To my readers and heirs: I believe the note is one of the trunks or boxes of papers here in my apartment. I am too lazy and too hot to spend time digging for it. Hence, the photograph of the trunk.
Chapter 3
The Note
From September of 1975 through the following July, I lived in Boston on the Backside of Beacon Hill. Now a posh, upscale neighborhood, the Backside then was dirty, cheap, and villainous. On the inappropriately named Joy Street, my fifth floor walkup room cost me forty dollars a week. The shower ceiling leaked when it rained, and I could hear the cockroaches hitting the baseboards every time I came home from work. Once I put my sleeping cot in the middle of the room, surrounded it with a ring of boric acid, and was lying on the cot with my hands on my chest when one of the little buggers dropped onto my stomach from the ceiling. Who knew that my cockroaches were paratroopers?
Chapter 3
The Note
From September of 1975 through the following July, I lived in Boston on the Backside of Beacon Hill. Now a posh, upscale neighborhood, the Backside then was dirty, cheap, and villainous. On the inappropriately named Joy Street, my fifth floor walkup room cost me forty dollars a week. The shower ceiling leaked when it rained, and I could hear the cockroaches hitting the baseboards every time I came home from work. Once I put my sleeping cot in the middle of the room, surrounded it with a ring of boric acid, and was lying on the cot with my hands on my chest when one of the little buggers dropped onto my stomach from the ceiling. Who knew that my cockroaches were paratroopers?
After moving in, I hitchhiked to North Carolina to see my mother. On my return—she insisted on buying me an airplane ticket—I trudged up the five flights of stairs, dropped my bags to the floor, touched my key to the lock, and found the door swinging open of its own volition. Thieves had shouldered the door and ransacked the room, dumping into the middle of the floor unsalable clothing, furniture, and books. I walked into the room in a daze, pushing at my belongings with the toe of my shoe. Then I crossed the street to the lobby of a sleazy hotel—the one phone in the lobby of our building was in use—and dialed the police.
“Boston Police Department. How may I help you?”
“I was robbed,” I said. “Someone has broken into my apartment.”
“Sir, that is not robbery. Breaking and entering is burglary.”
I slammed the phone down, walked around the block to cool off, reentered the hotel lobby, and called the Police Department.
“Boston Police Department. How may I help you?”
“I was burglarized,” I said.
The person on the other end of the line then took the necessary information and told me it would be a week before the officers would arrive to investigate.
As I cleaned up that mess, a bitter anger roiled in me. I felt violated. Some strangers had pawed through my belongings, taking whatever he wanted. The thieves had stolen my stereo, a pathetic machine but my only access to music, and a rare book, whichI was surprised they recognized as worthwhile. Worst of all, however, they had scooped up a small lockbox, doubtless hoping for money or jewels. The box instead held about a hundred letters, and so I lost an irretrievable piece of my past.
At the bottom of a heap of clothes I found a note scrawled, as if by a drunk, on a torn sheet of paper. That note is somewhere in one of the trunks in my apartment, I think, though I lost a box or two of papers on my move from Waynesville. Here is the gist of that note: “We need money and my woman is walking the streets. Now she is beginning to enjoy it. I needed money. James Winston.”
I studied that note for many minutes. What kind of a nut leaves a signed note telling me why he robbed—burglarized—my apartment? And then I decided on a course of action that at the time made sense, but which now seems as arrogant and as dumb as the thief’s note. I decided to track down James Winston.
I went first to a phone booth and found three James Winstons listed in the book. I consulted a map and immediately ruled out two of the names. They lived too far away to break into so poor a place as mine.
But the third James Winston was listed as living in Roxbury. Roxbury at the time was Boston’s black ghetto. So James Winston was most likely black, and as he had shouldered in my door, he was most likely solid and strong. I called his number as listed in the phonebook, but it was disconnected.
So I hit the streets. I went into the laundromat, the little grocery store at the end of the block, the hotel across the street. I stopped passersby and asked them if they knew a James Winston. I climbed to the roof of my building via the fire escape and asked people sunbathing there if they knew him. Nope. Nope. And nope.
Then I went to pay my week’s rent to my landlord. He owned a scuzzy, barebones office at the foot of the Hill. An overhead fan tried to breath life into the stale air, and dead flies littered the windowsill. He was leaning back in his chair with his feet propped on the table. I gave him the money and then told him about the burglary and the note.
“James Winston!” the landlord said, dropping his feet to floor and straightening up so fast I thought he might fly over the desk. “My God, he’s your next door neighbor!”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. Listen to me,” the landlord said. “Don’t call the cops. I’ve had enough trouble with that building already.”
“I’m calling the police as soon as I leave here,” I said.
It was early evening and raining when the police arrived. After climbing the five flights of stairs, they were panting when they reached my apartment. One of them looked like McLean Stevenson, who played Colonel Henry Blake in the television show MASH. I showed them the note, explained the situation, and we went into the hallway and knocked at James Winston’s door.
He stood before us in the doorway, hands on his hips, a bald man about my height but thirty pounds heavier and maybe ten years older. He was wearing a white t-shirt and shorts, and was built like a bull. In the darkness behind him I was sure I could hear the scuttling of cockroaches.
The police asked him about the note. He denied knowing anything.
The police showed him the note. He again denied knowing anything about it.
So we left and he closed the door.
Back in my room, the officer who looked like McLean Stevenson said, “There’s not much we can do at this point.”
I thought there was plenty he could have done, but I saw how it was playing out and kept quiet.
“You know,” he said, “you don’t look like you belong in a place like this.”
“Maybe not. But here I am.”
After they left, James Winston appeared in my doorway. “What was that all about, man?” he asked.
“You know what it was about,” I said, and shoved past him into the hallway. There was no point in closing the door. He already knew there was nothing left worth stealing.
Outside, I turned left out of the doorway and walked down Joy Street in the rain. I hadn’t gone ten steps when I saw a paperback copy of The Koran in a puddle on the sidewalk. I picked the book up and opened it and found what I already knew would be there: my name on the front cover. I’d read the book for a religion course at Guilford College.
James Winston had thrown the book out of his window. If he was a Muslim, then I suspect Allah was terribly unhappy with him that evening.
Over the next few weeks, thieves burglarized the rooms of two more tenants. James Winston then moved somewhere else. Once I saw him on the Boston Common, standing with three or four other men. We stared at each other as I passed.
Until that time I had spent much of my life in schools, studies, books, and libraries. Now I realized I was enrolled in a different sort of school, and I had just finished my first week of classes.
“Boston Police Department. How may I help you?”
“I was robbed,” I said. “Someone has broken into my apartment.”
“Sir, that is not robbery. Breaking and entering is burglary.”
I slammed the phone down, walked around the block to cool off, reentered the hotel lobby, and called the Police Department.
“Boston Police Department. How may I help you?”
“I was burglarized,” I said.
The person on the other end of the line then took the necessary information and told me it would be a week before the officers would arrive to investigate.
As I cleaned up that mess, a bitter anger roiled in me. I felt violated. Some strangers had pawed through my belongings, taking whatever he wanted. The thieves had stolen my stereo, a pathetic machine but my only access to music, and a rare book, whichI was surprised they recognized as worthwhile. Worst of all, however, they had scooped up a small lockbox, doubtless hoping for money or jewels. The box instead held about a hundred letters, and so I lost an irretrievable piece of my past.
At the bottom of a heap of clothes I found a note scrawled, as if by a drunk, on a torn sheet of paper. That note is somewhere in one of the trunks in my apartment, I think, though I lost a box or two of papers on my move from Waynesville. Here is the gist of that note: “We need money and my woman is walking the streets. Now she is beginning to enjoy it. I needed money. James Winston.”
I studied that note for many minutes. What kind of a nut leaves a signed note telling me why he robbed—burglarized—my apartment? And then I decided on a course of action that at the time made sense, but which now seems as arrogant and as dumb as the thief’s note. I decided to track down James Winston.
I went first to a phone booth and found three James Winstons listed in the book. I consulted a map and immediately ruled out two of the names. They lived too far away to break into so poor a place as mine.
But the third James Winston was listed as living in Roxbury. Roxbury at the time was Boston’s black ghetto. So James Winston was most likely black, and as he had shouldered in my door, he was most likely solid and strong. I called his number as listed in the phonebook, but it was disconnected.
So I hit the streets. I went into the laundromat, the little grocery store at the end of the block, the hotel across the street. I stopped passersby and asked them if they knew a James Winston. I climbed to the roof of my building via the fire escape and asked people sunbathing there if they knew him. Nope. Nope. And nope.
Then I went to pay my week’s rent to my landlord. He owned a scuzzy, barebones office at the foot of the Hill. An overhead fan tried to breath life into the stale air, and dead flies littered the windowsill. He was leaning back in his chair with his feet propped on the table. I gave him the money and then told him about the burglary and the note.
“James Winston!” the landlord said, dropping his feet to floor and straightening up so fast I thought he might fly over the desk. “My God, he’s your next door neighbor!”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. Listen to me,” the landlord said. “Don’t call the cops. I’ve had enough trouble with that building already.”
“I’m calling the police as soon as I leave here,” I said.
It was early evening and raining when the police arrived. After climbing the five flights of stairs, they were panting when they reached my apartment. One of them looked like McLean Stevenson, who played Colonel Henry Blake in the television show MASH. I showed them the note, explained the situation, and we went into the hallway and knocked at James Winston’s door.
He stood before us in the doorway, hands on his hips, a bald man about my height but thirty pounds heavier and maybe ten years older. He was wearing a white t-shirt and shorts, and was built like a bull. In the darkness behind him I was sure I could hear the scuttling of cockroaches.
The police asked him about the note. He denied knowing anything.
The police showed him the note. He again denied knowing anything about it.
So we left and he closed the door.
Back in my room, the officer who looked like McLean Stevenson said, “There’s not much we can do at this point.”
I thought there was plenty he could have done, but I saw how it was playing out and kept quiet.
“You know,” he said, “you don’t look like you belong in a place like this.”
“Maybe not. But here I am.”
After they left, James Winston appeared in my doorway. “What was that all about, man?” he asked.
“You know what it was about,” I said, and shoved past him into the hallway. There was no point in closing the door. He already knew there was nothing left worth stealing.
Outside, I turned left out of the doorway and walked down Joy Street in the rain. I hadn’t gone ten steps when I saw a paperback copy of The Koran in a puddle on the sidewalk. I picked the book up and opened it and found what I already knew would be there: my name on the front cover. I’d read the book for a religion course at Guilford College.
James Winston had thrown the book out of his window. If he was a Muslim, then I suspect Allah was terribly unhappy with him that evening.
Over the next few weeks, thieves burglarized the rooms of two more tenants. James Winston then moved somewhere else. Once I saw him on the Boston Common, standing with three or four other men. We stared at each other as I passed.
Until that time I had spent much of my life in schools, studies, books, and libraries. Now I realized I was enrolled in a different sort of school, and I had just finished my first week of classes.