California, Here I Come - Part 1

In the autumn of 1969, I had just turned 19. I was fresh from Woodstock and still infused with the "counter culture" spirit. With my father’s help, I got an apartment on Beacon Hill in Boston. Not what you’re thinking. It was on the other side of the Hill, less expensive, at the time a hippie enclave. Living there I met some fascinating characters: small time dealers, journeyman gangsters, lost souls, and down and out junkies. I spent a good deal of time in the Public Gardens, where Boston’s Flower Children hung out. Weekends there were free concerts, and a festive, carnival-like atmosphere.

Since I was responsible for my rent and utilities, my father’s uncle procured a temporary position for me as a Jr. Engineering Aid with the Mass. Dept. of Public Works, Transportation, Planning and Development. Sounds more impressive than it was. Essentially, I created charts and visual aids that engineers would use at presentations around the state on proposed road improvements. There was no PowerPoint back then. It was all on big paper charts, done by hand with colored pencils, rulers, and protractors. The job paid reasonably well and I could walk to work from my apartment on Phillips Street.

The idea was for me to resume taking college courses, this time around at Suffolk University in the evening. I spent the previous year at Marquette University, where I ended up with an embarrassingly low GPA, focusing on decidedly non-academic work. I attended several protests against the Vietnam War in Milwaukee, one in NYC, later another in Boston, the last in DC.

I am proud of the fact that while at Marquette, I once marched with Benjamin Spock and Dick Gregory, and another time with Fr. James Groppi and the Black Panthers against racist presidential candidate George Wallace. (“Justice, yes! Wallace, No!”) Mostly, I spent the year getting high and attending free music events around Milwaukee. I hardly remember what evening courses I signed up for at Suffolk, but I do know that I went to about two sessions of each class and then stopped going all together.

(In truth, my parents wasted their money paying for college for me. I regret violating their confidence and blowing their cash. That they could ever forgive me for this and so many other trials I put them through is a testament to their love. I was reckless, and like many young men too full of myself for my own good.)

Often on the weekend, I would travel back to West Springfield, my home town. I don’t recall how I met Mary. She was hanging out with mutual friends, Sonia, Mary G., Paul, George, Lenny. She was pretty, sarcastic, and alternately shy and flirtatious. There was an intensity about her that intrigued me. We each saw something we liked in the other and soon were dating. She was living with her mother and stepfather. At the end of my work week I would grab my backpack, walk to the Trailways Bus Station and ride back to spend the weekend with her.

Her brother, Roy, was a Marine fresh from Vietnam, still trying to sort out the damage done to him there. He never recovered. In ‘Nam his job was a “ground controller,” helping helicopters land, often under fire, in oder to evacuate wounded in the field. It was a treacherous job.

Roy was stationed at Chelsea Naval Hospital recovering from a bout of malaria, desperately hoping for a discharge. Sometimes he would drive home for the weekend and he'd then offer to take me back to Boston with him. Getting up on any given Monday morning at 5:00 AM, he’d hand me a Black Beauty (amphetamine,) turn up the radio, and we’d launch eastward. (The pills were courtesy of the local pharmacy, owned by his dad. Roy would surreptitiously grab a handful when his father was otherwise occupied filling a customer's prescription.)

Mary’s home situation was "complicated," to use current parlance. Unbeknownst to me at the time, she had been sexually abused. Because of this, she was often angry, rebellious and oppositional. She had cause. The adults in her life were not to be trusted. Because her mother couldn’t control her Mary was designated a “stubborn child,” placed in Juvenile Detention, and technically was a designated “ward of the State.” Did I mention that she was 17 and still a minor? Once she was returned to her mom and stepdad, she had strict rules, a hard curfew, and was living on very thin ice. Fuck up just once, and she’d be back in Juvie, probably for a very long stretch, perhaps even placed in DCS Foster Care.

One weekend in late February, I didn’t get back to West Side. On a lark, or a dare, or who knows why, Mary and some friends dropped acid and stayed out all night at another friend’s apartment. Doing this proved fateful for both of us. She knew that she would be arrested, hauled into Juvenile Court, sent back to the detention center where her fate would be determined by a judge. Mary showed up at my apartment on that Monday morning, filled me in briefly on what had happened and told me that she came to “say good-bye.”