Tommy Can You Hear Me?



Art by Mariana Autilio, Buenos Aires

I grew up in a small coal mining town in Southwestern Pennsylvania, Portage, to be exact. My early childhood memories are of the small two-story house we lived in, at 906 Gillespie Avenue. The house is still there, and it doesn’t look a lot different than when it was my familiy's home. It was a nice neighborhood to grow up in. Portage was a safe town to be a kid in. Our home was within walking distance to the elementary school, it was only a block from downtown, there were other children around to play with, and there was lots of openspace.

It was a summer day when I was four or five that my mother got a telephone call from Mrs. M., who lived on the next block down the street. She wanted to know if I could come over and play with Tommy, her son. Tommy was the same age as me, so my mom said “Yes.” So, off I went to Tommy's house. Tommy turned out to be a fun kid to hang around with, we became friends.

My sisters Shan & Kathy, Tommy and me.

Tommy was, in fact, my first best friend. I have an old picture of him somewhere. I am on a tricycle, and Tommy is standing on the back of it, with his big goofy, Italian heritage smile.


Portage wasn't known then, or now for it's affluence. It was made up of immigrant families, who were blue collar workers for the mines and steel mills. A lot of my friends' grandparents came from "the old country." I remember that Tommy's parents made enough money to buy him great birthday and Christmas gifts. They showered him with all the toys the rest of us kids wanted. He was a nice kid, and he had great toys. Going to Tommy’s house to play was lots of fun!


There was something odd about him. Tommy was different from the other children in the neighborhood. At the time, I didn’t know why he was different. He just was. There was another boy, who lived next door to me, Alan. Alan was also of Italian decent, his grandmother has a small pizza shop tucked in an alley behind Shoenfeld's Department Store. I remember her Italian accent, when she would yell at the kids goofing around there.  Alan wasn’t like Tommy. Alan was a bully. Even at five years old he had developed the habits of someone who would become the bane of both my and Tommy’s existence.


As I got older, I realized Tommy was gay. At five years old, he was gay. Anyone who tells me that being gay is a choice, I ask them to explain Tommy. Who would choose to be gay in a small coal mining town, filled with hard working, hard drinking, crazy decedents of immigrants? No one. No more than I would have chosen to be the skinny, and anxious-ridden little boy I once was. But there we were, me, the skinny kid, Tommy, the gay kid, and Alan, the bully. I don’t think Alan made a conscious decision to be a punk-ass bully at five either. We were all dealt our hands early in life. Needless to say, this made for an interesting childhood. I had the Ying and Yang of friends, except Ying like to beat the piss out of Yang and me. Sometimes Tommy would join in with Alan’s bullying of me. Tommy was big kid, and having him as a sidekick was understandable. Other times, I would side with Alan. It was a typical childhood in that regard.


When I was seven, my family moved from the house on Gillespie Avenue, into a bigger home in the same town. Tommy was by that time going to the local Catholic school. I went to the public school, and saw Tommy less and less. My first best friend and I had parted ways. People think that everyone knows everyone else in a small town. That’s not true. Like in adulthood, the circle of people you associate with is really very small.


I didn’t see much of Tommy during those years. I would sometimes see him downtown, or at the local park. It’s funny how quickly people can move apart from each other when what they have in common ends. Living on Gillespie Avenue was the environment that the friendship grew in.  Moving away ended it.


Time passed - elementary school, to middle school and then onto Portage Area Junior Senior High School. The years blurred together. Then one day, Tommy showed up at the high school. The rumor was that the bullying by the good Christian boys at Bishop Carroll High School had become so bad, Tommy had to leave there. By then, his being different had become more apparent, even if Tommy hadn’t “come out.” In fact, I don’t know if anyone had ever seen Tommy with another boy, or if he ever was. That he seemed gay was enough.


Tommy hung out with the misfits in the Thespian Society at the high school, I hung out with the misfits who went to Admiral Peary Vo-Tech. I would sometimes see Tommy being bullied, and I was thankful it wasn’t me. Tommy was like a trailer in the path of a tornado - the bullies went after him first. Just walking from one class to another would be a trial for him, the hate-filled words of “faggot,” "queer" and “homo,” were what Tommy had to endure. Gym class would have been a nightmare. Using the restroom would have put Tommy in harm’s way. I had my own run-ins with bullies waiting for someone to pounce on in the boy’s restroom. I can’t imagine the terror that Tommy had to go through every day.


Looking back now, I am sorry that I didn’t stand up for Tommy. Maybe if all of the misfits would have banded together, we could have changed things. But, we didn’t. Each of us was too afraid for ourselves.


Tommy, me and Alan graduated high school. I went to The Ohio Institute of Technology. Tommy went to Penn State University and graduated four years later. Alan went into construction, and eventually made his way to Las Vegas, and dealt cards for a while.


I would run into Alan, and some of the other once-bullies at class reunions, and they would pat me on the back, drink beer and talk about the good old high school days. I don’t know what the hell they were remembering. They had all forgotten, or never acknowledged, the psychological terror and physical pain they inflicted upon us.


Tommy never showed up at a class reunion. I don’t blame him. I don’t think I saw him ever again after high school. We both got out of our small town, and moved on. I heard Tommy had moved to New York City for a while. I hope he found some happiness, acceptance and love there.


He eventually moved to Boston and was manager of the Disney Store in Faneuil Hall. Tommy as manager of the biggest Disney Store in New England, that must have been a wonderful time for him. Still the kid with the best toys!


Tommy died on Christmas Eve in 1992, in the Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia, of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. People speculated that it was probably AIDS. People are like that.

He was 35.

I wish I could have seen or talked to him one more time, to thank him for being my friend.

Christians believe that Jesus was scourged and suffered for three days. Tommy was scourged daily, and suffered for years. Supposedly Jesus knew his fate, and willingly chose it. Tommy didn’t have a choice. Some believe people like Tommy go to a place called Hell. Tommy had already endured Hell for most of his life. I think he would have seen an eternal pit of fire to be a welcome change of pace. Tommy didn't deserve his life’s fate, and he doesn’t deserve to be judged by anyone in heaven or here on Earth. I don't think he will be judged in the afterlife for the way he was born. I think people like Tommy endure a very hard life for the purpose of teaching us compassion for other. They should be rewarded in the afterlife, if there is a place we go to when we die.


Many years ago, in a small town in Pennsylvania, the face of God was a little boy with a big goofy smile on the back of my tricycle.


Tommy can you hear me? Tommy can you see me? I’m sorry, my old friend, my first best friend. I’m sorry I didn’t stand up for you.

Copyright 2012 Ted Sky All rights reserved.