The Legend of Hot Dog Tommy

The Legend of Hot Dog Tommy

I was hiding in my room in the tight corner of my bed, under all the blankets I could find. With the long skinny pillow layering the front of my body, I almost felt safe. My door was locked. Someone flicked the hallway light switch off and only the radiance of moonlight filtered in through the window, throwing a thin glow over my Peter Maxx posters. My room was deceptively bright and happy.

I slowed my breath to be so, so quiet and listened to the drunken adults in the living room. They were closing the party with my mother’s favorite activity. Everyone too drunk to go home got a blanket and space on furniture or floor. Candles and joints were lit. Then they passed around the bong and the flashlight to tell stories.

Voices carried on down, words melting into white walls, the clicking of bottles, shifting of bodies, lighter blaze and bong bubble slurp. But tonight, through all that, one of the guests began to weave a tale:

“Once there was a little boy named Tommy. And Tommy loved hot dogs.” The voice belonged to a man, soft timbre, mid range, and level.

“He used to draw all these pictures. Every day his dad would take him down to the park to get a hot dog from the food truck. Tommy would bring his paper and crayons. Him and his dad – they were buddies. He didn’t care that Tommy always got ketchup. He loved that kid. Do anything for him.

One day, Tommy draws this pair of red sneakers. His dad is watching him and smiles. He had seen those shoes in the window down the street. ‘You like those shoes, Tommy?’

‘I don’t know,’ the kids says. ‘they make my tummy hurt.’

‘Maybe it’s the hot dogs?’

‘No, Daddy. Hot dogs are my favorite.’ Tommy scribbled over the shoes in red. ‘More ketchup, please.’

The next day, Tommy draws the shoes again. This time he puts more detail on them, colors in the logo with silver crayon. Tommy is real focused, making exes on the shoelaces. Now his dad KNOWS exactly what shoes he was drawing. Tommy’s birthday was coming up and his dad is planning on buying him the red shoes. Again Tommy scribbles red all over the drawing of the shoes.

The next day, the day before Tommy’s birthday, they are walking to the hot dog truck. Tommy stops before they cross the street and says, ‘Don’t let go of my hand, Dad.”

Now his dad wanted to sneak off for a minute and buy those red birthday shoes. He squats down to Tommy’s level and hands him a couple bucks. ‘You’re getting to be so big, Son. I think you can go get a hot dog and meet me at our bench. I will only be a couple minutes. I have a surprise for my birthday boy.’

‘Dad, please don’t let go of me. Let’s just go.’

‘Tommy, come on. I will be 5 minutes. It’s a great surprise.’

And Tommy, being a great kid and not wanting to disappoint his dad, says okay.

His dad goes to the shop and buys the red shoes in the window. As he turns to leave, he hears a squeal and a crash. He drops the red shoes and runs out to see the car that hit and killed his son.

Beneath the car he sees the sketchbook, crayons, dollar bills, and finally his son laying on the other side of the car, his shoes knocked off from the impact. He drops to his knees next to Tommy. Someone calls the police.

The driver of the car is yelling, ‘That kid came out of nowhere!’ His dad just sinks down into the road, blinded by tears. The police gather up Tommy’s sketchbook and crayons and give them back to him. They drive him home. He just sits there stunned, unable to speak.

Family showed up. Helped the dad bury Tommy a day before his 7th birthday. That night, Tommy’s dad puts a blanket on the floor of Tommy’s room and puts all of Tommy’s favorite things around the blanket. He makes himself a hot dog with ketchup and finally tries to eat. He sits in the middle that blanket, holding Tommy’s stuffed animals, and cars, and his sketchbook.

He starts flipping through his son’s drawings. Those damn shoes. Tommy drew them over and over and kept scribbling through them.

Then…then his dad flips the page again. Tommy drew the hot dog truck and a map to it. The next page was his dad smiling and holding up money.

‘Oh God.’ said his dad and dropped the sketchbook. The pages began to flip on their own, unfolding images of the car crashing into Tommy and his shoes flying off and a ghost leaving his body. And the red shoes dropping to the ground.

His dad passes out, from grief, from exhaustion, from fear.

Sometime later, in the darkness, he feels something brush his shoulder.

‘Why did you let me go, Dad?’

As he opens his eyes, the red shoes and a half-eaten hot dog are right there next to his face.”

I shuddered, letting the Legend of Hot Dog Tommy wriggle its way into my brain, into the weave of shadows we choose, into October tales, and mingling with Bradbury, King, Straub, my shadow lexicon, my urban legend encyclopedia. I would wake often in years to come at slumber parties, praying I would not see red shoes by my head.

I lie there all of 7 years old, knowing I just heard a story of lasting shadow. The next day, I asked my mom who told the story. We argued when I said it was a man. That night, there had only been my mom and her girl friends in the apartment.