Move #1: Commonweatlth Ave. (between Glouster and Hereford), Boston, MA

My first apartment out of college. That really isn’t accurate but I don’t count months of training and living with my training mates in hotels in the various cities they shipped us to, or living in a Days Inn in Dedham, MA while trying to find Commonwealth.

I had never been to the East Coast, or even past Ohio, before transferring to Boston. I got a job selling paper right out of college and my designated territory ranged from upstate New York to Rhode Island. [I was one of two women in that industry at the time, which is another blog] To learn my way around Boston, I drove until I hit water and then turned around. Finding an apartment was impossible so I walked into an apartment dealer’s office on Newberry hoping to get some help.

His name was Serafin and he was from Caracas, Venezuela. “None of this driving would be happening in my country because we all carry guns,” he said, nearly missing another car. I noticed a large rubber band fighting to control a pile of parking tickets in the back seat. I think part of the plan was to get apartment lookers so afraid and dizzy from his driving that they bought the first thing he showed them. He was tall, had thick, curly black hair, weighed about 150lbs soaking wet and for the next year, I would only see him dressed in black pants a white shirt and a long black trench coat. I liked hanging with Serafin because he was funny and had manic energy. I later learned that he and his coworkers were all coke addicts. This explained his driving, his ability to work 10 hour days, and his impromptu dumpster dive after a Replacements concert.

My Commonwealth apartment was wonderful and it should have been for 850.00 a month plus 100.00 to park tandem in the back. But it was “going to be gone that day!” so I jumped on it (Yeah, I later learned that it is a sales tactic). It had 15 foot ceilings, built in bookshelves on each side of a tall fire place, and three bay windows. 1991 was the time of shitty car stereos, thus loud car alarms. Every night I went to sleep to the orchestra of beeps and shrills, or as a guy I dated said, “The cacophony of hatred” (we didn’t last long, bit of a downer). It was easy to overlook the noise because I lived right down the street from Boston Commons, had Newberry Street behind me with Urban Outfitters, Tower Records and the Victor Hugo book store, Fenway Park was within walking distance, and I could say I lived right near Cheers. My landlord was a 50 yr old gay man who lived in a lavishly tacky apartment with his cat, who he let roam the halls from time to time. I was in heaven.

Now I had to learn my job.