Behind the Eight Ball

By Tom Frye

This is the story "behind" all of my stories, starting from when I was a kid growing up in Havelock and moving on through the 45 years I spent in the field of Youth Work. I may have a wild imagination, but this one is non-fiction and filled with true stories of my Life and Times.

For all you youth workers out there, I hope this

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Cat
• Release date: Aug 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781958557051

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

One Tough Kid 1992

1992

AS A Family Support Worker, I had transported my new 11-year-old client to Anger Management at Child Guidance. My caseworker informed me before I picked young Jessie up that he came from dysfunction junction. His father and his older brothers were bikers and she had received death threats on her and her unborn baby from this clan due to the fact Jessie had been removed from their home. Her last words to me were, Watch yourself. Jessie may prove to be a handful.

I sat there in the waiting room calmly reading a magazine, when suddenly, a barrage of words exploded from inside the session room. The door burst open. Jessie went racing down the hallway and dove into the opening door of an arriving elevator.

By the time I reached ground floor, Jessie was already two blocks ahead of me, heading for the Rampark Parking Garage.

When I reached the 6th floor of the open-air garage, Jessie had climbed onto the ledge and was seated facing forward, dangerously close to falling six stories to the sidewalk below. He held himself by only the tips of his fingers, his arms extended behind him, his head aimed in the direction of his proposed flight down as he said, Come any closer and I will jump!

I stayed where I was.

Jessie focused on the Social Services building two blocks away and said, Do you know what those assholes did to me? My entire family are bikers, and they placed me in the foster home of a damned cop! Who am I supposed to be loyal to? I just wanna die!

I determined at that point that young Jessie was determined to take the hard way down from there. Just listen to me, I said, winded from my run to catch him.

Jessie scooted himself to the edge of the ledge. I don’t wanna listen! I just want to jump!

Jessie gripped the ledge with his fingertips and leaned forward, tears glistening on his cheeks. He angrily spat, Some kids shoot themselves. Some kids take sleeping pills. Some cut their wrists. Some hang themselves. I used to think those kids were stupid! But, now I know why they do it.

Inching my way to his perch on the ledge, I froze when he snapped, They say I can’t go back to my real home for a long, long time. I just can’t take this, so just let me jump! Tell me, what do I have to live for?

Returning to your family one day, I said. You said they are all bikers, right? But since you just want do die, guess you ain’t a biker then, right?

What? Jessie snapped. What do you know about me? What do you know about any of this?

‘Oh, kid,’ I wanted to say, ‘I grew up wanting to be a biker all of my younger days! I dreamed of becoming a biker up until the day I got a reality check and got locked up in the detention home! Oh hell, yes, I knew all about bikers, kid, long before you were ever born!’

But I didn’t. Instead I said, Well, one thing bikers are that you’re not, and that is: Bikers are tough. If you were really that tough, you wouldn’t even think that suicide was an option. No, if you were really that tough, you wouldn’t let them win this one over on you.

Because toughness meant something to bikers. I knew that. So did he. He followed my gaze to the Social Services building, then looked down to the street far below.

I continued. Show them how tough you are. Climb down off that ledge, Jessie.

Twenty long minutes passed as I tried to convince him that suicide was not an option. After one last look to the sidewalk below, he lean-ed back, allowing me to haul him off the ledge. Relief washed over me. Something different settled on Jessie’s shoulders. Resolution. Determination. Perseverance. Maybe a combination of all three. Moments later, walking past the spot on the sidewalk where he would have landed had he jumped, Jessie muttered, I guess I’m tougher than I thought.

And my response to that was, Maybe we all are.

As I drove Jessie back home that day, I shared with him a story of my own childhood days.

A Step Away from my Childhood . . .

It was a midsummer’s night.

I was seven-years-old,

a barefooted boy romping through

patches of wild mint in my Grandma’s meadow.

The sleek, black form of Lightning

stepped from the shadows before me.

My heart racing, I faced the black horse.

He lowered his head, sniffing quietly.

I lifted my fingers in front of his nose.

Lightning stood like a king

in his moonlit pasture,

surrounded by whirling fireflies.

Everything else faded away,

the chirping crickets,

the rumbling train on the nearby tracks.

Lightning became the center of my universe.

We didn’t touch,

yet we connected.

It was a magical moment,

etched in my memory forever.

So it is for all of us.

Throughout our lives,

many such magical gems

appear for the gathering.

Like shiny jewels, images are triggered

by the silver moon on a spring night.

Traces of mist on a summer morning.

Gentle snowfall on a winter’s day.

Like beacons in a dark night of the soul,

magic moments come in a kaleidoscopic flash.

Others appear like a slow-swimming fish,

rising through cool water on a hot summer day.

Recalling Lightning,

another memory of staying in a small town

with my Grandma surfaced:

My stuffed monkey, Zippy.

Grandma suggested we wash his clothes

in her old-style washing machine.

I peeled off Zippy’s red overalls

and his bright yellow T-shirt.

Grandma washed his clothes,

then hung them on her clothesline to dry.

Later that week, rumors surfaced

all over the small town of Martell.

People claimed that the red overalls

and yellow T-shirt on her line,

belonged to Grandma’s newborn baby.

Grandma got quite a laugh over that one.

That memory lay buried for over 40 years,

and yet today I had a vision:

Grandma and Lightning staring at me,

as I crossed a moonlit meadow.

Lightning snorted in greeting.

Grandma smiled.

She then held up one hand,

and in it was . . . Zippy.

My mind plays strange games now and then.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

And so . . .

I did both.

CHAPTER TWO

The Condom Kid

1964 (9-YEARS-OLD)

HAVELOCK, founded in 1891 by a group of brawling Irish railroaders, had been a bustling railroad town for the Burlington. In my time, descendants of those railroaders owned the three taverns along the four block business district on Have Ave. Bob’s and Arnold’s taverns were frequented by the railroad crowd and the Goodyear Rubber crews. Misty’s, named after the Misty Isle of Ireland, was owned by Robert Milton, a rather colorful character whose ties to the Irish-Catholic community ran deep.

Lincoln, capitol of Nebraska, has three northern suburbs: Bethany, University Place, and Havelock. As a little kid I lived in the University Place suburb. When I was five-years-old, my dad and mom moved us to Havelock. My dad, a railroader, was fairly easy-going. I mean, it took a lot for him to lose his temper, and he never hit me or called me names. As dads go, he was a good guy, often working two jobs to pay the bills.

But my mom? She was a different story.

She had grown up a wild child herself in Beatrice, Nebraska. Her older brother had served time twice for car thefts and other crimes, and she had once been arrested for drinking beer as an underage minor. She had been with two bikers and wearing her black leather jacket, she went to jail down in Wymore just south of Beatrice. So, in other words, she was wise to all the crap I was always trying to pull, and she constantly confronted me over it.

Just like the time I was nine-years old and my friend, Tommy Wolfe, swiped a condom from a gas station bathroom. He brought it over to my house and opened it before my astonished eyes. He blew it up like a balloon, and ended up popping it, then tossing it in my dad’s ashtray. We went outside to play, never even thinking about the consequences of his stupidity. When I came in from playing, my mom stood beside the coffee table, glaring at me. She pointed to the con-dom in the ashtray and snapped, Do you see that? What the hell do you think that is?

I slouched my shoulders and casually said, It’s a balloon.

My mom asked, Where the hell did you get this balloon?From Tommy Wolfe, I said.

She threw her hands in the air, dumped the ashtray and the rubber in the trash, and muttered, That explains everything!

***

Later that day, after punching Tom on the arm, he swore to me he would never be that stupid again. As we approached the California Lunchroom, we were greeted by a gang of railroaders leaving the diner and heading back to the Burlington shops across the street. I stopped before going into the diner. Why did Patsy name this the California Lunchroom?

Tommy explained, When Patsy was a young girl, her father had planned to move their family from Chicago to California. But they only made it as far as Nebraska, so he opened up the diner, naming it the California Lunchroom as a memento of his broken dreams.

Tommy led us into the diner where we were greeted warmly by Patsy, the elderly owner of the popular eatery. Visitors, Patsy said as we sat on stools situated before a long soda bar. I love visitors.

Tommy said, So, Patsy, tell us about your most famous visitor.

Charlie, Patsy said. Charles Lindbergh the world-famous pilot used to land his plane at Arrow Airport, west of Havelock, then visit me! He sat right there on that stool you’re seated on, drinking coffee and eating donuts. Charlie was a really nice guy.

Tommy said, Knowing that Charlie sat here, makes me feel connected to the larger world beyond insignificant Havelock.

Insignificant? Patsy said. Did I ever tell you about the time Pete Wolfe and his wife visited a bookstore in Dublin, Ireland? Good lord! Pete and Jackie found a map of Nebraska tacked to a wall, and some-one had crossed out Lincoln on the map and marked Havelock as the capitol of Nebraska!

Staring at her in amazement, I said, But Havelock isn’t even listed on a Nebraska map! Who in Ireland would know about us?

Probably Robert Milton, Tommy said. Owner of Misty’s steak house. He visits Ireland every year. My mom claims he was a gun-runner for the Irish Republican Army. He even has a plaque in his pub that the IRA gave him for sending them guns! Mom even said before I was born, a house in Havelock blew up one night! Afterwards, firemen discovered an arsenal of guns in the ruins. Bob Milton had planned to ship them to Ireland.

Yes, Patsy said, he’s a ruffian. And yet, for the past thirty years on Saint Pat’s Day, Bob gets spruced up in his green suit and greets guests at the Emerald as the Lord Mayor of Havelock. Why, he even claims that green beer flows in his veins!

***

That night, Tommy Wolfe and I camped out in my backyard. At midnight, we crawled out of our pup tent, zipped up our sweatshirts, --and crept along the quiet streets of Havelock. Summer was coming, but the air was still nippy, numbing the ends of our noses, causing us both to sniffle. Far above us, bright stars dotted the night sky. The moon’s radiance trickled down through overhead branches, cast shadowy webs on the street. Both of us leaped nimbly from space to space, making a game of not placing our feet on shadow lines.

Step on a crack, Tommy said, you’ll break your mom’s back!

We exchanged knowing smiles, aware of the moment and the magic of the night, pleased to be on a mysterious adventure. At the park, we moved past the old stone library toward the grove of pine trees standing tall on the green lawn and towering above us. Tommy said, My dad claims these trees are like old, noble kings. If so, they got gypped, because their kingdom is like a tiny green island that barely takes up two city blocks! We got gypped, too! Two picnic shelters, one playground, sixty trees, and the city calls this dinky place a park?

When we stopped beside the manhole leading to the Havelock tunnels, a sewer system that ran beneath the suburb, we dared each other to clamber down the iron rungs set in the tunnel’s graffiti-covered walls to descend to the storm sewer’s floor nine feet below. Once down in those depths the tunnels ran three blocks south to Ballard Park or five blocks north to the Burlington train yards.

In the daylight, we’d oftentimes raced down those tunnels, splashing through puddles of water and skidding through slick patches of mud, without the benefit of a flashlight, setting our sights on the small white dot marking the sewer’s exit in the distance. But that night, however, neither one of us rose to the dare of descending into those eerie dark depths.

When we heard a noise behind us, we glanced back and found ourselves peering directly into the dark eyes of this spooky looking man with an extremely red face. He was staring back at us with his bugged-out eyes.

He creeped us out so bad, we ran away.

The Red Faced Man followed us.

We took off running down the street, and he ran to catch us. We lost him near Ballard pool and when we got to Tom’s breeze way of the Wolfe’s house on 68th and Colfax, we slipped inside. Moments later, the Red Faced Man walked by the house, the cherry on his cigarette illuminating his homely face. His eyes drifted up to the house. Inside the breeze way, Tom and I held our breath. He appeared to be peering directly at us. The Red Faced Man tossed his smoke and continued on down the street, disappearing into the night.

CHAPTER THREE

The Red Faced Man

1964 (9-YEARS-OLD)

TWO days later, Tom and I found the police investigating a window peeper incident two houses from my house. The neighbor lady reported that she had looked up at her bedroom window and she saw the red cherry of a cigarette on the outside of her screen. She screamed and the window peeper ran, but he left behind burn marks from his cigarette in the center of the lady’s window screen.

Tom and I knew it was the Red Faced Man, and we tried to convince our moms. However, my mom said it was my wild imagination. Three nights later, she drove down to the Safeway Store, parking in what is now Misty’s Steak House parking lot. While she went inside the store, she left me sleeping in the car, with the windows up and the doors locked.

When I woke up, I found myself looking directly up at the Red Faced Man! I screamed and he ran. When my mom got out to the car, I was in hysterics. In fact, she had to take me to the emergency ward where they gave me a shot in the butt to calm me down.

When the nurse asked what had brought this on, my mom said, He keeps seeing this Red Faced Man every where. It’s his imagination, like the white tigers he swore he saw roaming our neighbor-hood a year ago.

Yes, I did say I saw white tigers, but that is because stupid Timmy Shepherd scared the crap out of me by telling me about them. I had been on my way home that night as dusk settled on the neighborhood, and the Bully of our block, Tim Shepherd, blocked my path, towering over me by about a foot. I was already late and didn’t want to be grounded, but big-mouthed Tim would not let me past him.

He kept saying, The white tigers are out prowling in the alleys tonight. They are hunting for someone to eat. The white tigers are going to pounce on you, and eat you while you lay there screaming!

By then, I was getting really spooked. Tim was three years older than me and he was really getting off on how badly he was terrifying me. I vividly recall my hand transforming into a fist. I then did something that surprised me so badly that after it was over, I just stood there for long moments.

I hauled off and slugged Tim Shepherd right in his left cheek. I hit him hard, too. So hard, he flew back and sprawled on his butt on the sidewalk. He started bawling and carrying on, while I stood there stunned by how well my survival reaction had been.

A short while later, Tim had the audacity to bring his mom over to my house to confront me in front of my mom about how I had beat him up. It was pretty pathetic, too, with Tim towering over me by a foot. My mom simply laughed, ushered me back inside the house, and dismissed them both, still laughing to think that I had actually plowed my fist into the face of the Block Bully.

Now the white tigers I never did see, but I for sure saw the Red Faced Man.

That night at the hospital, the nurse and my mom chuckled over my story of both the white tigers and the Red Faced Man, and I came home feeling stupid and with a sore butt from the shot.

No one believed there was a Red Faced Man prowling the streets of Havelock. So two nights later, Tommy Wolfe and I armed ourselves with baseball bats and set out on a mission to prove he existed. We walked up Benton Street, determined to catch the Red Faced Man peeking in some unlucky lady’s window. But halfway up the dark street, all the bravado went out of our sails as another neighbor kid leaped out from behind a car and scared the hell out of us. I stood my ground, baseball bat raised to destroy. Tommy Wolfe, however, flung his bat in the air, dove to the ground, and began screaming at the top of his lungs.

So our mission for the night came to a screeching halt.

***

The next night, my dad and I were coming home from the Hinky Dinky grocery store on Adams, when the Red Faced