O'Toole's Bazooka

It's pretty obvious by Tucker O'Toole's appearance that he's never spent a day tasting dust. His oxfords sparkle with such polish that one finds themselves looking north, then south along Spring Street trying to catch a glimpse of the shoe shine boy. O'Toole's green and white plaid shirt smells of starch hot from the steam iron. And his bushy white beard could easily have just walked out of a shampoo commercial.

His blue eyes twinkle behind rimless spectacles as he clasps an object above his head. The object could be a supersized kumquat or something else entirely.

O'Toole gently lobs it between his left and right hands a time or two before he sits down, cross-legged on the sidewalk among the group of wide-eyed youngsters, mostly boys between the ages of ten and twelve years. There are three girls in the group and they, too, are mesmerized by the object held between the old man's long, bony fingers.

O'Toole's silvery voice holds the children spellbound, as his thumb pushes a hole in the sticky glob. Then, with both hands, he pulls it apart as if it were a long elastic band. Once again he rolls it into a ball.

"When I was six or seven, folks thought if you swallowed this stuff, it would stick to your stomach and make you fat. Others thought if you swallowed it, it'd stick in your throat. They figured that's why some people had Adam's Apples.

"But my Dad, six brothers and me didn't have much in the way of money, so we never swallowed ours. We saved it.

"When mine wasn't in my mouth, it was stuck to the back of the wood burner, cause that stove was always hot and kept my wad soft. After putting it in a safe spot right under the curve of the stove pipe, I'd mosey on down to the cafe on Church Street and check underneath all the tables and chairs. Whatever bits I found, came home with me in my pockets and got added to my stash."

One of the little girls sitting by O'Toole, fidgeted some, placed a small plump hand on his knee, and asked timidly, "How long did it take until it growed this big, sir?"

O'Toole grinned. "Well now youngster, I start chewin when I was six and just this year celebrated my 69th birthday, so I reckon this wad is 63 years old. Of course, not all of it's that age cause I've been adding to it right along."

A red-headed, freckled-faced boy waved his hand in the air. "Mister. Mister! Did ya ever lose your wad?"

"Nearly did once, young feller. Happened when I was chewin pretty seriously and it accidently flew out of my mouth. Rolled across the ground a couple of feet or so and suddenly this Jack Russell terrier pounced on it. Had to wrestle that dog nearly an hour to get my wad from between his jaws. I was a lot more careful in my chewin after that."

Further back in the crowd, a pair of twins exchanged a grimmace. One wrinkled his pert nose, while the other asked, "You didn't chew it after that dog did, did-ja?"

O'Toole chuckled. "It's no big deal, son. No matter who chews it, it ain't gonna lose its flavor. Can't hurt you none if'n you don't swallow it."

O'Toole's knees cracked loudly as he stood. Carefully, he flattened the yellowish glob, then folded it in on itself a time or two, and finally tucked the wad into his shirt pocket. He gave a toothless grin and a mock salute. "Hubba, Bubba Bubba Kiddos."

As O'Toole walked down the street towards home, the red-headed, freckled-faced boy noticed that a piece of the old man's chewing gum had slipped into a chink in the sidewalk. It had also stuck to the bottom of one of the old man's oxfords. With each step, as O'Toole walked away, the gum stretched out longer and longer.

Soon, the old man had hiked the distance of one block. The gum stretched like a rubberized slinky.

Then, O'Toole had marched past two blocks. The gum stretched like an elastic sling shot.

When the old man was three blocks away, the gum, taut with tension, slung away from O'Toole's oxford, flung itself back towards the group of children like a whip popping the air, ricocheted half a block in the opposite direction, and like a boomerang returned and settled in a big glob atop the crack in the sidewalk.

For a moment, not one child moved. Then slowly, in single-file, as they passed by, they plucked a bit of the sticky stuff from the giant mound of gum, put it in their mouth, and began to chew.

They headed home in groups of two and three. And a discerning ear could hear them sing. Hubba, Hubba Bubba to you, O'Toole, and Thanks for a Bubbalicious day.
O'Toole's Baszooka © 2006 Chaeli Lee Sullivan