The
Ballad of Tommy and Wilma – A true story
I remember that as I lay there
on the couch watching a re-run of M*A*S*H and smoking a cigarette, I had a minor wedgie in my tighty-whities. I was reflecting
on my good fortune of having not only underwear AND smokes, butt (bonus points for puns?) that I was the only guy in my building
who had a nice couch, let alone the spurious luxury of a color TV. My nearest and dearest neighbors across
the hall, Tommy and Wilma had only a pot, some stolen presto logs, and some trash reclaimed from some nearby dumpster. But
we all took pride in our humble hovels.
I was 20, jobless, and until just a few months
or so before was living in a mansion over-looking Sloans’ Lake in one of the nicer and older areas of Denver. Not Molly
Brown old but more Art Deco (may he rest in piece). But alas, Mom had a new boyfriend and had moved to Oklahoma, leaving me
to clean up for the realtor and gratefully claim her cast off and abandoned luxuries. Well the realtor showed up on a Saturday
delivering notice that I had to be out on Sunday.
It was a rockin’
Garage Sale.
With $200.00 bucks from the sale of my beloved Ludwigs,
Ziildjians and a ball and cap muzzle loader I had enough dough to find some other digs, put a little go juice in the Yamaha
and still have some jingle in my pocket. Prophetically I thought “we all must do what we think we have to to survive”
but I still can’t believe that in my hurry I actually forgot I had left almost a ¼ lb. of Honduran bud stashed
inside the burner cover of the stove. I could have kept my drum set and sold the dope…. Dope!
Yes…. I
went back.
No,…. the new owner
had not found it…. My ass. Prick was probably having brownies for dinner.
So I found this place while
on my way to get a (used!!!) rear tire for my XS 650 (this IS a bike site right?). I saw the “For Rent” sign in
the window with a curious ray of sunshine focused directly upon it. Yes Virginia THERE IS A GOD. A second floor 1BR
1BA for $160.00 a month and it was just outside the fashionable Capitol Hill district just a block off of Colfax Ave. By “just
outside” I mean that the bail bond offices slowly gave way to strip clubs and porn cinemas. We even had a Guy dressed
as Jesus who toted a cross complete with training wheels on the bottom as he patrolled the area proclaiming deliverance, God
bless his ass. And I was smack in the fucking middle of it. Just around the corner was “Sid’s Crazy Horse Lounge”,
featured in Clint Eastwood’s epic monkey masterpiece “Every Way Which You Can” and where the headlining
topless act would squirt breast milk into your beer for a buck.
It was actually a stunning
building with great character. Huge oak banisters, leaden glass in the built in china hutch, claw foot tub and really cool
old timey plumbing fixtures. Of course it smelled like piss in the hallways, but you got used to it. So I get my buddy Rich
to help me move my couch, TV and water bed. Yes….. a fucking water bed. This was 81’ and I was stuck in the 70’s.
I still had a reel to reel bitch. None of those new fangled cassettes, 8 track or otherwise for this cowboy.
OK, so… Tommy and Wilma…
Tommy was a rail thin wafer of a man standing over 6’3”. Had a look about
him that was 30% innocent, 60% clueless and 10% dickweed, but in a likeable kind of way. He reminded me of the banjo playin’
kid in “Deliverance”.
Wilma on the other hand…. Ah…
Wilma. Now you can dispose of any preconceived notions you may have of Wilma as a result of what I have said or what may be
called up in your mind’s eye with respect to Mrs. Flintstone. Wilma had long, luxurious blonde hair with those lazy
curls like Marylin Monroe and striking blue eyes. She stood a very well proportioned 5’2” or so and could have
been any mans idea of a centerfold were it not for her dirty feet and the band-aid she wore perpetually on her left nostril.
Looking through the dirt and band-aid I could see her true beauty and gave her credit for being the brains of the operation.
I had a slight crush to be true.
Well, if you’re anything like me “you
gots ta be wundrin”…. What the fuck is Barbie doing with a guy that has his eyes on the opposite sides of his
head? I mean like next to his ears, like a squirrel….. And really… what the fuck’s up with the band-aid
anyway? I mean I never saw her without it! I couldn’t just out and ask “So… Wilma….. What’s
up with the band-aid on your nose?” right? It would have been socially improper even amongst the underworld denizens
of Colfax Ave.
Over the course of the next few months I really came to rely on
Tommy and Wilma. It seemed that as a team they had developed some quite formidable and respectable survival skills rooted
in their mostly homeless travels from their home state of Georgia to the promised land of breast milk and beer. It seems that
Tommy had not impressed his intended in-laws and was run out of town and Wilma, for some fucking reason, like a good Georgia
peach, had run off with her squirrel.
They showed me all the best dumpsters, and instructed
me as to which days were the best to hit them. Using their pot, they showed me the intricacies of “Dumpster Stew”.
Fuck Rachel Ray. When my jingle had ceased to even jing they took me down to The Blood Bank. Remember kiddies, this was in
a galaxy far, far away in a time long, long ago… before AIDS, when they actually paid drunks and
fags for their blood. I was a young drunk, so I qualified as a prime donor. They paid $4.00 a pint for the plasma, and you
could give two pints every three days. Now you have to wait almost 2 months and all you get is some goldfish crackers and
orange juice. So… $8.00 bucks every three days was a living – so long as you’re not actually paying your
rent – and I could get a ten piece box of Church’s Fried Chicken, two packs of Marlboro Reds and $2.00 in the
tank of the trusty nippo-scooter, which would roughly last the 72 hours between the selling of body fluids. Thank
God for friends.
One Sunday Tommy shows me the secret to breaking into news paper
machines to get free papers. Sunday was the best day to look in the classifieds. Wilma would read them to Tommy while he “read”
the comics. So there we were , having leftover stew, a presto log burning in the non-operational GAS fireplace
(I wonder if carbon monoxide poisoning might play a small roll in this story?) reading the paper when Wilma’s sudden
excitement almost caused Tommy to lose his place in that weeks “Family Circle”. It was one of those ones where
Billy’s footprints followed his path all around the house, over the dog, under the cat, behind the drapes, to where
he finds whatever the fuck it was he was looking for…… Anyway, Wilma has found a job opening that would be perfect
for the three of us! And they need several people so she’s SURE we can all get jobs!
Oh… Oh… Oh…
Take it from me my friends, give blood if you have to but never… NEVER, take a job in a soda pop factory.
The Denver Broncos had their
version of the Steelers’ “Iron Curtain”. The only ones I can remember are Lyle Alzado (yes he was a Bronco
BEFORE he broke our hearts and left for Oakland) and Rosie Greer, which is kinda’ funny because he was into flower arranging
as a hobby… anyway, they were called the “Orange Crush” which made sense in Denver because we had this
soda pop that was produced locally called “Orange Crush”. They also made “Grape Crush” (thankfully
we didn’t live in Minnesota, though they call it “pop” there too..), “Vernor’s
Ginger Ale” and “Dad’s Root Beer”.
So… While Wilma was
placed in a prestigious position on the production line, no doubt based on her striking good looks despite
the band-aid, and Tommy on the loading dock, no doubt based on his 280 degree peripheral vision (useful in avoiding fork-lifts),
I was given the task of sorting the returned bottles, no doubt because the fucker didn’t like me.
Now I’ve had monotonous
jobs before. I used to work in a factory where we made, amongst other things, mow boards for Caterpillar Bull Dozers. I cut
tens of thousands of all those little 2” X 2” X 2” steel reinforcing blocks that I’m sure you’re
all so familiar with… anyway. Sorting bottles… fuck. Let me describe my work station.
I had my own warehouse. Fuck the corner office! I had sixty foot ceilings, four roll-up doors and enough acreage to
turn 4 soda pop trucks in circles simultaneously. Most of which was taken up by a fifty nine foot high stack of soda pop bottles,
some of them were even empty. So there you have it. Some high tech huh? Me and a fucking fantastic mountainous
stack of bottles. I tell my son this story when he asks why I have no pity.
I still have nightmares, clink,
clink, clink….. All day long…. Clink, clink, clink. And I’d come in the next morning and the little piece
of real estate that I had carved out with diligence, perseverance, and hope on the previous day was now full of fresh bottles
awaiting sorting, cleaning and filling by the beautiful Wilma and her gorgeous cohorts “on the line”. And somehow,
one of the fucking drivers would climb the stack and place another empty six pack on the very top. Fifty
nine, nine…. Fuck me…. It was heart breaking friends, just heart breaking. I lasted three days.
Next stop…. You’re
right! The blood bank! Never even went back to get my check.
After a while of coed dumpster
diving, sharing stew, stealing papers, and giving blood, (all camaraderie building endeavors) Tommy wasn’t around so
I felt it was safe…..
“So…. Wilma… What’s
up with the band-aid on your nose?
”Wilma’s bright eyes dimmed as she bowed
her head, embarrassed, she reflexively covered her nose with her hand. She looked at the floor and delicately peeled it away.
“Tommy and I was fightin’
one day….” She looked up, mist in her blue eyes…., “and he bit a piece of my nose off”
Horribly, her left nostril
was missing.
Now I knew. He had marked her. Some evil act to bind her to him. No one
would ever want her, ever. That’s why she was with him, in fact it was what had gotten him run outta’ town.
Poor sweet Wilma.
So there I am laying on the
couch watching M*A*S*H, smoking and scratching my butt and there’s a timid little knock on the door. It’s Wilma’s
knock. Now, in this part of town you gotts’ have some locks on your door, and evidently the previous tenant was VERY
security conscious because I had like four deadbolts and several chains so after several snick, clack, thunk, and shticks’
later I cracked the door open and peered out to see Wilma there in her dirty little feet and a just as dirty little nightie……
“Can I come in? Tommy
n’ me’s fightin’….” she says. I undo the last chain and open the door telling her sure, come
on in. She says she’s gotta’ pee and he’s locked her out of their apartment and heads straight for the bathroom
while I close the door before starting to the bedroom to put on some clothes……
Now earlier in the day Tommy
had been pie eyed and pissed on vodka (I think it was actually Aqua Velva aftershave lifted from Safeway)and was out on the
staircase at the back of the building, kinda’ like a fire escape, and was sitting with his feet dangling over the railing
yelling.
“WILMA! I’monna’ jump! I’monna’ jump Wilma!”.
He kept this up in spite of the “Jump! Mutherfucker! JUMP!”s coming from the kitchen
windows of our other neighbors until somebody finally called the cops. They’d been out before and knew Tommy and Wilma
well. He promised to be good and they left shortly thereafter…..
So – I don’t quite
make it to the bedroom to get some clothes when there’s a horrendous bang on the door. I mean it’s like BOOM BOOM
BOOM!! Then I hear Tommy yelling
“WIIIILLLLLMAAAAA!”
Aw hell, what a pain in the
ass. The door’s not even locked fer shits’ sake! So I go to open it and as I grab and just barely turn the handle
– In comes Tommy – flying through the door with his leg in the air just like Bruce fucking Lee.”HiyeeeeeAhhhhh!!”
So.. like Tommy wants a fight
I guess ‘cause his peach is in my bathroom and wearing nothing but a nightie and I am after all in my fucking underwear!
So I pin his ass against the wall and tell him “Sure, I’d love to cause you bodily harm… but not IN my
apartment” and I toss him towards the door. Now, just in case the locks didn’t work, I kept my little brothers
little league base ball bat next to the door (remember, I sold my gun). A little aluminum kiddie version… ya know?
So... as it would go, Tommy sees it and grabs it on his stumble-out-the-door. I follow him out into the urine vapor of the
hallway…. And he starts “SWINGIN” I mean for the fence! I hear the vvvoooshhh of the bat as
it breaks the voosh barrier. Once he cracks the banister with a crushing thud. I’m thinking “If he connects –
I’m going to the hospital…”and “Confined space!…. Gotta get outside!” So I lure him
down the stairway two flights down and out the front doors as he swings wildly, blood lust in his eyes! A very tense squirrel
he is! Not to mock his squirrelness – even squirrels can kill – if you stand still long enough.
Taking refuge behind an “OGBAFT”…
(Old-Growth-Big-Ass-Fucking-Tree) I have a moment to think….. The only thing that occurs to me is
“the best defense is a good offence” and I flash back to high school football drills. On the whistle you come
off the line from your three point crouch and raise your arms in the air in as menacing a pose as you can while screaming
at the top of your lungs and running until the coach blew the whistle again.
So… that’s what
I did.
He ran. Like the fucking nose biting
rodent he is… he runs, …. ruuunnsss like a son-of-a-bitch! Chasing squirrel boy a block down to Colfax and a
couple of blocks down past Sid’s Crazy Horse Lounge, he turns up Ogden and is a wraith in the strobe effect of the passing
streetlamps as he heads southward.
Pussy…..
I stop and, leaning
on my knees, catch my breath.
So there I am… midnight or thereabouts, on the corner of
Ogden and Colfax Ave., straight across the street from the Bluebird Theatre where twenty five cents and some lotion will get
you a good time. Did I mention I was in my underwear?
And the cops pull up. They’re wondering
what I’m doing on Colfax at midnight, out of breath and in my underwear. So I tell’em. Turns out it’s the
same two swing shift souls who responded to Tommy and Wilma’s DD earlier. They have a laugh and offer a ride back to
the building, (they’re just about to go off shift) and while they’re running me for warrants (you never know….
And I wasn’t so sure either) a Denver Fire unit races by…. And turns down Lafayette (my street).
“Hmmm…”
the cop says as he puts the cruiser into gear and rips away from the curb, briskly gassing it just before heavily breaking
in the left turn onto Lafayette. Sure as shit….. The apartment’s on fire! Smoke pouring out the window. “Awww….
Fuck Me…..”
It seems that while I was being interviewed by Denver’s
Finest Tommy had circled back, gone up to my apartment, chased Wilma home and spitefully placed my Bell Tourstar on the stove
and lit it. Now I just happen to know because the last job I had was as a partsman at Yamaha Denver (actually it was Kawasaki
West now that I think about it) that Bell discontinued the Tourstar because it was found to be more flammable than ping-pong
balls drenched in 151 (try it!). Fuck Me.
Tommy made his dash for freedom in the confusion,
and after the arson investigator left about 4:00am I lay my head down to sleep on my soggy fire-stenched couch. Wilma had
retreated to her sleeping surface and all was peaceful…. Until about 7:00am.
BOOM BOOOM BOOOOM! On the
door… “What the fuck mutherfucker!” I yelled. I’m thinkin’ “ I’m gonna’ beat
some squirrel ass. Ballsy fuck that he is, I’m gonna’ kick his ass.”
“MICHAEL!!!”
Now I don’t know about
you, but you can ask my brothers, when we were kids, we developed this Pavlovian kind of reaction to our fathers bellow of
our respective names. I would have pissed my pants if there were anything in my bladder. I opened the door (snick, clack,
thunk, shtick) and the look on Dad’s face was one of relief mixed with rage.
“Get dressed.”
He said. (I was still in my underwear.) “Let’s go to breakfast.”
Over a Grand Slam at Sambo’s
(pre Denny’s FBI debacle) he explained - It seems that he had been awakened by a friend who got the wee hour edition
of the Denver Post and was calling to ask how I was doing. “Fine…” he replied “as far as I know…”
It seems that a cub reporter
had gotten the blurbs over a scanner and….. well…….True story…..
