I guess if I were giving these flashback posts titles, I’d call this one “Oh, to be  young and just plain fucking dumb.” That would be the title. I have been in the workforce for a long time. In fact, I lied about my age so that I could work at Woolworth’s in Medford Square. I was fifteen and I told the manager I was 16. My mother was working there too, and she was pissed I did it, but as we found out when she died, she was in no position to give me shit about the age thing. It took us forever to figure out how old she really was after she died in 1992 because she had lied about it in so many places it wasn’t funny. Know why? She just plain didn’t want to be forced into retirement.

Anyway, the manager, a guy named Mr. Clark, wasn’t much for detail. Neither was his assistant, Mr. Benson. Neither of them asked me for a birth certificate, probably because they figured my mother was working there and wouldn’t let me work if I wasn’t 16. They loved my mother, but they didn’t know my mother. I did. What I knew about her was that she knew that, once I had something in my head, I was going to figure out a way to do it one way or another. If it wasn’t Woolworth’s, I would simply try it in as many places as I could until it worked. There were plenty of retail establishments around at that time. In fact, Strawberries was right near my house. I had applied there too.

Anyway, I’m not beyond living on the edge even now. (But I have to tell you that I’m just good at doing it. I think it through first. Plan. I have to. I’m married to a real crazy.) But back then, I really loved living on the edge. Totally. The whole gay thing was a head rush to me. I mean I knew I was gay by this time, but it was like some surreal thing floating around out there. I wasn’t sure how to connect it with real life. It was an alternative universe. When I look back at that now, it’s because things were so different then than they are today. From a societal perspective, it’s much easier today. Back then, it was tough. So, you tended to compartmentalize your life: (a) The normal part; (b) The gay part.

And this is how I would discern who would and would not have problems with part (b). Did they make crass gay jokes? Did they use the word ‘faggot’ or ‘dyke’ in a derogatory way. (Those terms are loaded, even though some gay people use them. They don’t mean the same when we use them as when ‘they’ use them.) Did they use the word ‘homo’? I have always hated that word. If any of those symptoms were present, I did not tell those motherfuckers about part (b). But I digress.

So, back to Woolworths and living on the edge (and the gay thing, in fact). I got hired at Woolworth’s. No problem. I was now working with my mother. And boy, did I give her a hard time. I used to piss her off on Saturday mornings because I had balloon duty. I used to have to fill the helium balloons. Pretty soon, it got to be some for the balloon, some for me. And it wasn’t that I got high on it. Hell no, it just made me sound like something out of the fucking Wizard of Oz. It was a blast talking to customers sounding like a munchkin.

What invariably would happen is that my mother would find a good product display (preferably a clothes rack) close to where I was, and then she’d get my attention and mouth to me, “I’m going to kill you when I get you home.”  See. That’s what happens after your dad dies. “Wait until I tell your dad” magically morphs into “I’m going to kill you when I get you home.”  Then, she’d try to appeal to my chickenshit side. “Don’t you know doing that can kill you?” I was not worried about such things at that time.

Just ever so absurdly pushing the envelope

Almost three years later my mother and I were still working at Woolworth’s. By then, I was pretty much ‘out.’ When my girlfriend turned sixteen, I told her to come in and apply for a job. The thing was, she really was my girlfriend. It’s just that nobody knew it except she and I. (Definitely not my mother.)  As messed up as this might sound (even to me all these years later), she and I were together for almost two years. Anyway, she got the job. Talking about complicating your life just a bit.

You know, this post is a testament to the stupidity of youth. For all intents and purposes, this girl (her name was Linda) and I were in a real relationship. It was emotional and it was physical. And there were definitely times when we were arguing or disagreeing. Trying to work those days with both she and my mother around were merciless. I almost immediately began to ask myself, “WTF were you thinking, Deborah?????” On the flip side, when things were going well and we could find ways to flirt with each other, it was exhilarating. You know, like everything else in life. Yin and Yan.

Ah, but as all things go when you’re young, my first relationship was about to crash and burn. Luckily, I had moved on to other things before it did, and she would move on soon after, leaving my mother at peace once again. Poor thing.

One night (after we’d moved in together but prior to our commitment ceremony), Beth and I went to dinner at my sister Mamie’s house after work before heading home to Gloucester. It was a great night and dinner was delicious. On the way home, Beth spoke to her mother on the cell phone. At the time, I didn’t have an idea about what the conversation was about. Frankly, I wasn’t paying attention. However, Beth seemed disturbed by it. I wasn’t surprised by this in the least because I knew there was basically a love-hate thing going on.

When we got home, she talked to her mother again. Not long after that, Beth became ill with vomiting and diarrhea. I really didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t my sister’s cooking. That much I was sure about. Beth really didn’t know what it was about either. After a few hours, it passed, and we assumed it was a stomach bug. A couple of people at work had been sick, so we assumed it was a question of spreading the wealth around. Beth was exhausted and went to sleep. The next morning, she didn’t feel great. She was tired from the night before, but the nausea had definitely passed.

A few weeks passed, and life went back to normal. We didn’t give a thought to that night. We went to work, came home, struggled with the freezing cold Gloucester house, and moved on. Then, one night after dinner, it happened again. This time, however, Beth became ill and had the added symptom of chest pain. That’s usually the sign of only one thing — a heart problem or a heart attack. I immediately took her to the Addison-Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester. Because of her symptoms, there was no delay. They took her immediately. I was left in the waiting room alone to worry. Finally, the doctor — who looked like a troll — came out and shook my hand. He introduced himself and said, “I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t her heart.” I was relieved and, within an hour, Beth and I were on our way home.

Third time’s a charm

The third time was a charm. We were about to find out exactly what Beth’s problem was. We decided to go to Provincetown and stay at the Bradford Garden Inn. Originally we wanted to stay at Normandy House (now called Aerie House) and we wanted the top floor because we had stayed there before. It wasn’t available. Neither were any of the other places where we had previously stayed (alone and together). The Bradford Garden Inn had a vacancy and it sounded good. We would be staying across the street from the main house in a condo. That made us happy. We figured on privacy. We unpacked and put everything away. Then, about twenty minutes after we had arrived, a party started right outside our room in the courtyard. It was loud, and I mean it was literally just outside our room. You could pull up the shades and just look right at the party. Right there.

That set off whatever it was that Beth had. Sweating, chest pain and nausea. We immediately packed up everything we had just unpacked. We knew we had to leave, and I knew that I had to get Beth somewhere to be evaluated. She was adamant about not going to the Cape Cod hospitals, so we made a beeline for the Mass General Hospital. It was a really long ride, more than two hours, and it would have been longer had I not been speeding all the way home. There was a logic behind my speeding. I, of course, wanted to get Beth to the MGH. However, had we been caught speeding, I knew that at the very least Beth would end up somewhere getting some kind of medical attention in short order. She was close to a meltdown (and keep in mind that I still did not know whether all of this was physical or emotional), and I have no idea how she held on for that long a period of time.

We did indeed make it all the way to the MGH emergency room. By now Beth had already been rushed to the hospital twice, had had numerous tests, and was pretty much given a clean bill of physical health where these symptoms were concerned. She ended up seeing a psych resident named Dr. Baldasari who, as it turns out, was pretty sharp. We told her about the times she had previously been rushed to the hospital, and she met with Beth alone as well. She diagnosed these incidents as panic attacks. She gave Beth some klonopin and gave her names of two psychiatrists to call, one male and one female.

We had planned for a long weekend on the Cape. We had left on Thursday night but by the time we headed back to Gloucester it was the wee hours of Friday morning. I phoned both of these doctors on the ride home while Beth slept and left messages. The very next morning, before ten, one of the two doctors had returned the call. Dr. Baldasari had recommended Dr. Ann Emory, so we were glad it was she who returned the call. Beth sees Dr. Emory to this day.

The truth comes out

It did not take long for Dr. Emory to diagnose Beth with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) with resultant panic disorder. I knew several things about Beth from the beginning. First, she was honest about the fact that she had come to our first date fresh out of a bankruptcy hearing. That stuff doesn’t bother me. Never did. Second, I knew she was seeing a therapist because she had family issues, and those issues were fairly serious. She had been abused by her father from the age of about five to the time she left for school at Berklee at the age of about seventeen or eighteen. What I didn’t know was that this abuse had caused serious emotional problems for Beth at a very young age (pre-teen, in fact). She had also been hospitalized as a teenager because of a suicide attempt.

I’m often asked why I didn’t walk away. My response to those who have ever asked me that question is always the same, “Are you fucking kidding me?” Is it actually possible to just walk away from someone you love when the chips are down? I ask this question because I’ve never understood that mentality. Seventeen years later I can say with absolute certainty that, had the shoe been on the other foot, Beth would not have walked away either. When we met, Beth was in a pretty good place emotionally. She was coping with the issues. She was afraid to tell me about her past because she was afraid I wouldn’t stay with her, and Beth didn’t think it was necessary to tell me right away. I can understand that. I might have done the same thing out of fear and under the same circumstances.

Prior to these panic attacks, Beth had never had panic attacks. Not being particularly savvy about mental health issues, I decided I’d better ask questions and learn. So, I did. The first question I really needed an answer to about Beth’s manifestations was, “Why now when she was supposedly the happiest she’d ever been?” In other words, did it have something to do with me? Was it something I was doing that caused it? The answer was, “Yes.” What the relationship did was provide Beth a safe haven to let down. She had been on her own. Her mother was, for lack of a better word, useless to her. She had never taken care of Beth. She had always pushed Beth aside, particularly when the going got tough. On a personal level, I have no use for her mother because, for all those years, she knew Beth was being abused and left her in that situation. She had never been a real mother.

The only time Beth had her mother’s support was while she was at Berkeley, and that’s probably because she envisioned Beth as a “star” some day. When Beth’s issues kicked in and she realized that Beth was agoraphobic and would never perform in front of an audience, things changed. When Beth realized she was a lesbian and admitted it, things changed even more. The invites home for holidays stopped. In spite of that, Beth was on a never-ending quest to gain her mother’s approval. She still is all these years later.

Plans interrupted

Nothing that I learned about Beth dissuaded me from making a life together with her. By the time our commitment ceremony came in December of 1992, we were working our way through all of this. Beth was still in therapy with the woman she had been seeing in Cambridge. She had been medication-free for a bit, but now that she was back on medication, she was also seeing Dr. Emory. She had left her job at Blue Cross, but I had not seen that as the warning signal that it was. It was a signal that she was having difficulty dealing in the real world. I did not see it because I was not trained to see it. Beth has never returned to the work force.

We did not stop living because of this. Beth worked hard to keep on an even keel and live as normal a life as possible. It went in spurts and Beth was very unpredictable. Her moods ran the gamut from depressed to very angry. On top of all that, she was trying to control panic attacks. There were times when she was successful and could control them. When she was not successful (sometimes she can wake up in the morning in the middle of one), her panic attacks were (and still are) completely debilitating, replete with vomiting and diarrhea. Afterwards, it’s complete exahustion and sleep. It took quite a while to stabilize her. We took some trips together. We made a home together. However, there was one thing we absolutely put on hold until Beth was on more solid ground: Having a baby.

People always ask how Beth and I met. To be honest, there weren’t many avenues open back then except the bars and being introduced to potential dates/mates by friends. I had gone that route a couple of times with disasterous consequences. And by the time Beth and I met in 1992, the bar scene had seen its best days in Boston (unfortunately). The only place around was Club Cafe (still there) which is a combination restaurant and video dance bar. (To this day, Beth calls it Club Khaki.)

That was also before the days of Craigslist (where there are more certifiable whack jobs per byte than anything else) and Internet date sites that want you to pay a monthly fee to be tortured. So, the main avenue for meeting was a newspaper called Bay Windows, which is still New England’s largest GLBT newspaper. As it turns out, both Beth and I placed ads in the personals that week and, as fate would have it, we responded to each other’s ad. But it isn’t that simple, you see.

I had also met Miss Headcase through Bay Windows, so I was a bit gun shy, especially after having been single for a few years. I also had plans with a couple of friends to go to an Annie Liebowitz exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art the night Beth responded, so I told her I had plans and would contact her the next day. I had also been set up to go on a date through a gay dating service (which has now gone out of business). As it turns out, I was being set up with a woman at Staples who had the Millipore office supplies account. But there was something intriguing about Beth, and when I finally realized that we had responded to each other’s ad, I cancelled the fix up and decided to go for it with Beth. I remember calling her Bay Windows box and saying, “Listen, we just have to meet. It’s as simple as that.” I admit that I was trying to keep it casual. I was determined to not get immediately involved, especially after what I went through with Miss Headcase. Well, we see how that played out: We’re coming up on a seventeenth anniversary. We met on July 22, 1992. As you will see, however, we have a few anniversary celebrations in our relationship.

Before I go any further, however, there’s one other thing I should mention about Beth’s ad. Her ad was the “personal of the week” when I responded to it. At the time, however, I didn’t know it was because the newspaper had fucked up the type. Instead of it reading “Grown up lesbian,” it read “Ground up lesbian.” Now, I was feeling pretty ground up myself after Miss Headcase, and misery loves company. Why wouldn’t I want to meet the person who ran that ad?

Of course, we met at Club Cafe for dinner. I stopped at Winston’s Flowers on the way to the restaurant and bought her a single yellow rose. I knew immediately that it was Beth when she turned the corner and walked up the restaurant stairs. I can’t remember exactly how the night went from start to finish. I do know that we drank a bottle of Moet in the lounge before we even got to dinner. I also know that we laughed like hell over her ad. I knew right from that night that we’d be together, but that didn’t mean I was going to be easy about it. Beth didn’t stay that evening. Then, the first night she did stay, I wouldn’t allow her to take a shower there in the morning. That was really fucked up. I admit that. You know, that was like my last gasp before succumbing totally.

Not long after that, Beth and I were on the common in Wakefield. It started pouring rain, thunder and lightening, hail — the whole bit. As we were trying to make a run for the car and head back to Melrose, Beth said, “You’re just going to have to get used to the fact that I want to be with you.” Okay. Game. Set. Match. Sayonara, people. It was a done deal. She stayed with me that night…and she took a shower. It was that night that we started splitting time between Gloucester and Melrose. Eventually, we’d move to Gloucester together and live right near the Wingaersheek salt marsh. [To read more about this fun-filled, lively experience, go here and here.]

In spite of the fact that we were already talking about looking for a place to live, I continued to romance Beth. Once a week, I’d send her a huge bouquet of flowers at work. She loved it, and pretty soon all her friends were nagging their boyfriends to do the same.

Living proof that opposites attract

Beth and I are both Italian. That’s where the similarities end. Beth has spent most of her life in school learning. She has the degrees to prove it, including one in Music Composition from Berklee. There are only three instruments that Beth does not play. I’m not sure what they are, but I know she was playing piano in quite an accomplished manner at the age of three. The other degrees she has are more in the medical field, like Counseling Psychology and Biochemistry. She even did a stint studying at Cambridge University in the UK. When we met, however, she was working for Blue Cross, Blue Shield, helping to convert their computers over to a bigger, more shiny system.

I’m the exact opposite. I really did not like school, and that’s probably because the presenters of the material didn’t do much to make it interesting. I like to learn as well, but I do it other ways. By the time I met Beth I had been at Millipore for eighteen years and was the Manager of Marketing Services (advertising, public relations). I also spent a considerable amount of time writing. I had moved up consistently every two or three years and I was on a path. I was well-respected and was at my peak during this time. I was running two departments for the Analytical Division, Marketing Services and Technical Writing, and at one time had as many as a dozen direct reports. And yes, I was making excellent money.

When we met, Beth and I were both in very good spots in our lives. There’s no question about it. Time and circumstances would take care of that, however. The real test of our relationship’s strength and our commitment to one another was yet to come.

Making it legal

Beth and I did not make it legal until 2006, even though same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts in 2004. Other events would come into play before that could happen, and that is for another post. However, we did take several other steps to honor our commitment to each other.

We moved into Gloucester together in September of 1992. On December 5, 1992, we had our commitment ceremony at the house. One one of our trips to P-town, we went to city hall and registered our domestic union. That was largely symbolic, but it did recognize our union in that town. That was more than most towns were doing back then. Then, the state of Vermont moved to have same-sex civil unions legalized in 2000.

Beth and I applied for a license in Vermont as soon as we could — August of 2000. We had to drive up to Vermont and apply, then go home and wait ten days give or take) for the license. We chose to have our civil union in Brattleboro.  Thalia was not yet four years old (Aaron was not born until 2001) , and we did all this via day trips while she was in daycare. We drove back up for the civil union ceremony. We decided to get married on the gazebo on Brattleboro common, rain or shine. We figured we had one opportunity to make this happen. It was the fall of 2000 when we returned, and it was pouring rain and cold on that day. We had an arrangement to meet the judge at the gazebo at a specific time. We waited for an hour before deciding she was a no-show. We even called her office, but got a machine. So, we pulled out the list of judges that was given to us at town hall the day we came up to apply for the license.

We had driven a long way to get this done. We didn’t want to go home empty handed and have to return a third time, but we accepted the possibility that this might be the way it turned out. We just plain lucked out. We got hold of a judge who was available and was only too happy to help us out. She was at the gazebo within about twenty minutes, and our civil union was official within twenty minutes of her arrival. She signed our paperwork, took it back and filed it right away. Before we knew it, we had our certificate in the mail. We blew it up giant size and put it on the door leading to our playroom/office in Winchester.

Beth and I have had our ups and downs over all these years. It’s for sure that you will be exposed to both the good and the bad. It was after a few particularly bad years that we made it legal in the state of Massachusetts (on May 4, 2006). It was simple and uncomplicated. We were married in the chambers of the Reverend Harold E. Babcock, pastor at the Unitarian Univeralist Church in Newburyport, Massachusetts. The only others present were Thalia (then about eight) and Aaron (then five). Aaron was running around (and “goofing off” as he puts it) through the whole thing. After the ceremony, we took the kids out to eat.

There was one particularly funny moment on the ride to the church. Aaron had been thinking about this for a while, I could tell. Finally, as we were parking the car, he said, “Ma, I don’t think this is such a good idea.” Beth and I just kind of looked at each other, but I had to ask why. I owed him that much. He replied, “Because you’re going to have to kiss a girl. Why do you think?” We all just started laughing like hell, and I told him not to worry about it. Someday he may come to appreciate kissing girls. Or maybe not. Who knows.

Both of these were pretty low key affairs, I’d have to say. The really big event was our commitment ceremony in Gloucester back in 1992.

A party (and a honeymoon night) to remember

Our commitment ceremony in Gloucester was a huge party. Yes, as you saw in my earlier posts, it was the winter of our discontent in Gloucester, but we had no such problems on this evening. The wood stoves had been going for two days straight and we had plenty of cooking going on at the house during the day which helped to keep it warm. About sixty bodies giving off heat helped throughout the night as well. My best friend at the time, Sally, came up early in the morning to help me and Beth’s mother (she arrived the night before) get the place ready. (Sally was very valiant to come so early. She was sick as a dog from undergoing fertility treatments.) I had to run into Cambridge to pick up our wedding cake at Rosie’s Bakery. Believe it or not, the morning of our wedding, Beth was missing in action. She was in Boston taking the LSAT for law school and would not be home until sometime mid-afternoon.

By the time Beth arrived home, we had about an hour and a half before guests would begin to arrive. We both still needed to shower and dress. Convinced that things were under control, Beth and I went upstairs to get ready. I was feeling fine. Beth was really nervous. We smoked a joint. Then, I was still feeling fine and Beth got really stupid. Stupid is better than nervous in Beth’s case. We were both feeling pretty good by the time guests began to arrive, and what a motly group it was. We had a lot of people from Millipore and Beth’s friends from Blue Cross, including Frank and Mark, two of the biggest flamers you’d ever want to meet. My sisters, nieces and nephews were there. My very gay Melrose landlords (you’ve yet to actually “meet” them, but you will),  and Beth’s rock climbing partners, Barb and Bill, were also there. I don’t need to keep on here. The place was packed…and jumping.

The ceremony was presided over by the Reverend Wendy Fitting, fellow lesbian, and the extension minister of the Independent Christian Church, Universalist, in Gloucester since 1989. We had been meeting with her for the two months leading up to the ceremony. While she performed the ceremony, Bill Evan’s piano was playing softly in the background. Then, it was time to party and someone — I’m not sure who it was at the time — switched the music to “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” by Stevie Wonder, our chosen wedding song.

The party went very late into the night, I’m told, but we started saying our goodbyes about 10 p.m. We were headed to the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston, where we would spend our wedding night. Beth’s mom was going to spend the night and care for the cats. We’d be home the next day as we were still undecided about where to take a real honeymoon. (We actually never took one, although we were initially talking about Quebec City.)  We grabbed a bottle of champagne to bring to the hotel with us. By the time we got to the car, it was freezing out. But with the help of Beth’s mom and my sisters, the members of my Millipore staff managed to sneak away from the festivities to decorate the Camry with toothpaste and shaving cream. We have photos of their handiwork somewhere, but we have yet to find them. They had also tied clothes hangars to the back of the car, which we really didn’t know about until they started sparking as we drove down the highway.

We pulled up in front of the Copley Plaza about midnight in our well-decorated vehicle. The porter was gay. He walked up to the car as we rolled down the windows he said, “Good evening, ladies.” We smiled. “Good evening,” I said. He asked if we had reservations and I told him we were checking in under the Honeymoon Package. He looked at us and laughed. “They’re going to love this at the front desk!” Check-in was actually quite pleasant. We were up in our corner suite within fifteen minutes. There was a bottle of Moet and some mutant-sized, chocolate-dipped strawberries waiting for us, compliments of the hotel. Since it was at the time of original ownership, and before it became part of the Fairmont chain, the room was full of the most incredibly beautiful fresh flowers. (On a return trip a year later, the hotel had been purchased the flowers were tacky plastic.)

We had a hell of a private party. We ordered some food. We danced a little. We watched television. We made love. While we were doing this we killed off two bottles of champagne, and we did not even think about how bloody cold it probably was in Gloucester. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day, and a perfect beginning for our life together.

By the time I graduated Aquinas in 1973, I was involved in my first serious relationship with a woman (or a girl). I was 19 years old. Marie and I had actually met in high school, but had not acted on anything until Aquinas. By the time graduation came, we were talking about moving in together. While we were still at school, however, she was living in Woburn and I was living in Medford. I spent a considerable amount of time at Marie’s house. Her younger sister was hysterical and often hung out with us. Marie also had an uncle who was a Roman Catholic priest running a halfway house for troubled youth. Sometimes he’d be in Woburn with some of the boys from the house.

Oddly enough, my oldest sister worked for the center run by Marie’s uncle. We’ll just call him Reverend Slowhand for lack of a better name. If that isn’t enough, two of my cousins were enrolled in the program there. I tell you all this because it is relevant to this story. By the time my relationship with Marie ended, it marked the most unbelievably fucked up experience of my life.  In order to fully understand it, we have to pass through a flashback experience first.

Before Marie and I were even a couple, we were part of this larger group of female Aquinas friends who hung out together all the time. Prior to Marie, I had a minor involvement with one other girl in the group, whom we’ll call Kathy. Kathy’s parents had a place down on the south shore near the ocean and we used to go down there on the weekends in the summer. Likewise, Marie’s family had a place in New Hampshire on a lake. We also went there several times with her family. One weekend, however, just us girls went there alone.

At that time, Kathy and I were involved to some extent. We had been drinking all night, and the others were passed out on the sofa in the living area. That’s when Kathy and I decided to go find a bedroom, but we found more than we bargained for. We found a staircase that led downstairs to a bedroom. I opened the door and flipped on the lights, and stopped dead in my tracks. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There was a huge four-poster bed with red satin sheets, a red velvet bedspread and mirrors everywhere, including on the ceiling. I didn’t know whose room this was, since we were told that the bedrooms were upstairs, but I knew it wasn’t Marie’s parents’ room. I started checking things out and it became apparent pretty quickly that this was Reverend Slowhand’s room. I was pretty sure this wasn’t the norm for a priest, and I knew he was bringing kids from the center up here on weekends. I might have been young, but I was pretty savvy about some things. Uncomfortable about bringing it up to Marie, I just didn’t. In fact, Kathy and I pretty much agreed to forget we even found the downstairs. Before that weekend was over, I slipped back down there during the day for another look and snapped some pictures. I don’t even know why I did that.

Fast forward to post-Aquinas

I don’t remember exactly how long after graduation Marie and I moved in together, but it could not have been immediate because I spent a year at Bunker Hill Community College after that. When Marie and I finally did move in together, we moved into an apartment in Malden in a building owned by my brother-in-law and other members of his family. Marie was working in Boston as a medical secretary and I was probably at Millipore by that time, although I cannot remember specifically where I was. I can only surmise that I would have to have been working to pay the rent. We lived a pretty normal life. We went to work, came home and cooked dinner, and walked our dog, a Lab/Husky mix named Sundance. All in all, it was a pretty mundane life, but her family knew there was something more than a friendship going on and they were determined to stop it. That’s when the Reverend Slowhand got involved.

Marie came home one night from work and told me that she had to go out to dinner with her uncle later that week. She really didn’t want to go and I remember her saying, “I wish they’d just leave me alone.”  This was a sentiment that she would echo every night right up until the night she was to meet her uncle. I knew she was under incredible pressure. She had to be. She had been brought up in a devout Irish-Catholic home and her uncle was a priest. The reality was that she didn’t have to go out with her uncle. Marie was in her early twenties by the time we moved in together. She didn’t have to go anywhere. I remember telling her not to worry about it, just go and listen politely and it would be over before she knew it. I told her I’d wait up for her. Inside, I was not that optimistic and I knew we were saying goodbye for good when she left.

I may have been somewhat “in the closet” in some circles back in those days, but I knew I was gay and that I’d always been gay. I also knew where it was safe to be “out” and where it wasn’t. In the final analysis, I knew I could withstand the pressure if push came to shove (although I prefer that it didn’t). I also knew that Marie could not withstand that pressure. She was still questioning herself and adjusting to who she was.

It was a long night and I sat up all night on the sofa waiting. She never returned to our apartment and I never saw her again. Early the next morning, I called her house in Woburn asking for her. I remember her mother saying to me that, “Marie is here but she needs the company of boys now. She will not be speaking with you or seeing you again.”  Then I remember her asking if my mother knew what was going on with me. That was one complication I did not want, but I also knew that Marie’s mother knew how to contact my mother (she had already moved in with my sister and her family).  I had the trump card. I had found the bedroom in New Hampshire, and I’m sure everyone in that family knew it was there. I also knew that whatever was going on up there wasn’t appropriate behavior for a Catholic priest.

I remember telling her mother that if she called my mother and told her anything at all, I would let everyone know about the existence of Reverend Slowland’s bedroom in New Hampshire. I told her I even had pictures. (I never processed that roll of film and would probably never be able to find it, but she didn’t know that.) There was dead silence on the line. I mean, dead silence.  Then the phone clicked and I was back to the dial tone. I never heard from any of them again. Events would unfold later that would simply blow my mind. I had suspicions, but even I couldn’t imagine the depth of Reverend Slowhand’s depravity.

Welcome to Pedophilia

Marie’s uncle was a virulent pedophile priest. The Reverend Slowhand was right up there with Geoghan, Porter and Shanley. By the time the scandal had played itself out in the press nearly twenty years later, the Catholic Church would quietly settle 17 cases against the Reverend Slowhand. He was accused of raping and molesting boys both at his halfway house (which he ran under state contract) and at his vacation home in Barnstead, New Hampshire. He also stands accused of molesting a family friend in Woburn over a four-year period. This abuse started when the boy was thirteen. The church dealt with Reverend Slowhand like they dealt with all the others, they just kept moving him around and giving him fresh bodies to toy with in the name of God.

I have no idea where Marie is. I don’t know if her parents are alive or dead. My most recent Internet check tells me that the Reverend Slowhand retired from the priesthood in the late 90’s and is living in his little sex parlor in Barnstead, New Hampshire. I’ve not found any obits, so I’m assuming he’s still taking in air and taking up space.

There were several things over my lifetime that pushed me away from the Catholic church. This was one of the biggest. It also convinced me that organized religion run by ordinary men isn’t the answer.  Even though I am Buddhist today and very mindful of what it means to be Buddhist, I do not spend time attending services at a center. I stay away from that portion of the program because it’s often reduced to politics and power grabs.

I have had some unbelievable things happen to me over the years. That’s why I started writing this blog. But this one incident has to be the most twisted event in my life. As my mother would say if she were still here, “This one takes the cake.”

I spent more than eight years involved with Miss Headcase, and not many of them were positive. This fact is just testament to both my perserverence and stupidity. She had her problems and we’ll get into some of that later, but for now the first trip we took together was one for the books. It was to Newport, Rhode Island. The first thing I remember — and it’s absurd — is that we both just bought new sneakers and it was pouring rain. We walked around with plastic bags on our feet.

I remember that I took Friday off and we headed down early in the morning. We had reservations at a place called Cliff House, a really beautiful bed & breakfast run by two elderly lesbians. They were really so sweet, and the place just had so many twists and turns, like a hidden staircase. On the very top floor, there was a common kitchen where you could cook dinner if you preferred staying in. We did that the first night we were there. You could climb out to a balcony through a window in the kitchen. The view was just unbelievable.  I can’t find the place anymore. I’m sure it’s under new ownership but I really cannot seem to match the memory to anything I can find on the web. It’s been a long time. The place was called Cliff House because it was right near Cliff Walk, of course, a beautiful mile-long walk overlooking the Atlantic. This was a walk you should not miss even in the dreary weather. We held off until the second day.

The second day, Saturday, was the best. We got up early and ate breakfast at the inn, then we walked downtown for a while and visited the shops. We had lunch at the Brick Alley Pub (and this place is still there). Then we headed toward Bellevue street and toured the International Tennis Hall of Fame. We went to a few of the mansions, the most opulent and absurd was The Breakers, the summer home of the Vanderbilts. The place had hot and cold running sea water or fresh water for the baths. I think it had something like 70 rooms, and it was a summer home only. That’s fucking crazy. I can’t remember where we had dinner that night. It could have been La Forge Casino on Bellevue. That restaurant would be a favorite of ours and it would figure in a later trip to Newport. Just wait for that one. We were driving back  on Sunday, so we were in early Saturday night. The funniest thing happened Sunday morning.

Sunday was just beautiful. The sun had returned on Saturday, but Sunday was really bright. The night before, the place was buzzing because two people from Rolling Stone magazine had checked in. The guy was pretty notable, but I cannot remember who it was all these years later. All I know is that it wasn’t the sun that woke us up that morning. Apparently, the two writers from Rolling Stone had spent the night together — in a room right next to ours, and now they were engaged in wanton sex.

They were so loud it was hysterical. We could hear everything they were yelling. They were moaning; she was shrieking. We were laughing so hard we had to put the pillows over our faces. This went on for what seemed like hours and we just couldn’t move. Every time we thought it was over and we stopped roaring, they’d start up again. I mean, wtf were they thinking? This was a b & b. The place was old. The walls were thin. I’m willing to bet the whole freakin’ place heard them. I could imagine the entire place with people hiding their faces under their pillows that morning, just roaring laughing.

We wanted to head back early on Sunday because I had to be back at work early Monday morning. Our last visit was to Brenton Point State Park and a trip down Ocean Drive where people hang out and fly kites all day in the summer. The International Kite Festival is held there in July. The colors and images are just beautiful. It was a great ride that morning with the sun so bright. After that, we headed back to Boston.

That was the first time Miss Headcase and I went away together. The relationship was new; things were great. It was very romantic and a wonderful time. There was absolutely no hint of things that would to come several years later.