Lenny's Dead?
Lenny's Dead?
by Don Drewniak
Lenny Bowers
was a close teenage friend of mine and often
seemed to have a built-in attraction to
outrageous happenings.
Our friendship
continued on into adulthood. One of the many
times of getting together was either in late
summer or early fall of 1973 to watch Marlon
Brando in Last Tango in Paris at a
Boston movie theater. The theater was packed and
dead quiet as the infamous butter scene unfolded.
“That’s
disgusting!” yelled Lenny.
Laughter
rippled through the theater. If she had a knife
in her purse, I suspect that Claudette, his wife,
would have stabbed him. I tried to look as if I
was one of the many theater goers who had turned
to stare at Lenny.
Needless to
say, Claudette was seething as we left the
theater at the conclusion of the movie and headed
to a restaurant.
Once in the
restaurant, she purposely sat so that my wife,
Dolores, and I separated her from Lenny. Main
course finished, the four of us were into second
glasses of wine as we awaited desert. It was at
this point when Lenny and I broke into
uncontrollable laughter that continued for three
or four minutes as we used our napkins to wipe
the tears away from our cheeks.
“What’s
so funny, boys (with a heavy emphasis on boys)?”
asked Claudette.
In near unison,
Lenny and I replied, “We can’t tell you.”
“What do
you mean you can’t tell us?”
“Lenny
and I have made a pact that we tell no one until
one of us dies,” I said trying to sound
matter-of-fact.
“That may
be sooner than you boys think,” shot back
Claudette.
We held firm.
* * * * *
Fast forward
thirty-three years. Lenny and I had lost contact
with one another.
My wife and I
were at the Maryland home of my daughter and her
husband for a family get together. My son-in-law
and I opted to babysit for two toddlers while the
rest of the adults went to a restaurant for a
late evening dinner.
My cell phone
rang shortly thereafter.
“Don,
this is Mitch.” Mitch was the third co-conspirator
with Lenny and me during our high school days.
“What’s
up, Mitch?”
“I have
some terrible news.”
“Are you
and Roxanne okay?”
“We’re
okay, but Lenny is dead.”
“What?”
“We are
at our 45th reunion. They have a bulletin board
display with the names and blown-up yearbook
photos of all those in our class who passed away
since the last reunion. His picture is in the top
row with Leonard P. Bowers printed underneath. I’ve
been thinking about all the crazy times we had
back then.”
Mitch was
living in one of the small towns near Fall River,
Massachusetts where the three of us attended B.M.C.
Durfee High School, while Lenny was living in
Vermont and I was in Delaware. Lenny and I had
long-since stopped going to the reunions because
there were too many old people there.
“There
are less than fifty grads here and no one has any
more information.”
I thanked
Mitch for letting me know, grabbed a bottle of
Merlot and a glass. It was down to a basement
playroom. Back from the restaurant, Dolores came
down the stairs as I was working on my third
glass.
“Honey, I’m
so sorry.”
I nodded. My
son-in-law had told her about Lenny.
“How did
it happen?”
“Mitch
said that no one there knew. I’ll call his
town hall Monday and see if someone there knows.”
Claudette had passed away several years earlier.
I knew it was
coming, but Dolores waited a fair amount of time
before she hit me with the inevitable question,
“What was so funny that you couldn’t
tell me until Lenny passed on?”
“It was
nothing important.”
“You
promised.”
“Okay,
but this happened long before I met you.”
“Let’s
hear it.”
What the
hell? I’ll give it to her straight.
Given that by
then I was working on my fourth glass of wine, I
don’t remember precisely what I said, but
here is what happened as I remember it.
* * * * *
It was a few
weeks into the summer following my junior year at
Durfee. I left work after a ten-hour day at H.
Schwartz and Sons Lumber and Hardware in Fall
River at 5:30pm on a Saturday afternoon and
headed for Cape Cod where Lenny was living and
working for the third consecutive summer. In a
cooler in the trunk of my ’51 Merc was a six
pack of beer bought for me by a twenty-two year-old
friend. I picked up ice, a couple of sandwiches
and a Coke en route, getting to wherever it was
that Lenny was working ten or fifteen minutes
before he was scheduled to leave for the day.
He was ten to
twelve minutes late when he finally got into the
car.
“Take
your second right,” he said.
“I know
the place.”
“Good. We’ll
go back to my place after I pick up some beer. We’ll
have a couple and then see what’s happening
in town.”
“I’ve
got six cans in the cooler in the trunk.”
We’ll
need more than that for tonight and the beach
tomorrow. Say, is that a real cooler or are you
still using a waste basket?”
“A real
cooler, asshole.”
“The
moths must have escaped from your wallet.”
“Bug off.”
We pulled up
to Lenny’s favorite liquor store. Favorite
because the owner also owned the restaurant in
which he worked. Those who worked the counter
were told by the manager, who was told by the
owner, that Lenny was twenty-one.
As Lenny
walked into the store, I noticed a woman who
appeared to be in her late thirties, or maybe
early forties, standing next to another woman (or
girl who could have been anywhere from seventeen
to twenty something or other). Both were standing
about ten feet on the other side of the liquor
store door from where I was parked. They were
slender and wearing the shortest skirts I had
ever remembered seeing.
As soon as
Lenny exited with a bag in hand, the two “ladies”
quickly caught up to him before he reached my car.
After about three minutes of what appeared to be
animated conversation, all three approached the
car. Lenny opened the door and the younger (much
younger) of the two got into the back seat. Lenny
followed. The older one slid into the front seat
and sat about halfway between the door and me. (Note:
all cars back then had full-length front seats.)
What the
hell?
“Hi there,
Don, I’m Julie.” She then turned her
head toward the back seat and said, “ That’s
my daughter, Barbara. I know a nice quiet spot
where we can have a few beers and talk a little.”
Yah, right.
Off we went to
a semi-wooded area and drove onto a dirt road. We
stopped in an open field. There were three other
cars scattered about the field.
“What
about cops?” I asked.
“This is
private property. Fuzz don’t bother no one
here. Now who’s got the church key?”
My tongue
wouldn’t move, so I pointed to the glove
compartment as Lenny passed two cans of beer to
me. Pop, pop! She then tossed the church key over
the top of her head. It hit Lenny in the head who
uttered a couple choice words.
“Come on,
Lenny, you were supposed to catch it,” said
Julie while laughing.
My tongue
unfroze and I laughed.
Pop! Pop! All
was quiet as I started to sip my beer. Quiet for
two minutes, that is, until Julie said, “Hey,
Lenny, pass me another one.” Pop!
She slowly
closed the gap between us until our hips were
touching. I was beginning to sweat.
“Come on,
Don, finish that beer.”
“Lenny,”
she commanded, “pass another beer to Don.”
I finished my
first one. Pop!
A few more
minutes passed and I was, to use an expression
that was popular back then, sweating bullets.
She put her
left hand on my right thigh. “You’re
not nervous, are you?” she asked with a
voice that told me she knew that I was big-time
nervous.
A few more
minutes passed in silence. It was still light out
as I glanced in the rear-view mirror.
What the…?
No Lenny, no
Barbara.
Then the you-know-what
hit the fan. Lenny bounced up from the rear seat
and yelled, “You smell like rotten fish.”
That was
followed by the unmistakable sound of a hand
slapping Lenny across his face. Before I could
react, Julie poured what was left of her beer
onto my lap and then slapped me. That caused me
to drop my beer onto the seat.
The passenger
side door was pushed opened and out went the
ladies. Lenny and I sat in stunned silence for
what could have been anywhere from five to ten
minutes. When I finally was able to clear my
brain, I said, “Nice going, you really
screwed up our chances.”
In reality, I
was relieved.
* * * * *
Back home in
southeastern Delaware, I managed to get a hold of
the town clerk by phone in the town where Lenny
lived.
“This is
Ruth. May I help you?”
I identified
myself and asked her if she could provide me with
details about Lenny’s death.
“Lenny’s
dead? Lenny’s dead?” she nearly
screamed.
There was a
pause before I heard her say, “Muriel, Lenny’s
dead!”
Another pause.
“But…but,” said Muriel, “I
saw him at the bank Saturday morning. When…how
did it happen?”
What the
hell? How could she have seen him Saturday?
Then it hit me.
Lenny’s father’s first name was Leonard.
Gathering my
thoughts, I asked Muriel if Lenny’s father
lived in the area.
“He did.
He passed away several months ago.”
“Do you
know his full name?”
“Let me
check.”
She returned
to the phone some two minutes later. “Leonard
Paul Bowers. And, oh, hold on for a minute or two.”
Lenny’s
full name was Leonard Peter Bowers.
Ruth returned
to phone. “Muriel just called Lenny. He is
quite alive and he has a message for you.”
She paused.
“Asshole.”
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