-I’ve pretty much decided to go home for school. I don’t think anything can change that now— Dano or Rich talks— even if Jolene should call and say she’s happily married again. I’ve got a life. A talent. Now’s the time to develop. I’ll tell Dano tomorrow. He’ll be pissed and I’m dreading it but I’m doing what I think is right.

I’ve pretty much felt useless here— working part-time and waiting for calls from jobs I don’t even care about. I wrote a letter to my parents telling them about my new plan.

It’s time to wake up and get with the program. I sit here in my room with a smoke and a beer. Can’t sleep. Much on my mind and mind much on coffee. Jason and Anna will be bummed. So much weight on my shoulders and so many questions in my head.

I read a little philosophical piece the other day that Dano had written before I arrived. He drew an analogy between life and a diving board: does one dive in blindly or test the water with your toes first. I’vee been pretty much diving in for a couple of years now. My attitude has been— fuck it, work a little, take off, work some more and take off again. I can’t keep diving in. When I came here, I didn’t think about it, I dove in— to escape the hurt. Women are my downfall. I quit Umass Boston six months after I began dating Anne.

Dano’s life runs on smoothly, working in a field he prepared for by going to school and hard work. I’m jumpy to get off my ass and put nose to the grid iron. Been lost too damn long.

It’s 2:15 in the morning and I’m very awake. Got to get up for work in four hours, that is, if they have a fucking job today.

-What a couple in Steve and Roya— easterners gone west. They’ll marry someday. Though they’ve been together six years, Roya’s dad has no idea about Steve. Her father is extremely religious and would never have her being with him. However her and Steve are very programmed to one another. Steve comes home from work every day and five minutes later she comes through the door, shoulders slunk forward and a bag of weed in her hand. She says, “Try some, Jim. Come on. It’s good bud. Just one hit Jim.” Every day and every time I feel it— thick, sticky full marijuana aroma (which I happen to like the smell of weed). They smoke up then both retire into Steve’s room to sleep or fuck or whatever they do. Sometimes they actually go out— usually to Robert’s place to smoke more and eat. Happy in love and smoke— perfect harmony.

-Mike is the most self-reliant person I’ve ever met. He never uses the washing machine but prefers to wash his clothes in the sink; instead of the dryer he leaves his clothes on the back of the patio chairs to dry. He never swims in the pool. He never leaves his room unless it’s to use the bathroom or go to work. He rides his boss’s bicycle to and from work. He doesn’t buy food but brings home leftover soup or Chinese food from the restaurant where he works. I joke with him that it’s ok, that he can really use the household appliances. He doesn’t use the refrigerator or the stove. He smiles and tells me that it’s no big deal and that he was brought up by himself.

-When they test rockets over the desert they leave a wispy smoky ring, high in the sky; as night falls the ring turns into cool spectrums of color.

-I think about Ellen who I met at Lucky’s Supermarket on my third day here. I would see her quite a bit in line and she would say “hello, Boston blue eyes.” She was cute enough, a little on the heavy side but my heart was with Jolene. That day when she called and said it was over, I got drunk, hopped into the jeep and drove to Luckys. Of course she wasn’t working and the manager wouldn’t give me her home number. Drunk sad day.

-Funny how every guy who works at Custom-Maid says they are a struggling musician. “I used to play drums,” I said, stroking my long hair. I fit right in.

-Gene and Sally are fighting again. Sally deals with it by getting stoned drunk and stupid. While she’s sitting there courtside, me and Dano are trying to play tennis in the court at their apartment complex. She sits there drinking her beer, sobbing. Gene mopes around the court unsure what to do. Sally tells us to screw tennis and let’s go get drunk in a bar. We ignore her and finally Gene gets her up and back inside the apartment.

-I told Dano about my new plan. He didn’t say much. Something in his silence spoke volumes though, anger or disappointment. I expected it.

-I already feel trapped. Got to get back east and on with things. I feel unwanted now that I’ve declared my intentions. All tickets to Boston, in the newspaper, are sold. I don’t have enough money to think about thumbing or taking the jeep. I’m wasting time. I’m trapped and want to get on with my future.

-Yes! Karl Piazza from Denver— he’s selling a one way ticket from LA to Boston for a hundred bucks, first class to boot. Here’s the kicker: he’s going to Fed-Ex me the ticket with the promise I will send him the money, ASAP, once I get home. I suppose I could fuck him over but I’m grateful for his trust and that’s not how I operate anyway.

I called Bart back home and he’s going to send a check to Karl for said amount. I will pay him 50 on my return home and the other half once I start working again. God bless my friends.

-Talked with Jolene. She knows I’m returning. By the tone of her voice, it sounds like she might want to hook back up. I told her Bart lent me the money. She asked why I didn’t just borrow it from her. She also said something to the effect that— if it’s going to work no more drinking— which I missed the context of the remark. But I can’t let her get in my way anymore. I’m leaving this week-end, Saturday.

-One last night drinking with Dano, Anna and Alexus. Good drunken fun. We went to some restaurant/bar and Dano passed out at the table next to a big bowl of onion rings.

-I’m on my way to LAX with Dano. I’m a little uncomfortable because I know he’s pissed.

I really don’t know what to expect when I get home.

A part of me hopes Jolene surprises me and greets me at Logan when Bart picks me up.

Goodbye LA.

At the airport we shake hands. Brief goodbye. Awkward parting and unhappy….

-I’m in Denver and waiting to reconnect for my flight to Boston. It’s a 12 hour layover. I didn’t find out about that until the afternoon of my LA departure. One month ago today, I left Boston with a frazzled escapist attitude; now I return with a plan that shall not be distracted. I’m going back to school to get a degree in something that will abet in a good future.

I’m tired and bored and waiting but wary of heading back to Randolph (I’d love to see Jolene). I’ve got to keep busy because I’ll never sleep here in this airport. Karl Piazza lives in Denver and and told me to call if I needed a place to sleep— but it’s an hour bus drive. My suitcases are too heavy to lug around the Denver streets at night and unsure of the directions. I’d love to hit Larimer Street again— Kerouac’s old hang out but I’ll settle here for ohh, say eleven more hours.

I walk around the quiet airport like a ghost and sit outside and smoke and listen to the recording— a message every few seconds but after three hours, it has become a diabolical rant that is striving to drive me mad: “Welcome to Stapleton International Airport. You may stop only long enough to load and unload. Please do so quickly so we may accommodate everyone. No waiting for passengers or leaving vehicles unattended. No parking in true parking lanes. Violators will be ticketed and vehicles towed away.”

I managed to grab a couple hours of sleep, sprawled out on the floor and hidden by chairs. Woke a couple of hours before my flight and washed up in the men’s room. I’m paged over the intercom. It’s Karl and he meets me at my gate. He wants to make sure that I get on, ok, I guess. He’s a thin bearded man and looks like he just arrived from a Dead show. Then he asks me if I want to exchange my ticket for another at a later time so he can resell mine to someone else who needs to get to Jersey today. No way I tell him unflinching. He doesn’t seem upset. I promise to hold on to the other leg of the trip, the return ticket to Denver and mail it to him. Old Karl’s got some little scheme going on here.

In Jersey, I’ve got an hour layover and call my folks to call Bart (who’s not home at the moment) for my time of arrival.

At Logan I fetch my luggage and look around for maybe Jolene and Bart. No one is here. Maybe they are just late. I sit outside and wait. Then I see Bart’s car driving around and searching for a parking space. No Jolene. I’m disappointed. God bless Bart though.

Back at 70 Allen. I greet everyone. Dawn tells me that Jolene has been calling all week-end looking for me— most recently, today. She’s working at Friendly’s. I call her. Small talk. She seems distant.

“See ya around,” I said.

“All right. Have a nice life,” she said.

I walk over to Paula’s to see Rich and the gang.

That night, lying on the couch in front of the tube I hear a car pull up out front. I bet it’s Jolene. There’s alight rap on the door. It’s her in that familiar green uniform. We hug. We lay on the couch, embraced, watching TV until my mom wakes up and sees us. She freaks and Jolene leaves angrily. I’m pissed because my mom was pretty rude to her. It felt so good to hold her again.

-So, I’m home. Things I’m thinking: cruising to work in the jeep cranking Ministry— along Sherman Way to Owensmouth and pulling up in back lot for my daily assignment… Peggy, a girl who worked with me and who invited me back to her house to talk with her boyfriend about a job and the stress she put on her ex… Topanga Canyon Boulevard and The Rock, with its pool tables, shit copy bands and jerk-off locals where in drunken rage, I drove a pool stick through the wall… Venice Beach and Pasadena where I totaled $150 in parking violations… Roscoe and Desoto come to mind and I’m not sure why or what realization I may have undergone there… hot blanket valley days… Dano working his butt off so he can live in his big house… Malibu Beach and the canyon drive… The LA Times and Daily and the crappy job market frustration job futures… the need to roam and adventure… the realization that I will need to develop skills in a congested job market… Freeway 405 and the 101— the most traffic I’ve seen in my life… valley walls of morning hidden behind smog… the memory, long ago of my trip to Europe and now Rich wants to go to California but I hate the idea… great to see Dano and his world… that asshole, Elvis— Anna’s friend at The Rock who I almost got into fisticuffs with because he didn’t like my taste in music… Anna’s pet rat who drank beer from a bottle cap then knocked over my gin and coke glass that broke and the rat lapped up my drink like water… the ghost who lives in Anna’s apartment that I never met… so many Mexicans hanging out on street corners, every morning waiting for some labor company to grab a few for the day at low cost… Laurel Canyon Boulevard… the no smoking signs posted along the roads and I threw a butt out the window anyway… Mason and Oso… Winnetka and the 7&11… Lurline and Lull… Ellen… the unhappiness in my heart.  

-I thought I could run. That’s what I tried to do. I ran over three thousand miles. I ran from her but mostly, from myself. I ran to California looking for a quick fix. But then nothing changed. I thought I could drop everything here and not look back. Distance would wash it all away. I was wrong. Running from problems is not the answer.

-You’re on the bottle , kid

Yourself into oblivion.

-Starting over again and this time will be different. School. No road trips. No girlfriends.

They’re everywhere, these stalking ghosts. I can’t escape them. So much at stake in this life and to be haunted.

Shattered ideas and dreams below me. My head has turned full circle. I had such goals at the beginning of 1993.

While life eases by, one spends time travelling in dreams. It’s like, looking out the window at the car accident but blind to the confusion around you.

Life wasted. Things abandoned. Unmotivated years.

-I’ll end up hating you

too will the same

and that’s the only way

never meant to be.

Everything is that way

that’s the truth, something

becomes another

big fucking illusion-o-gram.

Situations driven by hidden force

and always we seem to know

or not know   

lady irony laughs

cruel tones

like some twisted clown—

and that seems to be the truth.

-Another day of waste. Home now only three weeks. Jolene still comes around or calls, giving me— or playing head games— false hope. She kisses me goodbye, lightly and still looks at me with those big brown eyes, lovingly.

I’m still jobless, broke. Bad job market as people seem to be getting laid off, companies move slow. I’m angry at myself and going crazy. Flip flopping like an injured seal. Me and my mom had a bitter fight and she kicked me out of the house. Everything seems to be against me in this small moment in life. I knew it would be tough., not this tough. Got to stick to my plan. Beneath all this mud hides a little nugget of hope. It looks like I might get accepted into New England School of Photography.

Fuck everything, ignore all and stick it out.

-Start getting some poems down, ideas. “Everything is broken” and “change of direction” themes.

-Laid out at night on the cool big rocks, waiting to see the meteor shower. Rich is way to psyched up— it’s as if he’s expecting great fiery bursts in the sky. However radio and TV built it up too and I knew better. If I saw one meteor I would be happy. The clouds stretch far across the sky with intermittent breaks.

I had thought about riding my bicycle to Blue Hills but instead rode to Rich’s house. We took a walk a few blocks away to observe from higher ground. As we walked down Grove Street our heads were turned upward and my neck cramped up. Then, one broke through— an oval meteor of silver streaked by in a flash and disappeared.

We lay there a long time. Perspective and imagination began to grip my head. The sky was alive and I began to fall— gravity had let go. My fingers clung to the rock as my legs dangled upside down and the sky waited to swallow me whole. Then I fell— through the black night, forever.

I turned to him. Both of us had unlit cigarettes in our mouths. Neither one of us could keep a match lit long enough.

Rich was going to California now. I couldn’t figure out why. He had a good job working with a foundation company. He lived with friends in an easy going house with all the comforts he needed. He had girlfriends. He had close friends. He said he needed a change of direction. The west was the place. He was growing stale here. He needed a new adventure. I had heard this before but was not sure if it was his best move.

A meteor broke and was gone. I only saw it in a millisecond out of the corner of my eye— never saw where it came from or where it went— just the flash.

Back at Rich’s we hung out with Paula and drank White Russians. Having been kicked out of my parent’s house, I was sleeping here. Jolene called and asked if she could come by and talk and I said sure.

Out front of the house I laid down a blanket and waited. The clouds were breaking and the night still. I had no idea what to say to her when she arrived. Even in California over the phone at times I was speechless. When I boarded the plane her face never escaped memory.

She joined me on the blanket. She said maybe college would be the answer I was looking for. She said she needed me as a friend. She said she had to get her life together and couldn’t confuse her purpose. I tried to tell her that I loved her too much to be friends. Deep down, I knew more than anything she badly wanted to reconcile with her husband. I couldn’t see her anymore.

Another meteor shot far over the roof. “Another one!” I said. It startled her.

Couldn’t she see why we could not just be friends? Why was it so important to her? To wreck me further?

I saw three more meteors and was satisfied. I imagined one slamming into the earth and for once I felt positive and dreaded the thought of it. There is just too much to live for to die so soon.

-Broken clocks.

Refracted light

on dying wave.

A lost ticket

letter never written

A disconnected wire

on the weathervane.

Twenty four and so much more

twenty five, time to realize.

-Ha! The hypocrisy that is her. It’s over. Jolene is dating another man, from Randolph no less whom she met at Friendly’s. I know him too— and not exaggerating because I’m hurt. He’s a thief, liar, drug addict and loser. Everyone knows him on these terms as well, not just me. Fuck you Jolene. Rot in hell with worms over your body. Bitch. Cunt. Pig. Holene.

Still… stick to my plan. Subjective subjective too damn much.

-A new job. Six bucks an hour under the table as a dish dog for a jewish deli in Cobbs Corner, Monday through Friday, 8am to 3 pm. Now I can start gathering money for my plan. This job is just too good to be true right now.

-Faces shift in the dark; uncertain trails on the outside. I’ve been everywhere, except dead. One thing seems true: cycles occur in life. Sometimes, a rotten egg turns fresh.

-Unsure of creativity. Echoes of pattering feet in lost mind. Dulled. Layers of hurt and hate, repression, hopelessness and confusion. Yet beneath all this stripped down feeling, I’m there somewhere, the real me— the one that I have known. The bitterness will dull. No more stupid choices. No more fruitcake women in the way of my goals. First Anne then Jolene. Then and now and tomorrow. Getting fucked over by women ends now. This road of depression, I know will somehow lead me to clarity and wisdom and the right choice. No more follies. I refuse.

-Don’t invite a friend on a date or buy the girl at the bar a drink or philosophize with your woman or fall for married chicks or get naked if she wears a wedding ring; no, don’t argue parking tickets or ask what you can do for your country or subscribe to newspapers or report to boot camp in boots or watch TV on election day or pay with quarters when you got dimes; no, don’t invite the stork unless you can afford his fare or return a pen pal’s letter or buy pens when you have pencils or write to not read; no, don’t let music disillusion lyrics or eat soup with a fork or count hatched eggs or chew gum like a ball player or bite your lip and then eat a French fry; no, don’t park your car beneath a bridge or drink more than you can drive or yield if there are no headlights or run— walk a different path or knock on doors or photograph your prime; no, don’t face mirrors or lose keys or observe and forget or brush your teeth with a stranger’s toothbrush or wear hats or flush the toilet for the next guy or expect the sun anytime soon, no no no.

-The torn face of a young daughter— tears on her white cheek and puzzled eyes that observe her mother— the mother she last touched eight years ago. The mother observes her with cold indifferent eyes. The daughter breaks out sobbing. It is so real that it evokes a memory within the mother, so real that the mother breaks down too. Her cane falls to the floor. She is frozen, her voice choking. “It is you,” said her mother.

-I’m called upon to write. An urge, a feeling, an image oh good ole frosty New England. I stand outside the trash dumpster. There is still snow on the ground from last week’s storm. Puddles have replaced the ice. The cold is growing. I take the bag of trash and heave it into the dumpster.

All morning I’ve heard all kinds of predictions— but we’re in for a big storm tonight (all this talk excites me)— this much here, that much here, when it strikes… everyone seems to know how much snow and when— except me but that is the New England winter attitude. Ahh snow, screaming wind and ice— beautiful. I stand there by the dumpster in the grey afternoon and can’t help falling in love with life.

-I’d rather not be a billboard. I have my photo album memorized. Think creative, don’t try creative.

-Dano came home for Christmas. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since that unhappy day at LAX. I still remember his eyes that day, distant and bitter. That imaginary foot that kicked me on the ass when we parted. I am reminded of the changes within me. He understands now that I had to follow my satori and time has eased bitterness. He was excited that I hadn’t strayed from the path. I was no longer a penniless broken hearted traveling fool.

Me and Slabs picked him up at Logan. It was a warm misty December day. We greeted each other as if nothing had happened between us. He seemed pumped up to rediscover New England. Driving south on the expressway I popped in a Christmas tape. I imagined that in his reflective quiet mind, he was reliving old scenes of younger days and flashes of memorable heartbreak and joy.

That day snow came. At night he played ice hockey with us at the rink and afterwards we went to Stooges for beer— Wabrek and other familiar faces. A good night of talk and laughter.

One night I hooked Dano up with Beth (who thought he was cute). She was the daughter of the owner of Maxi’s Deli where I worked. She waitressed there. She always flirted with me but I was interested in her friend, Heidi who sometimes stopped into the deli for lunch.

One night me Dano, Beth and Heidi drove into Boston. We walked the Common with icy winds that roared on our backs as we strolled through looking at the Christmas lights. Heidi whined the whole time. Eventually we hit Cheers for warmth and drinks.

I have no idea why Heidi even came out. It wasn’t a blind date or anything. She was nothing short of a miserable bitch. First she insisted we take her car and she whined about how she had never drove into Boston before. At Cheers she just moped at the table as me, Dano and Beth had a blast. Good drunk night. On the way home Heidi insisted no drinking in her car so of course, we sat in the back and sucked them down anyway, one after another— pretending to cough as we popped open the can tab and so we drank and giggled and sang goofy lyrics to the radio songs.

After we dropped Heidi off, I talked Beth into coming back to my house. In my room we hung out for awhile until I got sleepy and went downstairs to crash on the couch. In the morning when I popped upstairs into my room, Dano was still crashed on my bed and there was a condom sticking out of the top of a beer bottle— yes! His first lay in almost two years, since Mary.

One night me, Dano and Paula got hammered.

Christmas Eve, 1993. Beth’s dad also had a girlfriend and she was part owner and cook at the deli. She invited me to a Christmas party at their house. Beth invited Dano. Great drunken night as we eventually had to take a cab home because we were too drunk to drive.

Woke up Christmas morning at Slabs house. Dano was nowhere to be found. As me and Slabs walked the side streets to my house, a light snow fell and I felt so lucky to be alive and full of spirit.

-On that trip I stumbled for hours, bumping into things in the dark. I’ve always learned my lesson except that in time I simply forgot the mistake and continued rocking in the dark.

-Everyone has someone except me; they all seem so happy.

-A bottle of images

guitar horsemen go

ask Alice

in chains they come

swirly pearly nose picking crowds

barking precepts as lovely

back stabbing backpackers

in Flagstaff

(could actually be in my car).

Little girls

set gears.

Coffee tooth plaque

soaks the cracked lip

yummy yummy yummy

coffee cup breaks in two

like pale half-moons over

ukulele and eucalyptus

landscape.

Four non blacks

in Roxbury. Is it time to leave?

(actually could be in my car).

 

-Too much space and time in between. Other things occur. What can you do? Things have to be stored somewhere in my brain.

Been a long time, January since I wrote in this here journal, now March. Lots of things have happened since. One night, returning from a Rangers- Bruins game and bars at 3 am, me and Rod got pulled over by police. My car was towed but somehow Rod talked the cops into not arresting me for drinking and driving. Got home around 4:30am and never woke up for work at the deli and I was canned.

I began working nights at Braintree Papa Gino’s, delivering pizza part-time and barely made enough to sustain life and school. Started poorly at New England School of Photography because I was so broke I couldn’t afford supplies and equipment for assignments.

Got a gum condition, carried it around for three weeks until I finally went to Forsyth Dental School on the Fenway because it was free and continued going until it went away.

I let go of Jolene and the hate.

I’m still rewriting my old journals when I can.

In California I weighed 220lbs. Now I weigh 180lbs, right where I should be. It’s amazing what you can do if you set your mind to something. It never really hit me how much weight I had lost until one night Paula said if we weren’t friends, she’d scoop on me.

Well I just wanted to say hello to the present page and say that I hadn’t forgotten about you.

- Sometimes I get random thoughts to which I have no idea what they mean like: the loneliest man loathes whores in the morning.

I park my car behind Forsyth Dental along the Fenway. What I choose not to photograph as I walk towards NESOP in Kenmore Square. Lots really. It’s about a 12 minute walk to the school. My eyes seize up images, those too unsettling to set up a shot with the 4x5 camera I’m renting through school. It takes too much time to set up for a shot— they are mostly for artsy portraits or landscapes; a 35 millimeter I could use now, snap snap and move along.

Quiet Fenway. Spring now since last Sunday. Much snow and cold remain. However the past two days have been in the 60’s and the change is evident all around me— joggers in shorts and tank tops, bicyclists and dog walkers. There is a pleasant feel in the air. One of my classmates remarked,” people on the street are smiling again.”

In search of an image I can capture for class, for the darkroom. Along the Back Bay Fens I am an observer. I saw a young kid probably a student, duck into the tall brush off the road and pond. I thought maybe he was absorbing then scenery or duck watching but as I passed him he was just taking a piss.

I passed the playground where three black men were drinking booze from inside brown bags. Their clothes were tattered and I assumed they were homeless. I thought about approaching them to photograph, talk to them and find out their story. As my mind stuttered on this possible act I found myself already gone and at the bridge that leads into Commonwealth Avenue.

Below the bridge, is a small beat-up shelter, constructed of old dirty clothes and shaped like a tee-pee. It is a person’s home. Again, I ponder jumping over the rail and descending the hill to photograph the tee-pee but it strikes me that it might be a cruel invasion of privacy. I’d feel horrible if the man or woman returned as I pointed my light meter at the makeshift home.

Sometimes I see shadows from trees dancing on the ground or buildings that have a unique architecture or big letters or phrases spray painted on walls and more homeless in the playground. An old big-haired man in a wheel chair stares through round glasses while another man sleeps on the pavement covered in jackets and blankets but not worth the effort setting up the camera. I hate this 4X5 camera but it’s teaching me to compose with my eye better— seeing a photograph before I take it. Hopefully in term 2 I will use the 35 mm again and photograph things I chose not to because of the 4X5 camera.

It is spring now after an incredible winter— one that gave us snow on Christmas Morning (after an early December phase of warmth) and then a complete fall out through January and February. So far nothing in March. As we live through our harsh winter I think of Rich and Dano over on the west coast living through major fires and an earthquake.

I move along the Muddy River which passes beneath the Mass Pike and there seems to be no current at all— it chokes the bridge support legs while trash and clothing are strewn about the river bank. On sunny days, in oily corners of the river there is a rainbow effect that rises above the muddy surface.

I reach Comm avenue— a few dirty crusty snowbanks line the sidewalk like piles of tar. A homeless man bums a smoke off me. Ahead of me I see Cheryl, a classmate and I join her. She looks tired with dark rings under her eyes. She wears her trademark drab green army jacket.

“What’s the matter?” I ask.

“Oh I was up until two in the morning take some really cool pictures of my hallway. Right lighting. Really cool shot. I just hope they come out. I was up all night. One shot I even gave it a fifteen minute exposure. They better come out.”

As she hits the Kenmore Café for java, I bolt across Comm Ave. into NESOP and up the stairs into Nick’s class.

Drunkeness seems to be the summer’s theme— booze, parties and women. Real fun, huh? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m aware of it though. Last summer I was an emotional wreck and had zero fun. First Anne and then Jolene well, she hurt me bad and the negativity followed me into January. When I came out of the haze, I swore to myself that I was going to make up for lost time and have the summer of my life— at least one to remember— one of drunken free-for-all and good times. I made a pact with myself to not get involved emotionally with any women. Sex was fine. Emotions, off limit. If you see me as foolish, shallow or easily amused, you have no idea how I got here. I am free from the hurt. Let’s bring it.

Tis Great Woods season once again. My little party fortress. This time, Kiss 108 FM concert. There’s no groups that I’m interested in hearing or seeing— it’s top 40 stuff but it’s a daylong event and we can drink and meet beautiful women in the parking lot. Besides I’m curious to see the new security fence they’ve constructed to keep the likes of me away from hopping the fence. With me are my brother, Ciz and Slabs and we hop into Slabs beat up truck and hit the highway.

The parking lot is much bigger now, maybe five more lots up front. Cars pile in— grills on tailgates, footballs and Frisbees soar through the air and gorgeous girls everywhere— people drinking beer from cases and kegs, clusters of kids smoking weed and sitting back on beach chairs and the scent of hot dogs and burgers surround us. We hang by Slabs truck listening to Pearl Jam. I break open the bottle of rum. More cars keep piling in guided by the yellow jacketed Great Woods security. Screams of delight and drinking baby—

Dave and Ciz drink at the truck, me and Slabs stroll across the parking lots and wander down to the concert fences. We search for weaknesses in the fence, taking mental notes for futures concerts. We wander to the very back of Great Woods where three cute drunk girls are trying to find a spot to jump. The chain-link fence is easy enough to get by— I could slip right underneath it— it’s the 15 foot fence passed it, with no holds for feet or hands— it seems impossible. Further down from us I watch two men scale the wall with a fucking rope and then disappear over the wall, along with the rope. The girls seem desperate to get in. We walk along the perimeter, on the security vehicle road toward the other side. We come to a cracked wood fence and very accessible but on the other side is the VIP tent and security.

Getting dark now and happily drunk and the sky is a purple hue. Me and Slabs are just wandering around chatting with everybody. We bump into a cool black guy we had met earlier who has just left the show. He had tried to sell us tickets earlier but now he offers up two for free. He’s leaving. Why not?— me and Slabs agree. A change of scenery.

Inside me and Slabs lose each other and damn he’s got my wallet. Where one goes another appears in life I guess. I stumble across Jim Hyland, his mom and sister Jen. I join them on the blanket. Come to find out the beer stands are closed anyway.

I stroll off looking for Slabs and bump into two girls from Randolph I know— Vera, a thin pretty black girl and Mickey, a pretty read head. We hang together and chat and laugh. Slabs walks by out of nowhere and he joins us. He tries to put the moves on Mickey and I think partially succeeds. Me and Vera play tag on the lawn— dodging the crowd, blankets, prone bodies and when I catch her we tumble to the ground and we start making out.

The rest is a blur. I do recall me and Slabs tipping over an abandoned security vehicle on to its side and then we rushed off.

-Some nights we hang over Jean and Johnny’s. It’s funny how Jean came back into the picture. She was an old friend of ours and having once dated, Rich and later on, my brother. Over the years we talked once in a while but somewhere along the way we simply lost touch and went our own ways— different interests and circumstance, not out of a falling out or dislike, you see.

Sometime during the early spring of 94, Kevin was trying to put together a softball team for Stooges in Quincy. He ran into Johnny Mofford at the gas station, where Kev worked, and asked if he wanted to join the Stooges team. Apparently Johnny married Jean over the past winter. Well Jean, ever the manipulator, talked a doubtful Johnny into signing up. Now through practice and meetings, me and Rich (Rich had just moved back home and into Paula’s house around this time) got to reacquaint with Jean while also we really took to Johnny’s easy going and friendly nature. Through softball Jean and Johnny became part of our circle and each time it grew tighter the bond. Eventually Jean would become our coach though not without some dissent.

Some nights we hang over Jean and Johnny’s drinking, playing pool, drinking and playing pool. Johnny does most of the drinking while Jean picks her spots. Although one night Jean came back to the house with a hundred dollars’ worth of booze for mud slides….

There are times we get crazy. I’m sure there are mornings when Johnny regrets meeting us as he peels himself out of bed, sickly hungover and trying to focus on the impending work day. He owns a foundation company and it’s not easy work. Funny though, we’re an influence sure but we certainly don’t have to pull his arm as he says, “Yes, I’d love to tie one on.”

One drunken night we all played pool and it came down to teams. Jean was trying to sleep. The game, I’m the handicap and Johnny the master player so we are paired against Rich and Dano (Dano who had returned home from California just a couple of weeks after Rich returned) who are both excellent shooters. Someone, Johnny I believe, in drunken cockiness suggested the losers must run down Edwin Street naked. We all agreed— hell, I was so drunk I told Rich and Dano that if they lost I’d join them anyway. Well, me and Johnny lost. As we began to undress, Rich and Dano figured drunkenly, what the hell and the four of us, our white asses glowing in the dark, ran towards the little league field and back.

Once inside the house again we all dared each other to do it again, this time up Edwin Street toward Main Street, the longer run. As the four of us undressed outside in the driveway, Jean walked outside, camcorder in hand and firmly telling Johnny he dare not join us on this run— as they talked about it, his pants down to his knees and he swaying drunkenly, the three of us bolted, naked toward Main Street— the whole way laughing, crazy, possessed— me in the lead. When we reached Main, I took the dare one step further and ran across Main to D’Angelos, touched the door and recrossed. Rich followed me.

At the house it was late and time to leave and we walked and the time was 3:30am. Rich dared me to walk home naked— and I did, wearing just my t-shirt, the whole drunken way down North Main Street— Dano and Rich fully clothed behind me. Then, near Friendly’s a cop car pulled over to them to question them and I immediately sat down on a stone wall and tried to pull my shirt down over my genitals. It seemed like years before the cop finally left and thankfully he had no idea what I wasn’t wearing. I had made it this far I might as well finish it. So, with morning light breaking over the sky, I walked through the front door of my parents, still mostly nude and walked upstairs and went to sleep.

Jean really let us have it for that one.

One night the pool losers had to be slaves to the winners. Me and Johnny roared as Rich dutifully cleaned the carpet where Shane had taken a dog piss. And when Jean had to make me drink after drink and light my smoke after smoke. The game lost its luster though as I bent down, cleaning, Eight Ball the cat’s litter box with Johnny faithfully at my side—

Lots of fun on Edwin Street.

-Left school at the start of term 2 around April. I couldn’t afford full time school working my new part time job at RPL in Jackson Square for $5.50 an hour. My new plan: withdraw from school for the summer, work and save until school started up again in October.

Things did not begin right. I wanted a better paying job, full time days. I could save more money and not miss softball games—

An old friend of mine, Tabitha told me that a warehouse down the street from me was hiring. She worked there and had it in good with the supervisors. She pretty much guaranteed me a job. There was one problem— Jolene worked there. So I thought this through and over and over and our past together was no longer a threat to me— she was just another ghost now, like all girlfriends. I wanted a job. I had no intention of trying to rekindle that old flame. I wouldn’t go there but as a dig I suppose it wouldn’t bother me one bit if I hooked up with one of her friends. I knew I could face her now.  Could she face me again? Me and Tabitha met secretly, told no one, I snuck in and dropped off my application.

One night at RPL I exploded on the night supervisor and quit— I was sick of being treated like a 16 year old, for shit pay to boot— who needs it. Besides I had the new job lined up pretty much ready to go.

Then somehow Jolene found out I had applied— someone leaked it and she began calling my house and questioning my sister. She would leave messages on the machine— blah, blah, blah. At work, Century Mail was its company name, Tabitha said Jolene freaked out and threatened to quit if I was hired, whined to Tabitha about betrayal, obviously too much drama for Century Mail to deal with and so there I was once again jobless because Jolene probably thinks I’m still in love with her maybe even stalking her. Perhaps in the end it was just bad judgement on my part.

-Next weekend, after the KISS 108 show, Metallica came to Great Woods backed up by Suicidal Tendencies and Danzig. In my younger more classic rock days, I respected Metallica from a distance but now I’m really digging them. Great Woods calls my name. So three car loads, actually my brother’s huge crew and then some all hit the scene.

The scene: the people are wearing dark black clothes, pants, boots, tank tops, bandanas, miniskirts— a sea of black fabric— long haired dudes in leather and big fat kids in Metallica t-shirts. Beer flows all around and smoking grills and a thick party atmosphere.

Another round of unlimited drunkenness—

What a crew— Slabs, Hen, Ciz, Tom, Brams, my brother and many others; at one point, Tom began taking up a collection to buy me a ticket because I’d never seen them in concert— “No way you’re staying here for Metallica,” Tom roared. He didn’t realize I was just going to hop the fence anyway but soon enough, in no time really he presented me a ticket.

I drank my Jim Beam, smiled and talked to strangers while most of our crew had dispersed to hear Suicidal, including Slabs. When I returned to his truck for a refill, I discovered my bottle in the front seat, doors locked—damn— I approach some kids hanging out two cars down and I bet them that they can’t break into Slabs truck. If they did I promised them endless shots of Beam. However all three kids took turns and failed, damn I’m thirsty, but then a 4^th dude joined us with a coat hanger and he managed to get the window open enough to slide his hand in to unlock the door, unharmed and Beam was passed around gloriously.

As night came I stumbled to the main gate to see my first Metallica show. I walked through the gate and passed the bathrooms. I find myself having a conversation with this really cute girl. We started making out hot and heavy. I invite her back to the truck for drinks. Arm in arm we stumble back to the truck and no one is there now—everyone is in the show. She asks if I can give her ride home to Rhode Island after the show. Sure I say. Pretty soon though she starts showing signs of leglessness and I open Slabs truck door and navigate her into the seat to crash.

I wander off, trashed and stroll across the parking lot to enjoy the rest of the night.

Later when I got back to the truck, Slabs is there with his girlfriend, Jana.

“Jim,” he says. “Who the fuck’s in my truck?”

“I don’t know her name.”

I shake her awake. She jumps up and begs for a ride home. No way Slabs is doing that. I invite her to my house to crash. She can’t she says. She has to get home tonight. She hops out of the truck, wandering the lot and begging for rides from strangers. I follow her for a bit because she seems on the verge of losing her mind. In time she starts to get further away and I just let her go on her merry way and head back to the truck.

On the drive home, I’m told, me and Smitty were pissing off the side of Slabs truck at 70 mph.

-At first, I’m nervous. The horse is so damn big and quiet. Jean strokes the horse’s mane. “How’s Alec today? Huh, baby?”

Today is my first lesson in horseback riding. Jean said the previous owner underfed him, enjoyed beating and carving designs with a knife into his skin. Of course this angers me and makes no sense but then I start to worry that Alec might have anger issues with me on his back. He is 15 years old, out of shape with undefined muscles and a flabby butt. Jean and Johnny are trying to get him back in shape. He is very friendly and obedient. Sonny, the other horse is tougher and stronger and only Johnny is allowed to ride Jean’s sisters’ horse. Just as well. I’ll take my chances with Alec.

Rich and Johnny are here too. I want to go first, just to get it over with because I’m nervous. We walk the horses along a dirt path behind the stables to an open sandy lot.

I put my foot in the stirrup and hop up on to the saddle. Jeans walks Alec along with a leash for a few minutes to get me used to the horse. I hold the reigns. When I say I’m ready, Jean gathers the leash and me and Johnny begin to trot on our horses. My butt rises gently up and down and we trot around a quiet pond and along sandy trails. The horses seem to enjoy each others company and stick together. I pull the reigns to the right and he easily turns right. It’s a lovely casual ten minute trot. Near the end of the trail, Sonny begins to canter then Alec canters and holy shit— “Whoa! Stop! Whoa,” I yell. He canters on, rocks beneath his shoes— rocks that look super big now. I pull the reigns and when we reach Jean and Rich, the horses slow to a trot and stop. I gladly hand the reigns over to Rich.

In retrospect, Alec cantered so smooth, I could have held an egg in the palm of my hand and it would not have fallen.

-6/17 We managed to lose another game. We find ways to lose. Not enough clutch hitting. Shabby defense. Weak pitching. You name it. These are my thoughts as we enter the Varsity Club in Quincy. They check our Id’s at the door and we walk across the place looking for a table. As we pass the bar someone calls out to us,” Look! The cops are after OJ.” We look up at the TV and indeed, on the California freeway, dozens of cop cars are chasing a white Ford Bronco. All six bar TV’s are tuned in.

We grab a table— myself, Rich, Rod and his new girlfriend, Kim. Of course Rod’s wife, Dawn, has no idea about Kim. Rod orders a pitcher of beer. We watch the screen. I can’t see the through the tinted glass of the Bronco. The skycam follows steadily— zooming in then zooming out. It is a controlled chase, calm and luckily not wreckless. The cops stay close but don’t try and bum rush the Bronco. I can’t believe I’m watching this— that it’s really happening at all. I mean, doesn’t he realize how guilty he is making himself look to America? God, Nicole was such a beautiful woman.

The night wears on and we get buzzed. Two homely girls beside me and Rich flirt and talk with us but I’m really not interested. I’m still sort of glued to the TV that is showing pictures of former football greats and none of OJ— OJ Simpson, a wanted murder suspect on the run.

As the time closes in on last call, the Bronco reaches OJ’s mothers’ house and it parks and nothing seems to happen— no movement from within the vehicle or from the police. Someone in the bar yells out that OJ killed himself. No one knows anything. I’m watching the screen but all I can hear is the music from the juke box, Stone Temple Pilots. Finally I’m growing tired of the screen and my thoughts turn to leaving to find another bar. I’ve had enough of this movie. I grab the pitcher, poor one more beer and man, I’m feeling good.

-I work for Johnny when he needs an extra grunt. Typical work day, form dogging for Johnny’s company. Rich usually picked me up in the form truck and we’d meet the others at the yard. Cool mornings loading up the trucks with heavy concrete smeared forms— the day turns into hot sweaty afternoons— dirt and burns on the arms from the grizzled uneven forms. It’s a long methodical day of pouring concrete, stripping, set-ups— great work out for sure and at the end of the day, sometimes 4:00, other times, 6:00, I go home beat up, cut, my skin an ashen concrete grey, my nails blackened and my hair all crusty from sweat and concrete powder. I know that my pay was well earned.

When I’m not working for Johnny I’m working for my friend Scott servicing air conditioners. Scott would pick me up between 10:00 and noon and we would hit the supply houses to pick up A-coils or fans or whatever the day’s jobs required. Basically we drove all over the place— Waltham, Needham, Lynn, Roslindale— wherever, to fix broken air conditioners and equipment related parts. Mostly my job (because I had no idea how to fix anything never mind a broken condenser fan) was to carry Scott’s tool box, Freon gauges and Freon bottle from the truck to the air conditioner usually in the back yard. I observed Scott as he performed the intricacies of his craft— reclaiming Freon or pumping down the system.  Most of the calls were basic service calls— installing fan motors was great because they were easy and fast as I stood behind him, sneaking a butt as I passed him his drill or screwdriver. It was the occasional changing of an A-coil in a cramped sweat box attic in June, bent over, drenched, ducking rusty roof nails and praying that after four hours of this attic from hell that there are no leaks in the system— the last thing we want to do is start all over to resodder a leak somewhere.

When I’m not working for Johnny or Scott, I work with my friend, Slabs. He does landscaping or moves furniture— a man-with-truck type of deal. He posts ads in the Money Saver. He pays pretty well too but his jobs can be tough other times monotonous but I know full well what is expected of me and carry out the day’s job. I don’t have to think— I don’t have to worry about the “right way” to carry a form or the theory behind a compressor— simple minded honest worry free work moving sofas or beds, raking big leafy yards in Wayland or trash runs to the dump.

So, between the three guys, the money comes in and postpones whatever career I have not chosen yet.

-July begins with a bang. July 1^st, Anna and her boyfriend, also named Rich, came to Boston for a visit. She has since moved to Chicago. It will mark the first time that myself, Dano, Rich and Anna will be together at once— me and Rich lived with Dano at different times. Rich met Anna after I left. I had met Anna at The Rock one night and a few days later introduced her to Dano, anyway. This Friday evening Anna and her Rich, Dano and Paula pull up to 70 Allen— Anna and Rich are drunk— Dano and Paula are on their way. I hop in and we drive to Holbrook to fetch our Rich. On our way to the bank and through Randolph Center, Anna swerves into the bank parking lot, runs the curb, laughing drunkenly and pulls into the drive-through area— having just missed hitting a car in the process. At this point, Rich takes the wheel and drives us safely to the Varsity Club.

After a feast and many pitchers of beer, we hop on the train to a club in Boston. By this time I’m drunk and Anna is wobbly-legged, red-eyed trashed— the whole drunken lot of us, reveling in the summer streets, bar after bar (I can’t even remember the area now) but our final bar stop was at Bill’s Bar, a drunken blur—Anna dropping her money left and right and at one point sixty bucks, right out of her pocket and I picked it up and gave it to her Rich. She’s bumping into walls, arguing with the doorman and swaying at the bar like a pendulum. Anyway it was an uneventful but fun night… much like most of the summer so far, though I did meet a cute blond who gave me her phone number.

The next day was casual. Jean and Johnny had a boat cleaning party. Me and Rich and Dano helped vacuum and scrub it as it had taken a beating last time out. Anna and Rich just hung out, very hung over and after we finished off the boat I offered to drive them into Boston for their first experience of the Hub. Afterwards, they admitted truly loving our city— strolling Faneuil Hall and digging all the stores; the Downtown Crossing area with all its unique color— Anna begging to stop to photograph tombstones in colonial cemeteries right there beneath city sky rises and federal buildings— and the fearless squirrels of the Boston Common, the sawn boats and the Public Garden.

Next we cruised along Mass Ave— later that night she called some friends from Watertown whom she had met while in California and they came by Paula’s for beer, laughter, talk and finally Shooters in Avon. Good drunk fun— shooting pool, talking to girls, meeting people, the whole drunk lot of us and at the end of the night I brought a girl named Karen home with me—

The next day we decided to meet my sister and Dawn at Hampton Beach— they had a motel room somewhere along the boulevard. Anyway we packed a huge crew, two vehicles— in one vehicle it was me, Slabs, Rich, Anna and Rich; in Dano’s truck was Paula, Rick and Berg. Such a boulevard of hot women in bikinis, studly men, people riding bicycles— it reminds me of Virginia Beach; the slow traffic crawl and we’re thirsty— Slabs and Rich hop out to buy beer and have no problem catching back up to us— man, it’s hot, especially being in the car as we search for the Marguerite  Motel— we wind along the road, turn left and left again on to a parallel running street and we head in the direction we came and soon, there it is— Dawn’s blue Blazer and park in the lot. We all have to use the bathroom but Dawn and Dawn are not there— just then we see them walking down the road and Dano’s truck behind them (we had lost them on the highway)— we all drink heavily now, in the parking lot, hollering encouragement to passing strangers— Rich tries a one-liner on a hot smoking babe who shuts him down completely— oh July— midpoint of summer— carefree and restless and the winter so far behind and the fall so far away— we party and carry on. Eventually we hit a restaurant up on the boulevard for dinner— steamers, chicken parm and fettucine— whatever and outside the sky is darkening— all of us bunched together connected by three tables and the poor waitress who has to handle such a drunk group and all the beers but oh— keep ‘em coming little lady—

Out of the blue, Dawn who is Rod’s wife, asks, “Do you have protection?”

“Sure,” I said. “Don’t be silly.”

“For me?” She smiled and looked me directly in the eye.

She caught me totally off guard. “Of course,” I said.

We head back to the motel, night now and we shoot off fireworks along the way— through the street at house rentals and hotel rooftops and back at Dano’s truck, we fill Dano’s backpack with fireworks and beer and Rich fills his with beer and now we hit a bar— inside we sneak off into the bathroom and crack a fresh beer from the bag then casually walk back into the bar to mingle, talk to ladies and the music cranks— we’re in holiday heaven— I meet a girl and Rich and Dano leave me be until later when we all meet up again, outside on the street corner. I start lighting jumping jacks much to the anger of passerby’s and store owners and when the cops show up we move on to the beach.  Suddenly someone shouts, “cops!” and we scatter. I look back and there’s Dano’s silhouette under the street light, hunched down and two cops on horseback behind him. I watch as he pulls the contents of his bag and me and Rich are just drunk and giggling like children but then the cops just sauntered off.

“What happened?”

“Oh man,” said Dano, “he wanted to see what was in the bag. I thought I was busted but he said— you’re not going to drink that on the beach or shoot them off tonight, right? I said yeah and they let me go.”

Not too long after that we had the greatest firework fight of our lives, right there on the beach— two bags of roman candles and bottle-rockets and firecrackers and more jumping jacks— two groups pitted against each other— we dive into the sand to avoid a misfire— sneak attacks and random bottle rockets shooting by us in three directions— Berg dropping whole packs of firecrackers beside unsuspecting victims— great laughter and quick escapes— Paula creeping around in the background trying to steal our fireworks and at one point she gets a hold of them but Rich is quick and tackles her into the sand: “I don’t have them! I don’t have them!” she yelled and it was true, they had fallen during her attempted escape and Anna had scooped them up and returned them to our arsenal— jumping jacks zooming over our heads— jumping out of the way of a roman candle shot like a bullfighter escaping a bull— all in drunken harmony until the end when our supplies finally ran out and we all split up somehow and me alone now, no more beer. Anna’s Rich has my wallet so I head back to the motel and get more beer and stand along the wall and observe people, beer in hand, a car filled with women cruises by and I yell out to them and I step into the street. I’m met by the harsh glare of a police officer and I make out the outline of a police car behind him. He demands that I dump my beer. I put it down on the sidewalk and glare back at him. He approaches even closer and asks if I want to spend the night in jail. I kick over my can and it’s empty now and he leaves. Upstairs in the girls room most everybody is sprawled out on floor and beds and at one point it’s just me and Dawn awake and we meet in the bathroom and hook up.

Next morning everyone left except for Dawn, Dawn, me and Rich. It’s 4^th of July and we pack up Dawn’s truck. I discover untouched fireworks in the Blazer and I figure, why not? It’s July 4^th. I spark up a firework in the parking lot— it whistles, smokes and explodes— pretty damn cool but then the motel manager comes running outside bitching at me and then orders my sister to get her things and get out of his room. No idea why he would kick her out because I lit off a legal firework, in a safe manner to boot but oh well, and we leave behind a room filled with empty beer cans and half eaten plates of food.

We get some pizza then spend the day at the beach playing Frisbee and wiffle ball.

When we get home I find out that I had just missed Anna and Rich who begun their long drive back to Chicago.

-At this time, a new song hits the airwaves, Come out and play, by Offspring. Aah, such cool new music with contemporary edge— generation X man— twenty something man— I’ll be 26 later this month, no real job or career, just work from my self-employed friends when it’s available— just enough money to sustain lifestyle of smokes, booze and coffee— my drifter attitude but grand fun it is and free— I wallow in this lifestyle for now, moment to moment.

-One night Rod and Kim set me up on a blind date with Kim’s friend, Julie. Kim and Julie picked me up early and we hit the Varsity Club where Rod would meet us later after work. Despite my friendship and long history with Dawn, I wasn’t going to hold a grudge against Kim who I thought was a pretty good kid and not the home wrecker Jean made her out to be. Hell it was Rod who began cheating on Dawn, hiding hickeys, bringing Kim to our softball games or using her to get rides all over the place— sometime in late June Dawn found out anyway and left Rod, eventually moving out of their apartment. Kim was cool; Rod, an idiot. I didn’t care too much. Rod had been looking at other women back in February. Funny though, if it wasn’t for me Rod would not have met Kim. One night at The Elks, last call, I had met Kim and later on she confessed that she wanted me but I was too drunk to remember her phone number— but Rod wasn’t and he called her back. I forgot who the hell she was anyway after so many drinks. The three of us sat at a table and Kim wanted to talk about Rod and Dawn— we did. Julie listened. She was a slightly chubby Jewish girl with the most beautiful deep blue eyes— however I really wasn’t interested, of course until the alcohol kicked in. The girls wanted to treat me— oh what a night— we got buzzed and the time got later and I asked if they wanted to take a cruise to New York City— to my surprise they were both ecstatic about the idea— we left the bar and picked up Rod at the train station. On the way Julie tried to telephone relatives in Manhattan but couldn’t get through and eventually they talked me into going to Hyannis instead where we would get a room for the night. Rod was up for it and the girls hit the liquor store to load up. Rod and Kim in the back seat, us up front, me swilling like a dishwasher— I’m trashed before we get there but I force myself to stay on top of things— Julie had kissed me earlier at the bar so I was expecting to get lucky. We got the room and me and Julie made out til like 5 in the morning. When I woke though I was in rough shape— sweaty, hungry and disgusted with myself, Julie and everything in this hangover haze. It was one of the longest rides home in a long time.

-7/14

Steve Miller at Great Woods. Dawn, Dawn and their friend Sandy had been planning to go see this concert for a long time. Hell, it was summer on a Thursday night and I had no work tomorrow. I asked Rich if he wanted to go— he had been seeing my sister for the better part of the summer. So the five of us headed out to Mansfield with beer, vodka and an appetite for adventure. The girls had tickets; me and Rich, if possible, were going to hop the fence.

So yet another great concert turn out and we hung out and drank with the girls until the concert started and they anxiously headed inside. As they left, night was falling and me and Rich went on patrol pretty buzzed. We stumbled upon five girls from Swansea Rhode Island who were scattered at their car leaving. They disliked the far distance of the grass area and the stage— but leave it to me and Rich to keep them from leaving as we drunkenly entertained them and we all laughed and drank. We watched in admiration as kids slipped through the fence where a wood plank had been removed. Me and Rich decided we’d go back to the car, snag the rest of the booze and pile through the fence. We were to find out the girls were from the same town where Rich’s ex brief flame Karla lived— the girl he met at Virginia Beach that came to an end one summer day when me and Rich took a drive to her work so he could surprise her with a red rose— but we showed up drunk, shirtless and she broke it off with him right there. These girls knew Karla and Rich asked them to say hello for him. Then security came by and told us to leave— the girls drove home and we ducked our way back to the car for refreshments then back to the fence that was now patched up.

We were not deterred. We climbed the hill to the chain-link fence. I was too drunk to climb to the top. Rich pulled the bottom out and I slipped beneath it— ripping my shorts at the crotch. Rich easily scaled the fence. We were inspired now and ran through the dark, bottle in hand until we came to another wood fence, a short one that was easily climbed even for a drunk like me. On the other side of the fence was a beer stand, closed now and the area empty. We wandered into the grooving crowd—

“Jim! My brother!” yelled my sister.

We had walked right smack into Dawn, Dawn and Sandy. They were trashed too. My sister hung on to Rich and danced all around him while Dawn reacted the same way with me, kissing, hugging and and dancing— trying to get me into it but I was too trashed now and I sat down and listened to the show. I watched as Sandy danced and hugged every guy she met it seemed. Eventually the show ended and Rich drove home and at some point during the blur of booze, me and Sandy began making out and the night ended with her in my bedroom blowing me to a happy ending.

In the morning we went at it again. She hung around most of the day until I had to leave for a softball game. At the field Rod and Kim were there and asked about the show. Then it rained and the game was cancelled.

-This summer of girls, man. Who would have thought it? Not me, not after last summer’s emotional wreck. But I changed. I lost weight. I went from 220 to 170, 15 under what is considered my normal weight. It seemed like as I shook off the whole Jolene hurt thing and got my confidence back at the same time, lots of girls were noticing me, for the first time probably since early high school. So from February I went on a rampage that I had never quite experienced before as if I were getting back at ex-girlfriends. I pledged not to get emotionally involved. Now I had confidence. The inferiority complex I harbored from being chubby was gone. In the past when I found someone was interested in me, I clung to that person, fearing I could never find someone else if I lost her. I became “whipped” as they say but then ultimately, hurt. No more. Now I stand alone. I will not worship, seek to possess or obsess over any girl, going forward. There is no rush to find someone. If I find a girl and I know it won’t work, it ends because there we always be other fish in the sea.

-A new movie opened called, The Mask starring Jim Carey, you know “the white guy” on Living Color. He is a hot actor right now since the wild success of his break out film, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. I knew it was a matter of time— he was too damn funny for just TV. The guy is incredible.

-July dissolved into August. I’m just getting by. I’m seeing two girls right now, Karen and Kelly. The scene is getting monotonous. I want to stop seeing women for a while and get my life back on track and find a real job. The work with my self-employed friends has all but dried up. I need to get a car. I missed a lot of shows I wanted to see because I had no means— Cracker at Great Woods, the Lollapalooza Tour at Quonset Airport in Rhode Island with Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Beastie Boys and L-7. Slow weekend days now. Softball is now over. Our team simply stopped showing up and we forfeited too many games. Personally I was playing the best ball I could remember, error free shortstop. We dropped out of the league with two wins to our credit.

-summer boat scenes: Me and Johnny waited for the others. His twenty foot sports boat, named Kayla Jean was lined up and ready to be backed into the water. Though it’s late in the afternoon, the sun burns hot on my shoulders. Rich, Jean and Rod are out buying beer and food. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and lit a smoke.

“What do you think is keeping them?” I asked.

Johnny shrugged. A cigarette dangled from his lips.

I hadn’t been on the ocean before. I had swam in it or flown over it but never in it on a boat. I wondered what it might be like to dream on the sea. I’ve been in east, west coast and Hawaiian waters, water-skied on lakes and canoed rapids but that was it. Although when I was about four, I don’t remember, my parents took me on the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. But Johnny’s boat was not a ferry.

Kayla Jean moved slowly out of Weymouth Harbor. Cool breeze blew through my hair. As Johnny punched it, the wake grew wide, like wings.

Boston Harbor now. I lay stretched out on the seats and look up at the sky, stars beginning to show. The soft lull of waves relaxes. I turn my head to face the bright shoreline— streets, building and bridge lights dot the landscape. I imagine the Citgo sign in Kenmore Square and think of school and long snowy winter and the train commute and ice and traffic on Mass Ave and setting up the 4X5 camera in frigid February without gloves and the expenses and classmates and work behind it all. It sucks that I had to drop out but October is a new beginning and I’ll be better prepared. I think that school should help me find a trade and that one day I can settle down and live a nice life like Dano and Johnny— by the time I reach my 30’s. These are my thoughts as I lay on the boat.

Rich, Rod and Jean are fishing; Rod on the bow shivering and Johnny is at the grill, flipping burgers.

North of Scituate, small island off the coast. We are steamer hunting. Thousands of holes in the sand blow out water as I step near them and begin to dig, intently.

“When I was younger, me and my brothers used to pull ‘em out and eat them. Yeah— they’re good. I didn’t get sick,” said Rich.

Jean digs a big hole with both hands and pulls out two big steamers the size of tablespoons. I am determined not to quit until there is more than enough for all to chow. Night is coming and sand fleas begin biting my legs, stinging them. The beach around us is scarred and clawed by our hands. I suppose we will be lucky if a patrol doesn’t come by and bust us.

After plenty of steamers, we pack up our gear and split this clambake.

The beer has gone too fast and me and Rich are buzzed. Feel cool in shades and the boat blazes upon the Atlantic and we sing along to cranking Chili Peppers and I feel so alive. Johnny pilots the boat and gazes the horizon ahead, a smoke in his mouth. He knows the coordinates pretty and Kayla Jean well, I’m told, by Jean. I trust him.

Jean and Rod talk about marriage and love and how he wants to get back together with Dawn.

Johnny kicks into a higher gear and the boat rises up like a tropical swell as the stern drops. The sky, a vast blue channel, forever.

Cape Cod channel cruise. On the far green banks are joggers, walkers, bicyclists and picnickers; couples hold hands or kiss while dogs’ tail wag behind their masters. In the channel, lots of boats— huge sailboats, motorized dinghy’s and speed boats. People are smiling and waving in cool shades and big hats. The approaching railroad bridge cast an immense shadow on us. Smooth easy wakes and breezes. Loons dart in the water.

Dano comes to me and says he once saw a man jump off the Sagamore Bridge as he watched from his bicycle— in a flash, the body plunged to a horrible death.

I try to light a smoke but the wind and spray….

We exit the channel into zones of blue eternity.

Grace Point, Providence— the tip of the Cape. We had been fishing in vain. The sea is beginning rumble. We decided to anchor along the shore.

The sand banks are triangular patterns that stretch beyond a huge tide pool and tall grass. I take a pointless stroll along the beach. I look at things. I wonder how a shoe became tied up in a piece of broken fence. What force guided these two objects to meet, if any at all and not merely by chance? Does the idea of chance have any tangible laws?

I came across a wide cove that opens to the sea while on the other side, across from me, there seems to be a sort of party— a lot of music and women sitting on tailgates and smoking weed. I figure I’ll keep going and wade across to the other side. It’s cold, very cold and crotch deep. There is an unbelievably strong undercurrent that reminds me of Sunset Beach. Some places drop off deep, on either side but I walk along the sand bar. I try not to get my shorts wet because they are white and I’m not wearing any underwear today.

As I get half way across, to my left, the ocean is creeping up and the surge rising faster; to my right are two young kids, maybe ten years old, a boy and girl swimming. As I pass them, the boy asks for help. At first I’m doubtful; selfishly I don’t want to get my shorts wet. Then I realize that where they are, there is no bottom in sight, only blackness. I jump in and in seconds the undercurrent brings me right to them with no effort— damn they’re strong. I push the boy forward until I realize we are all moving backwards. I lift the boy and toss him forward then the girl. Still we are making no progress as the water continues to rise and push us towards the open sea. I lift again, pushing up from his butt and tossing him with more force this time. Then the girl. It seems to be working— eventually I get them back to the rocks on the side with all the hoopla. I make sure that they climb up the rocks and leave before I venture back. They thank me. Now to get myself out of this mess.

I’m numb. I wonder what could have happened had I not taken a pointless stroll along the beach. I’m stunned really. Was there a reason I went on a walk, something guiding me like that shoe to the broken fence? Chance? Some blind fate? Are we shaped by unforeseen events that make up our destiny? I don’t know. This haunts me. It seems life is nothing but a collection of consecutive chances that define us, that bring us to our destination or whatever.

I feel like I just witnessed a random bullet fired in the dark that strikes the head of a boy waiting at the bus stop.

The sea is mad, troubled. All our coolers and bags are on the beach and the tide is racing in and knocking around Kayla Jean. It’s too dangerous to get the boat closer to shore. Johnny tries again but 7 foot waves pound the side and now it’s stuck on a sand bar. We push the boat off the bar but again and again the motor cuts into the sand. We push again at the same time a wave pounds the boat, nearly pushing it over on top of me and Dano. We drag our stuff off the beach and hurl everything into the boat. After about a half hour of grill and cooler tossing we all safely climb aboard. Yet the waves are still pounding and motor is stuck so we get out— heave ho, push, not moving, turn, push, oh shit, everybody in!

The boat is a mess— everything soaked and tipped over on the floor. Chaos. Further out to sea we go. Now 6 to 10 foot waves are all around us, slapping down on the boat. Johnny guides the boat slowly, expertly. Swish. Crash. Every wave that hits us, the boat rises up and down so fast, at times our feet leave the floor. We laugh nervously. Jean puts on a life jacket. It’s a hell of a grind back to the channel. In the distance there’s a sail boat and I feel for the crew. A huge swell crashes over us and it smashes a chair. Nothing seems sturdy or safe. I take comfort in that Johnny knows what he’s doing and that he’s been in similar messes before— so he says, maybe to settle our nerves. He hits the gas, speeding up and the boat ramps high in the air— “Whooooaaa!”

“Good one, huh, Jim?” Johnny says, smiling.

Whenever a swell surprises him it’s always,” good one” or “nice one, huh?” He stands at the wheel and looks right at me, eyes bouncing and mischievous smile beneath wet mustache. I can only laugh. Such frenzy ahead— we jump up again, and my feet are leaving the floor consistently now and the thud of the boat on water— over, on top, under and over— boom, boom, boom— we scream and laugh as if we were on a terrifying roller-coaster, at times it feels like gravity and water are against us, tipping the boat over and we laugh because we are afraid and we take our refuge in laughter.

Two hour ride back but then the quiet canal and man, my ass kills from that beating.

I never understood the whole Hemingway/fishing fascination. How exciting and challenging is this man against the sea concept anyway?— especially on a large motor boat with a depth finder. I’ve fished twice in my life: once, at 16 with Kevin and Gary in a cemetery pond; again with Rich and Dano along the banks of the Ponkapoag. Caught nothing, no one did. I mean I don’t really even know how to use a fishing rod effectively.

So here I am at sea perched over the side with a rod in hand and trying to keep the line from entangling with Rich and Danos. I wait. Johnny says this particular area is loaded with blues and stripers and this is backed up with all the activity coming across the depth finder beneath the boat. The boat circles around and around. I imagine being on the Orca and Jaws thrusts out of the water and all the quotes going through my head… “you’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Not too far off is a fishing vessel that looks exactly like the Orca as the crew pulls up its lobster traps. Then I hear, in my head of course, Quint’s primordial death scream as he’s bitten in half. I envision Brody scrambling around the sinking vessel to save his life and kill the shark.

I’m getting more action in my daydreams.

Jean coaches me on— when to give more line or not.

“Are you sure there’s fish around here?” I ask.

“They’re down there all right,” says Johnny.

Time passes. Nothing.

Dano feels a tug on his line. “Gotta bite.” In an instant, whatever he had, it is gone.

I’ve had enough. I give my rod to Jean. I think about Hemingway’s sports or hobbies of choice: boxing, bull fighting, hunting and fishing and I just can’t relate to any of them. Give me a hockey stick or a baseball and let’s go.

Me and Rich zip along holding the Ski-Bob’s grips tightly. The wind is whipping and his hair whacks me in the face, stinging me like a flea bite. I can’t see through the windy spray over us. Johnny loops the boat around and we cross over the wake. The Ski-Bob bounces high and falls uneven, throwing me off balance and nearly falling off. He loops around again over another wake— this one is big and this time— I’m gone ten feet in the air and crash hard. Man it was hard. I pop back out of the water. Rich is still hanging on but not long as he tumbles off. I’m having so much fun that even my fear of sharks has dissipated.

Johnny seems to have mastered the Knee-Board. He eases up into position and skims the ocean with the smoothness of a water bug. He crosses the wake on the left then recrosses on the right. Rich got up on his second try but when he crosses the wake he wipes out greatly. My sister and myself never made it up but we tried like hell.

Johnny offers me up his body suit. I’d never worn one and it is a tight but good fit.

“Look at Jim. Eddie Vedder,” says Rich.

Solo, I pop into the water and climb aboard the Ski-Bob. Once on, they gun the boat faster— zoom, zoom, ZOOM…. “holy shit… slow down!” Shit I’m going to die.  I’m going to die. “Slow DOWN!!!” I’m bouncing up and down like a basketball, lucky to still be on or maybe unlucky. I can feel the boat pick up speed a notch. I’m certainly going to die. I can’t see the boat only a whir of blue all around me. I hit a series of waves that must be the wake and in an instant… I’m gone… ‘flying fifteen feet in the air’ (there quote, not mine) and after I smash down on the water I complete a somersault under water. Somehow my balls took a smack down and they are hurting. In my eyes, I see stars, little yellow specks of light just floating in my head.

After I get back on the boat I said, “didn’t you hear me say slow down?”

Jean smiled, coolly. “I thought you said go faster.”

… you’re on the ocean, buddy, so have a drink, smell the air and let the wind rush against your chest and breathe it all in….

-8/4   Began a new job at Work Inc. in which Jamie got me. I am now a full time relief janitor working with handi-capped persons at the McCormack building in Post Office Square, Boston. Finally, a steady 40 hours a week. Now I can save again, save for school.

-August 10, 1994 planning Woodstock trip (see Woodstock paper). Although this small part was not in my paper:

I arrive home at 70 Allen. I lay cozily on the couch with a burger in one hand, the clicker in the other. I’m watching the live Woodstock feed on MTV, still going but soon to end— great close-ups of Bob Dylan singing into the cold night. I am home, light years away from Winston Farm and this is truly the best seat in the house.

-I was in the back of the pick-up watching the rolling fields, tall grass and Maine pines. I was relaxed I hadn’t noticed that we had stopped. The truck had pulled over on the side of the road.

“Hey Jim! Where are we?” Dano asked.

I looked around. We had taken a left instead of a right.

“Keep going straight. It’s the long way but we’ll get there,” I yelled back.

That was a flashback to four years before on a foggy night on Emery’s Bridge Road. It was in South Berwick and to borrow a phrase, the land that time forgot. It is a country town of overgrown grass and bushes, sneaky rivers and roads seemingly abandoned except by maybe the crickets and grasshoppers. I love this place. I haven’t been here in two years. I had been banished from Gram’s house.

Back then, it was October and the mornings were chilly. A bunch of us were there for the week-end. There was Rich, of course, drunk the whole time and quite unstoppable— morning to night, beer then Beam. Gail was nearly as buzzed— her usual straight hair all messed up on top and wearing too big pants that seemed to say, I-could-care-less. Paula was there too with her son Brett Junior and little Christopher and with them a badge of responsibility— early to bed and early to rise. I don’t know how she maintained her sanity during the course of our afternoon drunkenness and late night drinking games. Then there’s Dawn Callahan, the tallest woman I’ve ever met, I think. She told me she had been a model once. She’s single now but a few months pregnant and showed like a small speed bump. It didn’t stop her partying this first night though— she smoked and drank like a crazy person and we ended up fucking at the end of the night in Gram’s old room.

But we weren’t the problem. The problems began Sunday. My brother came by with a crew of friends. Rich and Gail welcomed the drinking partners. Even my distant Maine cousin, from South Berwick, Jay Holton stopped by and ended up bonding with Gail, whispering in my ear that he had his eye on her. I stayed sober the next day along with Paula and Dawn. Though we were both single and slept together all week-end, nothing came of it, just fun memories. Anyway that Sunday, me and my friends packed up and left for home, leaving Dave and his buddies behind. I reiterated to Dave to shut down the house and clean up his mess when he left.

Monday afternoon my mother received a phone call from Nancy, the unofficial keeper of Gram’s house. It was in total shambles. My parents were pissed. An empty Jim Beam bottle and half-finished bottles of beers were left on the kitchen counter, poker cards were scattered all over the dining room table beside  heaping ashtrays, forgotten trash bags left on the lawn and a leftover post drinking/smoking stink. No one shut off the heat and the door was left unlocked. I had a feeling something like this might happen.

So here we are, two years later at Grams. No one was there when we pulled up in to Gram’s grassy drive way. I am supposed to meet my parents and Slabs to help move the last of Gram’s furniture and loose ends— next week-end there was a family moving in. Instead of selling the house, my mother, very much a sentimentalist, decided to rent it instead. As far as I knew, there was a shit load of stuff still in the house but the door is locked. I looked into the window to see an empty living room.

“I don’t know where they are. Maybe getting some pizza. I don’t know,” I said.

“Holy shit! Look at the corn,” Rich said.  

“Where did that come from?” Dano asked.

Once, a long time ago when both Grammy and Papa were alive they planted corn and harvested it but in the ensuing years it had been laid to rest, becoming just another field on the landscape. Now, the whole field was a green wall of cow corn. Once the field had been a playground for wiffle-ball, tip-it, football and alive with singing crickets bouncing around our feet. Now I didn’t recognize it, like my memory had been invaded by strangers.

“Remember that time Bart came charging down the field … posing for a football picture and Dano… came out of nowhere and slammed him to the ground?” Rich asked.

“Yeah that was good,” said Dano.

“I came a half second too early with my picture. Almost,” I said.

I walked to Nancy’s trailer for answers I hoped. Despite her long record for tattling on us kids, I was glad she was around. In Gram’s later years she would drive Grams into town to shop or to her hair stylist. When Grammy came to live with us for long periods of time, Nancy saw to it that Grams lawn was always mowed in summer and driveway shoveled in winter.

“Hi Nancy.”

She was hunched over in her shed. She turned around. “Oh, hi, Jim.”

She went on to say that my parents had already finished the job. They were going to spend one more night but the emptiness of the house changed her mind. So they drove back home and Slabs took off to Ossipee to camp.

Nancy must have suspected I might want to see the inside of the house one last time and offered to take a walk and unlock it. We did. Inside the house, the only recognizable thing still there was the worn oriental rugs. When you walked in the front door, you were in the living room and that is where Grams’ organ was— I can still hear her jamming Puff the Magic Dragon with Dano playing guitar and myself keeping the beat with a snare drum— after the jam she would turn, smile and clap her hands, “Oh that was lovely,” she said. Tonya grabs Dano’s pack of smokes from the table, just to hold them I guess and Anne warns Tonya not to touch cigarettes. Tonya looks just as pleased with the bottle of juice in her mouth.

Now Rich and Dano wander off into different rooms. Nancy stays by the front door. The house is so empty— no family portraits on the wall and no creeky old rocking chair. I suddenly have a memory of Linwood, dead now from old age, stopping by every night to sit in the rocking chair in the living room, drink coffee, smoke Pall Malls and talk with Grammy— always sat in the rocking chair— never anything new to say, really just town gossip and such. He rocked gently. He wore a bright orange hunter’s cap that lit up the room with its brightness. When Grammy went into the kitchen to make us all bowls of chocolate ice cream and cool whip, Linwood was quiet. He didn’t say much to us kids but we all liked him. He was a gentle soul. He was always there, every day to combat the loneliness. His power to startle me as I played Solitaire in my pajamas was amazing. I always knew that he was on his way but he never knocked but he just busted right in and let go with a big, “Hellooo.” He crossed the floor, his back bent and with the help of a cane he arrived safely to the rocking chair.

All gone. Memories now.

I entered the dining-room and looked out the window where the old bird feeder was, teetering and fragile as if a strong wind could blow it over. Grammy loved her birds so much that she even tolerated the food stealing pigeons. She knew the names of all the bird types that landed on her feeder to eat seeds, left over dinners and bathe. The raccoons though, they pissed off Papa.

“Damn raccoons! If I see one more sneak on to that feeder, I’ll shoot it.”

Papa liked to hunt deer. He loved venison. He was handy with a rifle.

I turned away from the window and noticed the big amount of space in the room without the large oak dining table. In later years after Papa had passed and we became older teens, the table once rocked with quarters games, drink-while-you-think and Romeo. I can still see Anne, who didn’t drink, but who was this night, now goofy drunk on wine coolers. Beside her, Jean aims at Dano’s glass and misses. Jamie shoots a quarter and it swishes into a neutral glass— we all race to finish our cups of beer— Jean finishes dead last.

“Come on you guys!” she says.

Many years earlier, before I had these friends, on the same table, Grammy taught me how to play Chinese Checkers. For some reason she always chose the black marbles and I chose the blue ones. I loved to set her up for the triple jump move— I’d hop right over her marbles into the end zone, the clear winner. She was always happy I won and I’m pretty sure she was letting her 9 year old grandson win these games.

I couldn’t wait to go upstairs to see our old bedroom— one master bedroom upstairs and a huge dusty chamber room that was used more for storage than anything else. The master bedroom once had the big bed— mom and dads (my parents said I was conceived on that bed), beside that, a small cot perfect for my baby sister and then the bunk beds for me and Dave— I had the top, probably because I was older.

In the summer, us kids vacationed at Gram’s house as we grew a little older and more independent and my parents stayed home in Watertown. I always brought my Atari video game console and hooked it up on the small TV in the bedroom. I also had a crush on Grammy’s neighbor, Vangie or Evangeline. She was my first crush. She would sneak upstairs and play video games with me and sometimes they would turn into tickle fights and all I could think about was how bad I wanted to kiss her on the lips. But, I didn’t know how or what to do and I was too shy to make any kind of move. She was so pretty. I was an expert on the ball field or on the ice but clueless at love. So I stumbled along for years.

As Rich and Dano went into the open chamber, I stood in the master by the window, remembering. It was sealed up. Dave had smoked his first joint by this window.

In those days I was a little pot head and usually had weed with me. I opened the window and warm air flowed through it— mosquitoes bounced off the screen. I sparked up a fatty as Dave watched from the top bunk. He knew I had started to use drugs— weed, acid, and Quaaludes’ but he wasn’t sure what or how they worked. I convinced him that weed was cool. We got stoned together. We laid there for what seemed hours. We laughed about the words people used for stoned. We laughed. If we are baked then we are in an oven. If we are fried we are in a pan. Are we clams? If we were gone we didn’t know where and if we were cooked it was probably with butter.

One night, before bed, I smoked a bone. Mom and dad were back home. Grams was sleeping. A cool night breeze flowed through the window. I took quit hits and got stoned fast.

“Come on Jimmy. Shut off the light,” said Dawn.

I shut off the light and lay down. I stared into the darkness and the room seemed almost too quiet. I couldn’t even hear the crickets in the field. A soft buzz began to hum in my head, subtle at first but growing. I feel strange. My heart beats fast now. Then, as if I were on stage, a spotlight shined down on the room. Was it in my eyes? My mind? I’m too stoned to decide. I close my eyes. Now there’s a presence, a spirit— something. It’s Papa. It can’t be— he’d been dead for four years. I slap my face and rub my eyes. Nothing changes. I’m nervous and fidgety and toss and turn. To complicate matters, I have to take a piss and I have to pass through the entire darkened house to get to the only bathroom. I’m confused. Any plan of action is aborted with every fleeting thought. I start to get up, stopped and forgot that I stopped to remember what my plan of action was— suddenly I was at the top of the stairs and had found the light switch. I walk down the steps. As I pass through the dining room, the stair light fades and I’m surrounded by dark again. I feel my way towards the bathroom. As I pass Grammy and Papas room, the weight of the presence is overpowering. Such a heavy ghost! I run into the kitchen, snap on the light, dart into the bathroom, turn on the light and close the door. I take a long piss. Then gathering up all the courage I can muster, I look passed Gram’s room toward the stairs where the light is on. Now that I can see, it’s a clear straight path. I kill the lights and bound across the dining-room, up the stairs and beneath my covers.

I joined Rich and Dano in the open chamber.

“This would make a perfect writing room,” Rich said. “But your parents would never rent it to me.”

Gone were the 19^th century black and white photographs and Daguerreotypes of dead relatives, the two extra old fashioned beds, old fans and lamps. Along the window sill were scattered dead flies and partial spider webs. In my youth, the open chamber scared me— the eyes of the people in the photographs always seemed to follow me and an out of the room. It was spooky. Years later, as we hung out in the chamber drinking shots of whiskey, the bottle reached Dano and he gulped down a shot like a man possessed. He took the bottle casually, passed it off to Rich and subtly searched for the old bed pan, not arousing any suspicion. As Rich took his shot, suddenly Dano let go and yacked his guts out in the bedpan. We laughed. Now let’s see a photograph of Great Uncle Frank do that!

This was Labor Day week-end and the summer was running out and nights were getting colder. I didn’t want to freeze in the back of Dano’s pick-up truck but I wanted to go to the cemetery to Grammy’s grave. I thanked Nancy as we gathered outside now and she walked on down the road.

I lingered… memories from all corners of my brain… the slow river out back… the time Chrissy lost control of the trike and drove over the river bank— bruise but alive— the trike destroyed… the river hole up the road and the tall rope swing that swung out far over the water— thirty feet high and you let go and free fall, splash— sometimes cows meandered up to the opposite bank and state at us while they munched on grass— Brandy yelped at them, throaty and deep but she was smart enough or lazy to stay clear of these oversized guests… the hammocks— I tested Papa all the time; I knew he didn’t like when us kids swung too high but sure enough I built my speed up and height, taking it as high as I could before I might topple. In the window, his tall figure appeared. I continued until finally mom or dad would stroll outside and tell me to slow it down. I could never see Papa’s head— from his waist to his neck and usually wearing his orange button down shirt but his presence… it was big.

Other times, we tried to knock each other off the hammocks— with three hammocks rocking at once, if timed right, me and Dave would meet and I’d give him a kick to the underside or he got me. Dawn was the shortest kid and her legs didn’t reach and she paid the price when me and Dave were flying good. Sometimes we’d try and shake each other off the hammock— I’d lay down and hold the rope tight— Dave or Jay or Steve (The Derby Man) would start me swinging, peaking in seconds and jerk the rope as I was flying high— usually the younger kids couldn’t get me off, only Jay had the power to break me as I hurtled 7 feet in the air before landing square on my back. I lay there laughing, covered in sand and pine needles. Derby Man lived up the road. He was Dave’s age. He earned his nickname the day we invented a game in which, me, Dave and Dawn would gather up speed on the hammocks and like red rover red rover we called upon Derby Man right over and he would charge toward us on his bicycle, straight into the pocket of our legs and bam, bang, boom— knocked off by our legs and he’d fly off his bike into the grass. He always got right up, came at us again and again and again until he was exhausted. To cap it off he would send just his bike into our vortex of legs, like a ghost rider.

Goodbyes were always sad. I hated to leave Grammy and Papa. We loved them so much. We packed up our toys, wiffle balls and bats. Inside the house, I could still smell the bacon and coffee. Papa sat on the old yellow chair nursing a can of Budweiser and eating crackers. As we got ready to leave, he’d struggle off the chair with his cane, to the door where we waited. I hated to kiss him goodbye because his thick gray whiskers felt rough and ticklish. Grammy rocked the rocking chair until we were all loaded and ready to go. We all hugged and kissed. They followed us outside and stood together holding hands and waving to us as we drove off. “Bye Grammy Bye Papa!” we shouted out the open car window. They just smiled and waved until we were gone, out of sight.

Me, Dano and Rich arrived at the cemetery just before dark. We paid our respects and pondered the fragility of life and death’s finality.

-

I drove fork lifts

six years, then trucks

on city streets

the accident.

Unconscious seven months

no memory and suppers fed

intravenously, I was drinking

driving, wasted by seven

swerving then trucks

big ones

on city streets.

-Mind’s a blank

body dressed

light

barking skies

-First day rock climbing was eventful. I didn’t actually want to go— I was hungover and plain uninterested. I went anyway. Rich and Dano had the gear— the rope, belts, and chalk bag. Jean, Johnny and Sally came along too.

Sally was drunk and sat alone in the tall grass of Quincy quarries. Jean was pumped; me and Johnny were cautiously distant about the 50 foot wall above us— not only the height but there was a protrusion near the base, like a big cyst and I had no idea how I would climb around that.

Of course Rich and Dano had little problem scaling it— they had been climbing since their time in California together. It was impressive though. So Jean tried and failed. Then Johnny failed and then me. My problem was the climbing shoes— they were Rich’s— too small and pinched my toes and when I put any pressure on my feet, the pain was too much.

The next rock, by the water, was a 35 foot wall straight up. Jean, who by now was a climbing enthusiast, went first and easily made it to the top. Me and Johnny looked at each other as we were thinking, if she can do it, we better do it. So Johnny did make it. On my turn I declined the climbing shoes and climb bare foot.

“Belay on,” said Dano.

I climbed, slow and careful. A quarter of the way up my feet hurt as they scratched the hot rock. I kept on— up and up— balancing and measuring my weight— searching out open cracks in the rock. I didn’t use any chalk either and the sweat wasn’t too bad. Almost at the top I had one last tough move. There was one crevice I needed to reach to get to the top but it was out of reach. If I jumped and missed, I’d fall. But having the rope tied to my body made me feel somewhat safe. I jumped. I grabbed the crevice and pulled myself to the top. Yes! I scaled down, jumping along the face, happy and proud.

-Friday 9/9

I’m at the Rat in Kenmore Square. Rich and Todd should have been here at 7pm. It’s 7:30. Green Day hits the stage at 8:15. Fresh from Woodstock and the MTV awards in New York, the band is playing a free show at the Hatch Shell. They are a promising young alternative punk trio with heavy catchy melodies. I missed them at Woodstock but then again who didn’t I miss during my drunken rampage. I did at least see the replay performance after I got home and the wild mud fight with the crowd.

I sit outside the bar on a patio chair and slug on rum and diet Cokes. The bouncer at the door doesn’t seem to mind. I told him I was just waiting for my friends and that they’d be there soon.

As the sky darkens, the Citgo sign grows bright and seems to breathe light. Groups of teens stroll by the bar singing Green Day tunes, jumping and punching friends on the arms. I look across the street toward New England School of Photography and I wonder if it might be worth it to go on back and take night classes.

My chair is wet and puddles are scattered around me. Storms had passed through at 5:00, loud and heavy, and then it faded for a short time and came back in full force. So far all is quiet now. I figure if I can take Woodstock for three days, Kenmore Square was a walk in the park.

I went back inside the bar and ordered a draft beer. It’s 7:45 and I’m starting to think they might not show. Nonetheless, at 8:00, I’m going to head to Charles Street. It’s not too crowded— most of the kids left for the show. A pretty waitress approaches and asks me my name.

“Is someone looking for me?” I ask.

No. She had confused me with someone else.

At 7:50, finally they popped through the door. They join me for a quick beer.

“What kept you?”

“Man, the trains were packed with kids. There was a line at Braintree T that stretched outside,” Rich said.

I had been fortunate. Someone from work dropped me off right in Kenmore.

After a couple of quick beers we hit the street. Its dark now and I can’t remember the way to the Shell so we just follow a crowd. We drink from my bottle, excited for the show. It seems the storm is gone but it has left a thick veil of mugginess although we are dressed for cold weather. Rich and Todd sing the words to the song, Basketcase. The convoy of people swells as we near the Shell— we follow the walkway over the bridge and into the park. We hear Green Day. They have just begun playing. On our right is a row of Porto-Johns and to our left is the Charles River sparkling under city lights. Rich says he wants to remember this initial sensation and write about it. The darkness, the music, the people— the I sense a reckless spirit growing in the air— we suck down my rum and I can feel the first pang of intoxication. As we get closer to the stage, the air is thick and hot. Having learned my lesson from Woodstock I tell them if we split up, meet at the last Porto-John.

We snake through the crowd— Rich, me and then Todd. Rich wants to reach the front row and we cut along the left side of the stage. We come to a wall of people that won’t budge— impossible to move further. The music thumps loudly. The singer, Billy Joe plays ahis guitar and sings in that same neurotic manner as in the band’s music videos— fast, jerky, repetitious jumping up and down.

For some reason Rich starts to cut across toward the other side. We follow. I’m sweating my ass off, slightly claustrophobic and buzzed. Small mosh pits are springing up around us. Rich gets ahead of us by two bodies then three and then he is gone. A huge mosh pit erupts right before me and Todd, like a tornado and we cut away from it— bodies fling toward us— I tighten up and deflect falling bodies like hockey pucks and one in particular dude I thrust away angrily— definitely not in the mood to mosh.

Eventually we make it to the perimeter where the air is easier to breathe. Then the band starts playing the song, Long View, their first big hit and the crowd is going nuts and singing and the mosh pits are spreading fast through the crowd. Then they play Basketcase and the crowd is in a pure frenzy. Me and Todd spar with the bottle.

“What do you want to do about Rich?” Todd asks.

“We could wait at the Porto-John.”

We walk to the Portos and call out his name. Screams of strangers calling back to us. Cute girls pass us by stoned and reeling. I notice another set of Portos across the river. “Maybe he went to those ones,” I yelled, pointing. I take a quick piss in the river because the lines are too long.

“Let’s head back,” said Todd.

As we start back, suddenly everything is quiet, darker and the crowd exits like flood water. It’s as if someone simply pulled the plug on the entire show.

“What? It’s over?” I ask to a passing dude.

“Yeah man.”

“Done deal,” says another.

A drunken psycho runs to us yelling. “Come on man! We ‘re gonna tear this fucking place apart!”

“Right behind you buddy,” I said.

He stumbles off knocking over trash barrels. We head back to the original meeting place. No Rich. 

I’m drunk now, shouting at passer-bys, “free lesbian sex— only five bucks each!” Stupid nonsense, anything to attract attention— good, bad or girls.

A pretty brunette walks by and I blurt out, “Susan!”

She stops in her tracks and walks over to us. I’m more than surprised.

“Yeah? My name is Susan.”

I look at Todd, dumbfounded. He stands there in disbelief. She is with some guy. I ask if they want to hang and have drinks. She thanked me anyway and they left.

Suddenly Rich popped up behind us, with his near empty bottle of wine and a big smile.

“Where did you go?”

“Over to the Portos on the other side. I waited and finally realized there wasn’t supposed to be water on both sides of me.”

We decided to hit the Rat and followed the crazy tempestial crowd to Commonwealth Avenue. One large obnoxious group ran by us lustily chasing some unknown guy and when we caught up to them they were itching for a fight (Rich observed this, I was too drunk to sense it). I began friendly chatter with them and they must have deemed us harmless and they made no trouble. Kids hung out along the bridge drinking beer and smoking pot. We meet three dudes from Rhode Island who offer us some weed for rolling papers. Todd, smokeless and jonesing for weed, pirouettes and circles the street and almost immediately, he returns, smiling as if he just won the lottery and holding two E Z Widers in his fingers. Roll and smoke… Rich and Todd disappear down Comm Ave as I chatted with a couple of girls on a set of apartment stairs. Upstairs is a big MIT party exclusive to MIT students but I try and enter anyway. The guys are angered by my presence and they point me on my lost way. I don’t argue much. I stumble into Kenmore Square, out of my mind. I rejoin my friends in the Rat on this very green day gone.

-Sat, 17^th

The Public Garden is sprinkled with lovers on blankets— couples holding hands beside the pond— swan boats ease by, loaded with families and tourists— along the banks beneath the willows, squirrels brave children for snacks.

Me and Slabs cross over Boylston and head into the Commons. We absorb the warmth, knowing that the days of shorts and t-shirts are numbered. I sip on my whiskey and diet Coke; Slabs drinks his gin. We stroll to the big statue on the hill (Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Flag Staff Hill) and the crowd is thickening as we go. Bongos thump and tambourines jangle. Groups of kids sit together staring off, listening to music— too stoned to move while another crew sits beneath a bronze statue, smoking pipes, bongs and good old fashioned joints. I observe the land at the bottom of the hill, where people are stretched out the entire distance all the way to the gazebo. A speaker defiantly claims over loud speakers that marijuana should be legalized. This is Hemp Rally on the Common 94.

The images are reminiscent of Woodstock 94— a combination of neo hippy, grunge alternative Gen X hipsters and chicks— 30,000 strong to celebrate hemp and good times and vibes. The Boston Police on horseback keep their distance and let everyone be— they are just a background presence in case any Green Day hysteria breaks out. Hemp everything is for sale, petitions to sign, donations, leaflets, demonstrations and remade concert posters of the Doors and Woodstock 69.

Me and Slabs weave our way towards the stage. I feel a little out of place— I’m sober and not smoking weed. We circle the Commons looking for friends. Just across town, at the Hatch Shell, Warren Zevon is headlining another free concert and I’m pretty sure there will be no mosh pits there— but you never know— youth is full of surprises.

Suddenly, Ciz darts out of the crowd, surprising us.

“Whats up!” he says in a strained voice.

“Hey, where you guys been?”

We follow him back up the hill to the others— there’s Johnny T rocking his summer goatee— my brother wearing his trademark Harley-Davidson bandana— Kenny Mofford and Denis Babineau are covered with cement, dirt and dressed in work clothes having just stripped a nearby foundation. And another spree of drink, smoke and good times begin… and I’m pretty drunk by 11:00 and in the arms of a stranger, a cute 17 year old named Gina.

-I walk down cool misty Trapelo Road in Waltham alongside mud and puddles. I’m bleary-eyed and not quite awake. Last night I had a beautifully terrifying nightmare through much of the night— my mind is foggy as I try and remember it. The residue is fright— that I had been hunted by ghosts and monsters of my own creation:

I remember— I’m in my bed awake and look at the alarm clock that says: 2:36. “Wow it was only a dream.” I close my eyes and soon drift into the horror again as if I hadn’t even awoken yet and maybe I never really saw my alarm clock, only dreamed it. I force myself awake, I think and the clock reads: 2:45. I try to shrug off the nightmare (still can’t recall them). “Ok… it really was a dream and I’m awake now.” I close my eyes and there waiting for me in the darkness, the horror of disturbed faces…. Soon enough I give up trying to distinguish that which is real and that which is not and I let go and fall into the abyss, letting things play out in its natural course.

-9/28/94  I wait for the Work Inc. shuttle van to pick me up. I’m standing on the corner of Trapelo Road and Lexington Street on a cold September morning. Change is in the air. Many trees are already bare; others brown and still others full of bright golden yellow leaves like splinters of light shining through the branches. Days are growing shorter, time stretching over the days like an old elastic. Cold nights.

Cars whiz by. I’m a roadside attraction now. Jean beaded all my hair, multitudes of colors. People stare at me through tinted windows. Teens yell inaudibly at me from car windows. Women stare— pretty sure they think I’m a freak. I feel all eyes upon me, the weight of their judgement presses down on me. As I walk, the beads tap together in unison. I don’t really care what they think. I did it because I thought it might look cool— to make one last statement before I chopped off all my hair anyway. The beads are causing my hair to fray and I ponder an early ax. I phase out the threatening catcalls. Regardless, I wait for the van and think interesting thoughts and try to remember romance.

-I had realized, on the fourth morning that I had dreamt three consecutive nights. I tried to figure it out. Unless I kept a handy pen, paper and awareness at a random 3:00 am dream, it was difficult to remember. One basic image seems to recur: my old girlfriend, Anne and she is thin again and sexy. We make love. I cannot even remember dreaming of her in at least a year or even consciously ever thinking about her anymore. However, yesterday, I walked to work from Waverly Square, passed Waverly Oaks Park and a memory shot up to my conscious brain. I had been there before with Anne and Tonya, cruising in my Camaro. As we gathered up her toys from the trunk and diaper bag and stroller, we walked to the green pool area under a hot sun. Tonya runs toward the water and I run after her and sweep her off her little feet as her infectious laughter rings out. This is the same place my parents took me, Dave and Dawn when we were close to Tonya’s age, living in Watertown, long before we had to grow up when clocks would begin to conspire against us.

-

Trick or treat my Cleopatra.

Lee’s the name

I’m in rock and roll.

I’m drunk with your sex

week-end wickedness

clothes on the bed

keys on the floor.

Trick or treat my Cleopatra.

Nothing more.

-I’m on the Green Line towards Brighton— the train rattles and stalls its slow way down Comm Ave.. BC students fill the train, elbows bump into books and satchels. I’m on my way to see Valeria from Sao Paulo, Brazil. I met her two weeks ago at the Rat.

That night some intuition told me something good would happen, in Kenmore— at the Rat. I felt I had to be there. I told Rich and Dano. They wanted to go out but not the Rat. They knew better. “Come on, Jim. We can go there later,” said Dano. They were determined to see the animation festival at Coolidge Corner.

So I managed to recruit Slabs and Todd for the Rat. Wargasm was playing there too and I knew Slabs loved them. Heck I might even bump into Jolene— another Wargasm fan. I had to be there something told me. So I went and it was a good time— up and down the stairs I went all night from the basement where Wargasm played, to the first floor where people congregated and talked and to the to the top floor where a folk singer performed. I met two girls, Valeria and Kim and got their phone numbers. Then I got trashed.

The next morning I’m hungover and foggy minded. I remembered being with Valeria, probably making a fool out of myself as I pretended to know French and Spanish, blubbering on mostly— Val and her Brazilian friend, Danielle looked at me with dumbfounded stares— but still somehow, I got her number. Then there was Kim, a white girl whom I met before the alcohol kicked in— and at the end of the night, decided I wanted to call Kim and I threw away Val’s phone number.

When I called her a few days later, we made plans to meet that night. She lives in Brighton, her own place, good job and single— very pretty too and looks like Jolene a bit. She drove out to Randolph, picked me up and we went to Flamingo’s in Quincy. My hair was pretty ratty as that day I had removed all the beads from it. My sister and her friend Lori were there.

Me and Kim talked. She said she was a fledgling porn writer. At the night’s end, we made plans to meet again and she asked for a hug goodbye and she left. Later that night, me, Dawn and Lori went to the bar called Upstairs Downstairs for late night drinks— I ended up with a chubby but pretty girl and I spent the night at her apartment, of course waking up late, stranded in Stoughton and late for work then fired from Work Inc.. After I didn’t hear from Kim I decided not to call her again.

I’m on the train. I wonder why Val had bothered to call me, drunken boob that I am. I must have given her my number too. Anyway, later I would find out that because her English was so limited, she thought all the miscommunication she felt was through her own undoing— it was all her fault. She’s only been in this country for a month. The night we met, my sentences were a blur of Spanish words, French accents and slurred English while she just nodded and pretended to understand— I thought she was playing mind games with me. So, I hop off the train at Washington Street and walk two blocks west to Euston Road to her apartment where she lived.

I ring the buzzer, walk up the stairs and knock on the door. Her friend Daniella answers the door, smiling. “Hello Jeem. Valeria is sleeping. Come in.” There is another roommate present, an older woman in her 50’s perhaps from Brazil who does not speak a word of English. Chewing a toy on the floor is a black poodle. I follow Daniella and she knocks on a door. We enter.

“Oh I’m sorry. I fell asleep,” she said.

She is beautiful— big brown eyes, dark and long curly hair—a cherubic face and a nice body to boot.

“You look different,” she said.

“No beads.”

We spent the next few hours sitting on her bed talking— I helped her with some words and meanings in Engish; she gave me some Portuguese words and definitions to write down. She asked me questions about our culture. She asked,” who is OJ Simpson?” We laughed and watched some TV— close captioned. We got along great and we began to trust one another we got close as we took turns reading dictionaries. We went for a walk to a pizza shop on the corner of Washington and Comm ave. I hadn’t eaten and was very hungry. I ordered a mushroom and cheese pizza for me but Valeria said she was not hungry— in Brazil they eat two meals a day— once in the early afternoon, and a light one too and again, much later at ten at night. After I eat my pizza we walk back to her apartment and I have to leave. I want to kiss her good night but hesitate. We both linger, looking at each other— finally, I managed to hold out my arms and hug her then she kisses my cheek. We part. She turns to me and says, “gorme dorma com of angos.”  

“What’s that mean?”

“In Brazil we say this at night.”

“What?”

“May the angels sleep with you.”

She might have what it takes to be a real girlfriend, since Jolene and I’m happy we met. I take the train back to Park Street. I’m not ready to go home though— at Park Street I walk to Faneuil Hall and call Siobhan, a waitress who works at Crickets with my sister— we had hooked up just last week. She has her own place in Boston and is a drunk and I felt like drinking a few beers with her. She had just moved here from Ireland three months ago and I love her accent. She’s cute too and looks great naked. I left a message with her roommate.

I’ve got a few bucks in my pocket and maybe stop somewhere for a couple of draft beers. I wander into Post Office Square, passed the McCormack building— I gaze into the shiny glass doors and it’s empty inside— no janitors, clients or security guards— no one from Work Inc.. I’ve been jobless now for two weeks but somehow I still get by on small pick-up jobs.

At 10:30, Faneuil Hall is dead. I stop into two bars but am soon frisked away because it’s last call. I walk through the inner marketplace to the smell of fresh chocolate cookies. Bus boys wash the restaurant floors down below the main level. Vendors are closed, gates down and doors locked shut. At City Side Bar I hear a live band and enter, sit and order a beer. It’s a cover band playing predictable bar classics— Van Morrison and Steppenwolf. The crowd sings along to the ancient lyrics. I ask the bartender if he can throw on a football game on the tube but have to settle for auto racing.

After my third beer I called her again. Still she’s not home but she had received my message and left a phone number where I could reach her. I called it and a man answered. There was a long pause as he went to get Siobhan on the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi.”

“Jim— you finally tracked me down.”

We made small talk.

“Well what are you doing tomorrow night? Maybe we can go out for some beers,” she said.

“I got a job to do tomorrow night,” I said, lying. “Listen, let’s get together tonight and do something. I’m in town already and I don’t feel like going home,” I said, not lying.

She paused… “Tonight, huh?... let’s see. I’m watching this musical I’ve always wanted to see with some friends right now. How about… I meet you at Andrew Station in an hour. If I’m not there, call me at this number.”

“Make sure you come.”

I’m low on funds now and have just enough money for the train and smokes. I head out toward Atlantic Avenue. The night is cool, comforting and perfect for a walk. At Store 24 I buy smokes and decide to walk to South Station. I cannot remember walking Boston at night without the crutch of alcohol and drunken tomfoolery— at least never this late. Young men stumble out of bars. I peer into bar front windows at large crowds gathered at tables, chatting and laughing. City lights shine across the dark.

I’m standing at the entrance of Rowe’s Wharf Hotel, beneath the wide arch. The harbor smell of salt on the wind draws me closer to the water and I wander through the hotel walkway to the pier— huge yachts and cruise boats all quiet. It’s Fall now and the boating season is pretty much over— but I imagine grand parties as big as Gatsby’s— summer rage of booze, women and long sleepless nights.

I’m hit with visions of the Expressway on weekday afternoons— gunning toward Boston from the south, rounding the green painted steel bridge, passing the checkered facade  of Rowe’s Wharf Hotel— it, rising upwards toward the sky like a giant checker board and seemingly floating there unattached to the street below.

At South Station, I still got time to kill. Nothing to do but walk and think— and for some reason I drift toward the Greyhound ticket booth. The ticket clerk is a young black man with nerdy glasses. I wait for him to finish selling a guy a ticket.

“Can I help you?”

“How much for a two-way ticket to Seattle?”

He checks the computer. “Four hundred dollars.”

“Ok, thanks.”

I can’t believe it. I’m pretty sure that price has much to do about the new popular culture growing there. “The Grunge” movement that began in 1990. Everyone seems to want to go there. Why I asked about Seattle, I don’t know— maybe because it seems so far away, perhaps further than California.

The station is pretty quiet and desolate. All the fast food restaurants are closed. Some people sleep on chairs waiting for their bus or train. MBTA officials wander by. My mind jumps back to Cleveland Greyhound terminal as Rich slept on a chair beside me— the snores, babble, cigar smoke and arcade machines— the madness of our journey coming to a climax soon….

I walk outside, light a smoke and absorb Boston. I feel so alone— as if I’m thousands of miles away, nowhere to turn for comfort. I move down the sidewalk, head high. I feel like a jobless bum yet more alive than ever— my senses tuned in to the night sky and Time and Distance (such abstractions) but I feel— they are me and grand abstractions.

Siobhan met me— at the Dunkin Donuts beside Andrew Station. She’s buzzed and looks adorable. We go to her apartment and once in her room she lights incense. She offers me a drink from a Pepsi bottle. As I lift it to my lips, I smell the raw whiskey and I gulp down two shots. Just what I needed. She turns on her stereo— some sort of spacey industrial music. I feel like I’m on the USS Enterprise but it doesn’t matter. I gulp another shot.

“Save some for me,” she said.

“Didn’t you buy any beer?”

“There’s some in the refrigerator.”

“I’ll go grab one,” I said.

“I thought you were still on the dole?”

“Sometimes I work for friends— odd jobs, whenever it’s available.”

We sit on the bed. On her walls are posters of tarot symbols, crystal balls and colored Indian cloth— most of which she collected in England when she was a squatter. She says ‘squatters’ in the UK are like the hippies here that follow around Dead shows. Mostly they are people living communally in old bombed out neighborhoods from World War 2. They lived in destroyed apartment buildings— even families— and furnished the shelters with whatever they could find— beat up chairs, springless sofas, three legged coffee tables— some shelters still had electricity and phone lines— they boiled water for baths and traded things often. Very hippy communal existential life but they were happy and free. She still has friends living in them but today the government is coming down hard on them— even evicting families for no apparent reason. Siobhan squatted for three years in England. She said she loved the freedom.

Now she started to undress. Even in the dim candlelight her breasts are large, round and nipples hard. She lays on the bed and lights a smoke. She was a lovely vision.

“I’ve been with a woman before,” she says.  

“Really?”

“Well we kissed. It wasn’t too bad.”

“Nothing personal— I can’t relate to the male body, sexually.”

“Well then… come here and kiss me.”

I got undressed and joined her on the bed.

-Though the NHL is still on strike, it does not deter me from the hockey rink. We still play pick-up hockey games on Sunday nights in Quincy and there’s also public skating in Randolph, early Sunday. It’s a good time to limber up and teach 2 year old Kyle how to skate. He can already stand, on single blade skates and walks and falls across the ice only slightly discouraged.

After today’s skate we linger— me, Slabs, my sister and Kyle. Kyle munches on a chocolate chip cookie while we watch the Zamboni circle the ice. As we watch, two Mite teams come out from the locker rooms behind us and wait by the door for the Zamboni to finish. We decide to hang around so Kyle can watch his first live game— not that he pays much attention to televised games anyway— he’s two. Zamboni leaves and the two teams take the ice— the Red Wings in sharp red jerseys and the Whales in blue. The referees follow them on to the ice.

When I happened to turn towards the locker rooms where the Red Wings had come from, two men emerge, one looks awfully familiar.

“Is that Ray Bourque? Holy shit. Ray Bourque,” I said.

“No way,” said Dawn.

“Good shot, Jim,” said Slabs.

“No. It’s Ray Bourque,” I said again.

“I think you’re right, Jim,” said Slabs.

Ray Bourque is only my favorite hockey player and best defenseman in the world— up to this point in 1994— and here he is in our little Randolph hockey rink. Like children, we follow him as he walks around to the other side to sit in the bleachers. Just before he hits the bleachers he stops to sign an autograph for a youngster; at this point, we catch up and ask for an autograph to Kyle. I feel stupid in his presence.

“I can’t believe its Ray Bourque— the best defenseman in the world." I said this to Ray but looked at Kyle the whole time. I turn to jelly right there. I’m still holding Kyle. I want to say something normal but no words come. So I babble to Kyle.

Ray takes a seat alone, high in the bleachers. Dawn wants another autograph (we agree) but this time on Kyle’s mini hockey stick— this was the first day he had used it on ice. We talk Slabs into going over to him. I certainly wasn’t going to embarrass myself and poop in my pants again. A few boys gather around Ray and Slabs seizes the moment.

“When are you guys going to play again?” Slabs asked.

“Hopefully in December,” said Ray.

“You should come by the rink and play with us tonight. I always wanted to see how hard a Ray Bourque shot is.”

“No thanks— if I get hurt it could affect my contract,” Ray said, smiling.

He was there to watch his son’s team play, the Red Wings— Christopher, #22, a left wing, left handed shot.  Of course, right on que, three minutes into the game, young Bourque breaks in alone on the goalie and flings a low wrister that breaks off the goalies pads, five hole into the net for the score. I look over at Ray and he grins coolly but I can see the pride in his eyes.

I can’t help but imagine young Bourque someday in the NHL as Kyle and his buddies sit around the tube drinking beers and watching Chris in a Bruins uniform as he tears apart the Canadians in another playoff game.

 

-

Campfire at night

gather wood

by summer lake

stir in sand.

Eyes grin in the dark

burn like smoke

a life lived again.

-Thrice bearded Siamese twins

-Commuter rail to West Concord— smattering of cars on Tobin Bridge— double decker steel sandwich— men in orange hats on the tracks— huge piles of dirt, twisted steel and concrete— rusted barrels and scrap iron— tires pepper the ground like black teeth— broken and bent pipe (Boston) … now quiet suburban backyards with bikes and hockey sticks on the lawn and barking dogs— the rot of fallen leaves, barren earth and tangled branches (Belmont)… dry wilderness, winter crunching at my heels— stretching back, dying— cold leaf beds by streams and ponds, iced up now— Walden Pond of dreams or religion— fallen great logs and dead grass, peeling, flaking and flattening beneath winter’s breath (Concord)…big upper class houses and fences of West Concord.

Upon returning, much the same as rivers glisten and currents push south— a Christmas tree farm, far back near flower houses— a tree display, like green bowling pins of pine— streams cutting through yards, dodging back and forth like snakes along the hill— taller pines—sheep graze on farms, thick woolly coats, through Lincoln and more wilderness and rivers and naked New England December day.