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Boston Blood
Boston, MA 1974 / 75
12/24/74 – 23:37
God! I can be such a putz, or however it’s spelled. Okay, fool. How’s that? A good Anglo-Saxon word; a reoccurring Anglo-Saxon fool. Recidivist of the heart. Addict of Love, well, the illusion of love. Just a big stupid ass maybe. And I thought I was smart. That I had a brain. Guess not. Okay, enough with the self flagellation, humble foolery. I haven’t written in my trip journal for a while so I need a quick catch-up in lacks record keeping, too busy to write. After leaving the Gray Ghost, Father Harrison and the Monastery, that sounds like I’m a fallen priest, but I was just a guest for a week. A guest on a quest. That makes it sound too important. I was just passing though. Oh well, it did help me, but I had to move on, just had to go. Maybe more on-the-go than on-a-quest. From the Monastery, I headed for Maine. I made it eventually, but not by the route I intended. Story of my life type of thing. I had wanted to hike into Canada, but . . . I learned something about the frontier spirit of North America and the rugged individualist; either they were myths that never existed or that spirit is gone, dead and forgotten. All I got for my admitted rugged, on-foot independence was suspicion and, almost, an arrest.
“Can’t come into Canada without $100.00 US.” The Border Guard emphasized the U.S. part of the tender. The Canadian dollar was worth half a US dollar.
I countered with, “I have $200.00 US in traveler’s checks.” I patted my shirt pocket.
“A Day!” He shook his head. “$100.00 a day.”
“Okay, I have two days worth.” I tried to keep a smile on my face. “I have $49.50 in cash, so add another .495 days to that.”
“No, you have to stay for more than three days if you’re camping and on foot.” The Guard was simply making things up. That was obvious. I started to get angry, but held back. I retreated, something I don’t usually do, but I was trying to change my life. In the silence learned at the Monastery, I turned, walking back to the USA that I actually never left.
The Guard at the US Customs stand put up his hand. The Canadian and USA stands were only about thirty feet apart. “What is your purpose for entering the US?” He had seen me walk passed this stand not five minutes before.
“I never left the US. How can I enter it?” I snapped out, despite my deep desire not to. I pointed at the Canadian Guard, who was now smiling smugly back at us in the US or wherever we were. “He wouldn’t let me into Canada.” I think the Canadian stuck his tongue out at me. I’m not sure, maybe my angry brain made that up, still he was too old to act so childishly. Nothing else to do around here I guess except bug Hippie types. The whole thing was dangerous, boredom-induced childishness.
“Could I see your driver’s license please?” The US Guard put his hand out.
I gave him a copy of my birth certificate that I had shown the Canadian guard. The Draft was over for me, at least. Everything I had read said that was all you needed to go between Canada and the USA. “I’m not driving. What do you need my driver’s license for?”
The U.S. Guard glanced at the birth certificate. “Procedure.”
“I’m a US born citizen that hasn’t left the country, despite my desire. When is checking ID standard procedure in America?”
“It is for you if you want to re-enter the US.” He stated with no emotion.
“But I never left.” I, like usual, showed too much emotion.
“Please step over here. I have to search your belongings.”
“Fuck that.” I said and walked off re-entering the USA that I never left.
“You will be arrested.” The US guard shouted out. I think the Canadian guard gave a raspberry. Bunch of fucking childish macho shit!
“Go the fuck ahead.” I said to myself. Trying not to dig myself a bigger hole. I walked off expecting the cops to swarm around me, guns drawn, to take down the draft dodger or drug runner, or whatever they expected me to be. Dangerous hiker on foot that I was. It actually surprised me that nothing happened. They were just fucking with me for the fun of it. To pass the time? Like I said, Childish bull shit! The world’s so fucked up. Likely wars were started for the same reason. “Didn’t have anything else to do.” Fuck.
But that’s not why I’m a fool, well maybe it qualifies as such, but it’s not the foolishness I was speaking about at the beginning of this entry. After hiking up to Maine I discovered that the Great North woods in the summer was full of bugs. Walls of bugs. Thick swarms of biting persistent, annoying flying bugs. They were everywhere, even in my nose and mouth. Lunch was easy, swallow. They chased me most of the way down to Boston. During that time I continued the evening howling when the bugs went away after dark. I also expressed my feelings when they happened. Like at the US – Canadian border, maybe not a good idea there, but when I was alone, why not?
The hive attacks, skin eruptions not social insect hives, didn’t completely go away but they were greatly reduced in frequency and severity. Hard to howl in the city, but if you go down by the Metro station, when the trains blasted through, it’s so noisy no one notices a little more noise. So, I guess I can say the trip did accomplish the goal of overcoming the excessive emotion-based hive attacks. I exorcized my ghost bees, I guess. It didn’t cure my excessive emotional displays. Now, that’s the fool part. By October I was in love again. See I told you I was a recidivist putz. Her name was Debra. The coincidence with the name with my Deb back in Cleveland didn’t occur to me at first, Deb and Debra are such different people, I never confused them in my head.
12/25/74 – 01:15
Merry Christmas? Not that I’m religious, but Christmas was always a family gathering thing, whether my biological family or a family I found and was adopted into. Oh well, no family thing tonight, night job. There are always night shifts to be filled, especially on holidays. I got this job in a blood testing lab in Kendall Square. Not that there is any science involved or needed. Most of my colleagues, that is, co-workers are college students in need of job: Lit majors, Psych majors, a violinist and a couple of Undecided Futures. UFOs we called them as an attempt at humor. They always go, “Oh really funny uh?” Anyway, we take the human patient blood out of the draw tubes and put it in the appropriate container for whatever it’s to be tested for. We also write the patient info from the tube onto the test form. Usually, we process thousands of tubes a night but this was the Christmas Eve shift, so there wasn’t that much to do and why I’m writing this. Oh, worker training here for handling blood human consisted of “Watch what I do.” And “If the blood serum glows a bright yellow it means HEPATITIS! So be careful with that blood.” We weren’t given any gloves or protection gear of any kind. I got more protection in the steel warehouse. One shit job to another; always something for me to watch out for.
“Mostly, there’s no problem.” Was the night shift manager’s comment for pretty much any situation? No one cares about the lowest man, the no-shot. “There must be something wrong with you to want this job, so screw you.” So, I’m fucked again, but it was a paycheck for us UFOs and on-the-goes. Yes, another dangerous paycheck but not as much of a shit job as the steel warehouse. At least, it was clean and they closed the doors at night. I already have a callous on my right thumb from popping the red rubber stoppers off the blood draw tubes.
Okay, so if Debra and I are in love. Why am I writing this? Why am I working tonight? Okay, not working but at work. The real question is, “Why aren’t we together on Christmas Eve?” The money you say? Well, it isn’t just the money this time. Okay again, by mid-October we, Debra and I, were living together in a studio apartment in Boston. Rents are so high here. All Rent-Control did for Boston residents was make the apartments rundown from lack of care and repair. Without Rent-Control the rents would be higher but the apartments nicer. Seems like that’s the American Republican way; everyone losses except the Bosses. Maybe the Bosses lose too. They mostly become rich but drunks. Money is never enough, that is perfectly clear.
Debra was a dancer, a real dancer, Ballet and Jazz. Folk dancing too. Ethnic dancing they call it. She came from California to get into a Boston Dance school. None have accepted her yet. I have applied to Northeastern University. They have a work-study program. I’ll go as soon as they accept me. Both of us are young, poor and waiting for acceptance. If we are social organisms why is getting acceptance so hard? I guess we’re just like most of the people of the world; poor and waiting for things to get better. Well, to put us in a more positive light, we were still young, still expectant and hopeful. That sounds better, maybe too much better. Expectant and hopeful that things should be better. It all leads to disappointment. Yes, it does. I’ll show you.
By the first of December, Debra had moved in with a girl friend of hers. It wasn’t a mutually agreed upon change in living status, she just left. A note was left behind: “We are such good friends, why isn’t the making of love better?”
Hell if I knew! The note made me cry and I cried. It wasn’t what the note said as much that it was said in a note. I was expecting a giant ghost bee hive attack, emotions run wild, but I just got itchy all over with accompanying stomach cramps. So, I’ve made progress in a “You’re such a loser” way. I still fuck up relationships but it doesn’t almost kill me anymore. I just feel like death, without approaching it, and with no family of any kind within 500 miles to do Christmas with, I went to work. All us “non-relationship-having” loser UFOs can be our significant others for just one night, that is, not be completely alone. So, I sit here in the Lab Break room with my “of minimal significance others” who are mostly drunk, having no place else to do that either. Bars are closed on Christmas Eve. The churches object to competition at this time of year. A whole bunch of emotional cripples, me included, shit! The whole situation makes me itch.
12/25/74 – 13:15
Okay, so here’s some more of the screwy stuff about Debra and my relationship, former relationship or whatever it was, is? I got home this morning and Debra had slipped a note under our, formerly our, my door that said she wanted us to be together for Christmas day just as close friends should be and that she would be by our, shit, my apartment at 14:00. I have no phone. You bet it’s money. There are over 67 colleges in Boston, to get a phone, when you obviously look like a student, you needed, I needed proof of residency, proof of employment and a $200 deposit in USA dollars, of course. They were clear about the USA dollars part. Students come to Boston from all over the world, so USA dollars was always made quite clear. No imaginary borders involved. I had no one to call anyway, so I never bothered to jump through their corporate hoops. So, now that I had a close friend to call, I couldn’t. I couldn’t say No either. I wanted to say No. I should have said No. I should have left our, crap, my apartment but I didn’t. I’ll be right here at 14:00 Christmas afternoon waiting for my close friend that the lovin’ ain’t so good with. Shit! What a FOOL a fool is!
12/27/74 – 16:17
Okay. Now you’ll know what a fool I am, if you don’t already.
So Debra came over. “I’m menstruating.” She announced to me after we hugged and kissed for about an hour until around 15:00. I didn’t fight the snuggling because I didn’t know what was happening but it felt good. Go with the Family tradition of just do it. I guess with that comment about female blood I should have fought it though. Debra was a classic cute in physical beauty, but her physical reactions were far from classic or traditional or understandable, most times. Most women’s periods either enrage them or make them withdraw. Not wanting to be touched is a major part of it. Barb had said her skin burned the first two days of her periods. Debra’s period made her amorous. All she wanted to do was hug and kiss and cuddle. So, I should have known all along. Frustrating it was to me but I just had to understand, nothing else to do. My desire always seemed to be at odds with Debra’s menstrual cycle. I was naked by then, by the time the announcement came, and she only had her white cotton underpants on. I should have know just from the presence of those, her Aunt Flow pants, that it was her time not mine.
“I wanted to give you a special present.” And so she gave me a manual as she referred to it. A hand-job was the street term.
After I could speak, I lay on my back, my front drying just like the poem, I asked her, “Why?”
“Friends should be able to make each other feel good.” Her eyes twinkled. “And I wanted to be with you. I want to go sing Handel’s Messiah at the Old North Church at 17:00.” The way she used the 24 hour clock you would have thought her father was in the military. He painted boats in Oxnard, whatever that was.
So I thought to myself. ‘You are having you’re period and you have no one else that will go with you to sing.’ As an answer to my own question, but I said. “Sure.” What else was I going to say after a manual? It makes most men agreeable to most anything. Hand-jobs for world peace! Why not? Eventually her period would stop. Now, we’re seeing each other everyday. Our relationship is better that she is living some place else. See, screwy I told you. Both of us!
3/20/75 – 23:15
As if you needed anymore proof of my putziness or putzness. Debra and I have moved back in together.
9/7/75 – 08:07
Starting my first day of classes at Northeastern and thus stopped working at the blood lab. Instead, I got a part-timer at the University print shop, one shit job to another, oh well. I feel old compared to my fellow students. They are only a couple of years younger than me but they seem like a different generation then me. Debra got into the New England Conservatory of Music Dance Program part time only. It is a very competitive school. Acceptance feels really good. Too bad there isn’t a drug called Acceptance, it would sell big, really big.
10/18/75 – 20:37
Debra injured her knee in dance class. It’s bad. She can’t dance until it heals, if ever. This is not good, I know. Not good at all. Pain always changes the world. Pain multiples itself. Pain begets pain.
10/24/75 – 17:35
The note says:
“Why are we so much better friends when we don’t live together?”
Debra’s stuff is gone! Arrggggh! My whole body itches. I should have known better. Intentional blindness? I-blindness? Ha!
12/1/75 – 15:17
Debra had disappeared until yesterday. Didn’t write anything because it would have been just too whiney. The whole thing is embarrassing too. Mirrors of any kind have never been nice to me. I don’t look into them much. I could be a vampire I guess. My life already sucks. Ha! She had gone to Maine with a friend. She went with a man I know. I am I-blind not stupid. Debra always calls her women friends, girl-friends. Men are just friends. She was all tearful about not being able to dance anymore. She had a slight limp as she walked up to me at the Campus. I should have turned and walked away. I too should be limping, emotionally, at least, after this blow to my brain. But I couldn’t. She was all weepy and apologetic and most importantly, she needed a place to stay. Yeah, I told you I was a recidivist fool. It’s only a studio apartment. I let her have the foam mattress. She gave me a manual and said she was sorry.
You know I’m the sorry one, don’t you?
THE END
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Just to be perfectly clear!
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