How sweet it is

Up until January first of last year sugar was to me what processed poppy sap is to the main-lining addict. And as with a junkie I used a spoon. Mine however was not implemented to render heroin with flame and water into an injectable solution. Mine was used for shoveling ice-cream down my gullet. Every conceivable night I could I downed a pint of Haagen-dazs, most often Macadamia Brittle. And with it too night after night over many a year I consumed a half pound of chocolate. I'd gorge until a sugar saturated stupor overtook me and left me near comatose and sprawled in disarray upon an easy chair. While doing so more often than not shame would descend to envelope me. For shame and compulsion were intricately inner woven.

As to how I arrived at such an ever occurring state I can easily look back and see if not the fully formed dark bloom of compulsion then at least its deep roots. From early on in childhood I sought comfort, fulfillment and refuge in all goods sugary. In the breakfast hour I reveled in multiple bowls full of Sugar Smacks, Fruit Loops or Captain Crunch. Or else pieces of toast slathered with butter and heaped with brown sugar and cinnamon. In the hours between meals I nibbled at candy in any one of its manifold forms. Lunch and dinners too were never complete without dessert, be it cookies, pie, strudel or cake. And then in the evening there was always a pause in television viewing for something sweet such as ice-cream topped with chocolate sauce or hot fudge.

During my teens my sugar compulsion took on an added twist; I only ate items in odd numbers. This was especially true when it came to cookies. I'd eat only 1, 3 or 5. Never 2. Nor 4. It was a quirk that would stay with me for decades to come and later, when I tried to vanquish my food obsessions, morph into hopes pinned on dates and numerology.

As a waiter in my late twenties and early thirties I stole desserts from my employers and surreptitiously stuffed my face with little regard to taste. I can remember clearly one night while working at a bistro in Boston when an empty wine bottle slipped from my tray and smashed on the patio floor. It just so happened at that very moment I was already seething with disgust for myself and all of humanity. I was in those years a tightly wound tic. Rather than attend to the shattered bottle I marched into the walk-in cooler and stuffed myself calm with handfuls of chocolate moose. It was in no way an isolated incident. My restaurant working history was rife with many such moments of gasping down desserts in moments of stress as if they were the very breath of life.

Later on in my forties I worked for a spell in the catering industry and my pattern of behavior resumed as if never paused. Whether I was wound up or they were just close at hand I jammed desserts into my mouth when no one was watching. I ate until numb with shame and nauseated.

Why did I not stop or eat normally? I tried. Time and again. Year after year. I'd stop out sheer disgust. Or on a specific date. Numbers, numbers, numbers. I willed myself to believe in them. I added up the day and the month and year into a fortuitous sum, or stretched the dates out before me and spoke them aloud as if reciting a magical incantation. Holidays too promised good tidings for changing my behavior. And I would quit. But not for long. I'd once again eat sugar. Then I'd quit again. My history of eating sweets is rifled through with days I quit and swore most adamantly to never again eat sugar. But no matter my resolve or determination the night - and it was most often night - arrived with me bargaining with myself once again to feed that insatiable hunger. I'd tell myself that another day in the offing was more fortuitous for quitting sugar for good. And so I would once again stuff myself silly. There was also the argument after any number of days of abstinence where I swore I could now consume like anyone else free of that dictating compulsion. So I'd try to eat just a little. And I would fail. I would yet again be a daily slave to the unquenchable craving. I was proof positive of two sentiments: One's too many and a hundreds not enough. And It's not what you eat, it's what's eating you.

Sugar was my longest and most intimate relationship. I preferred it over human contact. Many were the nights I took a pass on being with friends to go home alone and gorge on sweets. I would be out and about and in a conversation with someone and the compulsion would take hold of me. I'd lose track of my thoughts and the thread of the conversation. The other person would be speaking and I would go through the motions of caring the whole time salivating over my thoughts of getting home to my buddies, ice-cream and chocolate. Shame too as I mentioned was never far away from my compulsion. The two were intrinsically linked. I would for instance get embarrassed and bruised by the check-out girl who made note of my frequent purchases of sweets and respond by going home to eat in a near frenzy. The next day still hurting I'd go out of my way to shop at a different store where I was less known. For all else be damned I would not let scrutiny stop me. I had to have my ice-cream and chocolate.

Ever onward rolled the juggernaut with shame breeding compulsion and compulsion breeding shame. Both with a hunger never satiated. I was ruled and I complied. It did not matter that on any given day after bingeing I could not face myself in the mirror. By that night I would once again be squirming with a want beyond reason. It would send me once again scurrying to buy ice-cream and chocolate. Or perhaps not, for a day or two. I'd hold off. Somehow. For believe me, when I fought that demanding urge for sweets I was in emotional agony. I was as bereft as a baby denied its mother's teat.

Then came January first of the last year. Once again I swore off sugar, this time for a year. For some reason I can't explain I was able to do what I'd never been able to do for any length of time. My previous record of abstinence from sweets lasted only a month, and it was one fraught with mind twisting compulsion and aching emptiness. This time however things were different. Sure the first week or two I squirmed with want for my buddies. But I was able to somehow not fall prey to the obsession. And one day at a time, the days added up, some seemingly slower than others, they passed until I'd made it through a year without gorging on sugar and sweets.

Now what?

In spite of that serpent like voice that swears a little won't hurt me I think I'll go completely without all things sugary for another year. One day at a time.

Silver Christmas Tinsel

On Christmas mornings in my youth my brother and sister and I would bolt awake shortly after dawn and dash into the living room to ogle the mound of gifts beneath our silver tinsel Christmas tree. With a rush of excitement we'd have a go at our Xmas stockings that were laid out in our traditional spots around the tree and stuffed with such goodies as playing cards, jacks and rubber-ball, whimsical surprises, colored pencils, dice, and, my perennial favorite, the Whitman's Chocolates four piece sampler. I'd make short work of the chocolates and jacked up on sugar and giddy with expectations my siblings and I would wade through the gifts and try to guess by heft and a couple shakes what was inside each box. Shortly thereafter my parents would get up while kidding us about the early hour of their rising. And with good cheer my mother would whip up a festive pancake breakfast. Then we would gather around the Christmas tree and turn the mound of gifts into a mound of torn apart and discarded wrapping paper.

One year we had a second Christmas at the house of my grandparents Nana and Pa. On the trip there however I was nauseated and we stopped at a pharmacy in a city along our way with the hopes of getting coke syrup to settle my stomach. The pharmacist told my father that he was out of luck that the store didn't have what he was looking for and that there wasn't another drugstore for many miles to come. With disappointment we drove off. But we hadn't gotten more than a block away when I spotted a sign for another drugstore. With the pharmacist's insistence that there wasn't another drugstore for miles around still ringing in his ears my father stopped with some reluctance. It couldn't be. Sure enough however it was a second drugstore. It also had the coke syrup. My father got back in the car with the curative and a good mind to punch the first pharmacist in the nose for lying to him when he had a sick kid to attend to. My mother said to chalked it up to the guy being a jerk and my father swallowed his anger. And we were once again on the road. I would however remember that lie for many years to come and it would fester and lead in part to an over all cynical world view: you could never really trust anyone.

Christmas Eve in 1969, when I was twelve, our family was invited to a party at the home of Jack Dempsey. The festivities took place in his cellar. It had been converted into a family entertainment center equipped with throw-rugs, plush seating, stereo system, and a bar. Jack Dempsey was like my father a prison guard. Though friends however the two men were of different mind-sets. For, unlike my father, Jack Dempsey had ambition. (This I'd learned through an overheard discussion between my parents.) He was going to school, studying for tests, and ascending the ranks in the prison system. I was in awe of the man and his possessions, for he was I could readily see better off than us. Here was my first example of someone not living by the code of my parents: Be grateful for what you've got, a philosophy honed in large part by their having lived through the pains and wants of the Great Depression. Here was proof of the possibility that I might one day aspire and claim a place in a strata of class above my family's own. Later that night Santa arrived at the party and handed me a gift. It was the 45-rpm record of the Temptations performing Cloud Nine.

Over the years of course besides the goodies from Santa we also gave one another gifts. One year early on I gave my parents a pewter cocktail set that I'd picked up at a church sponsored tag sale. They never used it. One day a year or so later I found it packed away on a cellar shelf for useless junk and experienced disappointment that ached and throbbed in my chest. But life went on. In the Christmases of my callow teens I gave my brother albums of bands I liked with the thoughts I'd later claim them for myself. Our stocking stuffers changed too in my latter teens and early twenties. Instead of jacks and rubber-ball and colored pencils we got packs of cigarettes and scratch-off lottery tickets. Some traditions however remained. Our Whitman's Chocolates sampler I was always happy to see was a consistent stocking-stuffer. And somewhere along the way my parents one year gave my brother a drum-set. For they were generous and as I'd one day come to see very tolerant and giving to sacrifice their peace and quiet to my brother's diligent practicing and more to the point my daily pounding out lumbering renditions of the drum solo in Inagaddavida.

In the weeks leading up Christmas time I could be a nuisance, too. This was especially true the year I got it into my head that I just had to have Lotus the three album set of Santana live in Japan. I connived and wheedled my parents in the weeks leading up to the Christmas. Every day I'd mentioned the albums. They told me to lay off for crying out loud. But I would not can it. I badgered on. I just had to have it. They did not disappoint me. Come Christmas day a gift wrapped Lotus was laid out in the mound beneath the Christmas tree. My father an ardent Frank Sinatra and lush jazz fan humored me and turned over the family stereo to a playing of that all so important gift. As I glowed with each guitar solo my father shrugged his shoulders. To each his own.

Adulthood brought along a more subdued Christmas spirit. My parents however lost nothing in regards to their generosity. There remained no matter the year a mound of gifts under the tree come each Christmas. Sure in those later years the gifts were more utilitarian and the stocking stuffers bore less whimsy. But my parents gave freely of themselves and took more delight in the gifts they were giving rather than getting.

Christmas in 1989, found us gathered around my mother's hospital bed. We gave her that year comfortable sleeping clothes. She would as it turned out never get to wear them. For three days later she died. And Christmas as I knew it, a magical day when all slights and familial squabbles were forgiven with a blanket amnesty, was forever linked to the past. In subsequent years I would experience melancholy each holiday season. But I would carry on and find in the quiet hours of Xmas some solace in my cherished memories of that special day of the year when we as a family somehow rose above our individual human frailties and loved one another unconditionally.

Never out of style

The chair was made of metal and tubular in shape and had a footrest and a seat of padded yellow plastic. It seemed to appear only at haircut time, leastwise I've no memory of it being put to any other use. My father would sit me down upon that chair and drape a protective bib around my front which acted as a slide if you will for clipped-off hair to slip down to the floor. As my father went about giving me a crewcut the air would be sweetened by the aroma of his pipe that was redolent with aged tobacco and its hints of burnt sugar and butterscotch. Bob Steele a local AM disc jockey would be emanating from a nearby green plastic portable radio. He had a sonorous voice and spoke between songs of interesting facts and proper word usage. He also hawked P.O.M.G., peace of mind guaranteed, the tag line of a Hartford jeweler and sponsor of his show, which, when Bob Steele wasn't speaking, consisted of big band tunes and the standards as sung by such stalwarts as Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, and my father's favorite, Frank Sinatra. You could listen to Bob Steele's show and remain blissfully unaware of the turbulence of the sixties then raging nationwide. My father was quite the fan.

When I entered first grade in 1963, I stood out in class for I was dressed in the fashions of a decade passed and unlike my classmates I had my hair shorn to military specification. I'd come home from school in tears after a day of being ostracized and teased. Please, I implored in tears. Let me grow my hair and dress like the other kids. But my father wouldn't have it. Not in his household he said. And his word was law and the law did not bend for several years to come.

Finally however after much pleading by my mother in the summer leading up to the sixth grade in 1969, my father acquiesced and took me shopping to buy a pair of bell-bottoms the current fashion of pants, one that my father had earlier damned as worn only by assholes. I can still remember that day of shopping and the thrill of searching through the stacks of bell-bottoms for just the right pair. And I found them. They were brown and white striped and had a very wide bell. I also bought a cool shirt and a wide belt to go along with them. I was from then on with my father's tacit silence and outlay of cash dressed in the fashions of the day.

My hair grew longer and unruly and I kept it I parted on the side. At night I would wedge the right side of my head into my pillow and try to will myself into not moving in an effort to keep my hair flat against my head. Invariably however I tossed and turned and my hairstyle suffered. But I refrained as much as was possible from visiting a barber much to my father's chagrin. By the time I reached high school I'd firmly taken my place among those who were labeled as freaks.

One Saturday afternoon during my Senior year in high school in 1976, I went shopping for clothes while incredibly stoned. I picked out a pair of pants that were baby blue crushed velvet with elephantine legs and front pockets I could barely get my thumbs in. They were 36 inches in length; I wore 33" by 33" in pants so I had to have my mother take up the hem. When I modeled them for her she said, "Oh. I see." The following day when I was no longer stoned I thought what have I done? But I shook off my uncertainty and wore them that Monday to school. At one point that day I stepped into the bathroom to take a whiz. There were around ten guys in the bathroom and all talking between them ceased as I stepped up to the urinal and did my thing. No one spoke the entire time. Then as I flushed and was done and just about out the door they all burst out in uproarious laughter. I never wore the pants again.

That summer I cut my hair shorter and began to comb it straight back. I'd been led to do so by hanging out at a local disco. For it did not take me long to assess by way of the club's other patrons that long hair as I wore it was no longer in style. And I wanted to fit in. So my daily garb changed too. No longer did I wear denim and construction boots. Instead I wore platform shoes and flashier clothes of unnatural fibers and polyester. My new outfits were diametrically different from the dull and muted colors I had up until that point worn. My parents who returned from a two week vacation unaware of my transformation had to ask whose clothes was I wearing. When I told them mine they were stupefied.

In the 80's I swore off man made fabrics cut my hair shorter and had a rat tail in back some seven inches long. It was all the rage. My clothes were mostly thrift store bought. One garment I owned was a suit-coat on which I scrawled on the back across the shoulders with a black magic-marker, "All dressed up." I also wore a lot of T shirts promoting bands I'd an affinity for such as The Pretenders, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, and the band that I was in, Cargo of Despair. At one point during those years I gave my self a haircut. I butchered the job and had to resort to a barber to remedy the mess I'd made. To the barber's inquiries of how my hair had gotten into such a state I told him my girlfriend had cut it. "What," he said, appraising my work. "Did you have a fight with her beforehand?"

Over the proceeding two decades the length of my hair would vary. I would go through spells of wearing it high and tight a.l.a the military when I felt a need to get serious in life. Other times I'd let my hair grow out until you could call it a mane. I had flat tops and buzz cuts too. Overall however my hair style was mostly short and neat. It remains so to this day albeit my hair is now gray. I've also gone back to wearing denim pants and somewhat muted shirts. It's the way I dress most every day. It seems to me at least to never be out of style.

With a bottle over my head.

When Timmy C. broke an empty beer bottle over my head I had an out of body experienced. I was suddenly above myself looking down. And this is what I saw. A gathered crowd was backing away in a widening circle. I had Billy B. a local high-school basketball superstar in a head lock - it was the only way I knew how to get him to stop punching me - and we were spinning around. As we did so I could hear the grunting of a wounded animal. It took me several moments to realize that the wounded animal was me. I let go of Billy B. and wobbly stood my ground. I was once again in my body, albeit with blood streaming down my face. The reason for my predicament was a simple one. Timmy C. did not want to pay me the four-hundred dollars he owed me for coke I had fronted him. Such are the occasional pitfalls when dealing drugs.

Turn the clock back to the beginning of my time in illicit commerce of illegal substances and you would find an average moody and petulant teenager selling joints for pocket change. From there I escalated to buying quarter pounds and selling them off in ounce and half-ounce quantities. I did so in pursuit of that most holiest of grails of a pot smoking teen: Free dope.

What a thrill it was to gather in the apartment of a friend and break the seal of a one-gallon size plastic baggy stuffed with a quarter-pound of pot and breathe in deep its earthy aroma. I'd dump out the contents on a coffee table and revel in the pile, digging my hands through it. Using an album cover or a shoe-box top I'd set it at an angle and sift some pot atop it ridding it of seeds before rolling up a joint to give it a try. Then I'd divide up the dope and heap it into sandwich size baggies. I'd measure by eye, two finger height for twenty dollar half-ounces, and four fingers high for a forty dollar ounce. Rarely did I ever resort to using a scale. Once the work was done bagging up the dope we'd smoke another joint and listen to music or stare at TV before I went off to recoup the money I'd invested in the weed.

And seldom was heard a discouraging word. For pot smokers were for the most part a forgiving and accepting lot. Such was not always the case with imbibers of powders and pills. They tended to be while under the influence, as friends and I put it, Skooky.

One time I was selling hits of what was purported to be THC - the active mind altering substance in Marijuana - and which was in all likelihood some form of animal tranquilizer. I was at a concert at a civic center and I'd taken a hit myself and was, as I can best describe the high, like an alzheimer victim lost in a penny arcade going full bore. I was dressed in a yellow T shirt with a shiny silver and black image of Groucho Marx and about an hour after I'd sold off all the dope two guys confronted me and my companions. One of the guys could barely stand up. The other pointed at Groucho and said blah blah blah. It took several moments in my addled state to understand what the guy was saying. It turned out he was claiming he hadn't gotten off, that the dope I'd sold him was no good. It must have taken a full minute before this sank in. Then it hit me. There was no fucking way he couldn't have been high if he'd swallowed the hit. I told him he was full of shit. He wouldn't let it go. Finally one of my unarmed companions had to threatened to stab the guy before he gave up and skulked away leaving us alone. Lesson learned: Don't dress so conspicuously when dealing dope.

A few years later I was introduced to cocaine at $90.00 a gram and $50.00 a half-gram. After several snorts I was scheming to get it for free. The solution? Become a dealer. I bought an ounce and with a half-ass scale I was in business. The price for the ounce was such that I wound up with four free grams of coke for my troubles. I never stepped on it. That is I did not dilute or add to the cocaine's weight with such substances as powdered milk, laxatives, or procaine. I sold the coke as is. And most of my customers came back for repeat business. There was however moments of buyer's remorse after all was snorted and pockets were poor, and there was at times hemming and hawing over whether or not the gram looked at full weight. But for the most part everyone was satisfied. I did get one late night frantic call from someone wanting to know what I'd cut the coke with. Turned out he and another guy had injected the coke and had painful complications. But that was just a one time thing.

My customers were almost to a one weekend recreational snorters. We'd lay out lines together and chatter away, smoking and drinking, before laying out another line. It was all so fine and dandy, cash and carry. But then I made the lazy mistake of fronting Timmy C. four grams over the course of a few nights with his solemn promises to pay me in full on the upcoming weekend. Timmy however was on a cocaine and alcohol fueled bender, I would later learn, shirking off work and all responsibilities and before he knew it he'd lost his job and had no means or money to pay me back. I began dogging him. And at one point in a bar room confrontation I jammed a child's toy gun in his neck and said, bam bam. I wanted my money.

Some weeks later there was a graduation party along a seldom used paved road. Friends and I had just smoked a joint rolled with the album-jacket sized rolling paper that was included in the latest Cheech and Chong record, Big Bamboo. We were blitzed and stumbling about. Out of nowhere Timmy C. was in front of me. He said he was sick of me bugging him. It didn't make any sense. He owed me money. He was the bad guy here. He punched me in the face. I shook it off. He punched me in the mouth. I cleared my head and took a swing at him. I'd never in my life swung a punch at anyone. Billy B. Stepped in between us saying I was too big to fight Timmy, that it wasn't a fair fight. Then he punched me in the face. That's when I got Billy B. in a headlock that would end with a bottle breaking over my head.

Man after that was I holding a grudge against Timmy C. I swore I'd get even. But a short time later with out resolution my brother and two friends I headed west in a van. The following week in a call home my sister told us the latest. Timmy C. had gone on to rip-off Billy B. who responded by beating Timmy C. so bad he later woke up with one side of his body paralyzed. With thoughts of divine retribution I let go of my obsession of getting even with Timmy C. He would it turned out walk for the rest of his life with a noticeable limp. As for me I gave up dealing drugs from the bottle day forward. It wasn't worth the hassle. And in the end I made it through that time period relatively unscathed and with all debts forgiven. I no longer imbibe mind altering substances. Life as it is is mind altering enough.

Blue Lips

When my sister happened by my parents house one winter afternoon twenty years ago she found my mother blue in the lips and struggling for air; The idiopathic pulmonary cystic fibrosis that had reign over my mother was robbing her of breath. My sister took charge. Bundling my mother and her oxygen tank into her car my sister made the ninety minute drive to the Deaconess hospital. It was there that my mother was undergoing experimental outpatient treatment for her respiratory malady of unknown origin. On that particular afternoon due to her condition my mother was admitted as an inpatient with the understanding her stay would be short term, just until she had regained her strength. Ten days later however on the twenty-eighth of December, 1989, my mother would take her final precious breath.

Memories of those last ten days of my mother's life have mostly tattered and frayed and gone the way of forgetfulness. Some images and happenstance of then however have left there indelible mark. They still have me marveling some twenty years on. Chief among these is the matter of coincidence: I was at the time of my mother's stay at the Deaconess working there through a random assignment of the temp agency I was employed by. I could just as easily, as with a coin toss, have been working somewhere else. But as fate or the cosmic alignment of the stars would have it I was working at the hospital and thus able to be in my mother's final days close to a constant at her hospital bedside.

My mother's condition was such that every breath was a labored one and the last thing she needed was an exchange of words emotionally charged. Thus I held my tongue. For you see at the time I had issues that were I believed childhood based and I wanted almost more than commonsense would dictate to have my mother confess her shortcomings in parenting. But as I said I kept my opinions to myself and as I watched my mother weaken regardless of her doctor's insistence she was on the mend I kept my accusations of her perceived failures to myself. At the close of visitor hours each night I bid my mother well and went home to place late night calls to fellow members of a support group for painful childhoods. I cried that I was watching my mother die. And I was advised by those wiser than me that I could be a loving son by simply being at the bedside of my mother, and that by doing so I might also heal the places where they hurt.

Shortly thereafter one morning when I entered her room my mother implored me to her side. She'd had awaken in the night from a horrible dream in which television newscasters were pronouncing her imminent death. She had responded to the nightmare by tossing a water pitcher at the offending television screen. That morning as she told me of that awful dream she gripped my hands tightly and fought for the breath to tell me how frightened she'd been. I did my best to comfort her and reassured that I was there for her. Later that evening at the end of visiting hours I made my leave saying, "Sweet dreams, Mom." My mother replied, upon freeing herself from her oxygen mask, "Then I will dream of you." It would remain one of the most cherished moments in my life.

That Christmas my brother and sister and father and I gathered around my mother's hospital bed. We did our best to prop up the illusion that soon my mother would walk away refortified by her hospital stay. Her weakness however did not bode well. But there was hope. And there were prayers. We leaned upon the both of them as crutches. And with their support we stood around her bed doing our best to deny what our eyes were telling us, here was our loved one in the act of dying.

On the morning of her final day my mother's sister and I conferred. My mother's condition was noticeably worse than it had been up until that point. We debated whether it was time to call the rest of my family for a final vigil. In a decision perhaps born of our refusal to face the truth we put off the call until at least later that night when I got off from work. I went about my courier duties and my aunt stayed at my mother's side. At the end of my shift I ate a hasty dinner at the cafeteria of the Beth Israel hospital. Afterwards I stepped outside and facing west I saw a magnificent sunset of vibrant pinks, oranges and reds.

When I got to the Deaconess my aunt and I rallied around what I should do. There was no getting around the fact: My mother appeared to be at the end of her life. I made the call. In the time it took for my father and sister and brother to arrive my mother's vital signs crashed. It was then only a matter of hours.

We gathered about my mother's bed. A priest was summoned to administer final rites and holy oils. In turn each of us made our final goodbyes. At one point as my brother agreed with my mother that there had been some rough passages in their respective lives my mother said with a chuckle, "not so fast." She did so with the timing of a seasoned standup comedian. And I thought who is this woman cracking jokes on her deathbed? Certainly it couldn't be my mother. But it was. My father meanwhile was railing, "Why couldn't it be me instead." As my sister stood off to the side, her fists tight to her lips. I watched it all unfold around me while remaining detached as if a documentarian.

My mother was hooked up to a machine that administered morphine. She and my father had both previously agreed to no extraordinary means of prolonging her life. She would go when her time came. My father and brother and sister and I sat about my mother's room not talking, waiting for my mother to take her final breath. Hours passed. We sat there waiting. She labored on as if not fully willing to die. Then we four all fell asleep. It couldn't have been for any longer than a moment. And in that moment my mother died. For just as quickly my sister snapped awake and found her so. We were now a family of four.

20 Roosevelt Boulevard

In upper Connecticut, bordering Massachusetts, directly following the Korean War, the bulldozers of developer Ledger Starr arrived to knock down all trees and level the ground. Afterwards, with wooden stakes and plum-bob lines, cellars were dug and houses were built, each one on a half acre lot. It was an instant neighborhood of barrack-like houses that varied not in size and shape but only in color. Through a low interest loan via the GI Bill my father and mother bought one of those houses. It was painted brown and would be our home for the first fifteen years of my life.

My earliest memory: It was night time and my mother and I were holding hands. We were in a well tended to field and it was crowded with people, most of them it seemed taller than me, and fireworks were exploding overheard. Suddenly my mother and I were no longer holding hands. I plunged into fear. Years later a therapist would urge me to think hard. Did your mother let go of your hand? Or did you let go of hers? The answer I inferred by my therapist's insistence was central to understanding the core of my being. But that night in that field I knew only that I was utterly lost.

A year or two later I was a first grader when the news was announced through the classroom speaker overhead. We were dismissed hours early from school and I ran home as hard as I could. I had to tell my mother. When I got home she was vacuuming the living room. I was almost too breathless speak. She urged me to calm down and when I finally did and told her the news she said, "Oh my God," and hurried to wake up my father. Together the three of us gathered in front of the television. It just couldn't be. But it was true. The date was November, 22, 1963. And President Kennedy who was Irish and Catholic just like us had been assassinated. The following days unfolded in black and white as Walter Cronkite ushered us through our grief. Some images of that time remain indelible: A horse drawn cart with a flag draped coffin, and a riderless horse with one empty boot in a stirrup.

Somewhere around that time I had my mouth washed out with soap for saying something improper. Forty seven years later I could still taste that bar of soap.

I liked fire and played with matches. In the woods behind our house I lit small fires and snuffed them out. But one day one of the fires got away from me. Suddenly there were walls of flames on three sides of me. I was mesmerized. I almost let myself get completely surrounded by flames before I ran. I was later caught and grounded to my bedroom and the backyard for several months. Years after in therapy I would learn that playing with fire was closely associated with early sexual abuse. During that time I was in therapy my mother would offhandedly remark that one of my earliest babysitters was later led away in a straightjacket. The news flushed through me like icy water. It suddenly all made sense, all those feelings I had of being smothered that seemed to have been born before I had words. I knew intuitively that I had been sexually abused. My mother as if reading my mind told me that nothing ever happened, that she would have known if that woman ever did anything to me. But I thought, what about all these other things that happened under your very own roof without you being aware? How could you tell me you know what happened?

Our backyard was mostly sand and patches of grass with a hill that had a couple trees atop it. One afternoon I hog tied my brother and hoisted him up by the feet into one of those trees. As he dangled upside down from a limb I called my parents. My mother cried from the kitchen window, "Let him down." I swiped at the rope with a serrated knife severing it. My brother plunged head first into the ground. But the gods were with us. The fall didn't break his neck.

Jerry Wiggins lived next door in the house to the right of ours. He was my younger brother's age and he kept a photo of his penis in his wallet. When he was sixteen he crashed his motorcycle just up the street at gentle bend in the road. When he did so he plowed through a wooden fence and into a tree destroying his motorcycle. He was laid up in bed in traction for a number of months with many broken bones. A year later almost to the day after he was healed and had bought a new motorcycle he smashed once again through that very same fence and into that tree. This time the crash killed him. His father who tinkered with short-wave radios filed for divorce. He left the house to his wife and daughter. The ex wife drew the shades closed and never opened them again.

In 1969, following the Manson Family murders, there was a rumor that a naked madman was running through the woods behind our house. For at least one night I stared out my bedroom window with vigilance. The following September I was thirteen and would be taking a bus to school for the first time. On the initial day of classes I made it half way to the bus stop where other kids were waiting before I turned around and went back home. I entered my backdoor in tears. My mother had to sooth me. "There, there," she said. "It's ok to be scared." Two years later I would be dropping acid. And a year after that we would move and leave 20 Roosevelt Boulevard behind.

Further musings on an Allston stay

Toby was a thief, sociopathic in scope. Be it a kid's bike with streamers, a ladder mistakenly left out over night, or someone's morning paper. It did not matter. He'd steal it. He was not partial in any means in his thievery. He stole, conned, and robbed, from institutions, strangers, friends, family, and anyone he professed to love. They were all his victims. So too were Rick and Scott. They had this brought home to them in painful clarity when they were served an eviction notice and papers threatening to turn off utilities. These were all bills that Scott and Rick's roommate Toby had claimed to have paid. He had instead scammed them both of cash and snorted the money up his nose. When Scott and Rick kicked him to the curb without any restitution he blithely moved into the house across the street. That's when I entered the picture, moving in with Scott and Rick in the second floor apartment of 26 Haskell Street, in Allston, Mass.

My move-in costs were direly effected by Toby's thefts. I had to help pay unsympathetic creditors. It was after all no concern of theirs where the money came from, just as long as each bill was paid in full. In my first week of living there I lurked in the shadows of our porch clutching a knife. I had it in mind to kill Toby, and I was as mad as any seething protagonist in a dark Russian novel. Call it grace if you will but eventually my madness abated and I was able to chalk up the loss as one of Life's lessons: There is treachery even among friends.

It was 1987, and I was in my Junior year as a full time student at Emerson College where I was pursuing a BFA in creative writing. I was also waiting tables to pay my way, and over the next two years I would work at a succession of restaurants, cafes, and bistros. Sometimes the money was good and I would treat myself to little rewards for working so hard. Other times my earnings were lean and it felt a stretch when rent came do. But it was alright. Rick and Scott and I were best of friends and a struggle is not so debilitating when home life is warm and hospitable.

On nights I was not waiting tables we'd eat our dinners together in the mid hours of the evening. Then we would spread out before the television watching Boston teams, the sport depending on the season. When basketball time came 'round we watched the Celtics while listening to the radio play by play call of Johnny Most. And we would crack up at his dramatic and indignant shouting over minor infractions committed by visiting teams. Most nights we drank espresso and devoured bowls of Haagen dazs ice-cream, our favorite flavors being Peanut-butter Vanilla and Macadamia Brittle. Breakfasts were staggered affairs with some scheduling that over-lapped. The first person up however retrieved the Globe from where it had been tossed on to the first floor porch and we'd all have our turn at it. I'd read it from first page to the last while consuming several cups of coffee before readying myself and heading off for class. Lunch time found not one of us home.

One of the perks we enjoyed at Haskell street was the haven of our front porch. There was a hibachi out there on which we cooked up many a steak and burger. There was also in that space a couch and easy chair. And the nights were numerous that we lounged out there. One afternoon as Rick took a seat in the easy chair he heard mewling. A quick investigation revealed that a neighbor cat had given birth to a litter of kittens in the depths of the chair. Then one day we got a notice from our landlord stating that they were going to fix the porch. It was a tad unstable. They tore three levels of porch down and replaced it with only one. We were then without a porch. A couple of months later when we renewed our lease the rent was considerably higher.

Overnight guests set us off or so it seemed on tangents of late night swilling of shots and beer. When Ed arrived from Colorado, one night bearing magic mushrooms we careened through the hours with hoots of laughter and shenanigans. Then when I begged off with the coming of dawn and retired to my bedroom, closing my door, I could hear the scurrying and giggles of others not ready for sleep. I braced myself against my bedroom door. And soon there was an industrial fan aimed at it with two drunks dropping chocolate chip cookies into the whirring blades of the fan. The cookies scattered against my door as if a soft shotgun blast. In the morning we gathered 'round the coffee pot giggling once again over our late night antics.

Rick made plans to move to South Carolina. On one of his last nights in town we celebrated with a six pound lobster. We put the crustacean in the tub and turned on the shower, cold water of course, while we headed out for some errands. When we got back the lobster was dead. Never the less he was boiled into one spectacular dinner. Jeff replaced Rick. He was a bit spastic and always wired. It didn't help matters much that he drank cup after cup of coffee. In time Scott and I adapted to him. Things weren't the same without Rick. But we ventured on. After awhile the three of us were all accustomed to each other's peccadilloes and habits. And there was harmony. Then Scott announced he was moving to Atlanta. Rather than look for a third roommate Jeff and I decided to go our separate ways while still remaining friends.

I decided to purge myself of most of my possessions. I emptied my bedroom of furniture, barely worn clothes, books, and several hundred albums of rock 'n' roll, blues, and jazz. We also went at the apartment with the same goal in mind. Purge, baby purge. None of us wanted the furnishings and bric-a-brac and doo-dahs and such that had accumulated over eight odd years. Down to the curb it went. The pile when we were finally done measured some six feet wide, fifteen feet long, and four feet high. All of it perfectly fine goods. I even dumped a pailful of pennies on the sidewalk, sticking a plastic into the pile. Our neighbor downstairs could not understand. "It's money," he stammered. "It's money." But I could only see the coins as a burden I no longer wished to bear. When the three of us were done with our toiling we shook hands and went our separate ways, except for Jeff. He stayed in the apartment for one more night. Two days later he told me of the carnival atmosphere that evening as car after car and neighbor after neighbor stopped to assess the pile and divvy up our goods between themselves. It went on said Jeff late into the night. In the end the only thing they did not take away was the memories.

My first venture out of the nest.

In the weeks leading up to our departure I recorded over 120 60-minute cassette tapes, most of it rock and roll. Also in that time my father paneled the interior of our van and equipped it with a bed that had underneath storage. When the day came to hit the highway headed west the four of us stowed our gear, cranked up the tunes, and said our goodbyes. We were off to visit our friend Ed in Fort Collins, Colorado, and then to seek our fortunes in Hollywood, California.

Ed was studying Forestry at the University of Colorado, and on our first night in town he took us to a party on campus. We weren't there but a minute when a preppy couple came up to us all smiles and asked us what house we were pledged to. When Ed explained that the four of us were merely visitors the two of them lost their smiles, chirped, "Oh," and walked off with out another word. Thus was I introduced to Greek life. The following morning Ed took us repelling.

We stood on a cliff some three hundred yards high looking down at passing cars that looked smaller than match boxes. Ed was the first to go over the side. "It's easy," he said. Then he disappeared beneath the lip of the cliff we stood upon. It was the last we saw of him until twenty minutes later when he scampered back up to where us four were huddled with our second thoughts about repelling. After hemming and hawing I swallowed my reservations and volunteered to go next. Ed outfitted me with ropes and clips and backed me over to the edge of the cliff. With a lump in my throat I went over the side and promptly got snared in the gear just out of sight neath the lip of the cliff. As I struggled with the tangled ropes I glanced over my shoulder at the void below me. It frightened me as I'd never been before. But there was only one direction in which to go. Down. I cried out for help and as best as he could Ed coached me blind. It was a long thirty minutes before I touched the ground. Rick went next. He fired down the rope as if shot from a gun. At the very last moment the rope locked up and he dangled upside down some two feet above where he'd almost smashed into the ground. The leather gloves he'd been wearing were burned through to the flesh. Chick and Steve followed with incident free falls. The four of us declined Ed's offer to go again.

In Denver the next afternoon we visited a museum that had on display a rickety four wheel wooden cart that was called we learned by its accompanying plaque "The Death Cart." The text went on to explain that it was considered an honor to be touched by The Death Cart. From then on The Death Cart and the honor of its touch was a source of inside humor between the four of us. That night we Parked atop Look Out Mountain. All of Denver was spread out before us in multi colored twinkling lights. It was magical. In the morning we headed for California.

When we reached that golden state we went looking for Hollywood and Vine. Somewhere near Rodeo Drive Chick saw someone he swore was Johnny Mathis. A moment later at stoplight we saw a fully outfitted Leather Daddy. He was straddling a Harley Chopper. We ventured onward the whole while gawking at pedestrians on sidewalks. It was hard to tell who were actors and who were not. As the day wore on we headed further west until we stopped for the night at Zuma Beach. The next morning we backtracked and eventually made camp at a municipal parking lot at Huntington Beach. And there we stayed for a couple weeks.

On weekends the lot filled up with RVs. The driver of one parked next to us spread out lawn-chairs and posted a sign that had his and her names. Week day or weekend we spent the afternoon hours on the beach sunning and swimming in the warm Pacific. We passed our evenings in copious drinking. Late one afternoon a single woman parked her RV aside of us. We chatted and later that evening she invited Steve and I inside. By then Steve was into his fourth quart of wine for the day and he and I had each dropped several hits of acid about a half-hour beforehand. Our stay was an aborted one. We were asked to leave when Steve began seething, "Don't you talk about my mother," after the woman innocently said, "You must have been a handful for your mom."

Steve and I retired to the van where Chick and Rick were fast asleep. I plugged a Doors tape into the tape deck. We had seen Apocalypse Now the night before and by the time The End was playing the nearby lifeguard stands looked like thatched huts and the crashing surf sounded like explosions. I turned around to get some reassurance from Steve. But he was passed out, his quart of wine clutched in his hand was spilling out on to his chest. His eyes were rolled into the back of his head and his eyelids were blinking rapidly. I thought, oh God, that's going to be me in another hour. Thus began my worst trip ever, one that would leave me shaken for many months to come. The following morning when the woman next to us was up and about I explained how Steve and I had been on acid. She invited me in and went on to tell me she was on the run from the DEA. At the sound of a small craft flying overhead she scrambled for a window and told me they were out to get her. She showed me a pistol and then emptied a Pringles container in which beneath the chips she had in a plastic baggy a half-ounce of coke. She told me it was pharmaceutical grade and to take as much as I wanted. I laid out a thick line and hoped it would clear my head.

A day or so later we faced the ugly fact: The four of us were just drunks going nowhere in that milk and honey dream land. It's not however that we didn't try. We had one day during our stay at Hunington Beach, gone in search of jobs. We wound up in the industrial bowels of outer Los Angeles, where semis and dump-trucks reigned. We went from one smoke belching factory to another hoping to land work then and there. We had after all no address or phone number with which a potential employer might reach us. Our searching netted us no work and our California dream seemed suddenly mighty bleak. This was not where we would one day shine. We were just four nearly destitute guys living out of a van in a municipal parking lot. It was time to move on. We dropped Steve off at the bus station. He was headed for Oregon. Rick, chick, and I drove on to Tucson. We did so bypassing the Grand Canyon. It was after all only a hole in the ground.

We went to Tucson, because Chick's girlfriend, Terry, had gone there to live. He hadn't seen her in several long months. Their reunion was one of jubilation. But beyond that our prospects were bleak. We had just enough money to pay for a little food and a one week stay a cheap motel. Things however worked out better than they had in Los Angeles. We each got jobs, Rick painting houses, Chick working at a saw mill, and me at a foundry. Until our first paychecks it was one peanut-butter sandwich for breakfast and lunch and one hamburg apiece for dinner. One morning the peanut-butter jar slipped from my hands and smashed on the floor. I put the shattered jar back in the refrigerator. We were that broke. The next sandwiches we made we extracted glass shards out of the peanut-butter we spread.

It was my first time not living under my parent's roof and I was making minimum wage and shell shocked by the dictates of circumstance. I could only see before me in Tucson, a life of scrambling from paycheck to paycheck. I was not alone in my thinking. Rick and I decided to head to Florida. Chick was staying on. He and Terry were entertaining thoughts of either splitting up or getting married.

Rick and I were cruising through Texas, when we came down a hill around a blind corner. Parked behind a bridge abutment with a radar-gun was a Texas State Trooper. He pulled us over. He said he'd clocked us at 80 miles per hour. We had never had that van up over seventy. He told us we had to go to court and to follow him. We crossed over the highway and up over the bridge. On the other side was a trailer with a sign announcing traffic court and the honorable judge so and so. There were four cars parked in front of the trailer. They all had out of state plates. The inside of the trailer was paneled in dark wood and there were a number of black and white 20" by 16" photos circa 1963 of car wrecks. We were given two options. Pay the Hundred fifty dollar fine right then and there. Or post a bail of two hundred dollars and return in two days to fight the ticket if we were so inclined. We paid the fine.

Taking stock of our funds we faced the fact. We had just enough money to buy gas to take us to Florida with about twenty dollars left over to start a new life. Or we could go back to Connecticut. The unknown with a certainty of struggle? Or the comfort of home? It wasn't such a hard choice. We headed back to the nutmeg state.

The Summer of Reggie

Reggie and his parents moved into the house next door to Mike and Mark Shea in the summer that Mike was twelve and Mark and I were eleven. He was in his late twenties and had black hair, a mustache, and a trim beard. He quickly bonded with us. Soon we were all hanging out together every morning and afternoon. We'd pile into Reggie's convertible and he would drive us to a nearby school yard where we would play tag football. Riding there and back was the best, the wind rushing all around us, we talked as loud as we could. Reggie was so cool. He smoked cigarettes and everything. He even taught us all the different swear words there were and also what bands were really cool. For instance he told us about the MC5 who had a song called Up Against The Wall Mother-Fucker. His parents owned a little yapping dog that was tied to post in their backyard and sometimes the dog would yap so hard he'd throw up. Then he would eat his vomit.

My parents didn't understand how cool Reggie was. Like once after hanging out with him and playing tag my mother asked me if he touched me in a funny way. It was a question that made me ask what do you mean? You know, said my mother. Funny? I sorta knew what she meant. But I couldn't figure out why he would want to do that. Then one day Reggie invited us into his house. His parents where somewhere else. He showed us his record collection. He even gave us cigarettes so we could be cool like him. Inhaling made us cough. But Reggie told us that he had cough too when he was our age. So it was cool. And when we told him that we were headed off to Camp Norwich for two weeks and that we wanted him to buy us cigarettes he gladly took our money and did just that. We got four packs, two Kents, and two Salems.

Camp Norwich was located in the lower Berkshire mountains and was owned by the YMCA. It was rustic, coed, and spread out around a flagpole in a central yard. The girls slept in cabins with bunk-beds. We boys stayed on the other side of the camp in four men tents that had wooden floors and army cots for beds. We all had footlockers too in which we squirreled away our contraband cigarettes, matches, and candy bars. There was so much to do at Camp Norwich. There was archery, and it was fun pretending you were indians. But it hurt the inside of your left forearm when you didn't let the arrow go just right. We also had arts and crafts where we made stuff with glue, paper-plates, and elbow macaroni. And a hike away up a nearby hill was a rifle range where they let us shoot 22's at paper targets tacked up to a wooden wall. I got my shooting privileges taken away from me when, after getting bored shooting at my target, I closed my eyes and shot up over the wall and into the trees.

The campgrounds were laid out aside Lake Norwich and many of our activities were centered around its waters. There was swimming, sailing, canoeing, and water-skiing. You had to be rated a Shark in order to water-ski however. I never made it past Pike so I couldn't ski. Sometimes I would pause by the dock where the skiers entered the water. One of the skiers was a nephew of Bob Barker the TV game show host. Whenever he was skiing and the boat came anywhere near the dock he would splash the awaiting skiers. Every time he did so the girls would squeal with delight. And I would think before going on my way that some day I would be more famous than him.

During Free Swim you had to swim with a buddy. There was a board with hooks that you would hang you and your buddy's name tags on. One side of the tag meant you were in the water. The other side meant you were out. One day I forgot to flip my tag over when I got out of the lake and went back to my tent. When one of the swimming monitors took a quick heads up to make sure everyone was accounted for my name came up as missing. Authorities were called and soon the waters were being dragged by two alert deputies with grappling hooks. Some time later a camp employee came upon me hanging out at my tent. He said that I was supposed to be dead. He sent me back to the lake to let them know I was very much alive. As punishment for my blunder I wasn't allowed to swim for the following two days.

One night after that I slipped away while walking through the woods with Mark Shea. I hid behind a large rock. When I didn't respond to his calls he returned to camp. Soon flashlight wielding searchers were calling my name and shining their flashlights in every which way. I knew what I was doing was wrong. But there was such a warm feeling hearing others call my name. The search went on for quite some time. I later returned to camp and when I was asked why I didn't reply when called I said that I never heard them. As to their questions of where I'd been I mumbled nowhere. A camp councilor told me to go to bed. Now. A couple of nights later all was forgiven and I gathered in the activities center with others to watch in all its black and white horrors The Fall of The House of Usher.

A following afternoon as I was headed to archery I spied on a leaf two bugs, mating, one atop the other. Later that evening as the Sheas and I smoked our cigarettes while hidden in the shadows aside the wooden shower stalls a pretty girl happened upon us. She told us that she had up until then not thought that there was any one cool in the camp. She took a drag off my butt, coughed, and bummed three cigarettes off of me for her and two of her friends. After that whenever she saw me she waved in a very friendly way.

At meal time we all gathered in the camp dining hall. Each meal was served with a sweet concoction called Bug Juice. You could drink as much as you wanted, three meals a day. One night we were served what we were told was buffalo meat. It tasted alright. There were also rules about how you ate in the dining hall. If you were caught with your forearm resting on the table a councilor would call out your name and make you pace around the dining hall while everyone else chanted, for instance, "Mark Shea, young and able, get your elbows off the table, this is not a horse's stable..." After dinner the snack shop opened up and you could buy candy-bars and goods with Camp Norwich motifs. There were also some items for sale that had nothing to do with the camp. One was a poster of a hawk with his talons dug deep into the word Hawks. I bought it to hang in my bedroom at home the whole time knowing that I was a Dove, the opposite side of the political spectrum. I wanted however to show my dad that I was just like him.

At two weeks end we made our goodbyes and boarded a bus that drove us back to our demarcation point. Soon we were home and Mark Shea went to struggle on the can and when he failed his mother took him to the hospital. He had gone the entire two weeks of camp without once taking a crap. As for Reggie, he never crossed the line with us. And soon after our return from camp he and his parents moved away with their vomit eating yapper in tow.

The RPMs

Through a stand of skinny trees some thirty yards thick a rutted dirt road wended into an oval clearing of tall grass an acre wide in circumference. The road you soon learned upon breaking free of the trees was lollipop shaped and off to the right of it on any given Friday or Saturday night during my early teens you'd find me gathered there with friends around a blazing bonfire in that clearing of woods we called the RPMs.

The name was derived from a defunct car repair shop that had been housed in a barn shaped building that was later turned into a youth center. It likewise folded. One night two friends and I shot off fireworks while perched atop the building. The police soon arrived. We fired bottle-rockets at them until they told us through a bullhorn to come down off the roof, a signal to run if there ever was one. We didn't get far before we were in a flashlight beam being told to halt and get on the ground and spread 'em. The officer handcuffed the three of us and put us in the back seat of a cruiser without patting us down. As he went off looking for other miscreants we took the opportunity to empty our firework bulging pockets. We stuffed our booty beneath the back seat of the cruiser. Afterwards patting us down and finding us free of fireworks the police let us off with a stern warning.

Some time later one Sunday afternoon in a clearing aside the building we played a game of football. I did so after swallowing four downers called Yellow Jackets. It soon felt like all my movements were occurring underwater. Everything was so slow. I loped about and when I got tackled it seemed to take ages before I hit the ground. Of the dozen kids who partook of the pills stolen by Jay C. from his family doctor ten were admitted to hospitals as ODs. I was not one of them. Upon stumbling home my parents placed me in the cold blast of a shower and slapped my face while asking who was I and where did I get the pills? This they kept up for what seemed like hours. Finally they let me go to bed, my mother keeping vivil at my side monitoring my vital signs. I woke some many hours later to find that I was grounded for the next several weeks.

Once again after I was no longer confined to the family home I made my way to the bonfire of the RPM's. Most nights we drank and smoked pot in peace. But every so often police came with their blue lights flashing and we'd sometimes run into the woods to wait them out. Other nights they came we mumbled fuck 'em and stayed in place. On one such night I chose like several others not to run. The cops started patting us down. It was not their usual response. Every other time they'd merely told us to put out the fire and hit the road. That night however we were all searched. Unfortunately for me I was holding an ounce of pot. Because I was under age and it was my first offense I was able to plead Youthful Offender. This meant the record would be later expunged. At the hearing I was asked by the judge if I had anything to say for myself. Disregarding the advice of my lawyer I told the judge, God bless my father who stood silently aside me, that I didn't think there was anything wrong with marijuana. This put another crimp in what was quickly becoming an adversarial relationship between father and son.

Regardless of the familial tension there was for a time a ritual around our family kitchen table on Friday nights. We would gather one and all to wolf down cheeseburgers and glass after glass of coffee or mocha flavored milkshakes, the conventional wisdom being it was best to coat your stomach with milk before a night of heavy drinking. Afterwards I would hitchhike to the RPMs where I would gather with friends and pool our money. Then someone of legal drinking age and a companion or two would make a run to the liquor store while others gathered wood for our communal bonfire.

Some nights in games of dare we'd pile on wood until the flames shot up six or seven feet and we would leap through them from one side to another. Every once in a while however someone would miscalculate his jump and wind up in the bonfire. One morning following such a jump I woke reeking of wood smoke and discovered upon looking in my bathroom mirror that I had singed my then as of yet unshaved peach-fuzz. I'd also given light to my hair, eyelids, and eyebrows.

The following weekend found me once again gathered in fellowship around a bonfire. And there I would be every Friday and Saturday night sharing banter, whimsy, and illegal substances until I reached a legal drinking age. Then I left the woods for the welcome of bars.

And now as I enter my autumn years I look back upon my time around those bonfires of the RPMs as halcyon days. There was much good humor carefree and unmoored from responsibility. We drank and smoked in fellowship, exchanging bravado, laughter, and knowing looks. And, fuck it, the life that awaited us all beyond the woods would be there long after the bonfires burned out and the coals had grown cold.

My Five Stays In And Around Bean Town

I lived at five different addresses in and around Boston, from June, of 87, until September, of 93. Each one had its particulars and peculiarities that amused and oft times aggravated until that abode's welcome wore out. Then I would move once again in search of more pleasant living conditions. It was a goal that eventually drove me to give up that city with frigid winters for a metropolis deep in the south. Until that time I was finally highway bound I bounced around Boston, collecting in a little black book each stay's serving of anecdotes.

Stay One: In our apartment on the second floor at 26 Haskell St. in Allston, Mass, we bachelors three engaged in mutually accepted "funstility," a marriage of fun and hostility. Inspired in part by the antics of the british comedy The Young Ones telecast on MTV we treated one another to repartee and mild slapstick. I'd say for instance "Yea, touchdown" when the Celtics scored a basket and my roommates would pelt me with empty beer cans and tell me to go to my room. It was a grand time and we were tightly knit. We could finish each others sentences and we were in essence one happy family. But different goals and life with a capital L saw to it that we went our individual ways and the three of us left behind what was for me my most enjoyable experience in shared living arrangements.

Stay Two: I crossed the river Charles to reside Cambridge. I became a roommate with a woman named Sue, who I would later learn was raped while on acid, and a guy straight off the plane from Ireland. I forget his name. One evening soon after I'd unpacked my things my roommates had a keg party that I intentionally missed. The following morning I returned to an apartment that reeked of beer and two roommates who were both acting skittish and doing their best to not cross paths with one another. They took turns scurrying around the apartment like frightened mice. The tension was due it turned out to drunken folly in the guise of a sexual overture by the male on the night of the party. In the ensuing days the awkwardness escalated until Sue was physically shaking. She confided in me that she was stooping her shoulders because the other roommate kept ogling her breasts. But nothing happened. The days passed and the problem was swept under the rug, and there it lay with a noticeable hump. Life continued on. Then one night a short time later Sue threw her typewriter through her closed bedroom window. At the sound of the shattering wood and glass I stepped out of my bedroom to see what was the matter. Her bedroom door was slightly ajar. I called out to her and as she turned my way to slam shut her door I saw in her face a look I will take to my grave; it was one of utter madness. I tried my best to calm her calling out in a soothing voice the possibility of hope as she rendered destruction about her room. When finally she settled down enough to speak she confessed that on her ride home she wanted to drive her car straight into a highway abutment. I urged her to believe that there was help available. I'm not sure if I ever convinced her because I returned to my room without her vocalizing acceptance of what I offered. A couple of days later I moved out.

Stay Three: Still in Cambridge I moved into an apartment a block away from a YMCA in Central Square. I had two roommates, both of them male. One was balding and spent his weekends handing out Left centered pamphlets and gathering with anti government protesters. He also introduced me to Cafe Bustelo and an appreciation for strong coffee. The other roommate was effeminate and gay. He blushed a lot, took long showers, and was frequently engaged in hushed telephone conversations. The apartment was dark and every night around 10:00, our neighbors above us dragged across their wooden floors heavy furniture. It would take them several minutes to finally settle on a spot and cease the dragging. This was also the apartment in which I was introduced to cockroach infestation. You'd turn on a burner on the stove and out they would scurry. The more I thought about it the more I had to admit that the over all dirtiness of our apartment verged on squalor. In a few short months it sent me seeking a place with cleaner conditions.

Stay Four: Back in Allston, I took a spot in an apartment whose only common room was the kitchen. The living-room had been converted into a fourth bedroom to cheapen the rent. We each got a shelf in the refrigerator and there was a small black and white television on the kitchen table. At first all was ducky. We each carried on independently of one another. Two of us worked days and two were late night rock and rollers. This factor would later lead to my eventual departure. Of the two rock and rollers Sharon was tightly wound and given to sliding notes under my bedroom door rather than speaking directly to me. One note complained that I went to bed too early and therefore infringed on her peace of mind to do her vocal exercises in her room aside mine. Another note demanded that the culprit who had stolen the bread off her shelf should confess and pay restitution. A similar demanding note under the bedroom door of Barry caused him to churn so much in anger he vomited. The loaf of bread it turned out was placed on the wrong shelf by Sharon's boyfriend. The problem was Sharon was blind to everything in the refrigerator not on her shelf. A couple more notes under my door led me to search for a living situation without any roommates.

Stay Five: I scored a basement efficiency on Lee St. in Boston. It was behind a Dunkin Donuts and many were the nights fragrant with their appealing sweetness. I had a hot plate and I was for the first time in my life living on my own. My landlords granted me washing machine and dryer privileges and I had an easy chair and a reading lamp. There was also child's size desk in my room that the owner assured me had served him well in his years in college. I never could get comfortable while seated at it. I slept naked on a futon and one morning when I sat up my scrotum landed on an undulating centipede. The tickle shot me wide awake. But life was good. I enjoyed being on my own and beholden to no one. It was a delicious freedom and I reveled in it until I made my mind up that I was sick and tired of New England winters. I gave my landlords notice. Two weeks later I moved out and was on my way to Atlanta.

Some times known as L S DUKE

Something weird always happened or so it seemed whenever I was tripping on LSD. Sometimes it was just a hallucination, like for instance when Mr. Pasternak's nose fell off as he scolded me for not paying attention in Civics class. Or the time I was standing in line at a public snack shack and a tall and lanky black woman standing nearby eating a hot-dog looked exactly like a giant upright ant. Those visions were strictly chemically induced and were as a golfer would say par for the course. What I had in mind were more the moments when I bore witness to a realm of happenstance outside the confines of normalcy. For instance...

One winter's night in the depths of the President Carter era energy crisis three tripping buddies and I stepped inside a donut shop. We were ravenous for confectionary goods. There was an older gent manning a stool and sipping coffee and a middle aged counter woman standing at the register. It was very still and the colors were saturated and it seemed as if we'd entered an Edward Hopper painting called The Night Clerk. One of us told the woman we'd like a dozen donuts. She pointed to a red plastic latticework basket atop an adjacent display case. There were two donut-holes in it. "That's all we've got," she said. "You're welcome to them." In that moment we noticed all the empty shelves and took in what was abundantly clear: we were in a donut shop without any donuts. She had to be on to us. "Come on," said one of us to the woman. "You know were tripping. Right?" She arched an eyebrow and a wave of apprehension passed through us. Oops. We stammered "Never mind," turned around, and exited. We were soon in a fit of laughter over our silly question and the fact that reality had played a trick on us.

LSD or acid as we called it back then was two dollars a hit and quite often came in the form of a quarter inch by quarter inch paper square with an aspirin size dot in the center. There were also times when the dot was exceedingly small and the hit of acid was called Micro Dot. Sometimes the paper square was colored something other than white and had a name corresponding to the color like Purple Haze or Pink Jesus. Once in a while the paper had an image on it, usually a Disney character such as Goofy or Mickey Mouse in sorcerer garb and wielding a magic wand. Sometimes the little square was plastic and called Window Pane. Acid also came in pill form and was about one fourth the size of a Tic Tac. Orange Sunshine was barrel shaped. Purple Pyramid was the 3 D shape of its name. But no matter what the particulars of the acid the results were always the same. About an hour after "dropping" a hit the altered state fun began. And with it came the weirdness.

Franky and I were hallucinating like crazy in a world turned unbalanced and liquified when we decided to head for the safety of his bedroom. It was painted entirely black with day-glow stars and space-ships that glowed and pulsated when viewed with a black-light. It was dusk and we'd almost made it to his house when five children appeared out of nowhere. Their arms were outstretched and they called in unison, "Satan, Satan..." I plunged instantly into a Children of The Damned paranoia. Never had such evilness existed. I didn't know what to do. I looked to Franky, but he was as I frozen in place. Surely we were about to die. I could barely breathe. Then the kids german-sheppard came to their calling.

Another dusk acid had me enthralled in the mysteries of the moment while at a spot in the woods where friends and I partied. As I hallucinated and saw the world anew in pretty shapes and colors a cohort kicked apart a rotting log revealing hundreds of agitated ants. I suddenly felt all creepy crawly. The log kicker poured gas out of a plastic gallon jug onto the ants and gave it light. The flames leaped and the burning ants writhed. I squirmed in simpatico. The log kicker sloshed more gas on to the fire and the flames shot up the sloshed out gas. The top of the jug was instantly alight. He jerked the jug back towards himself to blow out the flames. When he did so gas splashed out of the jug and on to his head. And in that moment his head was engulfed in flames as if he were a human match-stick. He dropped to the ground and rolled out the flames but not before the fire had singed his hair, eyelids, and eyebrows. It was a frightful sight. I spent the rest of the night staring with due diligence into the devious flames of our subsequent camp-fire.

Years earlier. One gloomy, damp, and cold morning after the bus drop us off at the parking-lot of Kosciusko Jr. High School a friend and I each copped a hit of acid and headed off for parts unknown. About two and a half hours later after standing around shivering and waiting for the acid to kick in with no results we decided to return to school and get our money back. When I opened the doors to the school I was hit with a blast of warm air. It was as if someone flicked a switch. My legs went wobbly beneath me. I had to grab a railing in order to remain upright. I was inexplicably tripping my ass off. And so was my friend. We giggled and decided what the hell we might as well stay were it was warm. I believe that was the day I later saw Mr. Pasternak's nose fall off. And everything was fun and games.

Years later. I had a classic bad trip. Some forty minutes or so after I dropped the two and a half hits of acid I felt that emptiness in my stomach that announced a heavy trip ahead. Soon I was down the rabbit hole and the world was oozing and wobbling all around me. I made the mistake of looking into a mirror. In doing so I discovered what CIA operatives had known for decades: You can easily break the mind of someone unstable with hounding questions and a liberal dose of LSD. My subconscious was my cruel and viscous interrogator that night. As it howled at me I saw before me in my reflection every vile sin I'd ever committed. I looked on in horror as my face morphed into ever more hideous grotesqueries. With herculean effort I pried myself away from my reflection. But it was too late, for I knew with every fiber of my being that I was more putrid than a rotting corpse. And the night had just begun. In the horrific hours that followed I screeched at myself and ran a gauntlet of hallucinated ghouls and demons. The experience left me shellshocked and jumpy for many years to come. And although it was heavy price to pay for chemically induced wonderment I still look back with fondness on those years of hallucinations and weirdness.

9

Size queen

My penis is small. It is while flaccid about the size of my thumb, though thicker in girth. For most of my life I bore that fact with shame. In the school gym locker rooms of my early puberty I changed quickly never doffing my under-shorts or taking showers after play and exertion. I settled for the discomfort and stink of dried sweat rather than the scrutiny of friends and foe. No one would see my penis, or so I vowed.

While engaging with the world however my word was not easily kept. For the time always arrived when I had to drop my drawers or pull down my zipper. And no matter the reason, I knew shame. Be it a doctor holding my testicles and telling me to cough. Or the sudden freeze and dribble at public urinals when regardless of my bladder's insistence the close proximity of another's arrival turned off my water works. And worst of all as I was soon to learn was the shame inherent in my sexual awakening.

Her name was Kelly and we were both fifteen when she took me by the hand one chilly night and led me through the woods to an improvised bed, a pile of fragrant autumn leaves. Up until then I knew barely more than spin the bottle kisses. A parking-lot was nearby and its humming lights illuminated us with a flat white glare. She was by kiss-and-tell accounts an easy lay and I knew she was initiating me into the world of coupling at the behest of my best friend Peter. Soon enough Kelly and I were reclining in the gathered leaves, exchanging tongues and groping. I fumbled at her buttons and the clasps of her bra and suddenly before me she lay half naked. But I was not erect. So when she reached for my belt buckle I stilled her hand. "What's wrong?" she asked. But I could not speak and felt my cheeks flush red. There was no way out. I gave up. There is no other way to describe it. I was utterly defeated and let go of her hand. As she reached into my under-ware I was worlds away. And I replied near tears with a wordless mumble when she asked me once again what's the matter.

In the ensuing couple of years I knew no moments amorous. Although I longed after several cute classmates I did not pursue or make plain my affections. For the memory of my limp floundering with Kelly kept me mute.

Then as a Senior in high school I met Linda while drinking under age at a local lounge named the Dial Tone. I was in my liquor lubricated self charming enough to win her phone number. My subsequent call to her elicited laughter and acquiescence when I answered "go to a motel" to her question, "What shall we do on our first date?" The following Saturday off we went. As Linda undressed in the motel bathroom I turned off the lights, stripped down to my under-shorts, and got into bed. My breathing was shallow and I was both excited and tense with dread. I need not have been. For Linda turned out to be a tender and tutoring lover. She removed my under-shorts and did not recoil at my size or semi arousal. She treated me gently with head to toe kisses and I surrendered my virginity to her in the missionary position in several minutes time.

I learned through Linda and subsequent lovers that though at the lower end of the spectrum I was while erect of average size. But the knowledge did not appease me. I was as a boy blue in the face over a lollypop I could not have. I fumed in want of a bigger dick. And shame ruled me.

Three decades on in a bid to finally rid myself of my oppressive feelings surrounding size I went to a nudist retreat. I walked naked among my familiars with myriad body shapes and sizes and I saw penises relative in size to mine. And then one night as I luxuriated in the camp ground hot-tub I was joined by a woman who had undergone a mastectomy. And as I gazed upon that serene woman with one breast and witnessed her self acceptance I found myself and my shame suddenly foolish. She was in those moments my teacher. I knew then what it was to embrace one's own humanity. And in the many days that have followed I have thought of her whenever I've found myself once more nearing that vestige of size shame.

With hub and without

Beginning in the waning years of the sixties when I was not yet in my teens our family vacationed at Hampton Beach, NH, each summer during the last two weeks of August. The first few years we stayed at a three bedroom cottage painted a milky yellow. It was named The Kay. My grandmother, Nana, who was the hub of our extended clan spent the entire two weeks with us. My aunts and Uncles who lived relatively close by in Lowell, Mass, visited us nearly every day. They did so with my cousins in tow. We had a grand time and I knew what it meant to be happy and carefree. I didn't even mind my sunburn which I got nearly every year within the first couple of days of hitting the beach. It meant I got to hang out with Nana who confessed to me that I was her favorite. She would slip me thick white peppermints and dollar bills for the penny arcades and tell me all about the joys of growing up. She would confide in me until the worst of my sunburn had passed and I was once again able to return to my family's blankets just beyond the sandy dunes.

Each morning we'd spread out those blankets and beach chairs on our spot in the sand. It lacked only an X to mark it. The adults would slather up with sunscreen and oils redolent in coconut and sun themselves. They would make idle chatter and reposition their chairs to the changing arc of the sun. My cousins and I meanwhile would play with our toys in the sand. We would do so until the heat of the day forced us to brave the waves with frigid temperatures that seemed to indicate that they came directly from the Arctic circle. We would body surf and splash each other with chattering teeth as we waited for the next big wave to take us into shore.

Lunch time back at the cottage was orchestrated by Nana. It was a good humored and chaotic affair of cold-cuts, chips, pickles, and soda which my cousins called pop. We'd eat until sated and then lounge around on the porch and play with our dog Toto until once again heading back to the beach.

Our second summer at Hampton Beach I fell achingly in love with the teenage daughter of one of my mother's friends from childhood. I was smitten with a dry throat and a throbbing chest in the immediate moments of seeing her. So moved was I I gave up my army men as a show that I too was all grown up. As fate would have it one night she was a babysitter for us kids while the adults went out on the town. I was so overwhelmed by my feelings for her I stayed in my room breathing erratically and too afraid to venture into the room where she sat doing what ever it was that big girls do. I stared at my door willing her to come to me. I did so unsuccessfully into the late hours of the evening.

My father took Toto for a run on the beach each morning. And on Saturdays and Sundays he would bring home donuts from Sullivan's Donuts. You had to get there early our father told us. A line started forming before it even opened, this donut shop that was run by old man Sullivan and his two daughters who were both nuns. Whether it was due to the nuns or not we were all in agreement, as corny as it sounded, Sullivan's donuts were heavenly.

Every four years the Olympics coincided with our vacations. In Sixty-Eight we huddled around the small black and white television and listened to my father rail about the embarrassment to our country as three black American athletes lowered their heads and raised their black gloved fists in a show of black power. Four years later Munich saw us stunned and dumbfounded by a world gone horrifically awry. Then there was Olga and Nadia and unheard of perfect tens. And we were moved by their sprite spirits into believing that the world was not so bad after all.

The summer I was thirteen we moved from The Kay to stay at a larger cottage, 5 P street, rear. It was then that I investigated what it was that adults saw in drinking. Taking an empty quart size soda bottle I filled it with generous pours of gin, whisky, rum, and scotch. Booze was booze after all. With a liberal addition of cola to the mix I drank the God awful beverage down. I was not a pleasant drunk. I was quite obnoxious. Within no time at all I was down town standing at a second floor railing and spitting on the crowds passing below. Then I weaved into a penny arcade spitting on pinball machines. The proprietor caught me by the collar. He told to stand where I was while he went for a rag. The moment he was gone I was out the door. I ran in loping and stumbling steps for 5 P street, rear. I got home tottering and said I was going to bed and went upstairs. When my head hit the pillow the room began to spin. I raised the screen of my bedroom window and stuck my head out. My father who was directly below me washing dishes watched as my vomit hit the kitchen window that was opened horizontally.

In the spring of the year I was sixteen Nana was stricken with cancer. She did not tell us however when she found out. She waited until after the last two weeks of August. She withheld the news because she did not want to ruin the vacation for everyone.

There was a void after her departure, one that none of us could fill. We still had fun, gathered and jostled one another around the cold-cuts and chips, got sunburned, and tracked in sand from outside. But Nana was gone and you could feel the emptiness. There was no longer a hub and the course of our lives seemed not as true. We continued on for several years. But then my siblings and I reached the age of majority and vacationing with our parents lost its charm. We begged off joining them.

Then some twenty years later with a sepia toned glance at our days at The Kay I rallied my family around the notion that the chance of us all vacationing together might not come again. We booked a condo for seven days. The weather was questionable through out the week with rain, scattered sun, and blustery wind. There were tensions too between us. The family fabric that had frayed over the years through private demons and miscommunications seemed ready to tear completely apart. At week's end the best I could say about the vacation was that we got through it. The afternoon following that trying week I went for a run and ruminated over all that went wrong. At the end of my run I sat on a bench and bursted into tears. That winter my mother died. The ensuing years would find me pining for those early days at Hampton Beach and The Kay when I was still innocent and wished as I told Nana more than once that our vacation could go on and on forever.

Tree Shades of Blue

The pounding on my door accompanied by loud babbling woke me up from a fitful sleep. My vociferous late night visitor turned out to be my next door neighbor. He told me he needed to use my phone. The reason being I thought he said was that his roommate, M, had hurt herself. I asked him if she was depressed. My question was due in large part to a conversation I'd had earlier that evening with a suicidal loved one who, when not out and out trying to kill herself, had a propensity for wounding herself with knives. He looked at me queerly and dialed nine one one. It was then when the operator came on the line that I heard him correctly: My roommate he said has hung herself.

He had not checked to see if she was alive. The sight of her hanging limp in his kitchen had triggered him to turn around and bolt. We hurried back to his apartment. As soon as we stepped through his back door I saw her. She had an electrical cord noose around her neck and was slightly up on her toes with her back against the kitchen door. Her tongue was sticking out. I opened the door and she slumped to the floor.

She was cool to the touch. I loosened the cord from around her neck and did what I'd seen on oh so many television shows. I tilted her head back, pinched her nose closed, placed my lips to her mouth and blew into her what I hoped was the breath of life. When the air escaped from her it did so with a low volume "Ahhhhh." I thought I'd saved her. But my exaltation was quick lived for she did not otherwise stir. I breathed into her a second time and once more the air left her with a disconcerting "Ahhhh." I blew several more deep breaths into her. Each one escaped her with its life like sound. Then, again with my television viewed expertise, I switched off from breathing into her to press down on her chest rhythmically, one hand atop the other. After several moments of pumping away I placed my thumb to her forearm. There was no pulse. I returned to giving her breath. But I knew it was in vain. She was dead and beyond human intervention. When the paramedics arrived they labored intensely for a quarter of an hour before placing her in an ambulance that sped off with its sirens blaring, a false urgency for a mission without hope.

Back in my bed I thought about the two times I'd interacted with M. Once we'd talked light heartedly for several minutes about my playful and friendly cat, Skinny. On the other occasion she'd invited me cheerfully to have a beer with her and the gathering of her friends. Both times she was fresh and vibrant. She was, as Richard Cory seemed, one beyond such despondent ends. What I wondered went through her mind just before tightening the noose around her neck.

In the minutes leading up to my second suicide attempt I was giddy with thoughts of my exit before me. For I was finally going to end the depression that had corroded everything with suffering. And in those last would be moments I reasoned in bleakness that I would destroy along with myself every creative endeavor I'd ever undertaken. Into the dumpster went my torn apart photos, drawings, journals, and manuscripts. I then doused it all with a gallon of insecticide. I wanted to leave nothing but a body behind. I went back to my bedroom, placed the plastic bag over my head, and stretched the packing tape around and around my throat. Then I laid down with a pillow beneath my head. I thought that I would go peacefully, slipping into death as if into sleep. But soon I was struggling for breath and awash with cold, panicked sweat. I held my arms tight to my side and strained for air. Unnerved and gasping I tore into the bag and faced the ugly and beautiful fact. I was alive and going to live.

With a fractured will I returned to my shrink with an urgent request to alter my meds. Over time, through trial and exploration, we found a combination and dosage that brought about for me a tenable self. Thus I was in the ensuing months resigned to living. Then my neighbor came pounding one night, a night it just so happened when I'd earlier spoken with someone precious to me who was in the dire straits of contemplating self destruction.

The following day I spoke once again with my loved one. The gloom of the day before had somewhat abated. After much cajoling she agreed to take the daunting step of seeking help. Before signing off with endearments we gave voice to just how close we both were to M and the precarious void. That night M and her family were in both of our prayers.

Anecdotal Labors And A Would Be Footnote

When I dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen I took a job peeling vegetables in the cellar of our town's best restaurant, the Mountain Laurel. On my second day of work I brought in a black, plastic, transistor radio that I'd borrowed from my mother. (The first day without music had been such a bore.) I tuned into my favorite station and the job didn't seem so bad. I got into a groove and peeled away. I hadn't been at it too long when the head chef came down the creaky wooden stairs and took one look at my mother's radio and asked, "What's this?" He then glanced in the washtub at the potatoes I'd so far peeled and found the sum to be a paltry one. "Less music, more work," he said before going up stairs. I shrugged it off. When I was done with the peeling I put the radio out of the way up on a shelf and huffed my load of potatoes up the stairs.

The next morning my mother's radio was not where I placed it. Without music peeling vegetables was once again a bore. I was a sulking half-hour into it when the chef came down the stairs to check on my progress. I asked him if he knew where my radio was. He told me there had been a burglary during the night. This surprised me. I ask him what else had been stolen. "Nothing else," said the chef. "Just your radio."

At seventeen I white-lied that I was eighteen with a steady work history. It was a Man's world into which I sought entry so I fibbed away on job applications and, when I was lucky, in interviews. The secret I had learned was to tell would be employers exactly what they wanted to hear. On one such occasion I took my place at the end of a long line of applicants. In the next room over I watched a gruff interviewer dispatch one job seeker after another. Nearly an hour passed before it was my turn.

I'd barely gotten comfortable in the seat when he asked the question. "Got any plans for college?" "Yes," I lied, showing him I had ambition. Instantly he raised his two arms together with my application held between his hands. For a brief moment he looked like a surly conductor bringing an orchestra together for a final dramatic chord. He ripped my application in half, lengthwise. "College boys I don't need," he said. He crumpled the two halves of my application together. "What I need," he said, "is men who want to work." He tossed the wadded paper into his waste bin. He had no more to say. The interview was over. I stepped out of his office thinking if there was a lesson to be learned here I wasn't sure what it was.

A few years later four of us were living out a van at Huntington Beach, California, when I got hooked up with a job as a carpenter's helper through the California Department of Labor. I'd fudged the facts by claiming I had experience. I figured how hard could it be? I imagined I'd be like a nurse in an operating room. But instead of handing a surgeon a requested scalpel or sponge I'd be handing a bidding carpenter a hammer or a saw. When I showed up at the job site the first thing the foreman did was ask me where were my tools. When I told him I'd left them in Connecticut, his eyes narrowed. He handed me several dozen L shaped pieces of metal and told me to borrow a hammer and "install these braces in the joists." I thought he said "Joyces" and I asked the guy I'd borrowed the hammer from if he happened to see any Joyces around. He pointed to a support beam over my head. "That's a joist," he said. "Oh, right," I said, as if I'd momentarily forgotten.

I was hammering in around the fourteenth brace on a joist I'd picked at random when the foreman came charging over. "What the fuck are you doing?" he barked. Apparently each joist only required four braces. If he hadn't stopped me there was no telling how many braces I would have pounded into that joist. "Gimme the hammer," he said. I was demoted to sweeping and fetching lumber. At the end of the day he fired me and I was once again unemployed albeit in the golden land of opportunity.

Two years after that I was driving along in my brother's Dodge Dart looking for work and listening to the Sex Pistols as loud as his stereo would go when I saw a sign: Help wanted. I pulled into the parking lot and stepped inside. After I made quick work of the application the manager came bounding out of his office and shook my hand with vigor while laying his other hand on my shoulder. "Come on. Let me show you the plant," he said, giving my shoulder a squeeze.

When he pushed the two gray swinging doors open I saw up on a raised metal platform a half-dozen women of color in pink uniforms and hair-nets who all turned to gaze our way. And in that moment that lasted perhaps a fraction of a second it seemed to me that each one of those women had a look in her eyes that said,"Please rescue me." In a flash the look was gone.They returned to the work at hand, processing chickens. "Not to worry," said the manager. "We provide you with hip booths." He'd been talking about the job non stop since he'd laid his hand on my shoulder but this was the first thing he said that made an impression: Did I hear him right? This is a job that requires hip boots? I gazed up at a slow moving conveyor of chain with hooks from which chickens dangled in various stages of postmortem, some with feathers, others without. "Don't worry," said the manager, describing one of the rooms in which I would be working. "You'll get used to the smell." A red alert went off in my head. It flashed, "No fuckin' way will you ever get used to the smell." "So," said the manager. "Are you ready to start? You can punch in right now and get to work." I feigned a need to go home first. "Alright," he said. "But hurry back."

In the safety of the Dart I mulled it over. I'd been out of work for quite awhile and was nearly destitute. And here was a job being handed to me. But I kept seeing the looks on the faces of those women and hearing the voice of the manager. "You'll get used to the smell." I drove on, giving it serious thought. When at last I'd made up my mind I cranked up the Sex Pistols and sang along, "No future, No future..." I didn't need a job THAT bad.

I was living in Boston, Massachusetts, some years later when I took a job with a temp agency. I was sent to work opening envelopes for a well known radio based evangelist. We worked in a small vault-like room in a bank. There were surveillance cameras overhead and an armed guard in the room at all times. There was no music in the room. Those of us who did not work directly for the evangelist had to roll up our sleeves, don hospital smocks, and sit with our bellies pressed against tables stacked high with various sized envelopes. If we happen to drop anything on the floor we had to announce it to the guard before bending down to pick the item up.

We were not supposed to read any of the written material in the envelopes. Our job was a simple one. We were to open the envelopes and stack the enclosed money governed by denominations, except for Fifties and Hundreds. These we turned directly over to the woman in charge. I could not help myself. I read some of the enclosed material. The appeal letters were varied. One boasted that the Evangelist had had a dream in which the computer generated undersigned had donated a specific amount of money and "All your dreams came true." There was another letter in a large envelope that contained a stiff paper "prayer rug" with two knee indents marked L and R. Another letter contained a piece of fabric that was to be placed under a person's pillow for one night, AND ONE NIGHT ONLY, and then returned in the envelope provided with a donation in a specific amount. There were individual numbers too that were noted as amounts to be tithed. The age that Jesus died, thirty-three, was one number a letter stated boded well as a dollar amount for the bearer to mail in.

Along with money many of the envelopes contained correspondence of desperation and pleas. A number were scribbled on scraps of paper. And because the reverend was paying for the postage and there were those who cared not to hear from him a couple of the envelopes contained heavy weights. Others carried porn and scrawled rants filled with curses and racial slurs. In one envelope was a bullet. In another a sheet of shit smeared toilet paper.

In the waning Clinton years I was working as a banquet server at the Cater Center when President Clinton stepped out of a side room with a small retinue. I was standing aside a buffet table ladened with breakfast baked goods. He and his group were some twenty feet away when the thought took hold. I saw it as clearly as the black and white footage of Ruby gunning down Oswald in Dallas. The President drew nearer. I imagined the heft of a baked good projectile. There were dozens upon dozens at my disposal. A few feet closer. I saw the New York Post headline, Prez Beaned With Biscuit. I looked at the biscuits. The president was ten feet away. I had a clear shot. I could see myself explaining to the world that it was not so much a political act as a bit of irreverent performance art. There he was. Take the shot. Do it, do it. But no. The President and his yes men swept by and I was left in his wake, a disgruntled waiter who was, I like to think, almost a historical footnote.