Monthly Archives: February 2006

Ring My Bell

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Today what a day. Actually yesterday for this is being written tomorrow. Go figure. Ok. Not an easy day. Been thinking about Mary, a crossing guard that I am friend with in my old neighborhood in Weehawken. Mary has been very ill, cancer in a few manifestations. Not very pleasant. Haven’t heard from her in a while, wasn’t really sure if she was still alive.

I took a chance and sent an email. I could’ve called but I don’t have her phone number. And she enjoys emails and online stuff. She replied with an arduous tale of how her past year has been. Not very good. Cancer, radiation treatments. A lot of unpleasant stuff, which I won’t go into detail. Mary is a fighter though and seems to have the advantage over it.

She’s a tough one that Mary is. Not a crossing guard anymore but still lives about 20 feet from where she used to work. She was quite the eyes and ears of the Weehawken neighborhood. I replied with as much support as she might need from me. Go Mary.

Work was the usual stupidity. Not much else to say. Ran into Nino, a friend of mine who I know from another friend Rocky. Nino’s first words to me was ‘Rocky’s dying.’ What? What do you mean?

Nino tells me Rocky has colon cancer and a few other cancers throughout his body. What is it? Is today cancer day? I’ve known Rocky for a few years now, he used to run the loading dock where I work. Rocky is queer, and a drama queen. If Rocky stubbed his toe he’s call me and insist that his leg would have to be amputated.

I call Rocky and ask him what the fuck. Despite Nino telling me not to say anything, I say everything. Rocky tells me he’s been in and out of the hospital and his boyfriend has him on his insurance. According to Rocky, and I hope and pray that it’s his dramatic tendencies, that he has to got to Jersey City Medical Center for various treatments. He couldn’t really talk so I made a plan to visit him over the weekend.

After all this nonsense I decide I need a drink. So after work I go to the Townhouse, well known funeral parlor gay bar. Not really a funeral parlor but one might get that idea if they went. At six o’clock it was a funeral parlor. I had one beer and split. I went across the street to OW another gay bar on E58th Street, formerly known as Oscar Wilde.

At OW they have an alcove where one can smoke and drink. Comfortable if just a little damp and chilly. I have no problem with that since no one ever talks to me at gay bars. I am relatively comfortable with that. I am enjoying my beer when a guy named Tony from East Rutherford sits next to me and tries to get touchy feely. I rebuff his attempt and merely chat.

It’s all good, I don’t want to hurt his feelings though I am not into him at all. We chat about movies we have seen, I mention Brokeback Mountain. A guy sitting across from Tony and myself gets involved and the three of us talk. Interesting conversation a bit facetious maybe. I go to get another beer, Tony follows, the other guy says ‘And then there was one’. I tell him I used to be the ‘one’ but I’ll be back. And I do once I send Tony away. The guy’s name is Matt. I found out when some regular mentioned his name. Matt seems cool, and intelligent and actually able to have a conversation. The regular who mentioned his name won’t stop yapping so I split and run into Matt on the street. We talk some more and I find he’s intriguing enough to follow back to the Townhouse.

We hang out and chat and I mention that this is the first time I was ever able to have a conversation with another guy in a gay bar. Matt is a handsome intelligent guy who reveals that we had chatted online. He knew my face, I didn’t know his.

Interesting for sure.

We hang and drink and time flies by. Enough time for me to wish I lived in Manhattan. We leave the Townhouse and go to Pegasus a block or so away, where there are no winged horses. Imagine my disappointment. Matt proves to be a great conversationalist, and has lead a very interesting life.

Hungout with Matt, chatting away. He’s a great guy and has the potential to be a good friend. After a few more beers I decide it’s time to go home. I arrange for a car service from work to do the deed. We sit in Pegasus, Matt and I, listening to a piano player that we both want to kill.

Forty five minutes or so later the car arrives, and after another beer or two Matt walks me to the car. I tell Matt that I think he’s cool and would like to be his friend. He seems receptive.

In the car home I ask the drive where he’s from and he says Egypt. I ask him how long he’s been here and he says 14 years. I ask if he enjoys driving and he doesn’t. What does he want to do, I ask and he responds he wants to be a hitman. I ask him if he’s ever killed anyone and he says no, but he’d like to kill some women.

Okay…

Woman to him are only good for screwing. I mention that I wouldn’t know about that since I’ve never screwed a woman. He asks if I am gay and I say yes. It’s cool with him, he loves gay people. Great, just what gay people need. A gay friendly misogynist.

He dropped me off and I spoke with Bill in Detroit who visited the Henry Ford Museum and say the bus Rosa Parks got arrested on. Bill’s having a good time, the show seems to be going well. I am drunk and writing this in Hoboken and relatively cool.

Oh but tomorrow….

In the Neighborhood

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When I was growing up on Riverview Avenue in Lodi there were always a ton of kids around. We’d play punch ball, wiffle ball, basketball, hide and seek, It was the type of neighborhood that if you did something wrong someone’s parents would slap you and send you home and tell your parents what you did then you’d get slapped all over again.

I was thinking about various kids I grew up with. There were a few of us around the same age group, Kathy Grant, Susan Lucas, Scott Williams, David Plauchino, Christine and Ryan Kincaid to name a few. We would all run around the neighborhood, in and out of each other’s houses. Summers were quite magical. There was always a radio playing, Music Radio 77 WABC of course.

It was very much an innocent time. I was the oldest of the group. There were older brothers and sisters around. I had played with them at some time, Scott’s older sister Barbara, Kathy’s older sister Irene who used to beat me up and throw me into the Foglio’s hedges. You couldn’t escape these people nor would you want to. They were your basic good-hearted people.

It was all fun and games, rough and tumble. Most of us had gone to the same school, St. Francis de Sales, the others had gone to Washington School on Main Street. As time went on new people came into our circle. Chemistries had changed, puberty around the corner.
I let Johnny Serpone neck and feel up Michelle Kwiatkowski on our back porch while my parents were at work.

No one else in the circle had designs on anyone else. Serpone was a bit older than the rest of us, Michelle was my age. I suppose being a girl she hit puberty before I did. She had boobs. None of the other girls did.

We grew up and away from each other once high school started. I’d see the friends from back then when I would drive by up the block, a honk and a wave would suffice. The days of hanging out, swimming in Susan Lucas’ pool listening to the top forty countdowns were gone.

Years later when I was bar backing at McSwells I see a familiar face on the other side of the bar, Christine Kincaid. She looked good, she had grown into a woman. It was a bit odd to be washing glasses and filling the beer cooler while she and her boyfriend were having some drinks. I breathed a sigh of relief when they left. Not that I was uncomfortable, just felt a bit odd.

Never expected to see her at McSwells. I never saw her again after that one time, she passed away from ovarian cancer while in her twenties. So sad. At my father’s wake I reconnected with Kathy and Irene Grant. Kathy was even more adorable, and Irene had stopped beating up on me. Lucky for her because at that time I’m sure I could’ve taken her.

We made plans to have some drinks and a few months later we met at McSwells, Kathy and Irene and Susan Lucas. It was all very adult and civilized. Kathy and Susan reminded me about how I used to tease them and act like a bee. I came out of the closet to the three of them, showed them a picture of Bill. They didn’t shriek or run away in horror. We made other plans to reconnect more frequently.

The next time I saw Irene and Kathy, they told me Susan was now a lesbian and living down the shore. That was a surprise. I thought that since I was able to come out, Susan felt empowered to do the same.

It didn’t last long. Susan who had a history of illness passed away a year or so later. Very sad. I heard that Susan’s girlfriend was being shut out by the surviving Lucas’s. At Susan’s wake after expressing my condolences to her mother and her brother, I walked over to her girlfriend. A tough looking dyke with a mullet.

I explained who I was and how sorry I was to hear about her losing Susan. She was passive. I found out later that this woman made Susan’s life hell and tormented her, going after her finances while Susan was in the hospital. Very sad.

If there is an afterlife, I’m sure Susan Lucas and Christine Kincaid are having a good time listening to Music Radio 77.

Nowadays I run into people from the neighborhood at wakes.