40 Years Later, Paul is Fondly Remembered

It was a bitter cold December night in 1977, when I overheard my mom talking to our neighbor on the phone. I could only hear one side of the discussion but could tell something was wrong by the tone of her voice. I went into our kitchen to listen and after a short time could piece together that this was about my friend, Paul Pyrzynski.

Paul was my oldest friend, having met him when I was about 7 years old. We moved from South Chicago to the East Side, and I did not know anyone. Our house was the first one completed on 114th Street so there were no other families on our block yet. For a few months, I just hung out at home and got bored. Then, one day, there was a knock on our back door. Much to my surprise, two kids that looked about my age asked me if I wanted to play. I couldn’t have been happier.

The two kids were Paul and Franco Santilli. They lived on the next block and became my first friends there. I remember that we ran around in the snow that day.

Paul was a small kid but had a certain toughness about him. He had blonde hair and a bright smile with a great laugh. One of his eyes was not quite like the other. He was stubborn, with a strong will and would not back down from a fight. He was the fastest among my friends. He loved the snow.

Paul short-armed his throws in baseball and was a lefty shot playing hockey. We always bought Bubs Daddy Bubble Gum at the store and his flavor was grape. When he rode his bike, you could bet that there would be a skid mark when he stopped.

If there was a James Bond movie on the ABC Sunday Movie of the Week, we got home to watch it. Rat Patrol and Combat were shows we idolized, and Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein was another favorite.

Within two years, all the homes on our block were built and we had a lot more friends. Our gang trudged around in the undeveloped land between Illinois and Indiana all the time. Made more forts than I can count. Played in areas that no one would find on a map, like the prairie, as we called it; Snowball Creek; Pork Chop Hill; the swamp; the park; the willow tree and the sand hill.

We did the usual kid stuff. However, the one thing that we were great at was using our imagination. We were expert pretenders. Our forts in the prairie often had to be defended against imaginary invaders. We fashioned sticks as army rifles, and patrolled the area, often engaging an unseen enemy. This went on for hours, in snow, mud and sand.

We regularly parlayed our bikes into motorcycles, sometimes being cops or bad guys, using an alias in the adventure and staying in character until we had to go home.

I vividly remember us talking about what it would be like to turn sixteen. To have a car, a girlfriend, and money. We thought it seemed like such a cool age.

But on December 6, 1977, sometime in the evening, my mom hung up the phone. She saw that I was listening to the conversation. I can still see her pained expression as she said, “Paulie is very sick. He has leukemia. He’s in the hospital now.”

Not knowing what to do or how to react, I grabbed my jacket and ran out the front door. Not sure why, but I just ran.

I ended up at DeKoven’s, our local drug store a few blocks away and found myself in the candy section, where, as little kids, we picked out our favorites countless times. That’s where I fell apart.

Later that night, I tried to call Paul at the hospital, but a strange thing happened. The call kept getting answered by an older woman that spoke broken English. I tried a few times and my mom even confirmed with the hospital operator that it was the right room and bed. We never connected.

I went to bed that night and school the next day thinking that the doctors could do something to help. On my way home from the bus stop, several friends stopped me to say that Paul had died. I tried to convince them that it wasn’t true and that he had leukemia and I just tried calling him the night before.

Sadly, they were right. Paul had passed around the time I was trying to call him. To this day, I feel that my call got rerouted for a reason.

Paul was only 13.

In the time after his death, my friends did not talk about it. We did not know how, but there is no doubt it ripped our guts out. We would often play sports on the gravel lot on our block and would stop the game and everyone would wave to his parents as they drove by. They would wave back, and I don’t know if that was a nice gesture or just a horrible reminder to them that their son was not there playing with us.

At that point, all of us were a year or two apart and had started hanging out with other guys. After Paul died, we went in different directions. Maybe we were headed that way anyway, as we were simply getting older. We all remained friends, though.

Through my mid-twenties, I had a recurring dream that we were playing baseball at Rowan Park, and Paul approached the diamond. It was always me that had to tell him that he could not play because he had died. It was upsetting, even as an adult. I mentioned this to a friend who questioned why Paul couldn’t play, but I didn’t have an answer. He suggested that it was my dream, and Paul should be allowed to do whatever he wanted. I never had that dream again.

Well, it’s 40 years later and Paul’s memory remains. Though he was with us a mere 13 years, he found the hearts of those around him.

See ya’ at the park someday, buddy. Bring your mitt.

This column originally appeared in the Times, a Shaw publication.