Journal 1984

There was a hot stifling atmosphere. The sun was up there behind the pale clouds. Our wood shop teacher recognized the heat and opened the shop doors to the outside to vent some air. As I stood by the door gazing into the sky I realized that school was almost out for the day. Calvin, my partner, interrupted my thoughts.

“You think we’ll see it?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

Earlier this morning on the news, meteorologist Bob Copeland predicted an eclipse between one and two o’clock today. It was almost two and I saw other students, faculty gathering by windows and doors to witness the impending spectacle. An excitement was building. However, the sun was still hidden behind a grey blanket of clouds. Then suddenly, the clouds lifted as if on queue in a mystical fashion and I could see a round black object— the moon had covered the sun.

Then suddenly my thoughts turned bleak. All outside noise diminished and only my own rambling thoughts were heard bumping and thwacking into each other. Some deep anguish began to gnaw at my spirit until I was isolated, detached. I trembled.

Then I saw a distant light that grew brighter the longer I looked at it. Angels appeared, dancing before my confused eyes. Such gorgeous angels whispering over and over in unison, “I told you so.” And then, the big guy descended from the light, Jesus Christ. He was on his cross like he always was except that his appendages were not staked to it. The light began to fade as he whispered, “faith.” It was like a quiet chant. My muscles tightened up, as if I were plunging from Mount Everest….

“Jim.”

I opened my eyes and shook my head.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, Mr. Chuckran.”

“You really should get more sleep.”

He looked at me strangely. I had been leaning up against the red brick building beside the woodshop door. I looked up into the sky and the eclipse was over. The moment had passed.

 

                                                                    *

I jump out of bed and slip on my work boots. I head downstairs to make instant coffee then gather up necessities— smokes from my mom and flashlight; it might be dark in the woods so early in the morning. My Uncle Bob then comes downstairs wearing his pajamas.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“I’m collecting cans.”

“You know you woke me up,” he says.

“Sorry.”

I don’t know how the fuck I did that and besides he’s an early bird.

I finish my coffee and throw on my coat. I quietly leave and Brandy follows me outside. I’m not taking Terry because she runs in the street without looking. Brandy is a seasoned pro. It is chilly like I thought it would be and dark. The sky is covered by a thick grey blanket of clouds. Red and orange leaves fall from trees blow across the street, streets which are bleak and desolate so early— even typically busy North Street feels like a ghost town. Brandy loves the walk, the morning air as she chugs along closely. I really should have brought Terry though.

It’s about a ten minute walk to the Curtis Compact store and it’s closed. Dead empty parking lot. I head around the corner of the store towards the back where the trail begins. I open my trash bag where a few beer cans are scattered at the trailhead. I follow the trail, picking up cans as I go until I finally reach that point where the last nights party had been and where most of the cans lie in wait. I go about collecting, business-like and arbitrarily. It looks like a bomb exploded— cans, bottles, cups, even dungaree jacket and two sweatshirts. Then the funny score of the morning— Kevin’s baseball cap on the ground near the fire pit. The wood is still burning, smoking.

Suddenly I hear what sounds like gun shots coming through the woods, close by. I stop and crouch. They continue to pop in the distance. Then I’m either becoming paranoid or the gun shots are getting closer and closer. Brandy has gone from carefree and content to nervous and alert, sniffing the air. The hair on her back rises up in a black stripe.

Maybe it’s a bunch of kids. I don’t know what to think. In a moment I get bummed, for some unknown reason.

“Come on Brandy. Let’s see who’s down there.”

I’m nervous but determined too. Pop. Pop. Maybe target practice somewhere. I stumble across an empty beer can with bullet holes through it. I gaze through the perimeter concentrating on any small movement. As I scan, the gun shots start to fade, slowly until they are gone and all is quiet and normal again.

                                                                     

                                                                   *

Here I am walking home from a hard day of school. I’m wearing tan chinos, a light blue valor shirt and work boots. It’s pleasantly warm now but lately the air has grown colder as it plunges deeper into autumn.

At home, Uncle Bob sits at the kitchen table listening to Buddy Holly on the radio.

“Hey Bob. What’s up?”

“Nothing. You are supposed to do the dishes but make sure Dawn dumps them. You know how I hate when I’m left in the middle of your guys problems and ahh your mother and father chew my ass.”

He sounds like a boring repetitious teacher who never shuts up.

“I know, Bob. ‘Before my parent’s get home.’”

I head upstairs to my room, bored and tired and lie down. I adjust the dials on my stereo, hit play and bring the volume down low. I think about the day’s events and the on again off again depression. It comes in different degrees and temperatures, sometimes very light; other times black as space. However I try to use these feelings and bend them into creative tools like poetry or writing. My eyes shut out the world. Consciousness fades and I drift off.

I think about this past summer and the great fun. A thousand gleaming smiles! Now, a lost jewel, hidden forever. So many good times. Wisdom is an elaborate throne beside the maiden of experience. Many nights awake until sunrise watching the universe unfold new again. Those early skies full of wonder and mystery. Late night parties with kids from school. Friends, girls, music— kegs and acid. Love born and lost in the fading light. My summer at 16.

I am sad too. The skies become blackened by smoke as if there were a great fire on Olympus. The earth shakes with such force it is driven from its axis— tidal waves, earthquakes and mass hysteria spell the end of mankind. That is until Zeus races into the fray and sets the world right again.

“Hey Jim!”

It’s Uncle Bob.

“Telephone!”

I slink my way down the stairs. I must have fallen asleep because my mind is foggy and vague. I take the phone from him and pull the chord around the corner into the kitchen.

“Hello?”

“What’s up Jim?”

“Nothing much, Kev.”

“Dude, the air is going to drop tomorrow— 45 degrees. That’s fucked cause it’s like 75 now,” he said.

                                                                     *

We were just sitting around the kitchen table. My mother who was smoking a butt seemed to have something on her mind. I lit a smoke too.

I have just started smoking on a regular basis. During the summer I had smoked a little because it gave me a high. Now I’m just smoking because it gives me something to do when I’m bored.

It’s a lazy kind of day. I look out the window. The sun is covered by clouds. Every so often another leaf plunges to its death. The yard is a bright smorgasbord of fallen leaves, fall colors— ghosts of the summer maples. It’s an autumn calendar picture moment.

“What class do you think our family would be considered,” I ask.

“Well,” began my mom, “I’d say we’re a little less on the scale than the average middle class family.”

She paused and gathered her thoughts.

“All it means is that we just don’t make as much money as some other people.”

My parents make a reasonable amount, to me anyways. Considering that my dad doesn’t have a GED or diploma. It’s not that he’s stupid. He came from a large family, twelve brothers and sisters combined. His parents had their hands full financially with that brood. His father left his mother and that made matters worse. When my dad was in 8^th grade, a friend offered him a job with good pay so he took it to help his mother and family. So he quit school and never looked back. I once asked him if he’d ever go to night school, he shook his head no.

“Just because we’re not as rich as some other people, that doesn’t mean they’re better than you. As long as you’re smart, which you are, work hard and graduate, nothing can stop you from becoming successful.”

She snubs the cigarette in the ashtray.

“You know, when you were born you had to take a test, an intelligence test. You proved to be a very bright boy. Rather than being an auto mechanic or construction worker, you proved to be more inclined for computer work. David will never be as smart as you. I don’t know where you get all those brains from,” she laughs. “Certainly not from us because we’re not that smart. You would do so well in some kind of intellectual work.”

She’s really flattering my ego, like all mothers do.

“You would make a great politician. No. Don’t laugh. I’m serious. You’re a con-artist, you can manipulate people. You could even become a lawyer. I can just picture you now. You have this way with people. But, to be a lawyer you would have to be honest.”

“I am honest.”

Well for the most part I am, with the exception of a few lies to stay out of trouble.

“The thing is, you have all those brains but you don’t use them. I really wish you would.”

Fuck that. What does she know anyway?

“I suppose I could be a minister too, huh, mom.”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t picture you especially as a minister. Why are you planning on being one?” she asks.

“No, but maybe I have the charisma to be one and teach the ways or our Lord to the dearly beloved ones.”

“Well, yes you could.”

Only time will tell I suppose. It’s interesting, life. You come to a door and it opens and you pass through another door until you start to come across some that are locked and you have to figure out how to navigate all the options. Find the right keys.

                                                               *

As I lay in the hammock, a soft breeze blows through the pine grove. The sun warms the road. Grasshoppers chirp. Birds are singing high above the hammocks. Two houses down from Grammy’s house, children are laughing and swinging on swings and seesaws. My brother and ex-girlfriend, Vangie are chuckling over a game of horseshoes.

I get to thinking about life and how small I am in the grand design of things, a fleck of dust in some undefined oblivion. I’m a rolling stone down a hill collecting everything in my path, moss dirt and pebbles. My mood darkens and I feel like I’m trapped in a coffin. There is no joy in this box. There’s danger on the edge of town.

Vangie is such a flirt. Lay off Dave already. It sucks. I thought I was over her. I still like her. I really did love her. Betrayal. I thought she was mine forever. I’ll show her. I’ll get her back somehow. She teases him with finger points and gentle punches. He smiles that awkward shy smile. He throws a shoe and it clangs off the post. Neither one are aware I’m watching them. I’ll just ignore Dave when she goes home.

My friend, Jay stops by just then.

“What you doing?” he asks.

“Nothing.”

“Want to come over my house?”

That Maine accent is funny.

“I guess so.”

I really want to get her bad.

As we walk the long cracked road, he looks at me curiously.

“What’s wrong, Jim? You seem bummed out.”

“Nothing. I’m a little bored.”

He starts to reminisce about this past summer— when we would sneak out of the house and drive around and smoke hash or drive to the beach and meet his friends and drink beer. It takes my mind off her for the moment. I remind myself that I still have to get her back.

At his house, he shows me a litter of puppies born this week. They’re all so beautiful, heartwarming as they blindly topple over one another in search of mother’s teat. They whine incessantly. But the mother is in the pasture barking and chasing the horse.

“Your dog better be careful. One swift kick and its over,” I said.

“Yeah, I know. Don’t worry.”

“You’ll have some motherless pups.”

He calls to the dog but his patience is strong. I suppose it’s a game between dog and horse and they are buddies just messing around and everything is going to be okay.

We start down the road to Gram’s house. I can see the children again, the seesaw, the swing. I hear the wings of grasshoppers and songs of birds. In the end I decide, nothing is worth waiting for revenge.

                                                                *

The morning has risen from its chamber. I’m tired and still shaking sleep from my head. I’m bummed. There’s no milk for coffee and I hate black coffee. Coffee seems to stimulate my body each new day. So now I have to make some money, walk to the store for milk and cigarettes.

This is what I do to make money as I’m not quite old enough to get a job and my parent’s only give me two dollars for Allowance. I have a little system. First, collect the cans and bottles. I walk all over Randolph to where kids and adults like to drink outside. I collect them all— dirty or bent. Mostly I go to JFK, the football field out back; under the bridge on North Main Street; the barrel across from the old electrical building and near the bowling alley; and Belcher Park, my hood. Once I get them home, I hose them down and take the bends out. Then I sort them, label by label and pack them into boxes. I march into the liquor store and thank you very much. In the end it’s not much but something is better than nothing. Besides I don’t need much. Smoke money. Money for books or week-end mayhem.

I spend the afternoon collecting. It’s cool out and good day for a walk.

The Bridge, as it’s known to local teens is just an old bridge that North Main Street runs over. There are old abandoned railroad tracks still laid out that, during its day, went from Randolph to Hartford, Connecticut and New York in the early 1900’s. Here and now, beneath it is a perfect mess of debris. Old gas cans, food containers, yellowed dissolving newspapers, butts, shards of glass, a rusty Fernandes carriage, blown tires and on the supporting walls so much spray-paint and graffiti I can’t even read most of it.

I leave. I follow the tracks and they go right through Belcher Park. I get a sudden memory of the first time I ever set my eyes upon Belcher Park. When our family moved to Randolph in 1981, I was quite excited to see that we lived right across from the park. I would stare at the entrance, full of wonder and trepidation as to what was inside it. From my house, it was just a mass of full grown and very green maple trees and a dirt road that lead into it.

I was nervous on that first walk-through. I was with my girl-friend, Ann Woods and friend Richie Miller, both from Watertown who were visiting for the day. I was blown away how clean the air smelled and how absolutely quiet and beautiful. Yellow and pink flowers danced in the light wind. The trees shaded the road from sunlight. I wondered about the wild men and parties that must take place in here at night. The further me and Richie pushed forward, Ann got nervous and had thoughts of getting raped so finally on her insistence we turned around.

Back to now, even in only a couple of years time, signs of change in the form of trash has reared its ugly head— a pile of broken shingles, a bicycle tire and a ripped couch. Some of the trash has even penetrated into the deeper parts of the park. It’s just a fucking shame really.

On my way to the JFK I bump into Kevin, my closest friend since I moved here. I offer him 50% of the take if he helps and he joins. On the way he tells me how a cop once threatened him to leave the bus stop because it was loitering and if he didn’t, the cop was going to arrest him. So he calmly walked away and as he got to the street corner, Kevin started yelling obscenities at the cop who just stared vacantly at him for a few seconds before getting in the police car and driving away.

We arrived at JFK where there had been a party last night— mostly jocks and their stuck-up girlfriends I’m told. The cops had broken it up, leaving behind a mess of cans.

“Score,” I said.

We spent a minute just looking at all them.

“This is great. Perfect,” I said.

“It’s only good for parties deep in the woods,” Kevin said.

“Well, let’s make some money,” I said.

We began collecting. We strolled down the shallow grassy hill and passed huge boulders. Cans just seem to have fallen from the sky, crushed. I could fix them. My bag smells like dust and beer. The sight of a empty crushed cans remind me somehow of ex-girlfriends. As Kevin scoured the field I went further into some woods where the grass turns to sand. I followed a narrow path, passed fire pits, streams, thorn bushes and secondary paths. The area was clean, nothing. In the distance, a motor bike roars. I turned back to help Kevin.

Mission complete, well almost. Now we had to get to the house and finish. On the way Kevin began talking about music, rock videos and alcohol. He’s an avid rock/ heavy metal kid and follows in the footsteps of his rock heroes.

I ask, “Would you ever drop your pants on stage?” I’m alluding to the Jim Morrison Miami incident.

“Probably, if I was shattered.”

“No you wouldn’t,” I said. “I’m not even sure he did it. I think Miami just tried to scapegoat and frame him.”

“Want to play baseball this weekend?” he asked.

“It was a strange time in America then. Anti government movements, youth rebelling, bands like the Doors and Stones scared adults— not to mention Woodstock and the Manson murders. Morrison was definitely a target.”

We got to my house. We counted the cans and only had six dollars and twenty cents total. We returned them at Crovos Liquors, Kevin went home and I had my smokes and milk.

                                                      *

I am alone and sad. I am a lonely tree standing along the edge of the mountainside, my roots twisted and losing their grip in the earth— sliced and diced by the forces of nature. Why? I don’t know.
                                                      *

The sun crossed the celestial equator seven days ago on September 22. The air has become cooler and cooler.

Today I let my mother read a nice catchy poem I had written about the changing seasons. I never show her or dad my stuff. When she finished reading it, she chuckled. That got me mad, especially the way she took it as a humorous presentation. To me it is a serious poem.

What are parents anyway? What is the adult world? They love to portray roles of authority— parents, teachers, policemen and I’m sure those are just a few. “Don’t do that.”  Or “you’re punished.” We are ruled by adults, no question.

In my house, I’d say mom is the dominate force. When she gets mad or doesn’t get her way she will scream, a blood curdling scream. Dad just sits back and let’s mom take care of everything. He’ll sit and stare at the TV, face not moving, eyes not wandering, just taking in his mental escape from reality. When they come home from work in frustrated tired moods, us kids get hassled. We get put down and metaphorically spit on. I try to accept this reality but it is frustrating as hell.

Police are the worst. They stand above everyone. They think they can intimidate anybody. Power hungry humans.

Anyway, the sun is out. Shadows from trees are cast about; the sunlight dances through breaks in shade. The neighbor’s dog, black with white collar around stomach walks into the backyard. I love animals. Dawn is over a friend’s house. No idea where Dave is. My dad is watching the Sox take on the Orioles while mom is removing all the window screens and replacing them with glass in preparation of the looming frost.
                                                            *

“Hey Jim,” Dave says. “You know that guy I met about a week ago? I was drinking with some of his buddies? He’s in Belcher now… drinking again.”

This guy, I’m told by many is supposed to be this vastly intelligent being. They say he has the third highest IQ in the world. I think the kids just look up to him so much that they are blind to the truth.

“Come on down and meet him,” says my brother.

“I don’t know. We’ll see,” I said.

I’m watching TV alone and bored and before you know it, I have my boots and jacket and heading out the door and into Belcher Park. I light a smoke. The road winds around a corner and up ahead on a hill there is a large gathering. It’s my brother and a bunch of his friends: Tim Bulman, Mark Fitzgerald, Mark Shattuck, Adam Sorgeman, Tom Williams, Brian Hersey and more. Eric Sorgeman is there too and he’s talking and yelling non-stop acting like I don’t know what.

The guy’s name is Frank. He seems to have on a good buzz. He’s wearing a dirty plain blue t-shirt, faded dungarees and worn cowboy boots. He’s got long curly dirty blond hair, long sideburns. He has two girls sitting beside him and another guy probably the same age. They look like they’re in their early twenties. Frank, like Eric, are enjoying all the non-stop talking.

“Hey Jim,” says my brother loudly. I think he has a buzz too. “That’s Frank. The guy with the third highest IQ in the world.”

I can feel Frank concentrating on me. I just look at the ground.

“Well Dave, we all have our own IQ,” I say.

“That’s right,” says Frank. “We all do.” He smiles big.

“Jim’s kind of interested in philosophy too, “says my brother.

“You are?  That’s good. Reading is good for your mind.”

“Do you read?” I ask.

“Hell yes, man. You know I’ve spent most of my life in libraries just absorbing all kinds of information. I also work for a living. That’s right. You know what I do most of the time? I read. Read, drink and work you know to make the bucks. And girls. I really love girls. And kids too,” he says.

He’s one busy man. It’s hard for me to get a word in edge-wise. In a way he reminds me of Neal Cassady— the old side-burned hero of the snowy west. Now between everyone one else talking and Eric’s screaming look at me voice, it’s hard to focus on any one idea.

“You know, every morning I buy a newspaper and check out the forecast. It always says: tomorrow this, tomorrow that, tomorrow rain thunder. Well you know what? Always on that next day, it’s never tomorrow, it’s still today. I never get to tomorrow.”

The crowd loves that and they start cheering him. “All right Frank!” yells Eric. I’m just trying to find something logical to shatter his observation but I come up empty.

“Hey Frank. See if Jim can pass your test.”

I’m feeling a little embarrassed now.

“You want to try?” he asks.

“Sure. Shoot.”

“Ok. What is it that you— well your mind think about all the time?”

“That’s easy. Everything.”

“Right, right, right, that’s right, man,” he says smiling.

Now they are all cheering me on. Frank turns back to his friends to finish off; I assume their conversation on logistics of properly designing houses. He turns back to us and starts up a conversation about how to beat computers, like in the movie, War Games. This guy is smart and everything makes sense. Suddenly he turns to me.

“You know… that I’m dead,” he says. Yes sireee, dead; yet alive at the same time. Ever since I came to be, I’ve been dying.”

Makes sense to me. It’s a strange death but I see his point. We grow. Old habits die. Our youthful looks. Each broken fingernail and strand of hair, death. And our souls separate from the body, more death. And our soul sails away like a balloon into the sky for some mysterious unknown world. Every day we die just a little bit more.

Frank and his friends say goodbye, hop into their car and drive off through the park. Dave and his friends begin to scatter as if a movie had just ended.

A day or two later, as I’m returning empty beer cans to Crovos Liquors, and I enter the back door where can return area is, I hear a familiar raspy voice coming from the store front. It’s Frank at the register. He looks drunk. He jokes around with the counter help, just rambling on and on yet with a certain controlled jazzy rhythm and manages to always command attention. I move to an angle so I can see his face without him noticing that I’m looking at him. His eyes are blood red. I’m thinking that it must be time for him to die a little bit more today, right now. He looks frazzled as if he just survived a terrible ordeal. I remain quiet, observant. I doubt he sees me or would even recognize me from the park. He smiles at the man behind the counter, takes his case of beer and leaves out the front door.

Another couple days later, as I sit on my front steps, I watch as the house across from us is under construction. Last winter, 1983-84, the house caught fire due to a faulty wire at the TV and the house burned to the ground killing the family dog, Bandit and not-that-old Mr. Poole. It was a devastating fire on a bone chilling February night. My parents had opened up the house to the firemen for warmth and coffee as they battled the fire into the early morning. The same family is moving back into the house upon completion. I wrote a poem about that night and showed my mother who thought it was excellent.

Sadly I threw it out, along with three or four notebooks, love letters, poems and ripped up and tossed out my entire photo collection of my life and friends in Watertown, about 200 total. I don’t really know why I did it, maybe I do but I’m not sold on anything. I really wish I hadn’t done it now. This stuff was treasured material. I’m not sure what caused me to do it but I did and that’s that.

(This is 45 year old Jim and I know exactly why I threw out my personal stuff. I was rejecting the present, Randolph by trying to destroy and forget a happy past, Watertown. Watertown was my glory then. My first years in Randolph were filled with identity-crisis, confusion, loneliness, anger, hurt, mistrust, rejection and trying to fit into a world I knew nothing about. Eventually it led me to pot, Quaaludes and blotter acid and if I remember correctly, I was high when I tossed everything out. It wasn’t until these days in 1984 that I had emerged from my fog, more confident and sure of who I was becoming, of course I’m only 16 here but….)

As I watched the construction workers, a familiar, skinny figure stood in the newly framed doorway. It’s Frank again. He’s watching the workers and offering advice on building techniques. He pitches in here and there. He drinks his Miller beer. His maniacal laughter rings out over the hammer drill.

Later that night after everyone had gone home for the day, I scouted out the house, inside and out for cans. To my surprise, I found two full cases of unopened beer. I’ll be damned! Then I thought about Frank and death and Frank killing himself with alcohol and drugs. Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.

Now I think I’ll get drunk.

                                                      *

I still remember the first hit. It was late, 1 in the morning. I was with a close friend, one of a handful of best friends I had then and his name was Scott Costello and my soon-to-be girlfriend Ann Woods. She was the first girl I ever had feelings for; you might even call it love. After our separation, it killed me. Anyway, Scott pulled out a bone and asked if anyone wanted some. Now in the past I always refused but tonight was different. Hoping Ann would think I was some kind of hero I said yes. I was 11 or 12.

When I moved to Randolph, I began to like the cool, burn-out image. I began to smoke and lots of it. Pot relaxed me like nothing else. I could get it anywhere— in school, after school, streets, bowling alley. This led me to alcohol. My whole life I hated alcohol but pretended to like it. Well the pot smoking characters led me to drinking characters. I began drinking too. But now I liked it. I got wasted and I loved that feeling of letting go and falling down. Then from there I used blotter acid, Quaaludes and hash all easily available.

An old proverb states: the road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom. I kind of believe this to be true. It is a phrase derived from one man’s own experience through excess. I can relate.

                                                       *

My Uncle Bob and I were sitting in the living room watching TV. I wasn’t really paying attention to it, a comedy show but with few laughs. The phone rings. After the forth ring or so it becomes clear that Bob isn’t going to answer it. Between 5 and 8 o’clock, he never does. He’s afraid it might be Aunt Carol.

Aunt Carol is the family gossip hound. Loves to talk about the Utley’s in Brighton, Waltham— wherever and apparently, according to my mom loves to gossip about Bob’s week-end adventures. Bob parties with close friends and most of the time ends up legless. Well I don’t blame Bob because it’s none of her business. He hates her deeply.

So I get off the couch and answer the phone.

“Is Bobby there?” asked a voice.

“Yeah. Hold on. Who’s this?”

“Lisa.”

The voice is young and girlish like one of my sister’s friends. Why would a friend of Dawns be calling him?

“Hey Bob. It’s for you. I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”

“What? Tell her I’m upstairs sleeping.”

His voice teeters on panicky.

“I can’t. I told her you were right here. Her name is Lisa.”

He looks around for help. He doesn’t know what to do. Finally, he gets off the chair and heads toward the kitchen.

“I don’t know any Lisa,” he says.

I wait. He comes back in.

“Yeah right, Jim… Lisa,” he says suspiciously.

I guess Bob took too long and she hung up.

“Really Bob. There was a girl named Lisa asking for you.”

                                                           *                      

 I can see the whole structure in my mind. Sometimes when I’m alone or in company, I get negative feelings to my ego or rather inadequacies. It’s not a constant thing, just something that creeps in and creeps out. When it happens I’ll try and push myself mentally to the other side of these negative waves. If I push hard enough and am patient, something magic-like occurs. It’s some kind of movement or transcendence into the positive side. If one dwells in this negative side one becomes weak, prudish and ignorant as opposed to bright cheerful and hopeful— if one works hard enough at it.

                                                           *                                                       

It is a perfect October day as the sun shines through the colored trees. The birds, squirrels, raccoons, rabbits even the family dog and cat must be drinking up the cool atmosphere. Children run merrily carefree through the raked piles of leaves. It’s all good until I hear the news through the Randolph grapevine that some people have invited themselves to my brother and sister’s birthday party later that night. Apparently a rumor started that there was going to be a beer fest; in reality it’s a pizza coke type of thing— a combined party for my younger brother and sister. So I’m going to personally make sure no assholes get into our house tonight. This is a special occasion for everyone in our family and I will make sure they don’t get humiliated. The kids in school look forward to drug and alcohol parties. My brother is 14 and sister 12 and their time is about cake, ice-cream and Pepsi. The younger kids look up to the older kids and emulate their lifestyles and environments in which they live.

The invited guests begin to show up at 6:30: Brian Hersey, Mike Pitts, Bill DeMarco, Mike Loundsbury, Pam Jope, Tina Beck, Shelley Kardas, Amy Bellea— and their friends and acquaintances at the time— Mark Shattuck, Mark Fitzgerald, Chris Beck, Bob Brutenitti, Lisa Lewis, Tracy Berry and more. I was the doorman. I was feeling angry, frustrated waiting for this alleged party crash. However, after an hour or so, it became apparent that the uninvited guests were not going to show and I began to relax, sit back and enjoy. It was a good old-fashioned party— happy, exuberant and my parents had stocked up with mega food and tonic. Kids sang along with records on my dad’s stereo; others sat in small groups of three or four and talked, laughed; while others danced. At one point my dad exclaimed, “this is craaaazzy.” When it was over, they all thanked my parents for a good time. Some just drifted off into the night while others got rides from parents. And it never got out of hand. Heck, I even made $9.00 dollars on the empty soda cans the next morning.

                                                      *

Kevin and I walked up North Main Street, cut through Fernandes parking lot, the shrubby path behind it, over the train tracks and toward the bowling alley until we got uptown. I was in the mood for a walk tonight so agreed to join him. We just talked and joked. He thinks he’s getting laid tonight but I just carry on regularly. “Really, Kev?” It’s a reposeful night, cars quietly drive by, no people but a three twelve year old kids breakdancing in the back parking lot. The moon glimmers towards the southwest. A phalanx of stars, like protective warriors surrounds the moon.

Once we reach uptown (Crawford Square) kids start appearing all at once like a rogue wave. Kids from school, their friends. First we hang out at Burger King for awhile and then we walked back to the movie theater and hung out with some kids there and talked and laughed and checked out the girls. I mostly just hung back, watched and listened as I’m generally pretty reserved around kids I don’t know too well.

                                                           *                                                       

My bedroom clock reads 6:30. I can hear the birds outside my window, chirping in their nests. The neighborhood dogs yelp from the chains they are tied to. Dreams and nightmares are over. Down the street traffic is building. And my sad realization that I have to go to school drifts through my mind.

Downstairs my parents and Uncle Bob are up and awake. Dave and Dawn are still sleeping. By 7:10 they are up too— washing, eating and getting dressed. I drink my coffee and have a smoke. When I’m fully dressed and have my school texts I’m ready to go. “See ya everyone.” I say.

Outside the high school, the entire walkway along the front is filled with kids waiting for the home room bell to ring. The usual preppie kids are smoking cigarettes against the wall towards the school parking lot; around the corner are the other kids— wearing dungarees, work boots leather jackets and long hair. It’s here some kids sit in their cars, listen to the radio and get high— the kids who deal, basic juveniles or the rock and roll guys.

Inside the school, the dull dreary hallways make me depressed. The school has three floors— a basement and first and second floor. That’s a lot of fucking hallways, man. The classrooms are a flat sickly green or yellow hue due in some part to the poor lighting.

The morning rolls on, as do my classes. My teachers always supply me with heavy work load and studying. Sometimes I really get into working, doing a careful intelligent job on my assignments. Other times I pay no attention or irritate my teachers. I really detest some of my teachers, maybe even ¾ of the teacher faculty. But the thing that keeps me alive and focused is that soon I will be free of school discipline and at 2:15 all my anxieties explode from my head. On any given day, I may have a huge amount of built up tension and anxiety. I can barely wait to release it. I really don’t understand the forces that run around in my body during a school day. My grades, so far are above average. In English, my teacher will give us a quiz on a story we’d read and sometimes I’m waiting for that slick 100% or 90%, but then I’ll get a big fat 60%.

Inevitably, the new year brings new faces up from the junior high schools. Since I stayed back in 9^th grade, I no longer share the same classes with friends or acquaintances from the past. Now, in 10^th grade there are kids in my classes younger than me. Most of them are little goof balls with dumb jokes and they act like second graders. However I was once kind of like them so I really can’t complain. But I will, to a point.

School isn’t the best place for good conversation either. I’m not a social king in high school but I’m okay with that. I’d rather have a low profile than knock myself out at being popular. Besides I’m kind of shy too.

The auditorium is where we have our football rallies and assemblies. Because our principal perceives the 9^th and 10^th graders to be overly childish, assemblies are rare. But today we had a guest speaker. He was a man about 30, lanky and balding. He spoke quickly, fluently and gesticulated with facial expressions and waved and pointed his arms to good effect. The subject of his speech was economics and demonstrated the rate at which gasoline, oil and other sources of energy are being used carelessly in abundance.  

Meanwhile Principal Saba watched anxiously off to the side. At times the students annoying conversation rose over the speaker’s voice and caused Saba to interrupt the man and calm the students down. At one point the speaker addressed the audience of his disappointment of their behavior. I could tell Saba and the vice-principal was pissed. So come 7^th period, a familiar angry voice came over the PA system and announced that “and furthermore, no more assemblies will be presented this year.” I was in science class and all the kids groaned like babies blind to their own disrespectful behavior. It was the other kids they said, not them. Just shut your fucking mouths.

The boy’s room can be interesting though. In the bathroom beside the cafeteria the atmosphere is probably one of the darker cynical places to be in the entire school. Kids are assholes, mostly. Tough guys. Bullies. Cool jocks or preppies. Troublemakers. Drug dealers. It’s always filled with the smell of cigarettes other times pot. The puke green painted floor is always covered with butts or spit clumps and snot.

One time, some asshole spit a huge lungy on to the ceiling and it hung there, slowly falling. It was in between periods so kids were walking in and out of the door for piss or smoke break. The lungy hung there, inching closer. The spitter and his friends rolled with laughter, anticipating that it would fall on someone’s head. I laughed. It was pure idiocy and I couldn’t help myself. I leaned against the wall, waiting like everyone. When it finally did fall, it didn’t hit anyone. It just missed one kid as he was walking by and pulling out his smokes from his jacket pocket. It was an asshole move but still funny.   

I hear many stories in here as well. Stories about wild parties, rumbles and fights, who’s getting laid, robberies, destructive carousels, all night drug trips and fucks— I dread the day I hear someone bragging about how they fucked so and so and the girl in question was someone I liked a lot. The bathroom is where reputations are made or affected. Again, I mostly sit back and observe and listen.

Some of the teachers on this floor get their fair share of abuse from students. Usually it’s the shy timid geeky teachers. These teachers will enter the bathroom to tell them to stop smoking and tell everyone to exit, pronto. Mostly kids will just start wising off or blowing smoke toward them until teacher left in a hurry. Really it’s only the floor teachers who carry a badge here, they are the ones who won’t fuck around and who will pull your ear off. I generally hang in the quiet uninhabited bathrooms in the newer part of the school, away from the cafeteria, shop and retard classes; where the writing studies, English and humanities classes go on. When I’m tense or uptight, I sneak off into bathroom and have a smoke. My favorite bathroom is the one across from the school library. It’s the most quiet but I only can go there if I have a nearby class or pass to the library. Usually I’m alone and without threat of any teacher popping in. I smoke and stare at the white tiled walls that remind me of the movie, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest or the graffiti on the stalls— a mustachioed cop drawn with thick black marker and in one hand, a can of mace, in the other he points at me. His face is mean and eyes penetrating. The hung ceiling is ravaged and torn and tile less. When I’m alone I try to get my mind focused on the school work ahead. Sometime friends or acquaintances will join me and we talk about our weekend adventures or the girls who are holding our attention. Or we just bitch about teachers, rules, grades….

I personally don’t know much about the girl’s bathrooms but I do know they smoke as much, if not more, than the boys do. I have walked by there at times, consumed by a cloud of smoke as the girls march in and out, a constant flow, so constant the door remains open. I have seen some very pretty girls in this school. Most of them, despite their beauty or attractiveness, I’ve never been turned on by because of their dismal or stuck up personalities. There are so many stuck up girls in this school who only date popular kids anyway. I’ve had attractive girls, usually through a friend, tell me they wanted to go out. I refused solely because of their crummy personalities. Friends would say,” are you crazzzy? Look at that body.” But hey, that’s life. In the end, a nice body won’t make me happy. I’ve had a few short-lived relationships from girls here. Their names don’t even need mentioning. I’m not the type that needs a girlfriend around the clock. Some guys, they need it. Not me.

                                       

                                                                 *

Science class was the same as usual. Kids constantly socialize and pay no attention to their school work. Mr. O’Brien must have already taken a thousand points off their daily efforts. Today he is talking about environmental hazards in a community. I’m not into it either as I doodle in my notebook. It’s a pencil drawing of an arm pointing at something in the distance. But the finger is really a mean penis with sperm shooting out. The other fingers that make up the fist aren’t really fingers but testicles. This makes me laugh. A classmate, Ed Ryan looks over my shoulder and he seems a little shocked by it. Then the two girls in front of me see that I’m hiding something. One asks to see it. I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Come on.”

“You wouldn’t like it. It’s a drawing for health class and it’s pretty obscene,” I said.

“Come on. Let me see it.”

She reaches over and tries to grab it.

“No, I said.”

The second girl who’s been quiet until now looks me in the eye.

“Are you a brain? Do you get all A’s and B’s?” she asked.

Now they’re really starting to piss me off.

“I’m okay. I get along.”

I hope they just go away.

“Do you want to go to college?”

That does it. These pinheads just won’t leave me alone.

“No… I want to be a mortician.”

Evil leer towards them.

“What’s that?”

“It’s someone who works with dead people.”

I said it with such a serious face but inside I’m laughing like a maniac. They look shocked but it shuts them up and they quickly turn around.

                                                                                      *

In between periods, students flow through the hallways like rivers. The hallways are so depressing. I think about the book I just read on Jim Morrison and he used to call his friends fuckheads in the hallways. Sometimes, as I’m walking to class I remember past school memories— the good and the bad, even though most of my memories of Randolph High are bad. Bad teachers. Detentions. Lectures. Suspensions. Expulsions.

I think about the novel called, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Thomas Wolfe. It’s wild assortment of real life characters like the poet Allen Ginsberg, road hero Neal Cassady, the novelist Ken Kesey (who wrote One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest) and the Merry Pranksters. They helped turn the whole west coast into acid freaks with LSD in the infamous, magical 60’s. Kesey took the idea from Aldous Huxley’s essay called Doors of Perception based on his own findings in similar drug experiments— found an altered consciousness that runs parallel to everyday normal reality.

Then I think of the Beat Generation, comprised of Jack Kerouac, Cassady, Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and many others. Kerouac’s novel, On the Road is a brilliant observation of one man’s world.

Then I’d think of the book I read last summer called No One here Gets out Alive, the biography on Jim Morrison. In the school corridors he’d see a pretty girl, casually stroll over and recite 8 to 10 lines from a sonnet he memorized and then bow and walk away. Funny stuff.

It came as a surprise to me how Neil Cassady died, well the speculative stuff anyway. Some say he was speeding on the highway when his heart just totally collapsed. Others say he was in a deep despondency, and having mixed downers with alcohol, it killed him. His pale lifeless body was found along Mexican train tracks by local Mexican police. This was explained to me in the epilogue in Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. He died a hero.