General Fiction posted March 14, 2024

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Tommy gets a computer

A chapter in the book What We See

What We See - Chapter 21

by Jim Wile

The author has placed a warning on this post for language.

Background
A high school teacher wrongly accused of sexual assault reinvents his life.

Recap of Chapter 20: Alan goes to Tommy’s baseball game and helps cheer Tommy’s team on to a 6-5 victory over a team where his friend Artie was the catcher. After getting three straight hits, Tommy is struck by the other team’s pitcher and falls to the ground. Artie helps him up and chews out his own pitcher for doing that.

Artie has been taunted the whole game by the opposing third baseman, but he ends up smashing a two-run homer near the end of the game and runs over his foot in the process of rounding the bases. After the game, Alan treats the family, as well as Artie, to ice cream.

The following day, they all practice hitting and fielding together, including Artie again, whom Alan and Ginnie both realize is a pretty good kid after all.

Chapter 21

Mid-August, 1985

Summer was going well on all fronts. The business was thriving, and I was now getting repeat customers as well as a number of word-of-mouth customers, which I had hoped for. I no longer needed to put constant ads in the newspaper for the business because I had all that Tommy and I could handle for the time being.

He was proving to be a great help to me. Sure, it took a little bit longer to complete a job because of all the explaining I did, and he wasn’t yet as adept as I was at working with the tools. But he was learning fast and could make a few diagnoses by himself now on certain repair projects. Eventually, I turned a few things over to him to do on his own, although I would check over his work. He always did a quality job. I was proud of him and told him so.

We enjoyed listening to the Dr. Gwen Stewart radio program together, and we would turn her show on for a couple of hours while we worked. It was a nice routine.

Ginnie, Tommy, and I continued to do many things together on Sundays, including movies and bowling, and Ginny and I would go on dates alone on a number of occasions.

I finally got around to calling Earl Pinkham, as I had promised I would at the hospital that night. Seems like ages ago that we were all gathered in that room to hear Tina’s confession, but it’s only been two months.

“David, I want to apologize again,” he said then, “because I have to admit I didn’t give you much of a chance to defend yourself. I am so ashamed about the whole episode. I’d like you to know that I took myself out of the running to be the superintendent, and Suzie and I mutually agreed to stop seeing each other. Suzie and Tina felt so badly about it that they even agreed to tell the story to a reporter.”

“I was wondering how that story got into the news article on the attack and arrest of Tony.”

“Yes, and because of the blowback on them, Suzie quit, and they moved out-of-state. Tina was being shunned by her friends, and all sorts of ugly things were being said and done to her. She just took it, but neither of them thought they had much future in this town.”

“That’s a sad ending to the story, but maybe that’s what she needed to really drive home the lesson. It may not have helped her grow had she escaped this with little harm. She has skated through life on her good looks, but now she’s gotten a good reality check.”

“I think you’re right. Look, David, it seems as though you never let this stop you and you’ve achieved success in another venture, but if you ever change your mind and want to teach again, I would hire you in an instant. I know this seems too little, too late, but I’d like to try somehow to help undo the damage I assisted in causing you.”

“I appreciate that, Earl, but if I do resume teaching one day, it would likely be at the college level, where the students are more mature. Besides, I haven’t quit teaching altogether. I plan to begin teaching some computer classes very soon, and I’ve already been developing the curriculum.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that. I think you’re a natural-born teacher, and that seems to be your calling. I wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors.”

“Thank you, Earl.”

Near the end of summer, just a couple weeks before school started again for Tommy, Ginny asked me if I could recommend a computer, which she wanted to buy him for his 13th birthday coming up in another week. On a Saturday afternoon after Little League season was over, Ginnie told me that Tommy would be spending the afternoon at Artie’s house and would be staying there for dinner. She said it would be the perfect time to go shopping for a computer. I had been waiting for this. I invited her over to the store.

“I know how badly Tommy has wanted a computer of his own, and I happen to have one that I’ve refurbished and now works perfectly.”

I showed it to her then and demonstrated a few things. “I even installed a mouse that didn’t originally come with it and loaded the appropriate driver into the system files.”

“I have no idea what you just said.”

“Oh, sorry. Doesn’t matter. Let me show you how it works,” and I demonstrated it to her.

“That’s so cool!”

“I figured I’d give the computer to Tommy one day, but I knew that you’d promised to get him one, so I thought maybe it should come from you. Why don’t you take it, and you can give it to him?”

“Alan, that is so generous, but I couldn’t do that. It would still be from you, not me. You must let me buy it from you.”

I thought about that, and it made sense. I knew she didn’t have a lot of money to spend, so I said, “Okay. Name your price.”

“This looks like a pretty good brand—much better than what I could afford. Radio Shack is selling a TRS-80 for about $200, and that’s just about what I could afford. I’m sure this computer is worth a lot more than that, but that’s all I could pay for it right now, unless you could accept that as a down payment, and I could pay you some more eventually.”

“Remember, this is a refurbished computer, so it will have depreciated a lot. Tell you what. I’ll take $150 for it, and not a penny more.”

She stared at me. “You drive a hard bargain, Alan.”

I laughed at that, and she laughed too. “Take it or leave it.”

“Alright, you win. $150 it is. Will you take a check?”

“Hmm. I don’t know. It’s not made of rubber, is it?”

“Alan!”

“Of course I will. Let me put it in a box for you, and I’ll carry it over to your house. I can help you set it up if you’d like, or I can just show you how.”

Together, we carried it over to her house and went right upstairs to Tommy’s room, where she’d planned to set it up. It took hardly any time at all. We placed the system unit on his desk, set the monitor on top, and plugged it, the keyboard, and the mouse into the back of the unit. It had a single 5 ¼ inch floppy disk drive, and I inserted the system diskette into it and booted up the computer.

Everything worked perfectly, and up came the DOS command prompt, ready for action. A couple of games came on the system diskette, and I started one up. It resembled the arcade game Pong. I showed Ginnie how to play, and she tried it out.

“Tommy’s going to love having his own computer, Alan. He’s been bugging me about it for a long time. Thank you for making this possible for me to buy for him.”

She reached up and gave me a kiss on the lips. I grabbed her around the waist then, and we kissed again. This was more than a quick peck on the mouth. It was a full-blown lip lock, and our arms encircled each other, with our bodies coming into maximum contact. Our breathing quickened as our passion was aroused. After a while, she wriggled out of the hug, then took me by the hand, out of Tommy’s room and down the hall to her room, where we closed and locked the door.

When Tommy came back around 7:00, he found us at the kitchen table, where we were enjoying hamburgers cooked on a little hibachi on her back patio and corn on the cob. “Hey, you guys. Having fun without me here?”

Ginnie and I looked at each other and smiled. “We couldn’t stop thinking about you,” she said. Tommy rolled his eyes.

“By the way, sweetie, I know your birthday isn’t ‘til next week, but feel like getting an early birthday present?”

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?”

I laughed, but Ginnie said, “Tommy! Language!” She saw me laughing and said, “Don’t encourage him. What does that even mean?”

I said, “I think he mixed two metaphors. ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’ and ‘Does a bear poop in the woods?’”

Ginnie laughed then. “Did you do that on purpose, or was it the dyslexia that caused that?”

“Artie says it all the time.”

“I see. Thank you, Artie! I take it that was a yes then?”

“So, where is it, Mom?”

“Let’s go up to your room.”

“Oh, boy! I think I know what it is.” He went charging out of the kitchen and up the stairs with us following behind. He spotted the computer on his desk and said “Wow! My own computer. Thank you, Mom.”

“Alan put it together for you, Tommy. Better thank him too.”

He pulled us both into a group hug and said, “Thanks, Alan. You guys are the best!” The group hug lasted for all of three seconds when he released us and said, “Did it come with any games?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I bought you a couple. There’s one called 'Zyll' and another that is a flight simulator where you can fly several different airplanes. I especially like that one. You can learn to fly big jets and use the mouse to control it. It’s really fun.”

“Cool. Can you show me how to do it?”

I looked at Ginnie. “Okay with you, Mom?”

“Sure. I’d like to see this too.”

I then showed him how to call it up from the diskette it was on and get it started. We started with the small Cessna plane to give him a feel for flying. The graphics were quite good, and it looked a lot like flying in a real plane, from the takeoff, to the cruising in the air, to the landing at the same or a different airport. He got the hang of it quite quickly after crashing his plane a few times.

Ginnie wanted to try it out too, and Tommy turned the controls over to her. (He handed her the mouse.) We spent the next hour flying, crashing, and sometimes landing successfully. They both loved it.

Ginnie and I decided to leave Tommy alone for a while. “Let’s cut it off by 10:00 bedtime, Tommy. You’ve got two weeks to play with your computer before school starts up again. I expect you to still do some reading, kiddo. We don’t want your reading muscles to atrophy.”

He was so absorbed in the game, he didn’t respond. “I still want 15 minutes of reading before you go to bed. Got it?”

“Got it, Mom.”

“Okay. We’ll leave you alone now.”

He turned to us before we left. “Thanks again, guys. I couldn’t have asked for a better present.” He was beaming.

“You’re welcome. See you later,” said Ginnie. We closed his door and went downstairs again.

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Recognized

CHARACTERS

David (later Alan) Phelps: The narrator of the story. He is a 28-year-old high school physics and natural science teacher in Grantham, Indiana in 1985.

Earl Pinkham: The principal of Grove Park High School where David teaches

Suzie Cassidy: The school secretary and mother of Tina Cassidy

Tina Cassidy: A 16-year-old high school sophomore in David Phelps's class

Bobby Harken: David's friend and fellow teacher

Archie: David's orange tabby cat

Tommy Boardman: Alan's 12-year-old next door neighbor. He is dyslexic like Alan.

Ginnie Boardman: Tommy's mother. She is 30 years old and is an ICU nurse.

Artie Intintoli: Tommy's friend who also lives on Loser St.

Ida Beeman: Alan's first customer. She is a nice old lady who lives on Loser Street.

Tony Armand: Tina Cassidy's boyfriend and the father of her baby. He is a star football player at Grove Park High.

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Tommy gets a computer

A chapter in the book What We See

What We See - Chapter 21

by Jim Wile

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