The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side of the Tobin Bridge (conclusion)
Boston Outsider / Humor
Buddy returned to the apartment a couple of hours later, looking rather ashen.
“Jesus, that guy Paulie is a piece of work,” he said as he sat across from me. “Where the fuck did you meet him?”
“We used to work together at Blue Cross-Blue Shield,” I answered. “He got fired for calling customers ‘Poopsie” over the phone.”
“He had me make a bunch of stops on the way to his house, Stop and Shop, CVS, a couple of other places. He said he had a phobia about going into stores alone, so there I was going in with him. And I must have loaned him about fifty bucks,” Buddy shook his head.
“What’s the matter? Haven’t you ever run errands with a guy dressed like a butterfly before?” I laughed. “I’ll pay you back the fifty, because believe me, Paulie never will.”
“You think this is funny? He said he had a line of credit at a club near Kenmore Square, and I let him drag me in there with him,” Danny said, coughing. “I was being polite because he’s a friend of yours. It was Alternative Lifestyle Night at the place, and we only left because Paulie was embarrassed about wearing the same outfit as another guy.” I really started giggling now, holding my gut and bending over.
“And when we got to his flophouse,” Buddy continued, “he didn’t have a key, and his landlord was nowhere to be found. So I climbed the fire escape and broke into Madame Butterfly’s room, because again he had a phobia, a fear of heights.”
“He has a fear of everything except driving other people up the wall,” I explained.
“And those other people who were here today,” Buddy said. “They all seem like cooked birds, too.”
“Well,” I replied, scratching my chin, “Sven is okay if you don’t piss him off, but that's a bullshit story about his so-called dueling scar. He really got cut up by a whore in Hamburg. Now, Doris, she’s your basic career panhandler, which may be morally repugnant but which doesn’t meet the clinical definition of insanity. And Daniel grew up Catholic but went to public school, and I think he actually wanted to have his ears boxed by nuns like a lot of the other kids he knew. So now he’s compensating by literally being more Catholic than the Pope.”
“I think I mentioned something about being roomies when we were drinking last night,” Buddy said. “But maybe living with you on a regular basis would be a little too -what’s the word?- ‘bohemian.’”
“Sure, I understand, Buddy,” I said, doing my best to act disappointed.
Buddy stayed until Thursday of that week, bunked at an uncle’s house for a few days after that, and then moved back in with his wife. After he was gone, I called Paulie and talked about it.
“Hey, you really gave Buddy the works, huh?” I asked.
“It’s not much worse than what I’ve done to you on occasion,” Paulie said.
“And the rest of the cast was brilliant,” I said in praise of Sven, Doris and Daniel.
“What cast? You don’t need a script with some people. It’s like improv, except the actors think it’s real.”
I believe that the contemporary term for Buddy’s little baptism is, “intervention.” And I’m happy to report that he’s doing fine. Dragoslva learned that there was a colony of her countrymen living in Vermont, so she convinced Buddy to move there. They now own a Zaglavakian-themed restaurant and motel near Killington.
“It’s a goldmine,” Buddy told me recently. “It’s the Zaglavaks’ home away from home, the skiers think it’s exotic, and the snowboarders are all addicted to plum brandy. Dragoslava’s grandmother darkens her skin at a tanning salon and passes herself off as a gypsy fortuneteller. Everybody’s happy!”
The other principals who attended the impromptu party at my apartment that afternoon have also had some changes in situation. Sven got a little too old to be a bouncer, and he’s now a trainer in the sport of Ultimate Fighting. Danny, one night as he was walking from the train station to Pope Raoul’s house, looked up and saw an unidentified flying object over Forest Hills. He now lives in Roswell, New Mexico and operates the Universal Chapel of Extraterrestrial Angels and Saints.
Paulie and Doris were married in 1993, but Doris died in 1998, leaving her entire estate to a shelter for unwanted ferrets. Not long after her death, Paulie found a job as an activities director for a nursing home. He still works there, although he got into a bit of trouble two years ago when one of his innovations, a geriatric production of “Riverdance,” caused minor cardiovascular accidents for two of his hoofers.
When rent control ended, I moved farther north, into Big Hair Territory, where I still live. It’s not quite so bohemian, but the pizza is wonderful.
(the end)
