Memories of a Boy

We all grow up with friends. On Derby Street in Salem in the 1970's I ran with a group of fellow knuckleheads. There was a core of six or seven with some scattered hanger-on types. We started drinking at a young age and discovered marijuana about the same time. As life progressed we lost touch with each other except for the odd occasion.

One of the gang was Frank. There was a Franky too, but this is about Frank. He was always the biggest and strongest among us. By the time he was thirteen he was shaving and at fifteen he could buy us beer and booze with his older brothers ID.

Frank was also the dumbest. In high school he couldn't get any playing time on the football team despite his size and strength. He kept breaking his fingers on the blocking sleds. Sophomore year was it for his education.

I went into military service in 1979 and lost touch with him. Returning to Salem on occasion in the 1980's I would see him working the door or tending bar at Major's, a popular watering hole.

He was doing OK and at 6' - 4" and 230 well distributed pounds was doing really well with the Salem State girls. There was a song at back then sung by Julie Brown titled "I Like Them Big and Stupid", it was a perfect fit for him. As the 80's progressed so did his drinking and substance abuse.

He felt like he was invincible of course. We all did.

One day he got a knock the door. When he answered an old girlfriend stood there with a seven year old boy that looked just like him. Off they went to Worcester, where she lived and worked to live happily ever after. Well not quite. His drinking and drugging continued despite his new found career in pizza delivery.

I don't know that he ever spiraled out of control. Perhaps he was never in control. The marriage struggled. I suppose he worked at being a Dad, but he probably never had the skills and self control he needed. He came to Salem one Thanksgiving and was so far gone that he lost control of his bowels in a crowded social club. It was horrible.

The wife tossed him and after a while took him back.

A few years ago he was watching a nine - year old girl for some friends. The police arrested him for sexual abuse. Apparently he bathed her and things happened. He spent six months or so in jail and then the charges were dropped.

He returned to Salem because he had no where else to go and people in Worcester were threatening him. His mother took him into her subsidized housing. After some time the wife again took him back to Worcester. Frank then had a massive heart attack. While in the hospital his kidneys and liver began to fail. he was put on transplant lists but the prognosis was grim and he was not expected to survive very long. Being to dumb to know any better he recovered and walked out of the hospital while the doctors scratched their heads.

Three months ago while going into a 7-11 he was panhandled by some beggar. Frank told him to go fuck himself. On the way out that guy and maybe two or three others beat him into a coma. That is where he is now, in a coma.

What to think of all of this? Do I think of the man who lived his life for selfish short term pleasure and drove grown men from a room by shitting his pants in public, and possibly sexual abused a child? Or do I think of the kid I grew up with?

In my mind right now, I see a young, lean tan, athletic kid in cut-off denim shorts smiling hugely as he jumps off the pier at Derby's Wharf while we all sit and laugh in the sun. The water splashes up over us and we all get up to jump in after him.

We know, we just know in our youthful, blissful ignorance that we will always be there, young and beautiful.

This is us, this is now, this is forever.