***Out In The Be-Bop Night- With The Stones’ Back Street Girl In Mind-Take Two
At the table he mainly listened, a professional habit, to her story, a story that sounded all too familiar. Her father, a welder, had abandoned the family after the local shipyard that was the life-line to any thought of getting out from under closed down and moved to southern Europe and he had followed his trade. That left her mother and three young daughters stranded, stranded in the projects. Susie related that she had not been much of a student, had like hanging around boys better as she came of age. She, when she thought about it later, was looking for a protector, or something, but she said kind of blew with the wind.
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
James Sweeny, Esquire, Jim, had to laugh, had to laugh right out loud about his situation, as he drove home to his condo from her place. Her place being a small condo, what in his student days spent around that same area were called studios and rightly so, at the high number end of Beacon Street toward Brookline. More sweet time importantly the “her” being Susie, Susan Downing his latest paramour, although she was not the butt of his laughter just then even if it did concern her. Or rather how he had become they entangled concerned. “Jesus,” he said to himself as he drove down Boston’s famous green-ward walkway Commonwealth Avenue, “she chews gum, chews gum, Wrigley’s incessantly , and loves, really loves, bowling. How did I get myself involved with her?”
Hell, he knew exactly why he had gotten involved, why he had in the process taken a step back to his growing up days, his tough as nails growing up days. Jim was just going back to his roots, going back to his lonesome corner boy Adamsville projects days that he had thought were long gone. Thought he had left behind when he left the dust and oddball chaos of that place with its long list of social and economic pathologies (and the very close call of a gangster life and the face of hard time ,hard time in a hard place that many of his corner boy boyhood friends , including his two brothers had faced). See Susie, although almost a decade younger than he, a twenty- something to use the term of generational art, had grown up in the Gloversville projects about twenty miles from his own projects childhood and so they both bore the stigmata. Both had grown up on the back streets, had faced the endless wants that the projects life entailed, had faced the eternal nos (“no, you can’t do this, no, we have no money for that, no, we can’t go here or there because your father is out of work, no, well, just say no and that will cover a multitude of sins.”) So some mystical social DNA, some ten thousand years of wants, of nos, of hunger and not just food hunger, had been at work, had played their attractions. All he knew was that the hours they spent together (even while damn bowling, candle pin not ten pin by the way, no way with those freaking big balls that drag you half way down the lane with your wind up) were the happiest he had had in a while and so he was going to play the hand fate had dealt out to him.
Jim could just imagine what his wife, uh, his ex-wife Lillian would say if she knew of his latest tryst. She would, addicted to the sociology jargon that she had been trained in some years before, spout forth that he was just seeking his natural level, was just “going home” like Telly’s theory projected. (She had studied with the well-known big man in sociology of the time back when they met, Professor John Telly, the guy who invented Quantum Sociology, the idea that all social phenomena were subject to some world-historic laws just like nature and so unraveling the key to those trends was the proper study for human-kind.) That despite the fact that he had dragged himself kicking and screaming from the projects, had become a fairly successful lawyer working for a firm that gave him more work than he needed, and which provided more income, hell, more alimony and child support money, in a month than his poor half –literate father had been able to provide his whole life practically. Yes, he could just see Lillian with that self-satisfied smirk learned from her very comfortable childhood in New York City, in Manhattan, the center of the universe according to her. And she would probably add to that smirk the comment that in “dumping” him (her word) she also had reverted to her natural level- aided by those nice monthly checks.
And maybe there was something to it, although most of Lillian’s sociological observations tended to the more mundane, to less worthy world-historic observations. Things like what some friend, some Manhattan center-of-the universe friend that she had had gravitated back to when she “dumped” him was wearing, what some child, some wayward monster or angelic child as the designation warranted, did or did not do, for or against their son Ronald in the class room, in the very expensive Hunter Shores School classroom, or stuff like that to while away her time (and squeeze into that Telly-etched universe).
All Jim knew was that he was drawn to Susie ever since that first time they met at a charity cocktail party, the big Jimmy Fund benefit that was obligatory for all Boston law firms and their associated lawyers to attend to show they knew about the plight, the heart-rending plight of some sick kids) where she had been given one of her boss’ tickets so she could attend (and so he did not have). As she pointed out later such tasks were all in a day’s work for the boss’ dutiful administrative assistant, although from her later description of that job she was more of a glorified secretary than a flack-catcher.
He was drawn first to her smile, a smile that he thought she had thrown his way when he had stepped up to the bar and she was sitting there sipping some exotic drink (an exotic pina colada, exotic in any case against his corner boy Canadian Club low shelf whiskey learned in cheap bars before he made enough money to purchase high-grade stuff, but passed on as a vestige of that old projects way). Okay, okay he was drawn to her long legs, her nice figure, her bedroom blues eyes, her long blondish hair but right after that the smile. Later she said that she had not thrown that smile at him personally, but rather it was her professional smile for the occasion. He, they, laughed at that one. That was their beginning.
While at the bar he asked her who she was representing and other small chitchat. Nothing heavy just normal social banter until they got to growing up information. That is when she told him that she had grown up in the Gloversville projects. In response to that he had first hesitated to mention his own Adamsville project roots. He usually kept that part of his life well on the backburner (he had not told Lillian of his roots, the projects part, shuffling over it with a generic poor but proud working- class sheen for public consumption, until they had started living together some time later) . For some reason he decided to speak of it that night, maybe because he sensed she would be non-plussed by the whole thing. She brightened a little at that information, a little that they had some sense of social roots but maybe too that they could avoid some pretenses. Or maybe was just feeling a little more secure with kindred. She then said maybe they could move from the bar to a table and they could talk, compare notes about what that whole experience was like. He agreed.
At the table he mainly listened, a professional habit, to her story, a story that sounded all too familiar. Her father, a welder, had abandoned the family after the local shipyard that was the life-line to any thought of getting out from under closed down and moved to southern Europe and he had followed his trade. That left her mother and three young daughters stranded, stranded in the projects. Susie related that she had not been much of a student, had like hanging around boys better as she came of age. She, when she thought about it later, was looking for a protector, or something, but she said kind of blew with the wind.
Her first boyfriend was a king hell biker, “Dirty Dog” who took her virtue (her word, her quaint Roman Catholic Church -edged word rather than use a more graphic sexual word) when she was thirteen. He also introduced her to drugs, lots of drugs, at first weed, then cocaine, then H, the big fix, the biggest kick of them all, eventually wound up pimping her off as nothing but trade on the streets (while, as she found out, he was actually married and had been when he seduced her). That lasted street tramp lasted for a while until she couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t take the guys, couldn’t take the occasional “cold turkey” when she was arrested, couldn’t take what she looked like then (as a junkie or while doing that cold turkey), got herself clean after developing a fair jones, and had been sober for a few years. She went back to school, finished up high school, went to a community college to get her administrative assistant training and landed a job with John Hancock. Sheepishly she mentioned that she had had a child (not with the biker) and had put it up for adoption. Later, once they trusted each other a little, she would tell him she also had a couple of abortions.
Her story got Jim to thinking about his own close call. His own corner boy existence and some of the stuff that he did including some midnight heists to get money, well, to get money to have money. That night, he, they, almost by osmosis decided to take a chance on each other. And so they had begun a very private affair. And that was the crux of his problem. Once he was hooked, hooked badly, on her he wanted to stay with her. But he wasn’t sure how her gum chewing, her addiction to bowling (Jesus, bowling, and she beat him. beat him badly every time) and her remnant projects scars and off-beat (off-beat to the swells), manner would go in his world. All he knew was she made him laugh, made him feel okay around her, made him feel good about her simple ways of expressing things, made him glad that she didn’t Telly-ize everything . So, yah, he would play out that dealt hand and see where it led.
