A walk through cambridge

stream of consciousness writing from august 2004

begin with the school where my mom used to work and the mentally challenged boy who has problems vocalising his problems, his problem being a scratchy back, my mom, a teacher, stops him in the hallway because his hands are pulling wildly at the straps of his scrawny backpack and asks whats wrong, and he cant answer her because he has problems vocalising answers to questions, but he is taken to the nurse, and the nurse finds his shirt, and his backpack, full of cockroaches

anyways, dosed up and left the house in hot pursuit of a dollar double cheeseburger at the central square mcdonalds, ending up with about ninety cents change, and decided to save it for the bus. I realize that i could have gotten more with my debit card but instead decided to ride out my pocket shrapnel till the end of the road

head down main street and find a vacant lot behind bertuccis that has the look and the smell of gods fresh footprint but bypass it to follow this man draped in the puerto rican flag and thronged by young boys and girls, and cut through some massive concrete apartment complex, catch up with the flamboyantly proud puerto rican. Feel the strength of the brown acid axing through my cerebral forests and wonder if im going to fall and if so if all these young people and the flag man will be around to take notice. We walk towards lights in the sky, spotlights and spinning blue circles wheeling white stars on the faces of the buildings at MIT. Wonder just what the hell is going on, and where i can pick up some kind of flag

Our group begins to pick up passersby, or people seemingly passing by, a grandmother and a young girl, both wearing red, well, the older in pink, walk with me, and the little one looks up into my eyes and i smile too late. There are crowds in the distance. Bright lights and a stage and a soundsystem bouncing bass between us and it. The moon is a sliver in the sky and we approach police sawhorses and officers, none on horseback, and i can hear the people on stage speaking in spanish and i think to myself, it must be the puerto rican pride parade, or the accompanying concert. I sift through the outer rings of people, on the outskirts of the massive, and find a tree, and between two lower branches where i rest my elbows, i have a cigarette and listen.

The mayor of cambridge takes the mike and asks the massive crowd what city is the best in the world. Asks “Whats the best city in the world?!” and you can see that some of these people must, they must, live across the river in boston and they dont want to hear whats coming. Or so i imagine for them, sorry souls of boston. Because the response is “Cambridge!” The peoples republic. We dont even need a baseball team or anything, because we are the people. The peoples republic of cambridge. And this, it turns out, is the cambridge salsa festival, salsa cambridge, or something. And the band from the green street grill is going to play. And i live right near there but ive never heard them so i toss down my cigarette and make my way into the massive crowd, ending up on the other side of the stage, on a concrete patio. I end up smoking another cigarette and tapping my foot along because that band from the green street grill is good.

A woman is dancing salsa near me, with her little girls, high stepping and ducking her head at the right time, looking great doing her thing. She gives me these occasional looks like she doesnt approve of me smoking so near her little ones, but cant say nothing because when i exhale my smoke the horns blow hard, the trombone and the trumpet, and my pall mall, and it blows back on everyone, beginning to stir everyone up. I leave her dancing, and head towards the charles river. No trip is complete without a journey to the water, and no other body of water moves quite like a river. I end up under the red line bridge, crossing part of storrow drive still under construction, picking my way down a path illuminated by headlights, past piles of raw materials, over and under yellow under- construction tape, cross that highway, and make it to the sidewalk that runs alongside the charles, on the cambridge side. I want to look down into the water but its dancing with its little ones. I manage to put my hand on the steel rail, but for a second.

Had i looked over that rail i might have seen black eyed angels swimming up at me, eyes like pennies. Had i looked over that rail i might have seen someplace i wanted to go, and jumped in. but i only touched it, for a second. I walked past all of the partnered couples on the riverwalk. Floating in the charles there was a single sailboat, bound to no dock, and parallel to it a crosswalk heading back into MIT. I crossed back over the highway there, into the archetectural labrynth before me. The buildings rattled and hummed, seemed to breathe even, hot breathe on my neck, and on the skin of my arms. The filthy breath of the not-quite-of-our-peopled-world. I got lost in those buildings, but was determined to just keep on. Eventually, i was back at the salsa festival, on a bench, smoking another cigarette. Id felt like those unhuman buildings might have led me back to this very peopled place on purpose, brought me to where i belonged.

I got back on my feet and headed towards what i thought would be main street, what i thought would turn eventually into massachusettes avenue. I passed third street, second street, and first street, singing salsa in my head and percussing by snapping my fingers. Some odd length of time later i found myself under the exact same bridge, with the cars of storrow drive coming and going, rattling towards me, and humming by me. Picking my way through yellow tape, which read “under-construction”... back along the same riverwalk past the same partnered couples, who now, later in the night, were probably necking. I didnt stop to watch. Nor did i have a watch but by this time i was parched, and needed some comfort, so my thoughts ran to 7-11. not the new central square 7-11, which is nice cause its near the red line stop, but not so nice because some of the cashiers seem kind of militant, at least to me. The old central square 7-11. the one closer to my home. The one that was here when i moved here, and will still be here, fully lit and operational 24 hours a day, when i move out. My thoughts thirsted for a big gulp of whatever that 7-11 had on tap.

So i followed the river. Passed the singular sailboat bopping melancholy on the dancing water. Passed bikers who whistled as they approached me. Passed some knife-legged boy with eleven inch hips and finally over mass ave. into MIT, and then back acrossed mass ave. again, where i caught the bus and the feeling that it was good to be on the way home without my legs doing the driving. I made it home in seven minutes, or was it eleven, and though the riders could see by my penny eyes that i was on some sort of trip, i rest assured that they couldn't quite sort out what sort.