

"Thanks, sweetie," she said and kept moving; her ass vibrated like she was on one of those exercise machines with a belt that was common for weight loss. Her tits were erect, and she had those thick long nipples favored by many men on diets from their wives. I had never been to this bar. It had opened recently and was used by students for a quick lunch. Nude entertainment was only available in the evenings. My friend had suggested it because we stop there because it was in proximity to a used bookstore we had planned to visit afterward.

I sat for a while. The entertainment was still half an hour away, but the topless waitresses were attractive. I drank a second beer, served in a small glass. Then, a rather tall blond woman entered the room. She had an ample figure, and I thought she walked with a slight limp, but I wasn't sure; it was hardly noticeable. She looked around, seeing no one who piqued her interest; she came over to my table and asked if she might keep me company.

"I don't know that I'll be here long," I said. "I was waiting for a friend who never arrived."

"That's okay, honey. I'll keep you company just the same."

Once she sat down, I was able to take a good look at her. She was surprisingly tall for a woman and razor thin, with a vocal register that sounded more like Lauren Bacall than Marilyn Monroe. There was a slight shadow above her upper lip, but her chest was generously filled out..

"Who am I dealing with?" I thought, "Is she a man or a woman?" I guessed she was a tranny, a pejorative label among wok people, but that was what we called guys masquerading as women back then.

The lady tapped something on the table to get my attention. When I looked up, she said,

"They have an upstairs room with a bed that you can rent for $25 if you want to fool around?"

"What did you have in mind?"

"Well, I could suck your dick, or you could suck mine."

"Not really my style," I countered.

"Or you could fuck me in the ass if you wanna? The guys tell me that it feels really good."

When she said that, I bit my lip. My mind began to wander. I had nothing against transsexuals. I'd had a serious affair with a very beautiful young 'lady' and fucking her in her ass was marvelous. We'd carried on for several years while she, being a much-requested escort, bedded half the city. She eventually convinced me that, as she said,

"You want a nice girl, not someone like me."

I'm still not sure her assumption was correct.

It was the time of Aids, and people were dropping like flies. Even my boss, once I'd begun teaching, had passed away. No one even knew he was gay. Miraculously, neither my escort girlfriend nor I became ill, but for the luck of strong latex condoms and her sense of extreme caution.

My experiences with trannys were confined to the ultra-feminine types. The gal seated before me did not meet those qualifications. Not wanting to insult her, I responded to her offer, saying,

"Well, thanks for the options, but I gotta get going. I gotta see a man about a dog. Can I buy you a drink before I go?"

I thought that was the best exit line.

"Sure," she said with a half-smile.

I motioned to the waitress to bring me a fresh beer, and when she brought it, I tipped her another dollar.

"Here you go, Honey." I bent over to put her drink down on the table and realized the 'lady' was very tall.

"The girls are attractive, aren't they?" she asked.

"Yes, they've got nice tits. I love tits."

"Yes, most guys do."

She glanced at the waitress serving the next table, "It looks like someone has been sucking on her nips."

"I guess so. Why not?"

"Yes," replied the lady, "Why not?"

"Do you like to suck on girls' tits or do you prefer boys?

"I prefer girls and yes, sucking on their tits gets my dick hard."

"That's good. A stiff dick is a good dick."

I thought it was time, "Well, thanks for stopping by, I really have to go. But I must say, God, there is something about you that seems familiar."

"Did we ever make love? I'm not that forgettable," she said.

"No, I don't think so. Anyway, I'm going to go now. May I ask your name?"

"Sure, just call me Winny."

"I was beginning to suspect that was your moniker."

I leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek,

"Goodbye, dear Winny, so good to see you again."

She smiled and said, "Goodbye, sweetie-pie, thanks for the drink. If you change your mind and wanna fool around, just come on back. I'll be here for a while."

With that comment, she reached out with her long arms under the tiny table and grabbed my penis and held on. I was speechless.

"Oh, yes, it does get hard," she said, and laughed.

I started to stand up, and she released her tight grip. I moved towards the door without looking back.

"Small world, isn't it?" I thought, among many new discoveries, I had found my old friend.

----------------------------THE END--------------------------