10-1 In Reader's Park

In my rookie year, 3 months in, I got doored on School Street. I was dispatched out of the Option office at 36 Bromfield; the job was a 44 School to 294 Wash— no shit, two blocks, literally around the corner. Traffic was tight and flowing, with every parking space filled. It wasn't a commercial zone back then, it was metered parking. The car was an older BMW, and the door just cleared my front wheel as it swung open. I went up and over through the window, and landed with the showering glass on my back on the other side. The whole thing was a mess, and I still have a piece of glass in my head for it, but this is really just the background for this other story I wanted to tell...

When I was working for Presto doing airline ticket runs, it was in the same office that Option had vacated at 36 Bromfield. Dispatch was in the front room, and we would hang out in the back between runs. I think everyone smoked in this office; we definitely blew bones in the stairwell. It was usually Spencer— when Minuteman closed their office down the hall of 36, he bought their list and ran Go-Go, and did the best art in the third floor bathroom— and Paul Tree from Think Tree, and I. Every once in while Billy Wig from Hell Toupee would be special guest star riding for Spence.

I think Paul worked for Central. They were a driver-based company from out of town, and he had never met them. He was their only biker, and they had an ever-present walker named Nancy. Nancy looked like an aged hippy, dressed in well-worn coats and crocheted hats, was always over-dressed for the weather but was always there regardless of what it was doing. She was a fixture and a curiosity.

The story I got from Paul went something like this; Nancy lived with a Central driver named Shanti in a trailer somewhere. I heard that he didn't pay taxes and didn't use banks, like he had all his money in cash in mason jars somewhere, and was pretty vocal about his politics. Mid-'90s 'off the grid' type. I knew of Shanti and didn't really care for him, he'd occasionally try to muscle-in on some courier related event, and his mannerisms were really off-putting.

So anyway, this is a few years later from that dooring as a rookie, and I'm going down School, I forget where to, but traffic's rolling, and I see Shanti, cracking the door of his parked shit-filled shitbox looking to the back up the hill. We met eyes, he saw me coming,.. and he still opened his door. The door hit my right hand, I knew immediately it was cracked somehow, but not how bad. I wasn't knocked down, I had strangely suspected he would fuck me, adjusted foot down, and dismounted.

I was totally astonished he had done it, but felt some personal blame for even trusting him. He looked, he was a driver, he knew the risks as much as I. I mean he fucking looked, as a driver should reflexively, and still did it. Maybe I'm giving the world too much credit to think a person wouldn't do that; show some consideration and then consider otherwise. But this person was Shanti.

The arguing started and moved over the curb and into the park. I don't know what stupid stuff was said, I just remember him with his greasy, ill-fitting glasses, and puffy, blue down jacket that just added to his bulk. He had a Jerry Brown pin on his jacket, and I saw this as a clear omen I was going to get nowhere with this entire incident.

I remember him saying shit like, "I thought you could make it," and this excused his failed attempt at judging if he should fling his door open into moving traffic.

When I said my hand was likely broken— I've had enough broken ones to know— he say, "You can't sue me; I don't have insurance." I was just amazed at his lack of any kind understanding, any kind of empathy, or desire to make it right. I was so stunned, I couldn't be pissed off. We knew each other, traveled in the same circle, he was a Jerry Brown supporter, and so,.. what the fuck?

This kind of back-and-forth went on for a short minute, and suddenly there's this big, curvy hippy girl stepping up. She's kind of cute though, really should've been wearing a bra, and starts chicken-necking. "Yo! Dude! I saw the whole thing! I'll show up in court and be a witness! Let's sue him!" She's super animated and jiggling and putting on that act traveler kids have.

I make an effort to calm her down enough to get back at getting no where with Shanti, and I get hit in my upper left arm from my blind-side. I turn and this really old Beacon Hill-type guy in too much tweed has just hit me with his cane and is shaking it the air at me, and yells with spittle flying, "You rotten bastard on a bike! You got what you deserved!"

I just looked at the old man with his cane and rumpled tweed, then the hippy chick and her boobs, then Shanti squinting through his glasses. I became calm and clear-headed and entirely understood what was going on and what I had to do. 

"All you people are so fucked up," I said as I rode away to make my next drop.

Damn, son... old crank complains about kids today at shows— ƱZ at Rumor 12/26/13

Originally drafted December 27, 2013 at 3:02am

So, I went to go see
︻╦╤─ ƱZ ─╤╦︻,
who is a hardcore trap act— he plays with a mask and no one knows who he is— and the show was so f'd up, or I'm getting real old. The music was incredible, crunchy and glitchy sub-sonic hard beats. I only drank three 8 oz Red Bulls, and with the booming sound and lights and visuals and the writhing post-teens, a few times I wondered if I got slipped something, because I felt transported to some ethereal bacchanal purgatory. It was hot, but I don't get out much.

This effect began when the security guy at the door made me raise my arms Christ-like, and he actually waited for the bass-drop from the club's interior music to do the weirdest, furious frisk I've ever gotten. As I went through the gauntlet to get in a few people complimented me on my Dustrial t-shirt and Мишка gear— considering the fact that I knew I looked like an old n00b, I took it as sarcasm and felt self-conscious.

Otherwise the crowd was a huge case of class transvestism where all these young super skinny girls dressed as trashy as possible like second-string strippers. The guys were all uniform and seemed under-grown in stunted puerile sub-maleness. When the dudes danced with each other, they did this gang$ing$-vogue thing, busting moves from bad promo photos of hip-hop acts from the '90s to a 4:4 beat. When they danced with the girls it was in a hyperbolic pantomime of being presented with presents on Christmas morning, and then they fell into a lackluster parody of the girls' failed grind and wiggle. Roaming photographers only added to the rippling spasms which were rewarded with dude's business card.

One girl had a Santa-like bathrobe clutched tightly around her. She jumped on a table, whipping it open revealing ample jiggle and shake, popping out of a "dress" that was like a tight fitting cannoli shell of some man-made plastic that was more midsection-covering than anything. Since there was no show-stopping reaction, she covered herself back up and scuttled off pouting. Another butch punk girl roughly pegged her girlfriend right in front of me.

I stayed in the same place, leaning against a pillar the whole show and a few girls playfully bumped me asking me why I wouldn't dance. Rather than shout over the noise, that as an old Boston punk I was accustomed to standing fixed in place and listening, and maybe bobbing my head in approval, as we all did back in the day, I said, "I'm just here for the music-- what are you here for?"

The highlight of the night was getting my coat back from the less than diligent coat check girl. The layout of the club had a stairway that the drunk, rolling kids stumbled down into a space smaller than my bedroom with three choices that were difficult to make for most who arrived there, two separate bathrooms, and the coat check. The girl was there with a less than patient security dude. As the crowd piled in, drunk kids, eyes wide with vanished pupils crushed and surged like oversexed zombies. I really wasn't sure what the criteria was for being charged with groping, but I definitely felt cheapened by a few uncomfortable moments of unwelcomed frottage.

At one point some girl yelled something unintelligible and punched a guy in the head several times. This caused the security guard to leave, and service slowed while the crowd began to shout "USA, USA, etc." if it was foreigners holding up the line, or barking "Coatcheck?" to which several returned the query in good comedic timing. I glared at the few who tried to cut in front of me and they yielded the way. I handed my ticket with a dollar bill to the security guy who had returned, got my coat quickly, and I turned to fight the crowd upstream. They actually parted, yelling, "Let him through!" One chimed in, "He's a handsome young man!" To which I replied, "It's my birthday." Since it was after midnight, I was 45.