Tall Tales Narrator: Back in the Day, Part One

Back in the Day, Part One

6/7/2021

19 May 1985

Peter and Abigail Whitman had a hell of a time getting into their first home. The projects they had been in since their wedding kept pace with their attempts to bring in more money, ensuring they could never quite set aside the cash they’d need to move out. Ultimately, Peter had to pick up an extra job and arrange to be paid under the table. It wasn’t legal, admittedly, but they avoided notice long enough to scrape together the bare minimum to secure a house on Sharon’s west hill. It needed some work, and Peter was probably going to have to walk to work for a while, and it only had two bedrooms, one of which would need to be shared between their young son and the child in Abigail’s womb, but it was theirs. That was enough.

They were in the house a month before they managed to have any real conversations with the neighbors, what with the pregnancy and Peter’s hours and all the work involved in moving in and sorting out a plumbing issue that was more of a hassle than they’d been led to believe. It was another week before the couple next door arranged to have a few other neighbors come by the house with food to help the Whitmans acclimate to the place. At this meeting, Abigail was surprised to encounter Janet Pawluk, now Janet Fielding, who had been a good friend in high school before leaving for college and losing touch with basically everyone Abigail knew. She’d recently moved back to the area with her husband and son, who Abigail just had to meet. So it was, the next day, that young Rick Fielding was plopped down in the living room in front of young Charles Whitman to entertain one another while their mothers slipped into the kitchen to catch up. The following Tuesday, the couples got together to play Rummy and the boys, already in their pajamas in case they fell asleep since it was almost eight already, found themselves staring at each other once again, this time in the Fieldings’ den.

And so it went, week after week the couples played cards and the boys were gradually accompanied by younger siblings. And then they were riding bikes together, and playing on the same Little League team, and finally in third grade got assigned the same teacher. And then they were tearing through the neighborhood together, sometimes with a friend from Charles’ church or the kid of someone from Janet’s book club and sometimes with a stray cousin, but always Rick and Charles. Sleepovers and music lessons and little wrestler figurines that seemed to drift from one house to the other without the parents having any idea which kid they actually belonged to. Charles was the first person to know about Rick’s crush on Rebecca Williams, and Rick was the first person to know that Charles might actually be gay, yes, like Elton John, but probably not quite like Elton John, whatever that meant, but that was later.

Because somewhere along the line they realized that West Hill Elementary ended after sixth grade and then they were going to be in the high school, with all those annoying brats from Musser and the stuck up pricks from Case and they didn’t really know what that meant but they did know it involved a whole lot of new people. New people who might like that show Rick laughed at and Charles didn’t, or had similar ideas about music that Charles tried to explain but Rick didn’t really understand. So they made a pact that they were going to be best friends forever, and not let anyone at that high school come between them, and they pricked their hands with safety pins until there was blood and spit on the blood and shared a secret handshake and that made it official. And they saw the little band aids on each others’ hands at school the next day and knew for certain that they really meant it.