4.2 Alexander Spends a Year In Boston

After a (cosmically) brief hiatus, I will now begin updating my personal blog again. For the sake of continuity, I will provide an overview of my time so far in Somerville, a neighborhood in the Greater Boston Area.

MY APARTMENT IN SOMERVILLE

I found an apartment on Craigslist and moved in August 1st, 2010. It is in the third story of a house with a shabby brownish-purple paint job. In the morning a shaft of sunlight falls directly on my bed. If I’m feeling indulgent I take off my shirt and lay reading with my feet on the window sill. I bought an orange road-bike during my brief stay in New York between Europe and Massachusetts, and after a month or so in Somerville I brought it up in the cargo hold of a Megabus. I haul my bike up from landing to landing, usually banging and scuffing the walls, and store it outside my apartment’s front door. I might start keeping it on the ground-floor landing, as somebody just moved away an old bookcase that used to take up most of the room under the stairs. Besides, the landlord just painted the stairway’s walls.

UPS STORE #1

I got a job at a UPS Store, where I packed boxes, processed packages for shipment, and sorted mail for a wage low enough that I couldn’t afford to maintain a reasonable first-world quality of life, but not so low that I could, for instance, go on food-stamps. The man who hired me was in the process of selling the store, and after I worked there a month the sale was finalized. Within several weeks there was, excluding me, a full staff turnover.

A husband and wife co-owned the store. The wife was actually very nice—she would sometimes bring me home-cooked Indian-style rice in a pyrex container for lunch. She was very business-like when she informed me that now that the store was under new management, my wage would be lowered $.50.

Her husband was pretty awful. We started off on very good terms—he valued my intelligence and the institutional knowledge I brought to the table. I remember once I helped him compose a notice for mailbox holders about how we were phasing in a rate increase: he was very happy with me that day. After he looked over the final draft, we shook hands. It was a beautiful moment, let me tell you.

Things went south shortly. (I think because he realized the store was not proving as profitable as he had hoped.) His management style became paternalistic and bullying. He was constantly (sometimes as often as five times a shift) pulling me aside to chastise me. He would also often compare me to his sixteen-year-old son. If I didn’t do something the way he wanted, it was because I hadn’t learned responsibility yet.

It was endless. What was especially sick was how the wife seemed to get an anxious enjoyment from watching me get chastised (I was often compared unfavorably to her). I don’t blame her: I can just imagine what living with him is like.

Somerville is largely an enclave of white, educated, wealthy liberal white people. Many of them have an affiliation with Harvard. Many of the older women dress like they might be witches. Early Saturday mornings you see young people in oversize sunglasses walking up and down Mass Ave., rolled yoga mats snug between their torso and an elbow. However, the area is also very touristic. Crazies are prominent. Conspiracy theorists, schizophrenics, people who push around shopping cards that smell of urine, young punky runaways who may or may not be bipolar, etc.

A woman with one bottom tooth would come in every so often to the store asking me inane questions to look up on the internet for her. For instance: “Look up the witches ride in Western Mass. I want to know about the witches ride in Western Mass.” I could ascertain that she meant some sort of Halloween spectacle, but I couldn’t get anything more specific from her. She’d make me turn the computer screen to face her and then tell me to click on the Google AdSense ads and to print the home pages.

Once she came in with dried blood all over the front of her grimy sweatshirt. She asked me what Ronald Reagan’s address and phone number was. I informed her President Reagan died ten years ago. She still wanted to know. So I gave her the number and address of his estate.

Once I finally told her (with the utmost politeness and friendliness) that it wasn’t my job to look things up for her and that she could use the time-share computer if she wanted. Things had seriously gotten out of hand with her by this time–she would monopolize me for fifteen minutes, making inane demands, one after the other. She also had an IQ under 70 and was probably homeless—she had no business wasting her money printing out useless webpages. She had clearly never used the internet before, and after two minutes she left. My boss took the occasion to chastise me. “What if another customer had seen you treating her like that?” he asked, and then looked at me with utter contempt, just waiting for my piss-poor response. (The ironic thing is that he would rush into the back whenever she came in or, if he couldn’t do that, because for instance he was manning the counter while I was sorting mail, he would pointedly ignore her until I came out to help her.)

THE BAND

Josh & I began having jam sessions in his room shortly after I moved to Boston. He lived above a convenience store a short walk from P-rter Square. I would come over and we’d sit on his bed and make music. Soon we had a band: Sonia, a friend of his from high school who plays viola, joined, and we would take the 77 bus up to her house in Arlington to practice. She has a large practice room with a piano. She is much more musically talented than we are, but it worked well enough because she was teaching herself how to play drums (just like, I supposed, Josh and I were teaching ourselves guitar and piano, respectively).

Josh is gone now, and Sonia and I don’t make music anymore, though we hang out fairly regularly. Sometimes when I am biking to Market Basket to do grocery shopping I look up at the window of the bedroom where Josh used to live.

When I was waiting tables in Manhattan last year, I always had a lot of time to think, and sometime I would think about the tables—how the guests came and went, but the tables stayed. Five minutes after a couple left, I’d take the flatware and glasses and cutlery away and, corner by corner, pull up the tablecloth. Another tablecloth would go down, and new cutlery and glasses. Then, unless I had something better to do, I’d lean against the bar. Soon even I would be gone. I knew because I had a contract to go teach in France, beginning that fall.

Do you understand?

A THEORY I HAVE BEEN NURSING

My experiences at Rice and in the Boston area (which is just full of gifted individuals) have led me to form a theory about the way different types of people view the world.

People who are of above-average intelligence in the arts and humanities view themselves as a brilliant person inhabiting a world full of average people. They live a heightened, extraordinary existence. This is where the snobbishness and elitism come from.

People who are of above-average intelligence in the maths and sciences believe that they are a normal person inhabiting a world full of abysmally stupid people. This is where the frustration and ill-concealed contempt come from.

SOMERVILLE: LIBERAL UTOPIA

One of the mailbox holders at the UPS Store had a daughter aged nine years who probably has undiagnosed ADHD. One day the woman came in with her daughter to get some keys cut. The daughter chattered while I cut the keys. In response to my question of what grade she was in: “Oh, I don’t go to school. I’d be much more intelligent than all the other students. I’m home-schooled. The school system wasn’t made for people like me.”

The mother smiled. “That’s right. You’d be terribly bored if you had to keep pace with all those other students.”

The little girl started talking about her curriculum–geography, biology, wacky science, etc. Suddenly the topic turned to gay marriage. “Did you know that a person can marry a man or woman if they want to?”

The mother smiled. “That’s exactly right!”

Throughout all this, a middle-aged woman was minding her business, making photocopies at one of the self-serve copiers. The girl abruptly turned to this woman. “Excuse me, are you married to a man or a woman?”

The woman took pause and said, “Well, I’m not married, but if I were married I’d be married to a man.”

“You could date a girl if you wanted! Do you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend?”

“Uh. I’m currently single.”

The mother, totally ignoring the middle-aged woman, turns to her daughter and takes a gently pedantic sweetheart–what-do-you-say-when-someone-gives-you-a-slice-of-pie tone. “Now, a person can marry a man or a woman, but they might not be equally happy with both choices. Most people would prefer either one or the other! You see, this woman would prefer to marry a man.”

When I was in middle school, I remember teachers would sometimes tell students (usually if they were misbehaving): “I’m going to give you a dime, and I want you to call me and tell me in ten years what you are doing.”

UPS STORE #2

I got a job at another UPS Store. I saw a sign in the door and two weeks later I was full time. The wage was much nicer, for the class of work. The store didn’t smell like mildew either, and had lots of natural lighting.

My boss at the second UPS Store is basically richer than God. A Pakistani who was educated in Canada and the Philippines, he ran a convenience store in Medford for about twenty years, becoming a local institution and amassing wealth he, to my knowledge, never spent on anything except the occasional lavish party and a nice house he doesn’t spend very much time in. He retired, but found retirement directionless. He promptly bought a UPS Store franchise, bought another convenience store that a relative of his manages, and is currently in the process of selecting another franchise to open in the next year or so (top contenders include but are not limited to Rising Roll, Moe’s Southwestern Grill, and Beef O’Brady’s). At the UPS Store he works every shift, open to close, seven days a week. When people call on the phone and ask if they need to make an appointment to have something notarized, I tell them that the notary is always in and no appointment is necessary.

To celebrate the second anniversary of his opening the store, he threw a dinner party in the restaurant of the Hyatt Regency, a pyramidal hotel on the Charles River. He is extremely gregarious, and on most days he literally doubles over in hysterical laughter, usually over things that don’t make very much sense. The vast majority of people who come to the store have come before, and he never forgets a customer. There are a lot of regulars. I was under the impression that he was basically extending an open invitation, because he seemed to invite every second person who walked into the store, some of whom he didn’t usually seem over-friendly with, and, when he ran the convenience store in Medford, he apparently threw parties with hundreds of people in attendance.

One of the regulars is the owner of an independent video rental place a couple stores down. He comes in to make color photocopies of DVD covers. He reminds me of my father in certain was: he is in early middle age and has a cheery, generous conviviality. The convenience store my boss at UPS owns has a never-ending saga involving the slurpee machine. The convenience store had a slurpee machine, but the machine couldn’t legally be operated until a very special sink was installed. These types of sinks cost several thousand dollars and don’t have any real function—apparently my boss was trying to fight city hall about it. A running joke between my boss and the video store guy involved slurpees. “When am I going to get one of those slurpees?” the video store guy asks. “You know, what you guys need is a slurpee machine in here. Right here, by the copier. You’d make a killing, I promise.” My boss would double over, one hand on the counter. “Hey!” the video store guy would say, pronouncing it the exact same way my father would if he were making the same kind of joke. “Where’s my slurpee?”

I assumed this video store individual had been invited to the second anniversary dinner, so when he came in one day, about a week before the dinner, I said, “Hey, are you coming to the boss’s party?” and he said, “What party?” I said, “Uhhh. Oh.”

My boss was sorting mail in the back, and he walked in to the front, behind the counter, because he heard someone come in. I turned to him and said, “I was just talking about the party…”

My boss shook his head, and I became opaque. This is something I see people do, but I have almost never done as an adult: consciously and publicly remove myself from a social situation while still being physically present. It’s like being the polite silent third person in a conversation, only with no desire to join in. This is something I ought to have learned how to do years ago. It would have saved me a lot of senseless grief. I’m usually too empathetic. Even if I can’t do anything when things go south, I’m still casting about nervously, trying to be helpful. When couples argued, I’d butt in and try to force a reconciliation, not realizing that easy reconciliation wasn’t what they wanted. Either that or I’d become visibly anxious, making plans to make things work. Going opaque is something I see girls do when their boyfriend is speaking for them—when he flags down the waitress and points to his date’s overcooked steak, the date sits with this dissociated, drugged look on her face. If the waitress were dense enough to address her directly, the girlfriend wouldn’t say anything at all, though she might shift in her chair or slink her shoulders a bit. My boss shook his head and I dissociated, jabbing my left index finger at the POS system.

My boss turned to the video store guy. “Oh, you’re so busy. You wouldn’t like it. Really, you’re so busy.”

He was clearly confused. “Well, I mean. I’m not that busy.”

“Oh, you’re so, so busy. You wouldn’t enjoy it anyway.”

Five minutes later, when the door closed, I turned to my boss and said, “I’m so, so sorry.”

“No no. Don’t worry about it.” So I didn’t, thought I turned it over in my head, trying to understand it. He later explained that he didn’t want the video store guy to come because he was full of bullshit, and my boss had no desire or obligation to invite him. He was honest about it, and that was that: I had apparently done absolutely nothing wrong.

Later I pieced the story together. My boss had asked the video store guy to hold onto a copy of The Town, a new release at the time, so that he (my boss) could rent it. The video store guy said he would, but didn’t for whatever reason follow through. After waiting a few days, my boss sent a regular he’s friendly with to go rent it for him. When she came back with the video, he realized then and there that the video store guy was full of bullshit: good for a few laughs when he came in, but not worthy of an invitation to the dinner.

The dinner was very nice. I brought my friend Sara, and everyone assumed we were married. I drank maybe five gin and tonics. I ordered a creme brulee for desert, and when it came out it had a candle on it and everyone sang me happy birthday. I was shocked–my birthday is something I usually conceal, and very rarely does someone (let alone a boss) do something for me because of it.

Afterward Sara commented, “Your reaction seemed disproportionately grateful.”

SOMERVILLE: LIBERAL UTOPIA (2)

I had a job interview for a administrative position at a university, so I was dressed in what at the time were my nicest clothes. When I came home I changed out of my slacks and into a pair of grey jeans, but otherwise I stayed dressed up for the rest of the day, adding a peacoat when I walked my friend Albert back to the T. We’d spent the evening cooking a big greasy meal and then watching a bit of a movie while he flirted (aggressively) with my roommate.

Once Albert was gone and I was alone with my thoughts, instead of heading back up the hill to my place I trudged down the street toward a grocery store from which I had no intention of  buying anything. Very rarely am I in a state where I’m so dissociated that I don’t know what’s going on around me. Sometimes, when you ask someone a question, they don’t answer it, because they choose not to make the mental effort to process what you said. I’m usually not like that. When I began crossing the intersection, the light definitely indicated walk.

A woman biking past, just as she turned the corner, said, “Could you walk any slower?”

Though I don’t remember much else, I do remember that I stereotyped her instantly: ratty shoes, fashionable scarf, mid-twenties, white, short hair, probably college-educated, probably tattoos, a bike that was stylish but sensible. I could imagine her at a party: guys like her, histrionic when making a point, generous with cigarettes, funny and cultured, thinks the fact that boys are taught from a young age to hide their emotions is profoundly sad. This might not all be true, but everything comportment pointed toward it. I’ve realized more and more that you can judge books by covers–that’s, after all, what covers are for. Her way of saying it: sassy, totally unshaken in the belief that she was in the right to say it. Even now, months later, I wish I could have her in front of me, so I could put my finger in her face and tell her, “You have no idea what an unforgivable bitch you were that night when you biked past me,” though I know for a fact that I would get no satisfaction from saying that–that I’d probably, actually, get more satisfaction from having the chance to say it but never saying it.

It’s strange, because these things must happen all the time. If everything goes according to plan, it will happen to me three more times, maybe within the next five years. It happened to people at Rice—a lot of them, I’m sure, and they kept it mainly private, and carried on. And I guess I kept it private myself. Either way, it is a lot sunnier in Houston than it is in Boston.

WHAT A SAINT

I stayed for a week in Brooklyn recently with my friend Sara. She is (among other things) working as an intern for a business improvement district in Flatbush. As the BID was having a graffiti clean-up the Saturday I was there, I had to go along. I scraped wheat-pasted posters off the outside of a Walgreens with a putty knife and painted over graffiti on a bridal shop’s storefront rolling gate. The next day I would tell mutual friends at a biergarten that Sara and I had done a beautification project with the Brooklyn Gentrification Taskforce, which annoyed Sara. After the clean-up Sara and I went to Coney Island. We napped on a vintage flat sheet, each taking turns holding the beach umbrella in place (it flew away once). I was sure my feet would burn, but they didn’t. Afterward we went to the arcade and played skeeball. Then photobooth photos, and the long train ride home.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Today, for instance. I woke up and biked home and sat around in my bed feeling anxious for ten minutes. I chatted with my roommate and took a shower. I went to Starbucks and researched the foreclosure industry (I got a new job about  month ago). I watched impassively as the Dow Jones dropped and I googled “double-dip recession,” which I think should be renamed the herpes recession. I went to Chipotle for lunch, and I put so much salt and lemon juice on my nachos that my tongue turned red and started breaking out, which usually only happens when I pig out on sour-chemical candies. I left my Mr. Pibb on the counter when I went to use the restroom, and in the time it took me to grin (left, right) in the mirror, pick at my teeth, and wash my hands, an employee had disposed of my drink, though I had hidden it behind the napkin station.

I walked a bit in the sun with my red windbreaker on and went to Goodwill. Went back to Starbucks. Used the “treat receipt” coupon, which seems to piss the baristas off whenever I do it, though I’m not sure why. Worked some more. Came home exhausted for no good reason and napped for two hours. Picked up Goodbye Columbus again. It isn’t a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but a nice quick read nonetheless. I put my contacts back in and put some stuff in my hair and went for a bike ride by the Charles River. Down, down, down the trail to Boston, and then back again, past the black river with is blurry reflections and lapping wakes. I went to Shaw’s and got the fruit that had the Shaw’s Card discount. I biked home with the plastic bag in one hand. By the light of the bulb above the stove I ate a quarter of a watermelon and a white nectarine, which was almost completely flavorless. I also ate some sardines and rye toast with cream cheese on it. I washed the dishes by hand, as our apartment doesn’t have a dish-washing machine. Now I’m getting around to publishing this blog.

Jealous?