Honest Tom

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Tom was one who never seemed to be burdened by guilt. Very liberating when it came to those tricky moral decisions such as screwing other people’s wives, girl friends and indeed anything with a pulse. Staying out to four in the morning, demanding an apology from your spouse because the meal, which was ready nine hours earlier, has been scorched to cinders. Writing insurance policies on a person who died in 1910 or telling prospective investors that a 200% return in their first year was not an unusual occurrence. However what was truly amazing about Tom was his ability to absorb staggering amounts of alcohol without falling down dead. He would drink to the wee small hours, get laid, fall into a coma only to leap from the bed an hour later to front up at sunrise to play a near flawless round of golf off scratch. Even then he would allow himself an extra half-hour to drive around for a while to figure out what suburb he was in. 2

If your body’s a temple then Tom’s was nothing short of a ruined castle. He was held together by massive quantities of coffee and Panadol and it seemed on some days, sheer will power stopped him collapsing into a crumbling heap. 3

Tom was a proud owner of a deceptively young face that allowed him to attract deceptively young women. However in the last year his hair became greyer faster than black hair colour could disguise it. His eyes that in the past shone with the twinkle of freshly minted coins now stayed watery and bloodshot until rescued by eye drops. Always immaculate with pants so neatly pressed a person was in danger of cutting their finger on the crease. His shirts blazed with brightness oxy welding glasses had trouble suppressing. Never a lose thread. Never wore scuffed or unpolished shoes. Never a mark on his stunning, conversation piece silk ties. Never in the last year had his life been so difficult. For what a tangled web we weave and Tom kept weaving himself into small pockets of disaster. But the cost of having every night a party was exhausting his finances and his credit card debt had climbed to a point of strangling him as demands for payment had moved from insistent to power drills. Tom’s attitude was to first ignore and then to ‘never surrender’. Never ‘tighten your belt.’ Never ‘pull your head in.’ Never ‘lie low for a while’, never ‘be careful’ or ‘play it safe’. None of these phrases belonged to Tom. People who in Tom’s eyes were beige and had already died but were still wandering around only to be carted off to the cemetery 40 years later used such phrases.  4

Life is what you make it and no death is glorious. Just inconvenient! In Tom’s thinking, if you are in debt there can be only one solution – earn twice that and pay the damn thing off. Nothing more annoying than being pestered by irrelevant people such as debt collectors, pregnant one night stands, gypped policy holders, a nosey sales manager and your wife.5

Love is a many splendid thing and Tom should know, as he had loved many times and by all accounts, splendidly. One day though Tom did a surprising thing. He was chatting up some girl who was moving her hand slowly up the inside of his leg when he suddenly glanced at his watch, excused himself and left. 6

In a church hall over the other side of town, a little girl danced out as a fairy princess complete with sparkling wand and wings. She looked out across the crowd and her father gave her a small wave.  She smiled and kept jumping across the stage. After it was all over his daughter raced into her father’s arms. 7

“How was I?”8

“Just like a princess.”9

Tom glanced at his watch again, kissed his wife on the cheek and explained how he was late for an appointment. 10

“When will you be home?”11

“Later.” 12

Hugged his daughter one more time and left. 13

By David Peter Robertson   14