The Secret Life of Tommy Westwind
By James Taylor
Molly Potter, septuagenarian black women, sat on
the cast iron grate that jutted out from the stone wall of the firehouse.
She wore an old dress that both she or some other young girl, many years ago,
had partied in when times held promises, and promises meant good times.
Molly was watching the fireman cutting and raking the grass as they did every
Wednesday. She was drunk, as she was very Wednesday, and her hands slowly
pulled her wig down over her wrinkled brow and held it against her face.
Twisting and turning the synthetic apparel she slowly returned it so that it
rested backwards upon her head as an ignoble crown.
Lieutenant Tommy Westwind was embarrassed as he
watched her. The cutters and rakers were white: he and Molly were
black. Tommy Westwind took pride in his Indian ancestry. Nobody
seemed to take him seriously when he talked of his ancient forebears being
hornswoggled out of their lands north of the Capitol City. Tommy, through
past intermarriages, had evolved into an American Black, yet his heart belonged
to the Great Spirit that he prayed to. Baptists, with their gospel
shouting bothered him; foreign blacks that he referred to as goat-eaters
bothered him; the Black fireman’s group that was always into politics and
never found time to help the children, bothered him; and Molly potter who was
slowly exposing herself, as she sat in a very unlade-like manner, bothered him.
The other fireman began to make crude remarks and
joke with Molly. Maybe she would place her wig over her face again, maybe
she would drink some more and pass out. Maybe, just maybe, they could
coax her into further embarrassing Lieutenant Westwind. Molly Potter was
beyond embarrassment, but Tommy Westwind began to react, and the others seemed
satisfied.
“Get out of here
you ol douche bag!” he shouted. He began to feel less black, less
Indian, and less human. “God damn!” he said to himself, “God
damn it!”
At times like this, Tommy Westwind wished that he
could be with his relatives on the reservation in Upper New York where the
older people, like Molly, could live out their remaining years with respect and
return to Mother Earth. The city held no such hope, nor could Molly or
Tommy ever find sanctuary beneath the concrete and asphalt that so boldly and
callously separated man’s spirit from the bosom of the Earth. Molly
now seemed to be settled for the day so Tommy, in a reluctant manner, ordered
his men to finish up and get back into the firehouse. Molly slowly got up
as the last raker filed into the cavernous stone building and locked the door
behind him, just as Lieutenant Westwind had ordered.
Molly in her party dress
and wearing her ignoble crown got up and walked around to the front door and
tried the doorknob and said that she wanted to use the bathroom. “I
anin't getting your crabs!” bellowed the man on watch and pulled down the
shades so that Molly couldn’t look in.
Several hours later, when the shift had ended, Lieutenant Westwind
got into his car, drove to the Bulkeley Package Store, and purchased a bottle
of vodka.
He then drove to a
single-family home that had stood for a hundred years. Ringing the doorbell
twice, he proceeded through the old oak door. After all, old amigos were always
welcome. “Tommy!” shouted Molly, she was almost sober now and
her hair was on straight. “How come you’re always locking me
out?” Tommy didn’t answer. He had taken a couple of
glasses from the cabinet and started to pour the colorless liquid.
“You know at one time my ancestors owned half of this land”.
“They were Blackfoot Indians.” “Oh go on, you’re
nothing but a jive-assed n*****.” choked Molly as the elixir reached her
stomach. As the evening wore on, Molly’s imagination soared to
interplanetary heights, as Tommy weaved tales of dauntless braves and of his
valorous Indian heritage. She believed him to be an illustrious
chief. Tommy watched as she applied some lipstick and fixed her
hair. He envisioned his companion in her party dress, mellowed and
obscured by the alcohol, the garment lost its wrinkles and stains of soot from
the city. For a brief time in their lonely lives, until the firewater ran
out, the Great Spirit would smile down on them and their cosmic spirits would
find peace in the venerable brotherhood of man.
(Based on a true incident and a true friend in 1970)