Where All Dem Gypsy Women At?
After living with my friend Moose in Florida, I returned to Massachusetts and started bouncing around like an out-of-control pinball in a noisy, lit-up machine that was ready to tilt.
I had just turned 20 (1976) when I began living like a gypsy. It wasn't by design, either. It was out of necessity.
My first stop was Manomet, where I lived with my friend Mark and his friend Brad. However, after $300 was stolen from me in what the local police described as an inside job, I left Plymouth (with an industrial air compressor that didn't belong to me) and moved in with my aunt, uncle, and cousin in Needham.
My aunt and uncle were doing my parents a big favor by letting me stay in their home, and although I loved them, and them me, from the beginning, it was awkward. And if I'm being honest, I never felt entirely comfortable there.
I was riding a motorcycle then, a Yamaha TX650, and didn't have a car. I kept the motorcycle in their garage. I always pushed it down the street before I started it, and when I came home late, I'd shut it four houses down and push it the rest of the way to where I'd open the garage doors slowly, careful not to wake them. I was trying to be respectful.
One afternoon, after I got home from work, my aunt came down to the basement where I lived with their two untamed dogs, and immediately, I could see she was under duress. She bounced between looking directly at me and looking uncomfortably away while saying, "We're getting Chinese food tonight, but only enough for three people. You can either have the Chinese food, and I'll eat the leftover meatloaf, or you can have the meatloaf…"
Holy shit! I never meant for this to happen. She was a beautiful woman, my favorite aunt, and I absolutely loved her and didn't like seeing her that way. I immediately responded, "I'll have the meatloaf."
After my uncle came home with a large brown paper bag full of takeout, my aunt called me upstairs to eat. That's when it got really weird. Once they had all the white cardboard cartons, the kind with red Chinese writing, on the kitchen table, they pulled back the thin wire closures and eagerly opened them. The smell of hot Chinese food immediately filled the room while I stared down at the lonesome slice of leftover meatloaf and canned peas on my plate. Not to seem ungrateful, but it looked like I was being served a blue-plate special in a Chinese restaurant…
Eating Chinese takeout is a festive event. People pass the cartons to one another, comment on each, and eat with great joy and enthusiasm. Don't get me wrong—I love meatloaf—but eating leftovers at a table full of people eating hot Chinese takeout made me feel like I was flying second-class and sitting in the middle seat at the back of the plane.
After long, exhaustive exhales, my aunt, uncle, and cousin looked content, having eaten all they could. They were stuffed. That's when my aunt looked at me and said, "We have some extra if you want it?"
By then, I was one bite away from cleaning my plate, and all I said was, "No, thank you." I quietly rinsed my dish in the sink, put it in the dishwasher, thanked my aunt for the meatloaf, and went back downstairs to the dark basement and two dogs sleeping on my bed.
At that moment, I knew it was time to pull up stakes and move on. (Where all dem gypsy women at?)
To be continued…
I'd have to be a Pinball Wizard to find another place to live on short notice…