April 09, 2002 | 10:26 AM

7AE )### Thurston St.

The night before we move out, the Thurston street apartment is a maze of sharpie labeled cardboard boxes, haphazardly sealed with silver tape. These boxes are stacked to the cieling-- temporary monuments to our departure.

The night before we move out, we are drunk on Pabst Blue Ribbon. We throw bags of trash off the porch and some of them land in the dumpsters but some crash to the ground. We giggle at each mishap.

The night before we move out, it rains. John and I sit on our plastic porch chairs smoking cigarettes and spinning out the future, just as we did the first day he moved in a year ago. We talk about someday maybe living in Salem�me getting my masters in counseling and helping troubled teenage girls. He teaching high school English. We talk about having children and a house and other sweet safety medicines.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep...

What is it about moving from one place to another that causes us to spin such pretty fairytales?

In the morning come the movers.* Jenn and John and I take care of bringing down the boxes, and the movers lift the heavy furniture. The three of us watch in awe as one mover hands the other mover a mattress and box spring from our third floor porch down to street level. It is like watching a performance of Cirque de Soleil. There is so much grace and technique and daring involved. When the mattress and box spring are handed off successfully, we clap and cheer.

Jenn and John go with the movers to Allston. It is my job to stay behind and clean the Thurston street apartment one last time.

Ronnie is still around gathering up the last of his stuff to transport to Angus�s via taxi. Right before he leaves he says to me,

I just want you to know how great it was to live with you guys. Really really great. And like, I hope we still keep in touch and hang out and stuff.

I look at him incredulously. Doesn�t he want to kill us all?

Um, thanks Ronnie.

There are tears in his eyes and he seems so miserable. Impulsively he gives me a hug and I semi hug him back, feeling extremely uncomfortable and angry and also sorry for him. I wouldn�t want to be Ronnie Jackson for all the tea in China.

He leaves. That is the last time I will see him for several months.

I scrub the floors and clean the toilet and make sure all the garbage bags have been tossed off the porch. When I am finished I sit in the middle of the living room floor smoking a cigarette which I ash into the last empty beer bottle.

All of a sudden it comes over me.

I cry and cry and cry.

I�ve lived in this apartment for two years�the longest I�ve lived anywhere since childhood. Living here is the safest I have ever felt in this city�that isn�t really saying much when compared with all of the other trauma pads I�ve called home, but I am really going to miss this place.

I�m going to miss the porch looking out over the Boston skyline and the Brazilian music wafting up from the floor below. I�m going to miss the debaucherous parties and the hangover brunches at Bickford�s Family Restaurant.

I�m going to miss the huge eat in kitchen and all the closet space. I�m going to miss the black and white malt shop patterned bathroom floor and the shower without water pressure.

I�m going to miss the times when the electricity blew out and John and I, wrapped in flannel blankets, sang and played guitar by candlelight.

Stop it.

Just stop it.

The next place is going to better. Safer. More fun.

Just fucking stop it.

I knock on the landlady�s door and hand her the keys.

I walk across the street to the bus stop. It is a beautiful Autumn day. I watch two small children run up and down Broadway trying to launch a florescent kite into the sky.

They cannot get it off the ground.

The #89 bus takes me to Powterhouse circle. I walk from there to David Square, lovingly tracing the Victorian homes with lingering eyes along the way. I�ve walked this path countless times in the past two years. What reason would I have to come back here from the bubble of Allston/Brighton and its immediately accessible destinations?

I take the T from Davis Square to Harvard square. From there I will catch the #66 bus to Allston.

When I arrive, Harvard Square is a kaleidoscope of multicolored moving vans. The sounds of horns beeping and people yelling at each other to �get a fucking move on you asshole!� fills the air like a symphony of surliness.

September 1rst is the moving day in Boston. It might as well be declared a citywide holiday.

From Harvard Square, a bus ride that should take twenty minutes winds up being an hour and a half. But I don�t mind.

My mood shifts as I stare out the window across the Charles River at the Harvard crew team mowing through water.

Allston is going to be fun., I think to myself. So much fun.

It�ll be just like when John was in college except better! All those bars and stores and things to do! I bet you anything our relationship will be revitalized.

I bet you anything that we�ll play tons more shows and make new friends. I bet you John will leave the Stupid Company. Why wouldn�t he? It�s a fresh new start! And maybe I�ll figure out a way to go back to school!

And Jenn will be free of Ronnie Jackson and so will we!

I smile to myself. I heave a sigh of relief.

Stay tuned for Part the Forty-Eighth...

To him you were nothin' but a little plaything

Not much more than an overnight fling

To me you were the greatest thing this boy had ever found

And girl it's hard to find nice things on the poor side of town

I can't blame you for tryin'

I'm tryin' to make it too

I've got one little hang up baby I just can't make it without you

So tell me, are you gonna stay now

Will you stand by me girl all the way now

With you by my side

They can't keep us down

Together we can make it baby

From the poor side of town

(So tell me how much you love me)

(Come be near to me and say you need me now)

Oh, with you by my side

This world can't keep us down

Together we can make it baby

From the poor side of town

Do-doo-doo-wah shoo-be-doo-be

Do-doo-doo-wah shoo-be-doo-be

Do-doo-doo-wah shoo-be-doo-be

Read the Saga from

THE VERY BEGINNING!

time capsule from heaven - Sunday, Aug. 21, 2011
31 - Saturday, Mar. 15, 2008
Dead/Alive - Monday, Mar. 10, 2008
Do not trustTIAA-CREF-- they are fucking their customers - Friday, Jul. 28, 2006
Shilling - Tuesday, Jul. 11, 2006

Before After