September 2000

Maybe we should change the name of the company to Relex Cod.

I opened the mailbox, and there was one piece of mail. It wasn’t addressed to me. No biggie, I figure. I never got much mail and a lot of the time it wasn’t for me.

I walk up the stairs. I see my door closed, but not completely shut. I figured my landlord or one of his lackeys had been there and not locked the door behind him. That’s really inconsiderate. I mean, I had fairly valuable stuff in there.

I push open the door, and the place is furnished. Some guy putting away things in a closet looks at me.

“Uh, hi.”
“Hi. Uhm, I used to live here.”
“Okay.”
“How long have you been living here?”
“Bout a week.”
“Okay. Was there any stuff here when you moved in?”
“Not a thing.”
“Funny. I paid up through the end of September. My bed was here.”

Context: I was supposed to be out of the apartment on the 30th on September. There were people living there something around the 23rd of September. There were zero items there, when there should have been a bed with mattress and box spring, a rocking chair, two wood-frame chairs, a coffee table, a night-stand, and some miscellaneous things (like laundry detergent). What The Fuck.

So I chat with them a little longer, supressing my rage and explaining the situation to them. After I headed home, I try calling my landlord. It’s a Saturday, but hey, I’ll give it a whirl, I have no fucking bed. No answer.

As I see it, he owes me a months rent, and he stole my furniture, which he needs to either return or pay up nice and good. One of those chairs was a chair that my mother used to rock me to sleep in when I was a baby. I’d like that back.

Monday, I call that pigfucker Pat Rao. Depending on the outcome of that, I call a lawyer.

As I was crossing the bridge over Cambridge Street from the Charles/MGH T stop, I saw a guy lying in a pool of blood in the middle of David G. Mugar way, which is a little, very inactive street that comes off at the corner of Cambridge and Charles Streets. A guy who had just called the police a few moments earlier mentioned it to me. Apparently two guys had knocked him down and here kicking him in the body and head while he was down. As we got closer, he asked the guy if he was okay, saw the blood, and began vomiting. Great. As I stood on the corner looking to flag down the police cruiser or ambulance, the guy came to. It took nearly 30 minutes for an ambulance to show up.

It’s probably worth noting that we were almost literally ACROSS THE STREET from Mass. General Hospital.

I have nothing clever or amusing to say about this.

Speaking of which, those assholes at U-Haul didn’t call me back after saying they would. I should go with one of their competitors, except that I don’t think any of their competitors have vans. Either way, the clock is ticking for me moving my shit from my old place.

Oh yeah, you heard right. My uncle Buddy rented a van-bus and a driver and took the family to Boston. They made a few important stops at the liquor store and went to a strip club called Cabaret. Most of lunch and the ride to Gloucester they were arguing over who was the best, Number One or Number Two.

When one of the dancers was, uh, shaking her stuff for my cousin John, he introduced her to his mother, father, and brother. She was a little weirded out. Apparently they don’t get many family picnics there. How odd.