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.

“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)

jim@onlineoffbeat.com

Boston Outsider / Humor

I talked to Paulie for a couple of minutes and returned to my stool. Duke, a WWII veteran, ex-boxer, and former bookmaker, was regaling Buddy with an anecdote.

“My division was sent to the Philippines after the Germans surrendered,” Duke said. “There were nationalist guerillas in the hills, so we got combat pay, but all we ever did was eat bananas and go bowling. One guy I knew made a pet of a monkey, and he cried his eyes out when he couldn’t bring the thing back to the States with him. I heard he ended up marrying a woman who looked like a chimp.”

Buddy squirted some beer out of a nostril as he laughed at this. Duke insisted on giving us one last round on the house, and after drinking it we took our leave. As we were walking back to my apartment, I asked Buddy what he thought of Whitman’s.

“I know the place is kind of a halfway house for unattached male nuts,” Buddy answered. “But it’s a panic!”

The next day, Sunday, at a little after 4:00 p.m., Buddy and I were watching a football game when my doorbell rang. I pushed the intercom button and asked who was at the door.

“Let me in, you philistine,” a familiar voice announced.

“Come on up,” I said, pushing the door release. “It’s my friend Paulie,” I said to Buddy. “He drops in once in a while.”

“That’s cool,” Buddy shrugged.

I met Paulie Gomes at the door of my third floor walk-up. He was accompanied by Sven, a tall man with a shaved head and an ugly scar on his left cheek; Daniel, a middle-aged guy in a rumpled suit; and Doris, a mature woman who dressed in ragged clothing and carried four shopping bags filled with books, papers and other bags. Sven and Daniel were fellow insomniacs I knew from an all-night diner. Doris was a familiar figure who had a regular begging station in front of the local Baskin Robbins.

“I bumped into some friends!” Paulie smiled. He was a tiny fellow, about a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet, and on this occasion he was wearing a butterfly costume, complete with antennae, wings, black tights, and little slippers.

“Is that your Sunday best you’re wearing?” I asked.

“I’m doing a children’s play at a little venue in Inman Square,” Paulie said. “I want to stay in character as long as possible. And since lepidopterans don't carry luggage, I left my street clothes at the theater after today's matinee. I'll pick them up on Tuesday."

“Oh, you’re a character all right,” I replied.

I asked everyone in and introduced them to Buddy, who didn’t seem overly fazed by Paulie’s manner of dress. Paulie and Sven sat on the futon-couch, Daniel and Doris sat on the loveseat facing them, and Buddy and I sat on metal folding chairs on either side of my stereo, along a wall that was perpendicular to the other furniture. Paulie had assembled quite a crew. Sven was a reputed deserter from the French Foreign Legion. Daniel belonged to a quasi-Catholic sect whose members believed that the true pope was a twenty-year-old short order cook who lived with his mother in a dilapidated house near the Forest Hills MBTA station. Doris the bag lady was actually quite well off, but sometimes I gave her a buck in the hopes that she’d leave me something in her will.

“Zaglavakian Orthodox?” Daniel asked, looking surprised. “But they’re schismatic!”

“Who are you calling, ‘schismatic?’” Paulie interrupted. “You’re the one who thinks the pope is a kid in Jamaica Plain.”

“His Holiness Raoul the First lives in Roslindale!” Daniel shot back.

“Hey, don’t make fun of the man’s religion,” Sven said, turning to Paulie.

“I’ll make fun of anyone or anything I want,” Paulie sniffed. “I’m an artist, Scarface.”

“I got this scar in affair of honor, in a duel, you silly little insect!” Sven roared, bringing his face closer to Paulie. “If you weren’t so small I’d challenge you to fight with cutlasses on Cambridge Common.”

“And if you weren’t so much fun to ridicule, I’d call the French consulate to see if I could get a reward and have you sent back to Timbuktu or wherever you ran away from, you big, bald prick!” Paulie screeched.

“Oh, that language, Paulie,” Doris said.

“Yes, and on a Sunday,” Daniel interjected.

Someone banged on the other side of the wall where Buddy and I were sitting and asked us to quiet down. The room was silent for a minute, and Paulie was the first to speak, asking Buddy if he was interested in playing Evil Eye Fleagle in an avant-garde production of “Li'l Abner.”

“Er, I work nights,” Buddy stammered.

Things petered out over the next half hour. Daniel was late for an audience at Raoul’s “palace,” and Sven had to get to the club where he worked as a bouncer. Doris said that she had an appointment to meet her investment adviser at her house in Arlington, and Daniel chided her for conducting business on the sabbath.

“Paulie,” I said, as the other three got up to leave. “I don’t think you should be riding the T dressed like that. And I know you probably have less than a dollar in your pocket, if butterflies have pockets. How about if I pay for a cab?”

“Oh, that would cost a fortune, Jimmy,” Paulie said. “Does your friend Evil Eye have a car?”

“Ah, sure, I’ll give you a ride,” Buddy said. “Brookline isn’t too far.”

“I’ll stay here and clean up,” I said to Buddy. “After you get back we’ll talk about, you know,
your situation.”

(to be continued)

jim@onlineoffbeat.com

Boston Outsider / Humor

For five years during the 1980s, when the People’s Republic of Cambridge still clung to a vestige of socialism, I lived in a rent-controlled, 1.5 room studio apartment just east of Harvard Square. It was cheap, and I didn’t own much of anything, so it wasn’t a bad arrangement. One Saturday night, as I sat in my tiny abode watching “Twilight Zone” on a New Hampshire UHF station, I got a call from my friend Buddy Feeney, who lived in Revere.

“Hey, Jimmy,” Buddy said. “I've got a big favor to ask. Would you mind if I stayed at your place for a while?”

“Shit, Buddy,” I answered. “You’ve seen how small this place is. Are you having problems at home again?”

“’Problems’ isn’t the word,” he replied. “If I stay here much longer, you’re going to be reading something awful about me in the Herald.”

“All right,” I said. “Just for a week or so. And make sure that somebody knows where you are.”

Buddy arrived the next night, toting a small suitcase. I gave him my visitor parking card so that his car wouldn’t get towed, and he settled in. After using the bathroom, he came back in the main room with a big smile on his face.

“I just took a piss with the bathroom door open,” he said gleefully. “I haven’t done that in eight years!”

“I’ve been pissing with the bathroom door open for quite a while now,” I said from my perch on a folded futon . “And it’s no big deal. Maybe I’m just jaded.”

“Listen,” Buddy said as he sat on a moth-eaten loveseat. “I know you think I’m a jerk for being here instead of with my wife and kids. You’ve seen Dragoslava lately. She’s still a hot little number after having three children, but life with her has turned into one, big pain in the ass. She and her relatives are the only Zaglavakians this side of Chicago, so my in-laws use my house as their own personal ethnic club. They come and go as they please, playing accordions and drinking plum brandy. And when they run out of plum brandy, they help themselves to my beer.”

“Call up ‘National Geographic,’” I laughed. “They can go to your house and film a special.”

“It’s no joke,” Buddy said, lighting a Marlboro. “You know what it’s like at Easter? A priest with a beard three feet long comes over and stinks up the place with incense. It’s supposed to be an exorcism. The whole tribe goes in the back yard and roasts a pig, and at the end of the night they dance around dressed like garden gnomes while Dragoslava’s grandmother lights firecrackers.”

“Don’t you remember?” I asked. “I was at one of those parties. The roast pig was delicious.”

“The pig tastes wonderful until you find out how much you’re being porked,” he replied, not cracking a smile.

I decided not to give any lectures about the sanctity of the marriage bond. The next six days passed smoothly. Buddy worked the night shift at UPS, and I worked days at a health insurance company, and we barely saw one another. Saturday evening rolled around, and I wondered when I should broach the subject of Buddy’s checkout time. At about six o’clock, I asked him if he wanted to go to the Square for a couple of beers.

“All right,” he said, enthusiastically. “Brewskies in freaky Cambridge!”

I brought Buddy to Whitman’s, a little watering hole that I often visited on J.F.K. Street. On the way there, as we were walking along Mass. Ave., a man in an Uncle Sam costume rode by on a unicycle.

“What’s with that character?” Buddy asked. “July Fourth was three months ago, and Halloween isn’t for another three weeks.”

“That guy always dresses like that,” I said calmly.

“You know, Jimmy,” Buddy answered. “You belong in this neighborhood.”

“You’ll have to excuse me, comrades,” said Red. “I have to go home and write my column for the Daily Struggle.”

“Hey, a real commie,” Buddy beamed after Red left.

“A real commie?” I asked. “A real barfly is more like it. Didn’t you notice that he switched from Mr. Beantown to Old Granddad after you started paying?”

Before Buddy could answer, a scruffy regular called Jerry the Poet, seated three stools to my right, stood up and treated us to some verse. Holding up a shiny, new nickel, he recited:

“Find a nickel.
What the fuck?
All the day you’ll have good luck.”

“Hey, watch the language, you bastard!” Duke yelled, and the room exploded in laughter. A bespectacled sot named Lenny, who always sat at the far end of the bar near the men’s room, offered some literary criticism.

“That piece is rather derivative,” he said, pausing to take a puff of a huge green cigar. “There’s a poem that’s almost identical to that, but it’s about a penny.”

Buddy, all the while, was enjoying himself immensely. After the seventh round of drinks, he got around to the matter that I had been avoiding.

“You know, Jimmy,” he slurred slightly. “The week is almost up, and I know that your apartment is too small for two people, even with us working separate shifts. How about if we get a two bedroom place together?”

The whole week I’d been wondering if Buddy was having marital problems because of being in love with someone else. But it turned out that he was in love with something else, in love with born-again bachelorhood, in love with idea of being footloose and fancy-free.

“Let’s talk about that when we’re sober,” I said. I excused myself to use the bathroom, and on the way back to the bar, I got on the payphone and called a certain Brookline rooming house, asking for Paulie Gomes, a friend who was a would-be actor and borderline lunatic.

“Paulie,” I said, when he got on the line. “I have a little job for you.”

(to be continued)

jim@onlineoffbeat.com

Possible captions
• And then he’s driving me to Disneyland. What a country!

• One chocolate, one vanilla, both with jimmies.

• When you see a guy reach for stars in the sky, you can bet that he's doing it for some doll.

• And finally I said, “Okay, you can drive the Popemobile.”

• No matter what I say, that stupid grin never leaves his face.

ben.alper@onlineoffbeat.com