Soundtrack
I have no photos of JD. But I do have this particularly poignant picture from the time. The man in the trucker’s cap is LB, I’m the guy next to him with the Amish beard and glasses. One could say that LB saved my life, and there’d be merit in the claim. When I met him I was twenty years old and my life was in tatters. Endless nights of drugs and men had taken quite a toll on Bucko. My best friend was a hopeless speed freak. I worked seventy-two hours a week in a liquor store, but with the minimum wage of $2.10 per hour could barely pay the rent. I was ripe for the plucking, and LB came along just in time.
LB had lived a relatively easy life, secure and a bit hum-drum. He’d graduated from a trade school in Boston, then went to a community college and got his degree in computer science. He toiled away at a boring IT job for a very old and proper Boston bank, content to be part of a team lost in the cogs of an immense machine. He was twenty-four when I brought him home from a bar near Fenway Park called the 1270, after its address on Boylston Street.
I’ll not linger on the early years, as it has little bearing on the story I’m telling. But it is true that, thanks to LB, I was able to escape the liquor store and establish a retail career. We enjoyed two years of staid matrimony, or the closest we could achieve in the early 80s. LB was strict and a bit stern, his Protestant practicality contrasting sharply with my ad-hoc bohemian anarchy. We tried to live in a common middle ground that neither espoused fully. We felt secure in an uneasy way, aware that any wind could topple our house of cards.
In our third year LB began what was to be a downward spiral of depression, alcoholism and the rampant overuse of Valium. At the time his main symptom was one of exhaustion. He couldn’t summon the courage to participate in life beyond his work, and took to going to bed absurdly early, generally between 7:30 and 8:00. On strict orders, I kept his condition from his friends and family, but grew restless rambling around in our apartment alone every night. When I brought up the fact that, at twenty-three, I had needs that required attention, LB suggested that I look elsewhere. Our only caveat was that I’d never take time from the small bit of socializing that we’d still do now and then.
At first I felt a gust of liberation blow right through me. LB and I had a rather pedestrian sex life at the best of times, and I retreated into fantasy as it became less and less frequent. I committed myself to having as much fun as I could find, and I found the opportunity to explore plenty.
I returned to an old haunt from my wild days. It was a sticky-floored dive on the wrong side of Beacon Hill called Sporter’s. I was assured discretion because none of LB’s bourgeois friends would ever be seen there. Sporter’s didn’t have a sign out front, because if you didn’t know it was there, you had no business being inside. It consisted of three rooms. One entered through one of two bullet-pocked doors from Cambridge Street into a large, dark room with an oval bar running front to back in a Tiki Hut theme. The walls were hung with greasy, nicotine stained mirrors trimmed with faux bamboo. In one corner an ancient ice machine sputtered and coughed, next to it first a pinball machine, then later a video game. To the right was the original backroom, which had cases of empty long-necked beer bottles stacked and waiting for their eventual pickup. Off this were a men’s room that was foul, and a lady’s room that was worse.
To the left was another room with a bar and a space for shows and dancing. I don’t recall any parquet on the dancefloor, just a small 15x15 foot cul-de-sac with a small, elevated DJ booth against one wall, a filthy, fingerprinted mirrored wall in the back, assorted lights overhead, and a third wall with a locked “Lady’s Room” that either the DJ or the bartender could buzz open.
There were very elegant nightclubs in Boston, I’d even worked in one when I was nineteen. But for the scavenger hunt I was on, Sporter’s worked out best. The crowd was very mixed, and Sporter’s popularity waxed and waned with shifts in demographics and fashion, but at this particular time the crowd was unpretentious and working class guys (mostly from the North Shore). There was a crowd of old lecherous regulars clustered around the big bar on wobbly and torn black vinyl stools, but they were more interested in booze than boys.
I won’t catalog my various tricks from that time as, again, it has little to do with JD, and I don’t wish to tax the bandwidth of Blogger.com any more than I am already. But it is fair to say that I was out from two to three nights a week and never went straight home. I enjoyed myself thoroughly and collected asses like one might commemorative spoons.
It was a warm spring Thursday evening in 1983 when I pulled open the door to a busy 2-for-1 in progress. Taking a quick tour, I got a pilsner glass full of scotch and soda from the back of the bar and surveyed the takings. 2-for-1 was very popular, and the place was packed with hopefuls. Pushing through the louvered doors to the dance room, I stepped inside and made my way through the crowd.
Friends
Tell me I am crazy
That I'm wasting time with you
You'll never be mine
That's Not the way I see it
Cause I feel you're already mine
Whenever you're with me
People always talking 'bout
Reputation
I don't care about your other girls
Just be good to me
Standing around, I spotted a face in the crowd that I hadn’t seen before. His broad shoulders and toned pecs filled out with the wifebeater he was wearing to good effect. He had a square forehead, strong jaw, loving-cup ears and luscious, full lips. His auburn hair was a tight mass of natural curls cut short. His arms were cut and chiseled, and in the cleft between the left bi- and triceps was a homemade tattoo that spelled “JD” in greenish-blue ink. His light-colored jeans were skin tight and showed off a fabulous ass and large basket. His shoes were immaculate white hightop Ponys. Giving him the once over, I looked away toward the dancefloor. Some guy asked me to dance, and I said “Why not?”
Friends are always telling me
You're a user
I don't care what you do to them
Just be good to me
As I danced I looked over at the crowd pressed tightly around the opening to the dancefloor, squinting past the lights to see if I could catch a glimpse of him, but he was lost in the sea of faces.
You may have many others
But I know when you're with me
You are all mine
Friends
Seem to always listen
To the bad things that you do
You never do them to me
I reconciled to the thought that he was probably just out with friends anyways. He seemed to be with a group of people, among them several girls. He was probably straight. He was probably…
People always talking 'bout
Reputation
I don't care about them other girls
Just be good to me
Friends are always telling me
You're a user
I don't care what you do to them
Just be good to me
Just then he sauntered on to the dancefloor with a woman in her late twenties and took up space right next to me. I tried to play it cool, but I felt him staring me down. Looking over, we made an eyelock as we continued dancing, ignoring our partners. I was transfixed by his bright, clear blue eyes.
Love
Is a game of chances
So I'll take my chance with you
And you, I won't try to change
We've
Talked about it and
I'd Rather have a piece of you
Than to have all of nothing
After an eternity he moved his head to my ear, and in a rough Bostonian growl said: “I’m thirsty, buy me a beer.” I reached over to my dance partner to thank him, but he’d already left, and I hadn’t even noticed. I was walking off the dancefloor with one of the sexiest men I’d ever met. I was hooked before we made it to bar.
But just be good to me
In the morning Just be good to me
In the afternoon or evening
Ooh yeah
Just be good to me
We made the thinnest excuse for small talk I’d ever attempted, and in a rare moment felt shy and nervous. To try and disguise my awkwardness I became aloof and almost monosyllabic, which is most unlike me. I gulped my scotch and chain-smoked Parliaments.
I'm not the careless type
I won't tie you down
When you need me
I'll be around
I'll be good to you
You be good to me
And we'll be together
Be together
Oh
He had come out with his sisters, one of whom was celebrating a birthday that evening…he lived in Medford. I lived in Jamaica Plain… I worked downtown... Yeah I knew Tommy, we worked together…Great guy, good friend…
"Me? Big enough, bigger than most...See for yourself…Shit yeah, you’re fuckin’ hot...No, can’t come back...Got a lover asleep at home...Took his car...You got a place ?..."
La la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la
Just be good to me.
To be continued...
I have no photos of JD. But I do have this particularly poignant picture from the time. The man in the trucker’s cap is LB, I’m the guy next to him with the Amish beard and glasses. One could say that LB saved my life, and there’d be merit in the claim. When I met him I was twenty years old and my life was in tatters. Endless nights of drugs and men had taken quite a toll on Bucko. My best friend was a hopeless speed freak. I worked seventy-two hours a week in a liquor store, but with the minimum wage of $2.10 per hour could barely pay the rent. I was ripe for the plucking, and LB came along just in time.
LB had lived a relatively easy life, secure and a bit hum-drum. He’d graduated from a trade school in Boston, then went to a community college and got his degree in computer science. He toiled away at a boring IT job for a very old and proper Boston bank, content to be part of a team lost in the cogs of an immense machine. He was twenty-four when I brought him home from a bar near Fenway Park called the 1270, after its address on Boylston Street.
I’ll not linger on the early years, as it has little bearing on the story I’m telling. But it is true that, thanks to LB, I was able to escape the liquor store and establish a retail career. We enjoyed two years of staid matrimony, or the closest we could achieve in the early 80s. LB was strict and a bit stern, his Protestant practicality contrasting sharply with my ad-hoc bohemian anarchy. We tried to live in a common middle ground that neither espoused fully. We felt secure in an uneasy way, aware that any wind could topple our house of cards.
In our third year LB began what was to be a downward spiral of depression, alcoholism and the rampant overuse of Valium. At the time his main symptom was one of exhaustion. He couldn’t summon the courage to participate in life beyond his work, and took to going to bed absurdly early, generally between 7:30 and 8:00. On strict orders, I kept his condition from his friends and family, but grew restless rambling around in our apartment alone every night. When I brought up the fact that, at twenty-three, I had needs that required attention, LB suggested that I look elsewhere. Our only caveat was that I’d never take time from the small bit of socializing that we’d still do now and then.
At first I felt a gust of liberation blow right through me. LB and I had a rather pedestrian sex life at the best of times, and I retreated into fantasy as it became less and less frequent. I committed myself to having as much fun as I could find, and I found the opportunity to explore plenty.
I returned to an old haunt from my wild days. It was a sticky-floored dive on the wrong side of Beacon Hill called Sporter’s. I was assured discretion because none of LB’s bourgeois friends would ever be seen there. Sporter’s didn’t have a sign out front, because if you didn’t know it was there, you had no business being inside. It consisted of three rooms. One entered through one of two bullet-pocked doors from Cambridge Street into a large, dark room with an oval bar running front to back in a Tiki Hut theme. The walls were hung with greasy, nicotine stained mirrors trimmed with faux bamboo. In one corner an ancient ice machine sputtered and coughed, next to it first a pinball machine, then later a video game. To the right was the original backroom, which had cases of empty long-necked beer bottles stacked and waiting for their eventual pickup. Off this were a men’s room that was foul, and a lady’s room that was worse.
To the left was another room with a bar and a space for shows and dancing. I don’t recall any parquet on the dancefloor, just a small 15x15 foot cul-de-sac with a small, elevated DJ booth against one wall, a filthy, fingerprinted mirrored wall in the back, assorted lights overhead, and a third wall with a locked “Lady’s Room” that either the DJ or the bartender could buzz open.
There were very elegant nightclubs in Boston, I’d even worked in one when I was nineteen. But for the scavenger hunt I was on, Sporter’s worked out best. The crowd was very mixed, and Sporter’s popularity waxed and waned with shifts in demographics and fashion, but at this particular time the crowd was unpretentious and working class guys (mostly from the North Shore). There was a crowd of old lecherous regulars clustered around the big bar on wobbly and torn black vinyl stools, but they were more interested in booze than boys.
I won’t catalog my various tricks from that time as, again, it has little to do with JD, and I don’t wish to tax the bandwidth of Blogger.com any more than I am already. But it is fair to say that I was out from two to three nights a week and never went straight home. I enjoyed myself thoroughly and collected asses like one might commemorative spoons.
It was a warm spring Thursday evening in 1983 when I pulled open the door to a busy 2-for-1 in progress. Taking a quick tour, I got a pilsner glass full of scotch and soda from the back of the bar and surveyed the takings. 2-for-1 was very popular, and the place was packed with hopefuls. Pushing through the louvered doors to the dance room, I stepped inside and made my way through the crowd.
Friends
Tell me I am crazy
That I'm wasting time with you
You'll never be mine
That's Not the way I see it
Cause I feel you're already mine
Whenever you're with me
People always talking 'bout
Reputation
I don't care about your other girls
Just be good to me
Standing around, I spotted a face in the crowd that I hadn’t seen before. His broad shoulders and toned pecs filled out with the wifebeater he was wearing to good effect. He had a square forehead, strong jaw, loving-cup ears and luscious, full lips. His auburn hair was a tight mass of natural curls cut short. His arms were cut and chiseled, and in the cleft between the left bi- and triceps was a homemade tattoo that spelled “JD” in greenish-blue ink. His light-colored jeans were skin tight and showed off a fabulous ass and large basket. His shoes were immaculate white hightop Ponys. Giving him the once over, I looked away toward the dancefloor. Some guy asked me to dance, and I said “Why not?”
Friends are always telling me
You're a user
I don't care what you do to them
Just be good to me
As I danced I looked over at the crowd pressed tightly around the opening to the dancefloor, squinting past the lights to see if I could catch a glimpse of him, but he was lost in the sea of faces.
You may have many others
But I know when you're with me
You are all mine
Friends
Seem to always listen
To the bad things that you do
You never do them to me
I reconciled to the thought that he was probably just out with friends anyways. He seemed to be with a group of people, among them several girls. He was probably straight. He was probably…
People always talking 'bout
Reputation
I don't care about them other girls
Just be good to me
Friends are always telling me
You're a user
I don't care what you do to them
Just be good to me
Just then he sauntered on to the dancefloor with a woman in her late twenties and took up space right next to me. I tried to play it cool, but I felt him staring me down. Looking over, we made an eyelock as we continued dancing, ignoring our partners. I was transfixed by his bright, clear blue eyes.
Love
Is a game of chances
So I'll take my chance with you
And you, I won't try to change
We've
Talked about it and
I'd Rather have a piece of you
Than to have all of nothing
After an eternity he moved his head to my ear, and in a rough Bostonian growl said: “I’m thirsty, buy me a beer.” I reached over to my dance partner to thank him, but he’d already left, and I hadn’t even noticed. I was walking off the dancefloor with one of the sexiest men I’d ever met. I was hooked before we made it to bar.
But just be good to me
In the morning Just be good to me
In the afternoon or evening
Ooh yeah
Just be good to me
We made the thinnest excuse for small talk I’d ever attempted, and in a rare moment felt shy and nervous. To try and disguise my awkwardness I became aloof and almost monosyllabic, which is most unlike me. I gulped my scotch and chain-smoked Parliaments.
I'm not the careless type
I won't tie you down
When you need me
I'll be around
I'll be good to you
You be good to me
And we'll be together
Be together
Oh
He had come out with his sisters, one of whom was celebrating a birthday that evening…he lived in Medford. I lived in Jamaica Plain… I worked downtown... Yeah I knew Tommy, we worked together…Great guy, good friend…
"Me? Big enough, bigger than most...See for yourself…Shit yeah, you’re fuckin’ hot...No, can’t come back...Got a lover asleep at home...Took his car...You got a place ?..."
La la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la
Just be good to me.
To be continued...
