Dennis O'Toole, Bridie (Flynn) Winch, Terence Winch. Rockaway Beach, NY, August 1948.
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When I was five I was involved in an accident that has affected me deeply for the last 70 years. My best friend was a boy named Dennis O'Toole, who lived in the building next to mine on Daly Avenue in the Bronx. One summer day in 1951 the two of us filled up our water guns in my family's apartment & headed out to play. I remember that my mother was ironing & cautioned us to be careful as we ran out of the house.
But we weren't careful. I was about a foot in front of Dennis as we tore across the street, shooting our guns in the air & laughing. Then, suddenly, I sensed something had changed.
When I turned around, I saw that Dennis had been knocked back to the other side of the street, where he was propped up against the tire of a parked car. It was a ghastly scene. There was vomit coming from his mouth and his forehead appeared to be missing. To my left was a black truck. Clearly, I had very narrowly escaped my friend's fate. My memory of all this has always played in my mind without any sound, a silent movie. I think I was in shock.
Since that terrible black truck ran into my interior life, not a day has gone by when I haven't re-lived this experience. Part of me has always felt that one of my assignments was to live life for both of us.
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Survivor
I imagine you are just now settling down
for the night, your bed as white as mayonnaise,
which some people apparently prefer to ketchup
or even mustard. I don’t know what you would
have liked, but I pretend that you are exactly like me,
that you have lived on inside my body, my psyche
and have done so since that day you died.
I see you as you start to drift off, up there
amid the clouds shaped like clusters of forbidden
fruit, dressed in your flour-white communion suit
and short pants, never to be seen again, never
to attend the Friday night dance at St. Helena’s,
never to get drunk with me on blackberry brandy
in the boys’ bathroom, your absence looming
over the history of the world as I’ve known it.
It couldn’t be prevented. The sudden rip
that took you on your trip to the beyond,
while I stayed right here, forever wondering
what hit you on the street that summer day
but failed to take me away as well. I am bereft
of you. I am all now that is left of you.
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Terence Winch, James (Jesse) Winch, Dennis O'Toole. Rockaway, NYC. August 1948.