Sunrise

Same Walk, Different Shoes

“Same Walk, Different Shoes” is a community writing project that

Ben Wakeman

organized as a practical exercise in empathy. The premise is simple. A group of writers anonymously contribute a personal story of an experience that changed their life. Each participating writer is randomly assigned one of these story prompts to turn into a short story written from the first-person point of view. The story you are about to read is one from this collection. You can find all the stories from the participating writers at Catch & Release. Enjoy the walk with us.

I’m Oz, and although it might be quite a cool name now, it took an age to see that, as for most of my life I was known as the full version Oswald. It was dreadful especially when my mother shrieked “OSWALD” in a tone that if you have ever watched Faulty Towers, a 1970’s UK television comedy, and heard the wife call her husband BASIL, you’ll understand why.  The name is called in a whining screech that jarred one’s insides let alone one’s ears, and my sister, finding it amusing used the tone as a form of torture when I started school. 

While growing up, I desperately and obsessively tried to preempt my mother calling me loudly by keeping close to the house and in my misery, hated my parents for giving me the name.   Now however, I realise that it was one of three gifts that I had inherited from my grandad. 

Grandad Oswald, was a trombonist in a marching band and he was my mother’s father who had worked in the mines, and who all his life had lived in this small terraced house where we now lived.   Oswald had a dream of being a pilot, but failed to be given a place in the Air force because of an issue with his eyes.  This was the second gift that he passed down to me;-  lazy eye, clinically known as amblyopia.  Unless the condition begins to be corrected at a young age, one of your eyes will not look in the direction that the other one does, and sees things differently, sometimes it doesn’t improve, and it is always off-putting to others when they notice.

Thanks to this gift, for many years I had to endure ridicule for wearing national health blue rimmed specs with a flesh coloured elastic plaster stuck on one lens.  But hey, as I tend to look on the bright side now, I’m pretty sure now that it was those glasses that saved me from being chosen as an altar boy in spite of my pitch perfect choral voice.  We all now know what happened to many of those pretty boys back then. 

And this leads me to the third gift – Alleluia, Oswald had also passed on his ear for melody which was noted from my first warble, and is my saving grace.   For this gift I will always be eternally grateful, and I now see those others as growing pains.

My family lived in a small industrial city in the North of England that was predominantly known for its pottery and for the collieries.   The streets of red brick terraced houses were built for the factory workers, and the area was busy and productive until my generation when things changed, and one by one the mines and potteries were closed.  From the exterior each house looked pretty much the same, and every home had a toilet that was housed outside in a small shed in the yard.   The sun did shine sometimes, but most of the time it felt as if I was living in a dark alley void of light, and it was in those cobbled alleys that other children played.

As a child I didn’t have friends and school was always difficult, it seemed that I was invisible and I was left to my own devices; a loner, which is a kind way of saying that I was ostracized and excluded.  At home, to get away from my unkind older sister Janie, but not so far that I wasn’t aware of my mum needing to find me, I spent a lot of the time in the now disused outside lavatory with an old typewriter and a trombone that I had found among the stuff that had been put in there after the bathroom and loo were plumbed inside the house.

Playing the trombone was my joy, and I was a natural.  I could replay any tune that I heard with this dusty old horn; I would spend hours on my own in that little safe house, making up new tunes and dreaming of playing music with other people.  It seemed that no one knew, that it was my secret, but my dad had noticed, and one Saturday he took me down to meet the Salvation Army folk in the town hall.  I was invited to audition and after the panel had heard me play, I was invited to join their band.  I loved being in the Salvation Army and I felt proud wearing my blue serge uniform and marching with the others in the band at local events. 

With these people I had a sense of belonging,  I was seen and heard, I was appreciated, I was a part of something.   One Christmas, while playing a solo of ‘Wonderful Joy’ in the town square, something happened to me, I felt power and my first real surge of possibility, of something bigger.  The trombone blew clear and true, I felt attention on me as ears around pricked up to the sound and acknowledged the purity of my performance.  A couple of other boys from my school joined us, they were also loners, so much so that none of us knew each others names.   Soon we started to hang-out on Saturdays after band practice, and discovered that Trevor and Philip and I had quite a lot in common apart from music.

Each of us had older sisters who teased and taunted us, and who’s friends were unbelievably beautiful to look at but who were also cruel and enjoyed ridiculing us with their comments.  Even though we were now sixteen, none of us had even held hands with a girl, let alone kissed one, and all of us dreamed of having a girl friend like the other boys in the school, but knew we never would. 

My eye had taken a while to correct, but at last I no longer needed to wear the glasses as both eyes would point in the same direction.  I had been waiting for this day ever since I could remember, and really thought that shedding them would give me confidence in school, that they would let me join in;  but no,  not wearing glasses just made me feel more self-conscious and for the first time very, very vulnerable.  I could see more, but so could they.  I felt that the others in the school now saw more of me.  Until then I hadn’t really been aware of the depth of disdain it seemed they held for me.   I sank into a despair and started to bunk off.

One Saturday after Salvation Army band practice Trev, who was trying to cheer me up said why don’t we form a real band and perform at the school concert, they’re looking for acts – we could blow them away.  I thought he was nuts and said no, but Phil was also excited and the seed was sown.  After a while I began to feel a prickle of thrill at the idea, and agreed.  We began meeting at Trev’s house, his mum worked nights and it was generally ok to be there.  Trev would play guitar, Phil keyboard and main vocals, and I on the drums, one because we needed rhythm and two, because Trev’s sister had a kit and didn’t use it.

The beat was in my soul, and we met and practiced and improved, I cheered up, and because the band was from our home town, we decided to play House of the Rising Son, and jazz it up.

On the night of the performance I was shitting myself, I was quaking and felt sick.  When the stage curtains opened and I saw the surprise and laughter on all the faces of our class mates, I wanted to puke and run,  but then Trev began to play the opening intro and I joined in with a some rhythm.  Then we were off, lost in the music as we launched into a full blast rock version, giving it our all.  When we finished the audience were standing and cheering, it was mind-blowing and I don’t mind saying, brought tears to my eyes.  We walked of stage or should I say almost staggered as we were so overwhelmed both by our performance and by the response.  Once off stage we grasped each other in the biggest hug – wow it felt amazing.

Life changed from that very moment.   Lianne one of my sisters friend’s asked me my name, as if she didn’t know me –I told her Oz, and she responded by saying that she thought it was a cool name and offering me a swig of her drink.

Almost instantly the three of us were invited to parties, to play with other bands, to perform at festivals, to be session musicians and now, ten years later,  I also write and perform my own work and have just been offered a signing to a great record label.  Lianne and I started dating soon after the performance and have been married for six wonderful years.  We have three beautiful children and one of them, our youngest is gifted, she can sing like and angel and has a wayward eye.  We got her the coolest dark tinted glasses with the correcting lens hidden from view, and Sadie has lovely little friends and is adored by her aunt and two brothers.  This Christmas when we had the family get together and chatted about old times my dad said “Son, I always knew you’d rise above it”.