Street poets

Once in my life, a similar thing happened. This was a long time ago, Christmas eve some year in the 1970s and yrs. truly was in his 30s. I was very drunk. I had been working in Lowell, Massachusetts and was heading back to visit my family in Boston. I was waiting for a commuter train at the Lowell RR station. I had a bottle of bourbon with me to keep me company. A young woman -- younger than I -- had noticed me taking frquent sips from that jug. She came over and began to talk to me very earnestly, with some concern about a person drinking like that in public. There was anger and resentment mixed with the concern. She was olive-complexioned and seemed to have a very slight Latino accent (I say 'Latino' because I can't tell a Spanish accent from Portuguese). She was saying, in effect, what is your problem?

I reached in my pocket and handed her a poem I had written earlier that day, a poem which tried to express the negative, deep down dank and dark mood I had been in since arriving in Lowell. She read it and said quietly, "That's quite beautiful. May I keep it? Would you sign it for me?"

I signed it. Now, the punch-line. Turned out she wasn't waiting for a train. She was waiting for her chauffeur-driven limo to take her back to Boston. She was the daughter of the Consul-General of some Central American or South American Country in Boston. She offered me a ride back to Boston which I gratefully accepted. I passed out in the car and slep the whole journey.

I have absolutely no memory of that poem and couldn't re-create it if you threatened me with the tortures of Abu Ghraib.

True story. Do with it what you will. It took another 30 years before I stopped drinking.

Hey, great story.
It sounds like something torn out of a Kerouac novel.
Glad to hear you've kicked the bottle to the road though, instead of having a J.K. ending.

Thank you, flushd. Coincidentally, as you probably know, Lowell was Kerouac's home town. No wonder he drank.