I rarely watch the Celtics these days. There’s just too much individual showboating.  I really loved the game of basketball back in the Bird-Parish-McHale days. It was just amazing to watch that team pass the ball. I also loved the Boston Garden with all its warts. The atmosphere was really electric every night because of all the history there. I really dislike the Fleet Center. The eighties Celtics decade really represented one of best times of my life. My Celtics cohort (and niece’s husband), Sergei, and I had our priorities. First and foremost, our goal was t0 get to as many games as possible. We did that by buying packs of obstructed view seats for $10, particularly during playoff time, then we’d figure out a good place to see the game from once we got in. I also had an alternative source of tickets.

At the time, I was in charge of a $7 million marketing communications budget and handled a lot of outgoing contract work. I had become really good friends with the sales manager at Multiprint in Boston, a guy named Peter, and his wife. Not only did he and I go to lunch together, but I’d go to his house for dinner once in a while. Peter was a really fun guy to go to lunch with, to say the least. It was like open bar at a freakin’ wedding. There were a couple of days I didn’t make it back to the office. But the best thing was that Multiprint had unbelievable first balcony Celtics seats at dead center and I got them all the time. Peter used to tell me that the owner at Multiprint used to say, “Give them to Deb. She really appreciates them. The other people don’t even know what’s going on during the game.”

Needless to say, it wasn’t uncommon for Sergei to call my niece, Maria, and say, “Hey, I’ll have to come over after the game. Deb got us tickets.” Yeah, I could feel the pain in my back as she stabbed that voodoo doll I brought her back from New Orleans. The absolute worst thing Sergei and I ever did to Maria happened in 1986, the year the Celts won their final championship of the Bird era.

Will you marry me? (But not right now.)

One day, Sergei and I went to a game and he pulled this ring box out of his jacket pocket. “Hey, I’m going to ask Ria to marry me.” I just looked at him. “You can’t do that now. We’re heading in to the playoffs this week. It’ll be an incredible distraction and I have a ton of seats coming from Multiprint.” He looked at me. “You’re right. I’ll wait until after the playoffs. It’s not like she knows.” We thought that was a brilliant master plan.

Anyway, that was a great Celtics year and a great Celtics team with Bill Walton as the back-up center. If he hadn’t been there, no championship. (How can you go wrong? The guy’s also a Dead Head.)  And Larry Bird is just my all-time favorite athlete, hands down. The guy has class. He was an incredible leader with an amazing talent, and he played the game with passion and to win…whatever it took, even if it meant sacrificing his own stats. That doesn’t happen today. Best of all, when he retired, he really retired. He was done. He didn’t torture the planet with a bunch of absurd “come backs.” Bird was just plain finished.

Anyway, Sergei and I embarked on our excellent championship adventure. When we couldn’t get tickets, we’d go to the Town Line (affectionately called The Town Slime by us) in Malden to watch the games on the big screen TVs (and to get trashed on vodka). My mother would be mortified because it would be me, Sergei and then all of Sergei’s brothers. And she knew we’d be yelling rude stuff at the refs when they called fouls against the Celtics. Hey, at least the stuff we yelled wasn’t as bad as what the guy next to us in the Multiprint seats always yelled. Whenever Jake O’Donnell (our least favorite ref; we were convinced he hated the Celts) blew a foul on a Celtic, the guy next to us would yell, “Hey, Jake, the whistle blows. Does your wife?” I think it was really nasty, but I also admit that the first time I heard it I turned to Sergei and said, “What a great line. How come I can’t think up that stuff?” His response? “Because you’re a lesbian.” (That was always his explanation.)

Anyone remember a guy named Mark Aguirre who played for the Dallas Mavericks? He was a pain in the ass. There were times when he could just turn it on and kill us during a game. One night, he was whistled for a technical foul. It was really quiet in the building, when Sergei yelled, “What did Yoda say?” Know what, the guy really did look like Yoda. I just hadn’t realized it until Sergei yelled it out. The whole section started laughing.

Sergei finally did propose to Maria and, in a fit of passion no doubt, confessed that he had been holding off because of the playoffs. Not only did he confess, but he told Ria that I instigated the whole thing. Benedict Arnold. She called me up one day and left me a message, “You are such a jerk.” Hey, at least she was laughing. She’s never let me live that one down more than twenty years later, and I never let him forget that he threw me under the freakin’ bus.

The plot thickens

The following year, the Celts were in the playoffs again and, unfortunately, Maria would yet again be a victim. My sister decided to have her shower at a restaurant down the street from the house. They scheduled it the day the Celts were supposed to play the Atlanta Hawks, and it was a final and deciding game. Sergei owned this one. He brought a television to the shower. Hey, I was eternally grateful, but this seemed to me to be a big risk after the engagement delay.

Worst of all, it was the day when Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins went on that amazing scoring bender, matching each other point for point.Everybody at the shower was mesmerized by the shoot out, which meant that nobody was really paying attention to what was going on in that room. Wilkins finally scored 56 and Bird 53. The win, however, went to the Celts. Ah, but now not only was Maria pissed, so was her mother (also known as my oldest sister). And they were pissed at both of us because they were convinced, somehow, that I had instigated this whole television thing. Me?

Seriously, though, we were so bad. I look back now and I’m surprised Maria even speaks to either of us.

You know, most of my friends consider me “gay from the womb.” I’d have to agree with them. The old saying ‘women need men like fish need bicycles’ would be accurate for me. I’ve got to be the oldest person in America who has never been with a man in the biblical sense, and I like it that way. Thank you. And here’s the answer to the next obvious question: No. I do not need to have been with a man in the biblical sense first to find out if I’m gay.

I do not want to give the impression that I don’t like men, however. There’s more to men than sex. I’ve always had a lot of male friends — in fact, more male friends than women over the years.

However, there were many tell-tale signs that I was a lesbian from a very young age. Oh, yes, I believe that these things can be deduced if you look for the right signs. Here were some of mine:

- I cannot remember how old I was, but I know my dad was still alive so I had to be younger than nine. I got a lifelike doll for Christmas. It was like the giant Barbies that were flooding the stores when my daughter, Thalia, was about five or six. I was one of the first kids to have it in my neighborhood. However, by the end of the day, the damned thing was buck naked and being shot off my rocking horse with a dart gun. A sure sign.

- Playing “doctor” is a normal thing, but I was playing doctor with all the little girls in the neighborhood. Another sure sign.

- The only guy I ever ‘dated’ (it was a dance, by the way) while in grammar school was a big fag, and I was comfortable with the fact that this particular relationship was going nowhere. I suspect the same was true for him.

- I did go to the high school prom…with a gay guy. It was a blast. We made our little appearance at the prom, then headed for a gay bar. I’m not sure how we even got into a gay bar, but I do know that my escort was older than us (I was only seventeen). I suspect he got us in. Can’t argue with that tell-tale sign, can you?

Of course, when I was very young I really didn’t know what to call it. I did, however, know that something was different about me. Oh, like, instead of coveting other girls’ guys, I was coveting the guys’ girls. See how that works? That’s different. And I ‘m not going to say that I never ‘worried’ about it. I did. It’s tough to be different, a fact not lost on my own daughter even today. While she’s not a lesbian that I know of (she may be someday, who knows?), she is also not anything like the other girls her age.

However, by the time I was onto my next educational adventure (an all-girls school) I was over all that worry. There’s not much you can do but go with the flow. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: It isn’t a lifestyle, people. It’s what it is.

This is one for the books. It will show the folly of youth, and the incredible greed in which students engage just to have party money. More dough means more trips to the “packie” as we used to say. (Or, of course, two bags of Jamaican in those days.)

So, I graduated from Aquinas and it’s 1973. For lack of anything else to do, I enrolled at Bunker Hill Community College. I don’t even remember what I took, probably liberal arts because I was teetering between art and writing. [Of course, I ended up at Aquinas to begin with because my mother spent many days and nights trying to convince me that there was no future in either.] Anyway, this little Charlestown adventure — to a school where the most fun we had was throwing rocks at the water rats and then slamming the door shut before they went for your throat — lasted one year. In 1974, I’d join Millipore Corporation. That’s for later. That’ll give us 23 years of stories.

So, we’re sitting in the cafeteria at Bunker Hill on an unbelievably snowy day. It was really coming down. The drive had been treacherous. Then, after we spent all morning getting there, they decided to send us all home. Idiots. We were talking about the new movie, The Exorcist, when somebody asked for a volunteer to go see the movie alone. We all asked what was in it for us. The response was too good to resist. The ones who didn’t go to the movie would pool their money and give the volunteer $50. The volunteer would have to bring back the ticket stub. I took it. Little did I know that — this one event — would bring home to me just how incredibly powerful my Catholic education and brainwashing had been.

I drove in a raging storm into Boston. It was windy, the snow was piling up quickly and it was freezing. I was really happy to get inside the Music Hall parking garage. Back in those days, and in that weather, the investment was worth the payoff. I went inside and bought a ticket, carefully putting the stub inside my back pocket after going past the attendant. I was literally alone inside the theater. There were maybe 3 other people. That only made it worse. Here’s where I came out:

I was completely freaked out, scared to shit. You know, I read the book and it was bad enough, but seeing it on the big screen was horrifying. It was scary and outstanding, right down to the music. I know that the movie kind of destroyed Linda Blair’s career before it even got started, but she was brilliant in that movie. Actually, they all were, but she really stood out. She had so many ways of scaring the shit out of you: The flopping around on the bed so completely out of control; the levitating; the evil shit she said; the impression that she even smelled bad; and the bile colored puke were just too much for me. Those individual scenes were some of the most frightening I’ve seen on the big screen, and I’m a big horror fan. But it was the overwhelming reality that she was so completely in the control of someone or something so evil was the most frightening part of the movie. She wasn’t even a bad kid. She was benign. She did not invite Satan in. Even the image of Satan that they use inthe movie is exactly as I had envisioned him all of my young life.

I lived in Melrose at the time, right next to some railroad tracks. It was on the commuter line and the stop was called Melrose Cedar Park. I did a pretty good job after the movie telling myself it was just a movie. I went to bed normally that night, at about 10 p.m. because I had school the next morning and wanted to cash in — especially since I had psychologically screwed myself by going to that foolish movie. It was fine until about 11:30 p.m. when the first train went through…and my bed shook, as it always had. Of course, after The Exorcist, that shaking was a bit tainted. I sat bolt upright after coming out of a dead sleep and was terrified that my bed was shaking. I immediately jumped out of bed and turned on the light. After that, I slept with the light on for nearly four months. And I certainly did not go back to bed that evening. I turned every light in the apartment on, made myself coffee and watched television until I had to leave for school the next morning.

To this day, I can’t even bring the movie into my house. I tried renting it about four years ago and ended up leaving it in the trunk. I was convinced the next morning that I was going to be possessed as soon as I sat in the driver’s seat. I dropped it back into the drop off box on the way to work. Totally irrational, I know. But the nuns had me for fourteen years at that point and they scared the shit out of me. The worst thing was that they made you as afraid of God as they did Satan. That really sucks. No solace anywhere.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. The little girl, Reagan, was using a Ouija Board at the beginning of the movie, and that’s when all the problems start. My Ouija Board went out in the trash the next morning…after I bent and broke it into pieces. I had that thing for years until that movie. Permanently scarred, I tell you.

Anybody remember that old SNL skit with John Belushi and Bill Murray about the the friends that overstayed their welcome? It was actually called “The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave,” and John Belushi was the flagrant friend. It was hysterical. Well, it actually happened to me back during the eighties. To make matters worse, I was also in the middle of one of those very bad long-term relationships we lesbians sometimes get ourselves into. Her name is Miss Headcase to you.

I had a friend named Margo that became good friends with Miss Headcase and I. Margo and I worked together. She was a product manager and I was the marketing services manager responsible for her product’s promotion program. I shit you not that every single problem this girl ever had was a result of the slug she called her boyfriend. This guy was a dirtbag. In fact, we’ll call him Mr. Dirtbag. It doesn’t get any more accurate than that.

He basically lived off Margo. This guy simply didn’t work and it wasn’t because he couldn’t work. He was a drunk and a coke head who had already spent time in The Tombs of New York. The problem was that he was as engaging as hell and you could really have a great time with him. What money he did end up with, he was generous with. In other words, he was hard to dislike.

One time I suggested that we all go up to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center to see Emmylou Harris. She is one of the few country performers I really dig and it’s because she pushes the envelope like few have before her. I got hooked and then got them hooked. They thought it was a great idea. We drove up in separate cars the night before and stayed at a place called the 1811 House in Vermont. I know the place is still there and I also know it has changed hands since then. I remember the suite that Margo and Mr. Dirtbag rented. It had a spiral staircase up to the bedroom, and a fireplace in the living area.

Mr. Dirtbag was in rare form that night. The coke was everywhere and the party went until the wee hours of the morning. We had a blast. I remember thinking it was a damned good thing that the concert was not until the following night. We needed time to recover because we had to go from Manchester, Vermont to Saratoga, New York for the show.

However, time had passed for Margo since that fun event. The times were interspersed with too many days and nights of living with Mr. Dirtbag’s antics. Sometimes he would go on benders and disappear for days. Other times, she couldn’t get rid of him. She decided that she’d not be there when he returned from New York this time. That’s when she asked if she could stay with us for a few days while she found another place to live. Of course, Mrs. Headcase and I thought it was a good idea for her to get out and we readily agreed.

Here’s the problem: The days turned into weeks and months of camping out on our sofa. She turned the living room into a bedroom. It looked like a bomb hit it every day. If that wasn’t enough, Tommy was trying to hunt her down. He only had a cell phone number and did not know where she was…yet. However, by now, her apartment was gone and she had no apartment to move to.

As time passed , Miss Headcase decided this was my fault. You know how that works, it’s the old guilt by association thing. Margo just happened to be my friend before she was our friend. Get it? The added tension wasn’t helping my own relationship much.

The only saving grace was that Margo had periods of extended travel. I was in the middle of such a break and it was mid-week, so I decided to knock off work early and take the next day off. When I walked in my apartment door about an hour later, Mr. Dirtbag was sitting in the middle of my living room with none other than Margo, who had finished up her trip a bit early.  So much for peace and quiet. And so much for peace, love and understanding.

I was working on my final exposed nerve. All I needed to see every damned day was Mr. Dirtbag lazing around my apartment NOT WORKING and getting fucked up all day. I mean, I certainly was a party animal, but there was a time and a place for everything. “We’ll be out by Friday,” was all she said. My reply was simple. “No. You will be out by Thursday, which is tomorrow.” I remember vividly what I said next, “Hotel Della Piana is now closed.”

That was it. I didn’t see them for the rest of the day, and they went out for dinner that night. We didn’t hear them come in, but I know for sure their stuff was still there when I went to bed. Miss Headcase and I slept a bit later the next morning because I took the day off. By the time we got up, the living room was empty. They were gone. Just like that, after weeks and months of tension, it was over and done with.

There was still the little matter of working together. Was it uncomfortable? Oh, yeah, in the beginning it definitely was. Time took care of that though. It eventually settled back down into a friendship of sorts, although not like the one before she camped out at Hotel Della Piana. In a year, she was gone from the Company. She came from the New Jersey shore and I hear she got a job that allowed her to return there.

Several years later, I’d run into Margo again. But that’s a different story for a different day.

I had almost forgotten this. However, this morning I was tripping through my photo folders and I came upon this gem of a photo. It’s actually a photo of my roommate, Steve, in the Boston Globe holding a sign reading, “Anita Hitler preaches hate no matter if you’re gay or straight!” It was the day after the Gay Pride Parade in Boston. I’ll be honest with you, I can’t remember the year. However, I remember thinking that I hoped my mother didn’t choose that particular Sunday to read the paper.

To this day, I’m still not sure if she knew I was gay. I mean, she had to have known. By the time she died, the last date I had (as far as she knew) was my senior prom. (He was gay too. That’s another wild story for another day.) She used to refer to me as a “career girl,” who didn’t have time for marriage. Well, she was right about that part anyway.

Of course, years earlier she went snooping around my room, looking in my drawers, stuff like that. Well, you know, if you go looking for stuff to make your hair fall out, you’ll find it. And she did. She found a couple of letters my best friend had written me. We’ll call her Linda. We had quite the thing going on, and it went on for a while. We were just in high school, and I was a couple of years ahead of her. We lived on the same street, which made it easy. Anyway, finding those letters freaked my mother out. I mean, big time. She lost her mind. One thing about Italian mothers, they love the guilt thing. It was the hand-wringing “Oh, my God, where did I go wrong?” Oh, yeah.

Unfortunately, I don’t do guilt. Not good for you. All I had to remember was that after a day or so, all I had to do was treat this like it was some kind of opportunistic infection. It was a mistake that won’t be repeated. She liked that. It was exactly what she wanted to hear. I was 37 when she died, and we never talked about the ‘gay’ thing again, even though it wasn’t going away and I did it plenty more over the years!

Anyway, on that day, I believed we started out on Boston Common after the March and made our way to the bars that evening…all evening. Ah, yes, Boston’s gay bars. There was nothing like them in those days and there’s absolutely nothing like them around today. Plenty of those stories to come.

The other night we had a friend from my old corporate servitude days over for dinner. I’ve already confessed to having a Facebook account and I just randomly began typing names in one day. Bella’s name popped up and I was equally as excited to find that she lives one town over in Newburyport. To put it mildly, we had a blast. We shared stories about where we worked together that neither of us told each other about in the past.

The other aspect that was great is that our career paths since our corporate days aren’t that different. I was almost embarrassed to tell her I’ve been shucking coffee to the entitled masses for the last four years until I found out she was a cashier at Whole Foods for six years. Life is great, isn’t it? Where else but in America can you be the absolute best at what you do and end up kissing retail butt? It’s the new American dream…sort of like a reverse mortgage in drag.  Today she’s designing  jewelry and taking her stuff on the road to shows, and I’m trying to make money writing.

Anyway, we had a person in common when we worked together that I can best call certifiable. In the corporate battle of the wills between Bella and someone I’ll call Mr. Anal, Bella got the short end of the stick.  He was the problem. Not her. However, even I didn’t know how whacked he was until I had gotten fired and started using him as a freelance designer for my business.

To call this guy anal retentive would be mild. We’d miss every freakin’ deadline because he would bounce around between ideas for so long. Then, when you got the material from him, there were the inherent errors. Typos. Bad line breaks. Missing punctuation. You name it. Things that should never have happened. Sloppy. He was just plain sloppy and it drove me fucking crazy because it invariably created more delays in delivering the product. It was then that I began to realize what Bella had been up against.

The long and short of it is that this guy was obsessed with colonics and his internal piping. He was (and I hear he still is) a whack job. His wife, however, Mrs. Shrew, really wore the pants in his family. She pushed this guy around like he was a pile of trash and she was a broom. Since my Beth always calls me Freud, let me exercise my pathetically appointed psychological knowledge: Mr. Anal was obsessed with his internal piping because he felt like a pile of shit most of the time. I mean, you could almost feel like he was the worst person on the planet…until you spent more than an hour with he and Mrs. Shrew together. There would be no taming of this shrew.

Anyway, it came to the point where my business was falling apart and, believe me, I owed a lot of money. He was one of the people I owed. I mean, when I say I lost everything, I’m talking a homeless type of everything. I’m not ready to talk about that today, so don’t hold your breath. The long and short of it is, in spite of this fact, he dogged me to the point where he paid to have me arrested. You know, aside from torturing someone who did something unintentionally, there was no purpose to that. But then again, I annoyed the crazy person.

Standard coward’s disclaimer: With the exception of Beth (my wife) and myself, none of the names here are real. I’m not going to do that unless people feel comfortable enough to be named. And, as you will be able to deduce, some given names mean something while others do not. There’s no real reason for using the name Bella. It was just top of mind. There is, however, a reason for using Mr. Anal and Mrs. Shrew.