Nevermore
Gary Duehr
“My old boyfriend Jerry took me once to the Silver Stocking down that alley,” Denise rasps, scrunching her lips as if at a sour taste, “back in the bad old ‘70s of the Combat Zone, before all these Starbucks and glitzy hotels. I didn’t like it, and I let him know.” Denise is the guide for our walking tour. She’s got a platinum thatch of hair and a fistful of turquoise rings. She hands her Big Gulp coffee to a woman in front with a flowing paisley scarf and thumbs through a manila folder. “Here it is,” she says, holding up a yellowed newspaper clipping in a plastic sleeve. Her finger traces the outline of a neon leg clamped to a brick building. We let out a few Ohh's.
At the curb, she squints over her sunglasses. “Let’s cross here,” she says, dumping the folder back in the big pouch slung over her shoulder. She retrieves her coffee and takes a long sip through the straw. “I stole it from the 7-11,” she says, chuckling. “That's why I was late. The line was too long, and I couldn't wait forever for somebody to take my money. I give them plenty of business, believe me.”
It’s chilly for May, the ornate stone buildings on either side of the street block the sun. There’s a screech as traffic grinds to a halt at the light.
Our group, a motley handful of tourists, follows her across. I hang in back. I just moved to Boston after breaking up with my college boyfriend. I found the tour on Meetup and decided to do it on a whim. What else do I have on a Saturday afternoon?
Denise has trouble walking, maybe from a bad hip, which throws her gait off-center like the start of a samba.
She's pointing at a tree in a little park and saying something to the Scarf Woman, but none of us can hear. She gathers us into the doorway of a Chase ATM and focuses her gaze across the street. “The one that looks like a wedding cake, with the baroque carvings on top, that used to be the Savoy. Pretty grand, huh? Keith Albee built it in 1910 for his vaudeville shows.” She tosses her coffee in a trash bin and holds up a scratchy black and white photo with streetcars. "Everybody went through here: Fred Astaire when he was performing with his kid sister, the Marx Brothers, Ray Bolger the Scarecrow, Bing Crosby, you name it.
“Years later Crosby came to town for the premiere of one of the Road pictures, and he stayed at the Ritz around the corner. That night all his fans gathered in the street hoping for a glimpse, just like the Beatles. He was a very private person, but he finally he came out and sang a little 'White Christmas' in the doorway. Everybody went crazy, climbing on top of car roofs and firing off flashbulbs.”
“What is it now?” asks an old guy with a ski pole for a cane.
“A Suffolk dorm. They gutted the inside, but you can still see the original double stairway inside the lobby. What a shame!”
From here, all we can make out in the revolving doors is the streaky chrome of cars sliding by.
“I was supposed to go there, but my mother wanted me to stay close to home in Revere up north. What a pit. She's dead now, but I'm still stuck there. My older brother hightailed it out to Chicago. He was always the smart one." She lowers her sunglasses and scans our circle. "Sorry if anybody's from Revere, but you know how it is.”
Denise raises her right arm, and we fall in line on the sidewalk, headed toward the red neon signs of Chinatown.
She shouts over the traffic as she dodges the Hilton doorman and waits for an SUV to emerge from the underground garage. “It's getting harder for me to make the trip in on the train with this bum hip. Takes me over an hour. I fell shoveling the walk in February, and it's never been the same. Doctors said it was just a fracture so it would fix itself over time like a cat.” She lets out a cackle. “I guess I'm glad they didn't put me down.”
The SUV beeps a couple times and clears the sidewalk, and Denise waves her arm. “Onward!”
We cross the street and stop under the marquee overhang of the Golden Palace. I can smell frying onion and ginger.
“My old boyfriend Jerry and I used to eat here all the time. You should check it out when you have a chance. On the second floor there's a fountain and chandeliers, it's like entering another world. Even a white peacock in a cage. We'd catch a movie at the Circle and come here for mai tai's and Szechuan Chicken. I'd always get sauce on the side because it was too spicy. But Jerry could eat anything.”
She points to a carving of Shakespeare beside the double doors.
“Anyone know who that is?”
I know but I keep quiet. A teenager with her mom says, “George Washington?”
“Almost, honey. You're only off a couple hundred years. That's William Shakespeare. This used to be the Avon Theatre in the 19th century.” She pulls out a xerox of a drawing to pass around. “Edgar Allan Poe was born right here back in the day—you know, ‘The Raven?’” She croaks out “Nevermore!” We laugh.
His mom was a famous stage actress, and she gave birth in the dressing room. Must have hurt like hell. I never had kids, too much trouble. I had my own life to live. I wanted to open a nail salon, nothing fancy, just a few chairs. But I could never scrape the deposit together, and Mother needed extra care.
“Poe hated Boston, he called it the Frog Pond because it was so provincial. I gotta agree with him. They made fun of Poe so he moved to Baltimore and died drunk on a curb in the middle of the night. I used to warn Jerry he'd end up the same way if he didn't lay off. He was a mean drunk, he'd start yelling and throwing things. Till I finally threw him out. Ha!”
A young business dude, glued to his cellphone, cuts through our group. Denise swings her purse at him and brushes his shoulder. “Fascist! Look where you're going!”
He pivots, red-faced, and takes out his earbuds. “Go bother somebody else, you old hag!”
They're at a standoff. We watch, shocked. I hold my breath.
Denise bursts into tears and crumples to the pavement. Scarf Woman bends down to comfort her.
“Sorry, lady,” the business guy mumbles and strides off.
Some passersby start to gather. In back a woman raises her iPhone to snap a picture. A few blocks away a siren wails.
Scarf Woman looks up. “She's ok. Give us some space.”
She helps Denise scramble to her feet. Scarf Woman gathers the scattered photos and hands them back.
Denise looks straight at us, drying her eyes with her sleeve. “Life can't hate me forever.”