Back in the day, when I still thought that the answer to what I wanted was a talent agent, I hung around with a reprobate bunch that made the inhabitants of “Animal House” look like rookies. One of the advantages of living at the Folkie Palace on Grove Street was that it was a short roll down the hill to the emergency room at Massachusetts General Hospital. If the hospital gave frequent flyer miles or other tokens for frequent attendance, we would have been Century Club members.

Infamous

Needless to say, we were well known among the interns, residents, and nurses at the Emergency Room. Let’s see your ever-popular urinary tract infections! Then various types of unique aspirations. Of course there were fevers, contusions, and abrasions. OK, there were one or two suicide ideations, and one interesting case of a couple locked together in coitus. Ther was nothing regulation about our life styles.

Innocent

The regular staff would sometimes join us across the street at the Harvard Gardens for a few drinks before or after shifts. But few wanted emotional entanglements with the “Wild Bunch.”

When I signed on at the Palace, I was not yet nineteen and fresh from the stews of New York’s Greenwich Village. I was not exactly inexperienced, but not up to the demanding standards of the other habitues of our apartment. I made haste to catch up with my colleagues in mayhem. Soon, I was a regular at the ER. At check-in, if asked what the problem was, I could say “the usual,” and Jeanette at the Triage desk would sigh.

Although she was warned Suzy found me adorable. She was a recent graduate nurse, and had not yet received her RN license. She was working at the ER for experience. Soon she would sit for her “Boards: and become a full fledged Registered Nurse. But for now, she was concerned that her Wes (that’s me! ) had stubbed his toe trying to do something stupid.

A Savior

One of the older nurses, let’s call her Clodia, had taken it upon herself to be a sort of older sister. Knowing the reputation of the wild bunch, she was bound and determined to save Suzy from her naivete. She wanted to bust me and my main squeeze up!

While my cohorts in crime were well known, I was a recent arrival. I was, for that bunch, an innocent being led into sin. Suzy, bless her, thought she could save me. Oh, sweet redemption! Clodia took it on herself to research what was known about me and whisper vile things into the saintly ears of my darling. Too soon, Suzy broke up with me and, within a week, was seen arm-in-arm with a snot-nosed intern. Up til now, the guys at the Folkie Palace had been amused by the puppy love between Suzy and Wes. Now they were mad. Someone was screwing around with one of ours!

“Vengeance Is Mine”

Vengeance is sweet, as the saying goes. And in our little world, it could come quickly. Clodia, it turned out, was not a spring breath of fresh air. A few years before, the City of Boston had torn down the entire West End neighborhood, sending a diaspora of “Westies” to Beacon Hill. For good measure, the blotted out the city’s party and red light venue – Scollay Square. On the very fringes of that urban renewal sat the Top Hat Tavern. The last remaining redoubt of old Boston.

Clodia was a habituee of the Top Hat. A few simple inquiries provided more than enough ammunition on Clodia’s past and predilections. The problem was how to use it.

Every good revenge plot needs a Jeremy. In this case, he was a bit of Clodia’s history from the Top Hat. A few years earlier, when she had been a new nurse, she had fallen for a local bad boy from the West End. Jeremy. Unlike me, he had not been fresh and young. Older, clever, and more than a bit on the wild side, he had introduced a younger Clodia to a less nuanced lifestyle. It had ended badly with a visit to Dr. West’s office, a few blocks away from the hospital, but miles distant in terms of its nature of business. Clodia, what’s the term I’m looking for…abjured her old ways. She went quite far in the opposite direction and was now known for her extreme propriety.

So Jeremy was ideal. It didn’t take much to persuade a tipsy Jeremy that he desired to see his old paramour. My roommate, the Teahead of the August Moon, made it clear that at that very moment she was at the Harvard Gardens, less than a mile away.

Glass Houses

As a drunken Jeremy lurched his way towards his old beloved, she sat in a booth with Suzy and two interns from the hospital. Clodia was sporting a new engagement ring and gushing about the joys of a stable relationship. Then in walks our tipsy friend. The Teahead steers Jeremy towards their booth and does a quick fade.

The next ten or so minutes of yelling were ended as our ancient waitress, Evie, loudly made sure that the entire clientele knew that they were shut off, booted out, and banned. Such behavior might be tolerated at places like the Top Hat, but the Harvard Gardens was a classy establishment. So out into the night stumbled the four. A bemused Suzy and her beau. And an angry trio composed of Jeremy, Clodia, and her now former fiancé.

Watching this, I was bemused. I had been sitting with my friends, and the older woman who was my unattainable love, Judy. then up comes the Teahead to hustle us out of the bar in time to see Boston’s finest breaking up the fight involving Clodia, Jeremy, and a very angry intern.

As we walked by, the Teahead shouted out, ” People who live in a glasshouse shouldn’t throw stones!”

The honor of the Folkie Palace had been upheld.