Whitlow-Mazer

   It was a fine Saturday morning in 1961, free of the heat the summer sun would bring later. I got up early to enjoy my vacation. I had to recuperate from the eighth grade.
   Today I was to meet the two Tommies at old lady Brewer's tree. Mrs. Brewer hates for us to climb her shade sycamore, but we do it anyway.
   I walked quickly down the alley that led to her yard. This morning I read again the wonderful words of President Kennedy.
   "Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths and encourage the arts and commerce."
   They fill me with such a spirit of desire to do great things that I'm doubly disappointed when I looked around at my reality.
   Picking up an English walnut that fell from the wide-spreading tree two yards over from where the guys were, I threw hard at the garage whose roof formed a floor onto which we stepped from a sycamore branch. The small

 

 

missile smacked loudly against the garage's tin side.
   Tommy Billings' strawberry head shot up over the peak of the garage roof. "What the hell?" was written all over his face, but he held his tongue, until he saw that it was me. "You sonofabitch, what the hell are you trying to do?"
   I just laughed and made my way around the garage to the fork in the sycamore's trunk where I climbed up.
   Because both of the other boys were named Tommy, we gave them nicknames.
   Tommy Billings, who lived directly across the alley from the tree, is known as the Haskell. His hero is Eddie Haskell from the 'Leave It to Beaver' TV show.
   Tommy Kirk has been the Scooter ever since he faked us out of our Keds running back football kickoffs.
   "Give me a cigarette," I said to Scooter.
   "Here." He handed me a Marlboro. "What were you trying to do, Smartie? Scare the shit out of us, by throwing that rock?"
   "Yeah," the Haskell said in a nasty tone, "Scooter thought his Mommy might hear and see that he was smoking and punish his scared ass."