‘Tommy-Daddy’ Doesn’t Smoke Anymore

Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times. – Mark Twain


Our Young Tommy is a mischievous cherub. Backstage on closing night, running ahead of his mother who was trying to make him finish dressing, he was saying “I have to check my props,” as he navigated the backstage maze, slipping away from Rose at every turn. He’s so small that it’s believable that he wouldn’t even be speaking in full sentences (much less, that he would have props), and yet here he is. . . “No, Mom! I have to check my props!” He is chased until he gets to the Walker’s table, preset offstage with a fake birthday cake. Rose, Gypsy, and I watch as he stretches to reach the cake. With great determination, he pulls out a slice and examines it closely.

There’s supposed to be a cookie hidden inside the rubber hide. Somebody forgot it once. All it took was Mrs. Walker to say, “Oh, you have to be sure to check your props,” and he added it to the list of things he had to do ahead of anything his mother wanted. As I understand, that list included: winking at Cousin Kevin before places, resisting any attempt at applying lipstick, figuring out new ways to get candy without getting caught, and make sure his cookie was going to be on stage! Once he was sure there was a cookie waiting for him, Rose was able to put on his over shirt and take him up for make-up. Gypsy and I smiled, and hugged, with tears threatening to overtake closing night.

Rather than succumb to the sadness of the final show, I danced. Every night I danced back stage to “Smash the Mirror.” On my “Believe My Own Eyes” exit, before I hit the bottom of the offstage steps there’s a ripping drum riff as “Smash the Mirror” rockets off. I would time my descent so I could jump off on the first downbeat onto my dance floor. And I rocked out with the band. By closing night I had a choreographed drag routine down, with backup dancers and a cheerleading section. Some of the band said their favorite memory of Tommy is going to be ME DANCING! Everyone backstage would watch me. Many eventually joined in. Some stood aside and looked at me like I was the strangest being on earth while others wished they could be so free. I didn’t feel free – I felt compelled! There was no way I could even think of passing up the chance to dance during that number! The band was too good!

On closing night, instead of rushing off to change my hair color at the end of Act I, I stayed back stage and danced to “Pinball Wizard” with Mrs. Walker and all the stage hands. Oh my God it was so fun. Is there a way that my life can be like that every day? It’s been six days, and the thoughts still bring me to tears. I danced every time I was off stage. And it was great.

I still can’t believe that I have gotten to be Captain Walker two times in two great productions! This time I was most excited because never thought that I could ever do it again. The last time I was most excited because, after three and a half years, I was going to get to smoke cigarettes!

It started out strictly on stage, and I didn’t smoke at all after the show, well unless I had a drink and someone else was smoking . . . yeah, so, of course I was smoking a lot. By Christmas I was hooked again. So, I’ve smoked about a half pack a day for most of the last 8 years. Yeah. . Oops. I’ve often looked for that Ocean City memory that I could cling to again, but it's hard to believe that could happen. I even tried those smoking cessation tobacco replacement gums. But I wasn’t able to quit for more than a few months. This Tommy was the perfect bookend to my smoking, and I must stop forever on closing night. On stage.

But Mrs. Walker vetoed that idea. (By the way, Mr. and Mrs. Walker have no first names. We called them Nigel and Petula. Captain and Mrs. Nigel and Petula Walker.) Mrs. Walker and I became very close. I always fall in love with my costar anyway. But she was just so great. I’m not saying she was better than the first Mrs. Walker by the way. I can’t say that. Or that she was a better kisser. . .well, yeah she was a better kisser. Other than that, I couldn’t even begin to evaluate who was better. But anyway. She is an ex-smoker and she would smoke an occasional cigarette with me, or share a cigarette with me, over our post show martini’s.

It was her idea that I would quit at the closing night cast party instead, and share my final cigarette with her. Share my final cigarette with her fabulousness, Mrs. Walker? Damn right! Besides, I smoked 4 cigarettes on stage. The first and last, I light it and take a drag, and put it out. The middle times, I got to smoke about a third of it. That last time on stage, I’d have to look at the cigarette I just lighted, knowing it’s my last one, ever, and then put it out before the third drag! Well, that’s just cruel and unusual. So, her idea was much more fun.

The audience whooped after the finale. Applause, whoops, and whistles, while the band plays “Pinball Wizard” and the bows begin. The Mrs. and I are rocking out, dancing backstage while we wait for our turn. Finally we throw open the curtain and rush on stage to receive a grand standing ovation. Two steps in, while we’re checking in with each other, my leg in the air and I think “This is too good to rush.” And we both pulled back and walked.

Oh, oh, oh! And afterward, the band is still playing, and we’ve all exited. Most of us dancing and singing with the band, and Gypsy comes backstage from onstage, and says “Come On!” So I grabbed the Mrs. and pulled her back on stage, and the rest of the cast comes running on stage and we dance! And we wave! And they’re still there! The audience: Standing. Clapping. Cheering.

Rolf took that picture of me and young Tommy at the cast party. I asked him if I could have a picture with him and he said “So you can remember me?” I had a card for him too, and I opened it and read it to him because he can’t read yet. I was kneeling down to read him the card when Rolf got the picture.

A little while later, his mom Rose finds that I am not crowded by people for a moment. And she says that she wanted to tell me that there was one thing about Tommy that was hard for her to explain to her boy (I’m going to continue calling him Li’l Tommy). I remember thinking “What? Like child abuse? Drug abuse? Why tell me?”

“The other day he was pretending to smoke,” she said. “I asked him why he would want to do that, and he said he wanted to be like you."

Silently, I’m thanking God for sending me an angel.

“Then,” she went on, “Peter Jennings was being profiled on the news” (as he had just died) “and Li’l Tommy wanted to know what happened to him. So, I told him that he had cancer, and that it was a type of cancer caused by cigarettes.”

And he started to cry and saying “I don’t want my Tommy-Daddy to die.”

Later, the cast party continued at Mrs. Walker’s house. I asked Rolf to be my photographer, so that gave him some reason to interact, and he had a great time. We were sitting out on the deck. I remember that the guitarist was there, Big Tommy, Mrs. Walker, Rolf and I. As it became near time to go home, I started getting ready for my very last cigarette. Not coherent enough to notice that all the ex-smokers were smoking my cigarettes, I took one cigarette out of the package, and one by one broke all the others in half, dropping them in the ashtray.

The star of the show, my oldest Tommy, looks up from an intense career interview with Mrs. Walker, and says “Throw me a cigarette.”

Oops. “Sorry. I only have my very last one ever left. Wanna share?”

Mrs. Walker was laughing, saying “Oh My God, we smoked all those cigarettes?”

“um. . not so much. I tore them up, because it’s time for my last one.”

My last cigarette is the one my costars and I passed back and forth at the end of the closing night party, celebrating an exceptional production of Tommy, on a night when the audience stayed, standing and cheering, and when I heard that Li'l Tommy said: “I don’t want my Tommy-Daddy to die.”

Let it be, Lord. Let it be.