Schadenfreude

 

 

I’ve talked about, briefly, my penchant for revenge. If I felt I was horribly wronged and could do nothing about it at the time, I’d file that away for a day when I could. Years could go by waiting for my moment. And there was one time I didn’t have to do anything at all. The payback for my little enemy was incredibly expensive. It came in the form of schadenfreude.

Frank Alves was a kid from the “other side” who hung with a different set of kids other than our little gang. Occasionally we’d run into each other and due to that crowd being Portuguese, we’d hurl insults at one another. This was when they, them...it started moving into our neighborhood and we knew they were filthy, corrupt, thieving and ate fish that they first turned into dry shoe leather then boiled to death later.

One day, we all accidentally met up and a fight broke out. While my back was turned, Alves picked up and brought down his kid sister’s tricycle down on my head, We were seven years old abouts.

I lived, but was furious at the back handedness of that move. That simmered in me for a long long time but it was near impossible to get him back with his clan always around.

1982

Tom and I were swapping out his rear brakes when we see Frank Alves and his new girlfriend Lee walking down our street. Frank had stopped to talk to a neighbor but Lee kept walking toward Mike and I. When she reached us, she stopped, turned around and shouted back to Frank and that neighbor about something. As she spoke, she turned her head to us quick and then started slowly walking backwards a few steps till her ass was all of 20 inches from either one of our faces, as we were crouched down working on the brake drum. Tom and I stopped working, turned to look, then at one another and back to her butt. Lee quickly looked back over her shoulder and smiled quickly and went back to shouting down the street to her boyfriend.

The look on Tom’s and my face was..”God damn!”

I stewed for a moment hating the thought that Alves had a hot chick.

Alves finally caught up with her and neither one of us acknowledged one another, though our eyes did meet. The feud still simmered.

After they pass, Tom says to me, “You see her ass? You see what she did?”

“Yeah,” I say, “She knew just what she was doing.”

****

Late 90s and Enter Bob…

Bob was part of our crowd for decades. He had lived a few blocks away and by chance, Alves and Lee had bought a house just around the corner from him. I had not seen nor heard much about Alves or Lee in years but apparently they had married and bought a home.

While at a local bar in I’d say, ‘97ish, I heard a story that was later confirmed an hour later by the culprit himself.

“How could you not know Bob was fucking Lee? Everyone knew!” Tom tells me.

“I just didn’t know...hey, I’ve been working full time, going to school full time and after that, I was taking care of the sick ones here...I’ve been out of the loop for some years now.” I tell him.

So I’m brought up to speed on Lee’s infidelities with Bob.

And in comes Bob about an hour later and I had to ask him.

“Oh shti? Lee? I’ve been doing her for a decade now! I never went after her, I never chased her...she came after me! Hell, I didn’t turn her away!” “You know she does whatever she wants, he’s completely pussy whipped by her!”

Bob goes on to tell me this story…

“Lee had come over to my house, from right around the corner and we did it, as Alves, her husband was at work. And about an hour later, I hear this loud bangning on my front door and I can see out a side window that it’s her husband. I hear him yelling to ‘Open UP! Open the door!’”

“So I grab Lee and her clothes and we quickly and quietly dash through my house, through the breezeway to the garage that’s connected. Once in there, I open the trunk to my ‘72 Ford Thunderbird and put her in it and press the trunk down till it latches softly. I then go back in, put on a pair of sweatpants and answer the door finally.”

“Cut that SHIT! I was SLEEPING! WHY are you banging on my door?” Bob yells.

“She’s HERE! I KNOW she is! Let me IN! I want her BACK!” shouts Alves.

Bob says. “I wasn’t going to let him and and we went back and forth for a good minute when, to get rid of him, I finally let Alves in.”

He went through my house shouting, “LEE? LEE! DAMMIT I KNOW you’re here!” I just followed him and when he got to my garage, he just looked in and just saw my two cars and nothing else.”

“So I shout at him, ‘You SATISFIED? She’s NOT here like I said!’

“So he leaves, but loiters out front for a bit, then finally crosses the street to go home.”

I ask him, “You let her out of the trunk then?”

“Nope..i go to the car and tell her through the trunk he’s lingering outside, and to just stay quiet till he leaves. I then go inside the house and watch TV for 45 minutes!”

I say, “You LEFT her in the trunk for 45 minutes? You bastard!” All he does is laugh when I brought attention to that. “Ah, so what. She’s only a fuck toy.”

“I finally do go get her though. She dresses up and then sneaks out the back garage door to hide over her friend’s Deb’s house. She still would come over for a few years more after that!”

Tom, who’s watching me listen to this for the first time, asks why I have mile wide smile on my face. I don’t answer really but think, “Hit me on the head with a tricycle huh you bastard? Guess I got my revenge in a different way...enjoy your joke of a marriage you prick!”

Is that immature? Yes. Is it pure schadenfreude? Yes, but I’m human and vulnerable to all what that is, including the bad. 

And some comedy for you too... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some LIfe Moments and Sewer Girl

 

I have told plenty of stories of the young elementary teachers we had, who were minted in the late 60’s Human Potential Movement that included an extensive liberal awareness. We kids were steeped like a cup of tea in that environment. The height of it was when Ms...and I mean Ms..Barbadoes had all the 5^th graders pile into her classroom to watch live Congressional hearings on the abuses and illegal assassinations of the CIA and NSA. Heady stuff for us 10 year olds. 

Also with that political education, they also preached Women’s liberation too. We boys got a collateral education as the messages shot by us as they were aimed for the girls in our class. The message addressed the idea little girls could grow up to be Mommies, nurses, teachers...but also...doctors, CEOs and airline pilots.

I was OK with that and personally didn’t freak if women dared to move beyond to roles otherwise barred to them. However, I wasn’t completely liberated and open. Years later, I came across a curious event in my 50s which put me off, till I figured out the situation.

**

Grease Traps. Yes, grease traps. It’s a plumbing fixture that separates grease and oil from the dirty effluent that runs down the drains. The reason is that the EPA found that dumping grease into the Narragansett Bay wasn’t helping it in any way. It also makes the jobs of wastewater treatment easier. The problem with grease traps is that you have to remove that filthy goo yourself from the trap otherwise it gets clogged. Also you have to hire a professional every so often to really clean the thing out.

One day at work, I saw an older guy come in, wrapped up in a disposable environmental protection suit (minus the head gear) to check out our grease trap and mentions it’ll only take 30 minutes to do the job as it was easily accessible.

“I’ll get started when my assistant gets here in a few.” he tells us.

A minute later, the assistant shows up. In comes a person, in a similar throw away plastic body suit, but with dirty blonde hair spilling down her shoulders. Though she was in that same rumply body suit, her skinny female form shown through. She as well had been blessed with a prettier than usual “the next door girl” face too.

All the guys in the kitchen stopped what they doing and gave her that male gaze as she pushed a giant wet/dry vacuum contraption to the trap. She noticed our gaze and then I noticed her going completely poker faced. Her entire countenance changed from relaxed to displaying NO information, no body language when she realized our gaze. Everything about her stiffened up slightly.

Women do this when they cannot or do not want to respond to nor feed that male interest. So show NO interest in any form and be left alone. It must be interesting to be a young teen girl and learning this tactic those first times, depending on whether you want the attention that hour or not. Then be called a bitch if you press “No” too hard. I like to think women and men aren’t that all different in many things. But the moves you girls have to do at times due to being female...it must be like being on the balance beam.

Anyways...

My reaction to attendant girl? I thought she was pretty. There is a certain type I respond to and it’s hard to describe in total. Skinny, nearly ordinary and slightly androgynous gamine girls get my attention quick and she was one. Think Winona Ryder, Natalie Portman, Roseanna Arquette, etc...

My second reaction which displayed my sexism? “How can a pretty girl like this do this filthy, disgusting job that requires personal protective equipment? Hell, MOST guys I know would not want to do this revolting, smelly work!” And my final judgment….”She’s too pretty to be doing this job. It’s not for her at all.”

Since I thought her attractive and very curious as to why she was doing this, I go into that side room where they’re working to watch and talk to her.

“You don’t see too many girls doing this work” I tell her.

“Oh, I know...but I’ve been involved with septic systems for years.”

“I’ve been involved with septic systems for years?” I repeat in my head, thinking it really strange thing to say. Just WHO is this?"  She should be sporting NYC attire and working for the Kennedy Center instead.

The two work on, removing the grease trap cover, positioning equipment when I hear her say…

“Dad?...Dad! Should I set the vacuum to 4 or 15 PSI for this?”

“Dad?” I think and then realize. “Oh my God...this is dad/daughter business! He raised her to be a sewer attendant!”

“OK..I guess...these things happen.” I think. But I couldn’t parse her pretty face with this gross, stinking and splattery job. I thought girls like her should be doing nicer, cleaner things.

(I guess I wasn’t totally indoctrinated by Miss McHale’s or Ms. Barbadoes’s teachings on feminism in 1975 it turns out. Girls can grow up to be anything, even sewer attendants!).

A bit later, I’m in the back parking lot and I see their van. On the side was written, “Dickenson and Daughter Septic Specialists.” Her name on the van was colored in hot pink though. OK. Confirmed. It’s a Dad/Daughter enterprise.

Later I thought it could very well be those two have the best dad/daughter relationship and are wildly successful money wise. They may even enjoy each other’s company all day long. I have met many women who were never that close to their Dad or absent altogether and that can source a whole host of problems.

Even in a besmirched protective suit, working with bacteria that could eat your face off if you gave it a foothold, she probably had the best bond a daughter could have with her Dad for all I knew.  

 

Dream Work

 

 

I know a lot of dead people. I don’t mean to be morbid but at this age I know more dead than living ones now. I include neighbors, teachers I had, clients I once worked with, co-workers, classmates, friends and family. So my net is wide and it fills easily as time passes. 

I also dream of them frequently.

Plenty of those dreams are humdrum, a repeat of a memory from long ago. I’m not surprised. They were once in my life so I would remember them in a dream associated with some commonplace day to day life event.

Then some stand out..

I have had a recurring dream of my brother, on a Harley, doing lazy circles in the street. I’m on the front lawn, a much younger version of myself, just watching him. Then finally, he straightens the bike and takes off down the street. For good. He’s left. Never to come back.

It’s not scary, sad or whatever. It’s void of emotion. Just me watching him finally taking off.

But it’s not about his dying nor a symbol of it. The dream was, I think...my finally understanding a life long wish of his. To get the hell out of our childhood home.

He did achieve that dream for a bit when he joined the Navy. That sure got him the hell out. He was in his mid 20s, with him just spinning his wheels waiting for his life to take off, and tired of playing nurse, as I was as well, to a mother who was barely functioning day to day at times. Well, he finally pushed the issue. Running way to the circus or military can work.

Till he was sent home again on a medical discharge a year later.

Back home, he saved up his money till he had enough to get his own place in Providence and took off again.

I once had a near snarky argument with my Mom over which son was worth more, as she thought he was over me. I reminded her that Ken left seven months ago...and NEVER has visited. He lived all of 5 miles away too.

“Who shovels the snow? Who fixes the faucets, mows the lawn, fixes YOUR car? Balances your checkbook? “Not him” I said.

“You know why that is?” I ask her as I felt myself cocking back the hammer on a tirade I was about to unleash and fire upon her.

The look on her face told me she did not want to know. So I chickened out and didn’t fire both barrels at her. The blast of the TRUTH would have really ruined her view of her first born son.

When I saw my brother’s first place in Providence, it was just a single room, where you shared the bathroom down the hall. I was a bit shocked at the meagerness of it and kinda said a bit too loud to myself, “You must’ve really wanted OUT.” He caught that and said:

“And avoid her? Damn right!” he replied.

He was going to stay the fuck away by any means.

**

I once knew, what they call, an “eclectic therapist” at Rhode Island College when I was pursuing my psych degree all those years ago. In the field, therapists/professors steer towards one dominant model and stick with it. You work with what you understand the best. Vin Calia, the guy I knew, was adept enough to draw from all of them at will.

“You gotta be careful of dream work Ron” he once told me, as I related that motorcycle dream to him over coffee at the Student Union. “Dreams are highly personal and any symbols you have do not translate to grand universal ones and that’s makes it unreliable to apply it to everyone.”

“Are you sure?” I ask

“Yep, the science doesn’t back it up as a panacea to cure everything nor can it be unified and generalized to everyone...but...at times, it can widen one’s perspective on your past.”

He goes on to tell me of learning about “dream work” at the Esalen Institute when he was there, for a bit, back when it was THE place to go for the latest in therapies, trends...anything avant garde and cutting edge in how to improve life. It was THE center for the Human Potential Movement probably started by Carl Rogers. Human Potential Movement? You know of it...if you read any kind of self help book.

Don’t know the Esalen Institute either? Here’s some of the people who lived and worked there for a time.

Joan Baez, Hunter Thompson, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Susan Sontag, George Harrison, Neil Young and zillion others...and Vin, for a bit when he found out what they were up too and had to go see. If you were worth your salt in your field, you were accepted there to learn from the others.

Years later, outside of EastSide Marketplace I ran into Vin and told of another dream I had…to which he replied...”Don’t look too deeply into it...stay on the surface of it as you tell me.”

I was in a flat, Midwestern America field, alone, with the sky sprawling about me. I am walking through waist high weeds and dry grass. I’m passing pieces of shredded aluminum, electronic parts and pieces of aircraft wing, parts of a large plane that had long since crashed and spread itself all over. In the years since, the field had just grown up around the debris still left there.

“What are you doing there?” Vin asks.

“Nothing, I just happen to be there, looking, but for some reason I...me...was on that plane...and the only one to have walked away from the crash. I know all about this place for some reason.”

He then asks this out-of-nowhere question when it came to dreams.

“Who is NOT in the dream...What is NOT there?”

How do you answer that? It felt like I was being asked, “Tell me what the sound of one hand clapping is?”

I think, not hard, just letting my mind drift and I say, “My family.”

Vin’s leaning against his car, quietly, waiting and then prods me, “Go on, finish the story...finish your thought.”

“I’m dreaming...visiting the past again, seeing how the family I grew up in was wiped out...and how I am the lone survivor...beating nearly all of their life spans by 20 years or so.”

“And that’s as far as we can take that dream...that’s all it is.” Vin finally says. “We can’t dig any deeper as there is no “deeper”, and you know what it was about anyway.”

“Look Ron..grief, loss is a strange thing...you never really ever get rid of it. It’s like waves on the ocean during a storm. At first, they’re huge! But as time goes by, they become smaller and smaller but still lap at our ankles decades later...and waves never cease to keep rolling in. You own this experience….make do with it like you always have been doing.”

Parking lot dream work therapy, free of charge!

I still have all sorts of dreams of people I once knew. But I treat it as just a visitation, my time traveling which gives just some practical explanations of how things once were with the benefit of today’s 20/20.

 

 Esalen...built into the cliffs of Big Sur

 

 

4th of July

 

 

Our gang used to have a July 3^rd bbq/party/fireworks party for the past...25+ years? It was an excuse for us boys to be 12 again with adult sized fireworks, with the addition of alcohol. Never once did we blow our hands off, set fire to a neighbor’s house but we did upset and distress a few neighbors who did not share our idea of fun. We managed to stop the scrutiny of the Pawtucket PD due to one of us being related to the dispatcher there. Who, when called, immediately recognized the offending address and then...never relay the complaint to a patrol car.

These parties included too much food, too much beer and perhaps $4,000 worth of fireworks, all set up with either fast or slow burning fuses, depending how much noise we wanted to make. Like most drunken or near drunk adults, there was a fair amount of romantic play between the singles, the marrieds, the cheating marrieds…who were more than a few.

But…

As the years went by, we got much older. The last party I attended I had noticed that most of us originals, now inhabited the table where the oldies we knew from before naturally gravitated too. You know the table, everyone’s fat, bald or white haired or all three at once! I found myself there because I knew them and they were the only people I could relate to. I was kind of shocked we were all there now, when once before we’d be the ones dancing, drinking our guts out or nearly blowing our hands off with fireworks.

When younger, the party lasted till dawn. Those w/o the stamina would sleep in chaise lounge chairs, in their cars or various places around the property. Eventually, the first light would come and we’d all finally leave.

But that last time, as I sat there with the others watching the young ones on the dance floor, doing triple jello shots and handstand kegger tricks, I heard once couple my age say…

“Honey...look...it’s past 11”

Those two excused themselves and said their Good Byes to the rest of us.

Since they broke the seal...others within minutes started to excuse themselves with BS or actual reasons to leave. One friend my age, then said to me, “Ahhh...guess I’ll go home too.” He had spent a better part of our conversation detailing how his surgeon fused some of his vertebrae due to years long back pain.

I stayed...knowing I didn’t have to be anywhere the next day and could easily sneak drive home avoiding the cops should they be out there. I had in me a huge total of...3 beers in 3 hours. Hardly DWI levels, but as I got older, it took sooo little alcohol to put a buzz on.

I stayed an additional 20 minutes when I felt my eye lids getting heavy, it was 11:45pm.

I left.

The second reason these parties came to an end was due to the older teen kids my friends had and would show up to see the fireworks display we would put on. And while we were busy with that, the kids would fill up on Manhattan Iced Teas and Alabama Slammers. The adults/parents knew and hopefully thought, “Well….how drunk can you get in 30 mins?” This was allowed for...one year only.

Getting older makes you get far more fearful of what might happen because all your life you’ve seen things happen to those around you or even in your own life to know...wild shit does happen.

When it became very obvious that the State would prosecute the hell out of the hosts if one teen slid his car into a family SUV of six...and that kid got his booze from that party...the liability stopped the event for good. It was damn near impossible to require ID at the property line to see if you were old enough to drink and never mind the culpability host laws that apply to full grown adults who can legally drink. You get them drunk at your home, enjoy the lawsuit that may come should they too slam into a family of six.

The party ending was not a big deal really, all of that coincided with our becoming old fucks who can’t keep our eyes open past midnight anyway. 

 

Moon Traveler Bottle Rockets and Mugsy Or “The Mugsy Seeking Smart Missle”

Poor Mugsy. She was an elderly dog that lived across the street from me with the Poal family. Every morning if it was warm enough, they shoved Mugsy out the kitchen door where she just lay and sleep in the sun in the driveway and coughed like hell once in a while. The Poals had two other dogs that were more loved and treated better. The were two little needle toothed, yippy little shit Toy Poodles, named Zsa Zsa and Buttons.

My friends at the time then, were were under 8 years old, preferred Mugsy’s laid back, too damn tired to move anymore attitude vs. those two yapping, tiny Nazi dogs who would do nothing else but bark at us and try to nip our ankles when they were out. The only thing Mugsy ever did that astonished us young kids would be to heave up her Alpo dinner onto the sidewalk 10 minutes after eating it, then have a good 20 minute sit down to catch her breath. After that rest, she’d get up, re-eat the pile of dog barf she had deposited earlier.

“Auggggh! Grossss! She’s eating her own puke!!”

But my brother and his friends, who were around 12, had other ideas for Mugsy one day.

I, Jim, Pat and John came upon our older brothers one afternoon after we had heard the whooshing and loud bang of bottle rockets being set off. What we saw was that they had fashioned a kind of bazooka out of a pipe which could be loaded with bottle rockets and aimed at...Mugsy.

The boys couldn’t stop laughing their asses off each time they fired one across the street into the upper driveway of the Poal’s house. No one was home there except Mugsy that day. The two little Nazi criminal dogs were inside all day until Mrs Poal let them loose at 4PM to chase us kids up and down the street.

Phhhhsssssh….BANG! And the older boys roiled with laughter. Lucky for Mugsy, bottle rockets are not accurate in any sense and would go off on their own trails no matter how expertly you aimed them.

We little kids were surprised at this. We had never seen anyone shoot off fireworks at a dog before. Mugsy, to her credit, took it in stride, just sitting there and just looked to where the rockets veered and exploded 10 feet to either side of her. This went on for a good 30 minutes.

Finally, Mr Cardosi, a retried neighbor came out shouting, “You leave that poor OLD dog alone! How would YOU like it if I shoved a bottle rocket up YOUR ASS?!!!”

I never had heard nice ol’ Mr Cardosi threatening our older brothers with shoving anything up their asses before. You learn surprising things when you’re 7.

So being guilted into cutting it out, the older ones relented and sulked their way down the street, all butt hurt being denied their “fun.”

We younger ones never followed them, we just were sat by the curb, hanging out trying to come up with something fun to do when we hear too close to us...

“Phhhhssssssshhhh BANG!”

Our bastard older brothers are firing bottle rockets from down the street...this time at us. 

I include the following cartoon...all of this happened in one form or another in our neighborhood growing up.  

 

On the bottom right  you see the "Mouth Loading Lady Finger Grade...NON Repeater." stunt. There was a kid who came to our neighborhood at times, one we didn't really like, Scott. Scott was older, a bully and permanently  dressed in filthy clothing.  He said to us he could "spit out a lit salute that he held in his lips" before it exploded. If you know anything about salutes, their wick's burn time is either two seconds or IMMEDIATELY. So we watch Scott put one between his lips and light it. A tenth of a second later it went off and we saw Scott hopping around spitting out  salute confetti as hit had blown into his mouth. 

Dumb fuck...
 

To Damn Much Fun

 

I crossed paths, in a way, with Rachael in the early 80’s w/o knowing it then. When I did know her in the early 90s, we were co-workers and as usual, we compare and contrast our RI upbringings when I found out she was raised in Seekonk, 100 yards to the east of me. She was 19, I 28 and when I mentioned the keg parties in the marshes and woods behind the Daggett ball fields, she lit up.

“I used to party there!” she claims. But she was nearly a good decade younger than me so our paths really could not have crossed, but at least the venue was the same. To this day, the teens still party there.

Rachael was outspoken, brave and fucked up in the head. She was bouncing from apartment to apartment, job to job and romance to romance w/o much of a goal. She was also quite pretty, a gamine which drew me in.

As we continued to speak of party spots on the Seekonk/Pawtucket line, she, quite openly, bravely told me she got fucked by some guy in the Notre Dame cemetery which was next to the Daggett fields.

“I was shit faced, I thought he was cute and you know, we wandered off from the kegger...and it’s really private in there!”

“You’re bad news and dangerous...but pretty as hell.” I thought to myself upon hearing this confession. She seemed a fun but rabid little kitten to play with which may include a serious and worrying bite later on.

The problem with dating at work...or just being interested romantically in another co-worker is that everyone knows it, or will know shortly.

“You better wear TWO condoms if you’re gonna play with her.” Audrey told me one day at work.

“Why? What do you know about Rachael?” I ask.

“Oh, just make sure you’re safe.” And Audrey just trails off w/o an explanation, like women will do to hide their news sources, which is infuriating

One night, I’m alone working, the house is dark except for the glow of the TV and I see Rachael’s car come up the drive. I wonder why she is here at 11pm...she’s not supposed to be working.

In she comes with a fluffy quilt and a small box. The quilt she throws on the floor and from the box, she places three candles on a coffee table by me and lights them.

“I LOVE sandalwood candles!” she tells me.

She then changes the TV station and the plops down into my lap. We had NOT even dated, nor spoken to one another about any attraction. But I wasn’t about to stop her.

She sat there on me and I wrapped my arms around her, we both watching the X Files and occasionally she was slowly, grinding her ass into my crotch and snuggling up close to me.

Another set of car lights comes up the drive. Who the hell is this now? I think. But neither Rachael or I move from the couch or that position.

In comes Alesia, who at one time was a once promising relationship that was “kid-blocked” by her oldest son

“What are you two doing?” she asks, scanning us, the candles and the quilt on the floor. I can see she’s a bit miffed seeing me and her like this.

“Nothing…” says Rachael in a sing-songy voice and stays there in my lap. Rachael had no idea Alesia and I were a thing for a bit in the past.

Alesia tells me she was coming back from some night club in Cranston and wanted to use the bathroom here before her ride home.

I sat there, with this ready-to-go Rachel on my lap and all I could think was...”GET OUT! GET OUT ALESIA! YOU’RE KILLING THE VIBE! OF ALL TIMES TO SHOW UP!”

Eventually, Rachael gets off my lap sighing and goes to do something. Alesia won’t leave the house and Rachael finally just gathers her quilt and candles and leaves, to Alesia’s satisfaction I suppose even though were weren’t dating.

Sigh...so close...

A few days later, I’m talking to Bob, the other guy who works here about what happened.

“What?” he asks, very surprised.

I then ask him what’s up...why was he reacting like that to my story?

“Rachael was here LAST week with me! 1AM and she shows up! She curled up with me and we talked, kept breathing into my ear and running her hands all over my head!”

I then think of Audrey’s admonition to double up on the condoms.

Bob continues...“I thought she was interested, when I started kissing her, she got all weird...then had some sort of panic attack and fled the house.”

I thought a minute, realizing that sounds like Rachael, to flake out for some unknown reason. And she was a flake in my estimation, due to whatever atrocious childhood she had had.

Well, upon learning about her attempts with Bob and the fact the ENTIRE staff is going to learn about this event, I back off Rachael to preserve my job, but I still want her. I know a fun roller coaster ride when I see one. The problem was that pinning Rachael down outside of work wasn’t easy, once I found out about all the others guys who were orbiting her and my slow realization that she was a reckless hot mess even beyond my taste.

No matter though, in less than two months time we both were gone from the job, moving on to other things. She with a newer boyfriend from her Seekonk neighborhood and my wanting to attend Graduate school. Or so I thought. This world is a bus station, people come and they go.

That was 32 years ago.

Today, out of curiosity, I hunt her down on the internet and find her. She had moved all over the place, held numerous jobs and finally ended up married in Texas and had kids of her own, late teens it seems they are now. She did find stability in some way. I suspect Christianity...she had photos of her before a large wooden Cross, at a vista overlooking the Ozark mountains, plus her Facebook feed had “giving it to the Lord” posts. Who am I to disparage what managed to work for her, to steady her life from the bouncing and crashing off walls like she was doing when I knew her.

Good for her.

It took me a minute to recognize her. I saw those eyes, that sort of too sharp nose and thought...”Yep. That’s you! I found you!” Unfortunately, she, like I, have become overweight and worn looking by age. I remember her as a hot looking 19 year old hellcat and I as a guy with a flat stomach and cool looking, but early, salt n pepper hair. It’s nice to be young, huh? It’s nice to be fit, robust and lusty instead of limping. Can you tell I miss my youth? Everyone my age does!

Would we have made it had I pursued her after work came to an end? To out compete those others who wanted her as well? Probably not. She needed to grow up A LOT and I wasn’t keen about her hobby of hopping into other guys beds so easily, (I don’t like sharing women, but have had done it once and disliked it) and maxing out her credit cards and always having less than $400 in her savings account, if she were lucky. But what eyes, what a face...what a body..what a roller coaster!

“C’mon! Let’s do something risky and unplanned! Let’s just have FUN at all costs!” Was I ever addicted to that personality in a girl when I was a young man. I blame you D’Arby! You were the first roller coaster chick I knew and you were better than a bunjee jump into a canyon, with a good chance the cord would snap. I had to have that again n again n again…but meteors blaze out too fast ya know.

An aside about aging…

I once worked at a downtown Providence building when I was 21, as a janitor, an assistant Mr. Fix It to the main guy who kept the place in shape. On the 4^th floor, it was staffed with doctors whose job was to go through SSA Disability claims to verify or deny them. One was Dr Phelps, who loved to talk to me.

He was rich, living on the East Side with his politically connected wife and he told stories of that life.

“Ronnie, I’m 58 now...way old..and I got invited the other day to a party on the southern end of Blackstone Blvd...and I tried coke for the first time in my life! My God! I was fifth-teen again! I found the Fountain of Youth! I had energy, vivacity and could conquer the world!” He could see I wasn’t “getting it” and then said, “Well...wait till your 58 and up….you’ll know..you’ll know what THAT will mean.”

Yeah, I do now…

Boyce Ave and a Moment from 1979

 

Bill Watterson

If you read this stuff you can tell, that as a kid, I had a dim view of many adults in my life (including my parents at times). My major complaint was the heaps of BS adults would throw at us kids and I. I would see through most of it, call them on it and then get in trouble for not being stupid enough to believe it. This made their jobs harder at having to come up with craftier rubbish and try to sell me that. And I would get pegged as “that one...watch him!” At worst I was insubordinate but mostly ungovernable but with a twist, I was smart enough to play them against themselves. When you’re 12 and learn how you can outwit your own Dad, teachers and others, by beating them to the punch with their own game, it just proves to you more deeply how they were trying to manipulate you in the first place.

But one day I was surprised that this wasn’t too be applied to all adults, just 98.7% of them.

**

One of my buddies was Jimmy, a run of the mill “bad kid” who for his own reasons, rebelled. I loved how he had the utter balls to shove it into faces of the adults we’d come across, his penchant for vandalism and his unbridled discharge of all the anger that was in him at the world. He was tame compared to his older brother Dave though, who had enough anger in him to rival a nuke. I won’t get into why they turned out like they did but for me, seeing Jimmy blatantly and openly react to the adults/world’s unfairness with a big FUCK YOU made me aware I had some people on my side.

I however, would stealthily rebel instead. I would be a sneaky fuck who maintained a “good” standing in school and tried to protect my reputation, a nice public face to display to the world was worth something. Once unleashed, once I was felt feral enough, I could be as bad as he was but I learned an important lesson Jim never, ever cared about. The lesson is, “Don’t get caught.” Most lawyers would advise the same. If you going to pull some crime, some mischief, you better run thought experiments on how to avoid ever being blamed for it.

**

As with most kids in our neighborhood, we’d be bored to death looking for something to do. Jimmy and I would ride our bikes, in hopes of finding something “fun.”  So one day along the way down Boyce Ave. near my home, Jimmy sees a guy, about 25ish, out in his yard who looks like Calvin & Hobbe’s creator, Bill Watterson, and blurts out...PERCIVAL! OHHH PERCIVAL...YOU DWEEB!”

He did look like a late 70’s computer coder geek. Giant eyeglasses, a 70s porn mustache and too tight summer shorts that nearly was screaming “GAY!”

Percival, as I’ll call him as I never did get his real name, retorts to Jimmy, rather surprised, “What did I ever do to you? Why are you being such a jerk?”

Jimmy heaps on the insults and I watch this, enjoying it. Another prick adult who was probably full of shit gets roasted. We ride away muttering “Fuck You” to his protestations he was a regular guy.

A few days later, I’m riding alone on Boyce by his house when he comes out quickly to catch up with me. My first thought was I am about to have throw punches or flee or whatever as this guy wants revenge.

No, he just wanted to talk.

“WHO was that guy? Your friend? He asks

I tell him truthfully, “Jimmy…” I’m straddling my ten speed, with a scathing look on my face as we talk, wanting to unload on him the second I get the chance. I ain’t gonna let this one lecture me!

Percival then says, “You do know where this Jimmy is going to end up eventually, don’t you?”

“Yeah...jail.” I say to him and I believed that too.

“Then why do you hang around with him? He could drag you down with him.”

I tell him he’s funny as hell, he’s great entertainment. And he was. The shit he’d pull in public was astonishing at times. I also tell Percival that he thinks most adults, as I thought, were just complete liars, backstabbers and general losers who cheat and lie their way through life as that’s the only talent they’ve managed to hone well enough. “It’s the main tool in their toolbox...hypocrisy! Say one thing, do another!”

A pause…

“You’re right.” says Percival.

I stood there, unable to say a thing because I was so surprised. I was not expecting that at all. This was the first grown up who agreed with my estimations. I thought I’d be “schooled” with more BS from an adult on how I should respect them only because they were older.

A fat 60 seconds go by, or it felt like it before I could even answer him genuinely.

“I apologize.” I say.

I was referring to the nasty ribbing we both gave him for little reason or proof of what we thought he was.

He goes on to say, “Most adults, are like what you think, but the whole world runs on BS and you have to learn to navigate that, make it work for you...and it ain’t ever gonna change. Thanks for the apology...you’re not the little jerk I thought you were...you’re buddy is though...if he don’t watch it and learn how to live in the world...”

He leaves to go into his house and I ride off. The rest of the night I still felt kinda stupefied about it all. This was an experience I had never really had before.

It wasn’t till a few days later I figured out why I felt like that. This was probably the first time an adult gave me an honest answer, treated me like an equal and that was what threw me for a loop. I met a sincere open adult...Holy Shit!”

**

I never saw him again, though I wanted too. I wanted to get to know this guy, he was worth it. Apparently in a couple of months he and his wife moved away though.

Shit...I find a genuine person and he’s gone.

Not to worry, as I grew older, I’d find a few gems out there again who were worth my time.

High School

 

I notice I tell stories about my teens but for some reason have left a huge gap about high school. I tell plenty of stories of my lower middle class townie buddies I knew then but not many high school ones. I believe much of that had to do with Saint Ray’s being a fairly sedate school environment, except for the usual political machinations you’d see in this kind of prep/catholic school, where staff and students, try to rise up the social ladder. Other than that, the place was far more untroubled than the public schools I attended prior.

**

Saint Raphael Academy was an all boys school till 1975 when the diocese decided to let girls in, probably in keeping with the liberal times and Vatican II’s reformation.

What I had heard was that some of the Brothers and more than a few Nuns were against it because girls, women, were the sole cause of leading young Christian men astray from the True Faith with their slutty, Jezebel ways. Not all the ministry were onboard for the church’s progressive new stance.

My first few days at this new school in September of ‘79 were kind of surprising. The kids, who so few I knew, were a bit better dressed and slightly more monied than the pubic school kids I had known prior. But in general, they were affable and mostly approachable. I would come to learn the only real difference between the two schools, education wise, was that the private ones had better control of their classrooms. Any kids who were “problems” were given a bum’s rush through the door rather quickly and that’s how the private schools kept the peace. I saw ONE fight between two kids in my three years there. At public schools, I’d see one a month.

I had some fear of going to a new school. How hard would it be? Are there any cool kids to know? How do I deal with actual members of the DeLasallians when I hadn’t cracked open a Bible or attended Mass in years and couldn’t name the 10 Commandments to save my life? I wasn’t even sure of remembering the Hail Mary. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee….something something something.”

I became more hopeful by the end of August that year when I had to get the “uniform” needed to attend. It consisted of any kind of collared shirt, Levis’s corduroys and boat shoes. That’s it. That was what was popular for late 1979. The dress code was sort of written in reverse, no sneakers or jeans, otherwise everything else was fine.

I was fifth-teen then and that natural teen exuberance, the anticipation, the excitement that this school could be fun was growing in me. Plus meeting newer kids my age who weren’t the usual little criminals I knew around here had a bit of “good” suspense to it. Who were they? What were they like?

My first class, was an Algebra one and I was sitting a few rows down when this girl, Terri, comes in to which the boys flocked around. She was chatting them up excitedly and then turned to go to her seat in the same row as I. When I first saw her face, I thought she was rather pretty. A sort of a Susan Dey kind of girl, a natural hippy look to her.

As she approached my seat, I then noticed her Levi’s Green corduroy pants, which formed a tight, anatomically correct, very easilyi seen camel toe.

I just stared with my 15 year old eyes. I had never seen any girl with that before in real life. All the girls I had known in jr high school never dressed like that. They all wore generic jeans with hopes of affording the new Jordache designer ones one day, but were too poor as of yet. As Terri approached, I kept staring till she was all of two feet from me when I looked up at her face and she gave me a slight, wry smile then sat down. She knew where I was looking and it didn’t faze her a bit. In fact, she seemed somewhat satisfied that I noticed and was staring.

I had a second thought: Catholic school wasn’t as uptight and strict as I thought it may be if girls like Terri walked around like this.

A few classes later, Mr Girard’s World history, had the same kids and Terri had come in, flanked by the boys and she too sat down with the rest of us. About ten minutes into the class, I then met for the first time, Sister Bernadette Piche.

**

Sister Bernadette was one of those nuns who adopted the newer, liberallized clothing style for nuns, which was to ditch the old black and white habit for conservative casual business wear. It was all greys, pastel blues and white shirts, dresses and the like, totally sexless looking but I suppose if your a nun, that’s the look you want.

The Sister’s liberal tendencies stopped there, at clothing. She did however keep that authoritarian stance. She didn’t terrorize her students but had her own way of maintaining order. If she came across a group of rambunctious boys, she’d slowly walk up, stand and stare with a small smile upon her face until everyone read her message which was, “Cut the shit,” in her own menacing/passive way. She had a near Mother Mary air about her, possibly claiming to being closer to God than any of us were it seemed. It was a calm, unaffected look on her face that also telegraphed that authority that she was God’s Right Hand. I had never been to parochial school before but I managed to read this easily. It confirmed the stereotype I had seen on TV. Some stereotypes contain a kernel of truth.

So in comes Sister Bernadette to Girard’s history class, she stops, looks around, smiles and calmly says, “Terri Norenson….a word with you please.”

Terri gets up with that perfect line of her tight ass showing through those corduroys to follow the Sister out.

We don’t see Terri for the rest of the day. Sister sent her home due to those pants.

The following days Terri had returned but in knee length skirts and the tightest white shirt/sweater combo she had. As the days progressed, the hemline on other skirts she had kept creeping higher and higher and we’d see more undone buttons on the shirt. By the end of this change, all she needed were pigtails and carry a giant lollipop to complete this Lolita Catholic Slut Girl look.

I now get it. At 15, she was wanting to be loved by all the boys around her, to be seen as pretty, to be validated, to be popular and rise in the ranks. If a girl wanted quick attention from teen boys, there’s an easy way to get it. Terri unfortunately chose skank fashion in a school patrolled by the hem measuring Bernadette.

A few days later in home room, I mention I hadn’t seen Terri at all. I was told that she had been kicked out for “causing a disturbance.” What disturbance I ask? What had she done? She punch someone out? Dealt drugs from her locker? I was never a catholic school kid and what it took to get you kicked out of a public school...were real felonies, real crimes, real reasons why the police would be called in.

Scott P. who sat next to me laughingly says, “She got kicked out for causing a disturbance in every guy’s pants!”

Too bad she was gone...she was great entertainment for us boys.  

 

The other thing about Saint Rays was that it drew on kids from far richer backgrounds. My experience with public schools was that they drew on every one from every background, so you see this everyday and learn to accept it. In order to get along, you have to tolerate all sorts of people.

Saints, on the other hand, had some kids whose Dads were hundred-thousand-airs. Perhaps there was one or two millionaire families in there but I wasn’t sure. The rest of us were lowly middle class schleps.

One girl I remember, came from a family that owned an home heating oil delivery business. To her great luck, she was born pretty, tall and blonde as well. Talk about winning the lottery w/o having to do anything at all.

**

In our homeroom one day, we boys see a brand new 1982 IROC Camaro pull in. It was the latest edition in midnight blue with a pearl flip-flop top coating that made it iridescent like the inside of a sea shell.

It parks, and we see home heating oil girl get out of it, carrying her D&D cup of coffee and coming into the building. We boys immediately figure she got Dad’s car this morning. She comes into our home room, goes to her little clique of other born pretty/rich girls and excitedly says:

“Come see what Daddy got for my birthday!”

The girls come to our window and ooh and ahh at the car. We boys just stood there stunned, dumbfounded and look at one another in disbelief.

I thought, “She got a brand new sports car for her birthday?!!”

Home heating oil girl goes on about how she put in a little thingy that spurts out a tiny puff of White Diamonds perfume inside the every hour. She also mentions that she put a small suitcase in it with two other changes of clothing, “Just in case.” To top it off she says she put her teddy bear, “Angel” in the backseat, buckled in as well.

This, is what she did with an IROC Camaro, turned it into a mobile version of her bedroom.

We boys later say we’d take that very same car, and slam on the accelerator on that straightaway east of the school on Walcott St to see if we could get it burn out for 50 yards straight.

That school was the first time my seeing how the other half lived...or inherited. Before Saints, I had never known of a family that took vacations to Europe. Or girls with real diamond earings. One kid boasted of living the entire summer at a beach home on the Narragansett shore. It was then I first was introduced to people, kids who manage to escape the barbs of life. All the ones I had known up to that point had some sort of road rash from life, either from homes where finances were tight, awful parent(s) or say just a day to day grungy life of living on the shittier streets of Pawtucket, where parents advanced as far as they could, to a factory job. Some of these Saint Rays kids I knew, had parents that could shelter them that well. I couldn’t parse that at the time. How the hell could you duck life’s barbed wire and incoming missiles? I still didn’t fully understand how a thick wall of money could armor you, for years, against that. I didn’t know then yet what that really, truly meant. I do now. Money can be one hell of a tool if you have gobs of it.

**

Before school shootings became the thing to do, before they installed metal detectors at school doorways, I can tell you how many guns were inside Saint Raphael Academy in 1982.

The answer I am going tell you was three.

In one locker there was an Army Colt .45. In another a Mossberg 12 gauge pump action shotgun, the last locker had boring S&W .38 special. And I will not name names.

Why were they there? It wasn’t because these three wanted revenge for a lifetime of bullying or some sick hope to go out with a bang. It was a competition, a sort of show and tell between some of the kids to see if they could smuggle in firearms and keep them in their lockers for at least a week w/o being caught. The joke of it is? All the kids knew they were there and not one school official was told. No one was ratted out because we all knew they weren’t going to be used. It was for “fun.”

Again, nobody wanted to exact revenge in the worst way. It was all ballsy attempt to to do something w/o the adults ever finding out. Though I do wonder how that one managed to sneak in a 40 inch long birding shotgun with a muzzle that meant business when you saw it.

In time, those weapons were quietly snuck out and back home.

I’m loathe to mention real names here when I tell not so kind stories, though if I hate your guts enough I will. Also, if I was present with other witnesses when I saw this or that happen, well...I’ll divulge.

Brother James Dries was a hot headed math/chemistry teacher who joined St Rays in my senior year. He seemed out of place, a 1950’s sort of abusive, tyrannical religious type amongst the far more laid back Brothers who were at Saints. Dries loved to yell, strut his dominance in the classroom and I saw him once, fling his briefcase at a kid outside the building. Why he did that I have no idea.

In May of our senior year, we all had our credits to graduate no matter what happened, we had satisfied the state’s requirements, so we generally fucked off when it came to classwork.

Mike and I had Dries for chem II one super hot late May afternoon and everyone in the class was half asleep and languid with the heat. No one was motivated to do anything nor listening to Dries go over some chem equations from the book.

Behind me I hear Dries say, “Mike, go to the board and do Question 7…”

A few seconds pass when I hear WHAM! It was the sound of metal stool being slammed onto the granite top of a table. It then had bounced its way to the corner of the room, totally shattering the quiet of the room.

“GET UP THERE WHEN I TELL YOU TOO!” bellows Dries.

I had jumped in my seat from that noise and turned around to see what it was. I then see Mike, rolling his eyes as hard as he could, get up and go to the board to do the equation.

I watched as Dries walks back to the front of the classroom and remember what my brother had once said about guys like him, “Short person behavior!” Meaning you have little, short guys who become tough when anointed with some authority. What’s typical, those kinds of people wield the power like a baseball bat and never realize when NOT to use it.

A few years after graduation, and the fact I had to pass by Saints all the time to get to 95S, I’d occasionally see old teachers walking between the two buildings. One day, there’s Dries, flinging his briefcase at a kid on the sidewalk. I thought of pulling over, picking up that case and flinging it back at him. But the thought of standing in front of a judge explaining why I assaulted a man of the cloth made me think twice.