How University College, AA, and a dog reclaimed a life
By John Gedney, UC'76, UC'77
In the spring of 1972, I came to Boston to dry out and get a grip on
my life, so a return trip to my other alma mater, the College of Hard Knocks,
on the Bowery in New York City, was unintentional. I thought I had already
done my hitch in hell by surviving the previous fifteen years on skid row
and was ready to enjoy a life of serene sobriety-but it was not to be,
yet.
The halfway house in Southie where I sobered up arranged for me to work
in the welfare department on Mission Hill. It was on a trial basis, but
if I stayed sober the job would be permanent and I could hope for a career
as a social worker for the state of Massachusetts.
Everyone there was great to me, very friendly, even tried to help me.
Life was good. I rented an apartment overlooking the promenade that was
the centerpiece of prestigious Commonwealth Avenue. Having an address there
was something many sought after. In fact, in better times, my dad and I
owned buildings on that famous boulevard. Now I was putting my life back
together and had hopes of finishing college at one of the nearby universities.
My new pad in town was refurbished with curtains and a new rug. An AC
unit added to the comforts I thought I was worthy of. But months of gracious
living lowered my resistance to temptation and I was soon back to my old
ways, drinking wine and chasing the girls. A holiday loomed, catching me
with nothing to drink in the apartment, God forbid. To remedy that I dashed
out to the liquor store and bought half a gallon of wine and a pint of
whiskey, which I hated but felt I needed if guests showed up. On the return
trip I met an old drinking buddy from the South End. I invited him up,
proud to show off my new pad, even to another bum.
Needless to say, I suppose, we drank up everything. After my visitor
left, I promptly went out and bought another half gallon of wine. When
I awoke from the inevitable stupor, I was broke, the job was lost, and
the rent was due. I had puked all over the rug, the sofa, and the bed.
To save myself more woes, I threw the rug and the bedding out, turned
the sofa cushions and the mattress over, sold the AC for $5, and took off.
I stayed over with the guy I had been drinking with and latched on to a
part-time job with a furniture-moving company I knew of in Southie. I lucked
out when two regular workers didn't show up and I built up a great deal
of overtime. I and another guy were sent to load the furniture from a big
house in Newton. We didn't get back until the warehouse was closed, so
the driver upped the overtime on our worksheet as a tip.
My first paycheck was enough to keep me for a month, but I was broke
by the end of the weekend. I was too hungover to work but went in and got
the money from the overtime job. It came to more than a hundred dollars
and I was dancing in the street. That was enough to start over. All I needed
now was "a hair of the dog" to get well on and I'd be in business.
I can't recall leaving Boston, but I came to my senses outside New Haven,
Connecticut. More than likely I was hitching to New York and the Bowery,
my old stomping ground. A local fellow gave me a ride into town and dropped
me off in front of Yale University. From the money I had left I bought
a fifth of wine and mixed in with a bunch of students who were lounging
around the campus, on the grass or on the many benches dotting the area.
I hoped to stay out of trouble that way.
Wouldn't you know, I ran into a bum like me in all that crowd. We put
what change we had together and got a jug of white port, and everything
went great the rest of the afternoon. We drank and smoked and panhandled
all over the downtown area. No one bothered us- cops or anyone. Life was
good. Come nightfall we scrounged around and found a spot to sack out down
by the rail yards. We spent the night there in an old toolshed, drunk as
hell.
The next morning we woke up broke and sick, with nothing for a get-well
drink. My partner slapped himself on the head and blurted out, "I
know where we can get day work, something to eat, and if we're lucky, a
drink to hold us over till we get paid this evening." Sure enough
we got work for that day, but our luck didn't hold up. We had to suffer
through eight hours without a drink. We got paid that night and scooted
right over to the liquor store as fast as we could get there.
Naturally, we got some wine. Each of us got his own bottle in case one
of us got pinched or lost or something, or the other guy took more than
his share with just one bottle-that always started a fight. We ended up
on the campus of Yale again, right back in the middle of town where we
had met the day before. The campus was covered with people again.
"Most are students but some of them are bums like
us and hang out here because it's safe," my drinking buddy allowed.
"Let's get lost in the crowd and try to drink in peace without getting
panhandled by all these other bums."
Fortunately, he passed out before I did and flopped over onto the ground
to try and sleep it off. Man, was I in luck: there was nearly a whole fifth
of wine left-damn! His wallet was sticking out of his pocket from his rolling
around on the ground, so I reached over to push it back in when another
bum came along.
"Go ahead and take it 'cause if you don't someone else will,"
he said, thinking I was going to roll the guy. So I did. When I went through
his wallet, I found my ID in it. He had rolled me the night before and
I didn't even know it. Boy, was I mad. "Hell's bells, I'm going to
take this damn drunken bum for everything he's got," I said to myself.
I went through his pockets and rolled him around on the ground like a sack
of old clothes. Maybe I ought to strip him, too, I thought; but that meant
I'd have to lug his dirty stuff around-no, that was out. He stunk, anyway.
I took his good shoes for luck. I left town and went to New York where
I'd been headed in the first place. Too bad about him. It took a lot of
nerve to rob a buddy. I was happy the shoes fit.
I landed in the big city in the afternoon of the same day and got drunk
that night. I ended up in the dirt cellar of a run-down building near the
Bowery with an old drinking buddy. This guy had somehow managed to get
on welfare or disability because of a bad back and had a place to stay,
but got too drunk to go to his apartment. When I came along he decided
to stay on skid row for the night. We teamed up the next morning on the
corner of Houston and Bowery panhandling after we had drunk up all the
money I had brought with me.
The best place to bum in New York was right there on that corner, by
far. Cars had to stop at the traffic lights, and when they did, we ran
out and started wiping the windshield, first on the passenger side. Then
we'd take a swipe at the headlights to make our act look good, then wipe
the driver's side, then we'd stick our hand out and ask for any change
they could afford. We hit cars and trucks, men and women, chauffeur-driven
limousines, anybody. We didn't do cops or motorcycles. If someone got mad
and started to get out of the car, we took off around the corner. One time
my partner was wiping the glass on a big black Cadillac-you know, one of
those gangster-looking cars-when the side window came down and a .45 emerged.
He stopped wiping cars then and there and swore he'd never do it again.
A few days after that, we were sitting on the stoop of one of the buildings,
drinking, when all of a sudden he fell asleep. I took what was left in
the wine bottle and went off up the street to look for somebody else to
drink and panhandle with. You must have somebody reliable to make money
at that game. You had to put the bum on anyone coming down the street.
(Of course we didn't bum cops, you know-that was stupid.)
The next thing I knew, someone told me the guy I left sleeping on the
steps had died right there. He had passed out and woke up dead-died right
there where he sat, bingo and he was gone. I wondered at the time who got
his ID and was able to cash his checks. If the cops hadn't found any ID
on him and they buried him as a John Doe, someone could get his welfare
money other than me.
Another buddy died on me another time. He was sitting on the john and
died right there. I just took what he had and went on about my business
like nothing had happened. I took his good watch right off his wrist, because
if I didn't someone else would, and that was no good.
Now I can't see what a powerful attraction the Bowery had. The famous
Bowery Frolics are gone, the horse market's gone, the flophouses and seedy
bars-all gone. Who would want to go into places like that anyway? Well,
I was a rat and a bum and a ne'er-do-well back then and this story's the
best I can do to make some sense of it, maybe like a confession. There's
no way I can give back the money and watches and wine and shoes and shirts
and bedrolls and food stamps and eyeglasses and God only knows what else
I took while on the bum, drunk and sober. It didn't make much sense to
me.
Few realize it, but in a way we bums struggled against the most incredible
odds you could imagine. To eat, drink, and clothe oneself and to hang onto
whatever you had, even if it was just a piece of cardboard to sleep on,
took colossal effort. And to survive the wrath of just one more day was
a separate challenge altogether. I've had a pistol stuck under my nose
and a knife placed against my neck for just a few pennies' change, and
a guy poked me in the mouth because I was a friend of someone he didn't
like. I can't count how many times I've been rolled while I was asleep
or passed out. My shoes were stolen three times over one weekend. But I
don't count that because I got more the same way-what goes around comes
around.
Yet, whenever the street got too much for us, there was always some
organization ready and willing to help. The city, the county, the state,
the feds, the Veterans Administration, the Social Security Administration,
the missions and churches, and the religious groups from as far away as
the state of Pennsylvania came to our aid. Even the cops would get you
some help if you were too bad off. And the blood banks were just around
the corner if you were desperate for money and your blood would sink to
the bottom of the test tube.
To say something good about us, we bums helped each other, too, whenever
we could. We passed the word when the cops were sweeping the streets picking
us up to meet the quotas, or when the penny man was there giving out a
slice of bread and three cents to the bums. Sometimes a church would send
a truck down, loaded with sandwiches and hand them out. Then we'd really
get busy, alerting everyone before the guys that worked around there got
in line and grabbed all the food. Another way we cooperated with one another
was in sharing a good, dry, safe spot to sleep, like a stairwell or a roof
or basement. One time I had an empty truck with dry paper and two good
pieces of cardboard that I shared. The one thing I didn't share was the
four-poster with two good mattresses that I had found in an empty building
near Battery Park. I stayed there when I had a dishwashing job down in
the Wall Street district and I didn't want a bunch of drunks parading in
and out and pooping all over, so I just kept the place for myself.
Believe it or not, I look back with interest, if not fondness, on the
years I spent as a tramp and a bum. No day was the same as the last. One
minute I would be there standing on the corner, the next I would be on
a freight going somewhere. As my favorite actresses used to say, "There
was always something" to darken or brighten my day.
Maybe a Bowery Alumni Association would be in order. That would be a
gas . . . we could call it "the ancient mystic order of the corner."
Some charter members would be one-eyed Dan, the carney; Don, the glom;
Dukes, the window washer; one-eyed Joe; crazy Frank; good old dependable
Eddie; Bald Head Foster; the Swede; and, of course, me, Big John the waiter.
No last names. No aliases needed.
Eventually, we went our separate ways. The last I heard, Dan went back
to the VA hospital. Don died after his feet turned black and his liver
failed. Dukes fell from the tenth floor. Joe went out west someplace. Frank
choked to death. Eddie died horribly when eaten up by cancer. Bald Foster
lost the rest of his hair. The Swede went cuckoo. And I left town and got
sober, to the disappointment of all.
I was standing in an alley when it finally happened, shaking from a
hangover, slowly freezing to death, and waiting for the Catholic church
to open for early mass, because it was the only place to get warm and dry
outside of jail. "I have no life," I whimpered to myself. Only
then did I begin to seek a way out of my hellish state.
Recovery from thirty-four years of chronic alcoholism was like being
born again. Everything was new: how to get along without a drink ever again,
how to be dependable and trustworthy, and, conversely, how to trust. It
didn't come easy, but no one said it would.
I returned to Boston in February 1974 to start my climb out of the bottle
by entering a detox unit in the South End near City Hospital. I met several
members of a visiting Alcoholics Anonymous group and was invited to their
next meeting. Soon I returned to the halfway house I had been in prior
to my second Bowery adventure-nearly two years before-and began to attend
AA regularly.
At first I thought they were running some kind of scam because they
sold tracts and took up a collection like churches do. But I soon discovered
that the members and most of the visitors in the audience were just like
me, people with a problem trying to do something about it. In attending
group therapy at the local VA, I also learned that picking up the pieces
of my life where I left them before going on the bum was an impossible
task. Nor could I expect to get a job at my former level of responsibility
and pay.
I began working in an office building that provided me with a small
office of my own. It had a sleeping area in the rear, a small fridge, and
a hot plate. The basement had a shower, toilet, and sink. It wasn't the
Ritz, which was just down the street, but it was a far cry from the Cardboard
Arms Apartments I lived in on skid row . . . and I was sober.
Ownership of the building changed, but I stayed on and finally became
general superintendent, overseeing the maintenance of other buildings as
they were acquired by the company. My pay increased, and I was able to
add considerably to my savings.
Something happened right in the building where I lived and worked that
made me stop and give what I was doing a closer look. A big tenant had
a party one afternoon, and the leftover food and drink had to be cleaned
up. I was alone . . . I could have just one drink . . . no one would ever
know. Suddenly I remembered a similar time when I was a waiter in New York's
famous Friar's Club. I had been about to serve mixed drinks to a table
of guests. As I bent over the tray, the liquor's aroma filled me with an
overwhelming desire. I couldn't swipe a shot in the middle of serving dinner,
but when I stopped in a bar after work for "just one," I ended
up on skid row all over again. There went the Saks Fifth Avenue suit, the
twenty-dollar shoes, and about six weeks of sobriety down the poop chute.
I certainly didn't want it to happen again, so I got the hell out. They
have a saying in AA: "If you don't want to slip, don't go where it's
slippery." It was mighty slippery in that room. On the spot I resolved
not to get in that kind of situation again. If even the fumes from alcohol
were enough to get me going, I'd better stay ten feet from it.
After I began working, I became interested in getting a college degree,
as something to do to help me stay sober. A guy in my AA group introduced
me to someone connected with a veterans' organization that had helped him
with some school expenses. I thought about Wentworth, but when I showed
my friend my transcript from the University of Illinois (which I had attended
for three years in the late 1940s), he said, "Wow, those are good
grades. You should look at Northeastern."
The veterans' group enrolled me and the VA paid for my tuition and books.
The VA said they'd pay for transportation, too, but I didn't apply for
that. I thought that would be too much to ask for. Northeastern accepted
my credits from Illinois. At night, I took the trolley to the evening classes
of University College.
I was never at any time questioned about my past as a scumbag by anyone
at Northeastern in any capacity, except by one of the school advisers who,
when doing a routine "Welcome to Northeastern, can I be of any assistance"
interview, became a sort of depository for my misgivings about attending
a school of higher learning, considering my past.
Only after I had volunteered a short narrative of "life on the
road" did he question me further. I was soon to discover that the
information was for his own personal use, he being fearful that someone
close was in danger of falling into the same hog wallow I had.
I needed no coaching on how to study; my needs were more or less psychological
in nature. Could I fit in with a younger crowd fresh from high school,
with that momentum going for them? Were the texts and teaching methods
different? Was I too old, too warped, too beaten down to survive the pace?
"If you can survive the street, you can survive here," said
the Northeastern adviser. "When there, you had to remember during
the day what you learned the day before. It is the same here-do the homework
and take to class what you learned from it. It's as simple as that. If
you feel uneasy about the damage to your memory, just take good notes to
compensate for it. Worrying about it will be your worst enemy." With
that advice (armor, if you will), I did survive to graduate.
During the weeks and months that followed that interview, I slowly but
surely got my life together-working every day, going to school twice a
week, and attending AA meetings every night, classes or not.
In class, I had trouble verbalizing at first, but AA helped out on that
score. My group sometimes would go to speak at other groups' meetings.
I went on most of those visits and slowly developed a speaking style that
helped me in school.
I knew few students well during the time I was at University College.
I recall best the professors and instructors who made every effort to set
me straight. One prof especially. He made the class take notes and graded
us on their quality. Without the notes I would never have passed the course.
A few classmates stand out in my mind as marked for success, but we
weren't close and I failed to keep in touch with them. You see, I had little
time to dally and hobnob around the campus at ten or eleven o'clock at
night after classes. It was necessary for me to return home to the office
building I lived in to check out the night cleaners and secure the doors
and windows-you understand.
Still, there was something missing in my life that put my sobriety in
danger. After some soul-searching I realized I was lonely. I dated a girl
who lived nearby on and off, but I was not yet ready to commit to a steady
human relationship. I was not very good one-on-one with women, except maybe
during a con. Someone in AA suggested I get a dog to keep me company. I
did, and it truly got me outside of myself. A pet in the city is near-total
commitment.
So 1974 and the spring of '75 came and went and my sobriety began to
take on a life of its own. It sounds crazy, but I had no real urge to drink.
Work, school, AA, odd jobs, and walking the dog occupied most every waking
moment. Small everyday successes in my life built one on the other until
I had my confidence back. Not the old kind that was built on booze but
a lasting kind founded on a reality I had never experienced before: I was
taking care of myself in the real world. I was making it, clean.
By the winter of 1976, I had acquired forty-two hours
of credit at UC with a 3.2 grade point average. My first college diploma,
associate in science, was given to me in June of '76, when I was fifty-one.
Was I ever proud of that. It was the first in my family, too.
During my "senior" year, I struck up a relationship with a
woman at Northeastern and we studied together some. Things were progressing
when she told me that she had met someone else. Wow. A setback like that
hadn't happened since my wife kicked me out twelve years before. But, lo
and behold, I didn't pick up a drink like I had back then; in fact, I didn't
even think of it. AA was working!
In 1977, at winter's end, I had seventy-four course hours to my credit-nine
of the courses being straight As. It was a blistering pace, but I kept
at it right up to the next year, when a string of business setbacks took
their toll and left two Cs in their wake.
Even so, I graduated with honors on June 19, 1977. My second Northeastern
degree was a bachelor's in industrial technology. I had no idea that I
qualified for cum laude standing, so when they called my name and added
"with honors," I was jubilant right down to my toes. The only
cloud in my sky was that no one in the family showed up to share my greatest
triumph. I couldn't really blame them; I hadn't shown up for them for fifteen
years-hadn't called, written, anything.
After graduation, I stayed with the company I worked for. In the following
few years it acquired three more buildings in downtown Boston and four
shopping centers, two out of state. I was given the title of operations
manager and the task of overseeing the maintenance of all those properties.
It was no big deal, actually. I had learned a lot on the job and could
call in experienced people such as AC repairmen and plumbers for the more
difficult tasks.
School was helpful too-but also damaging. One class in particular, "Real
Estate Fundamentals," had a profound influence on the direction of
my life. In it I learned about "triple net leasing," which requires
the major tenant to manage the property it occupies. I conveyed that notion
to my superior at work. Lo and behold, the company did just that with all
of its properties and I was out of a job.
Don't feel bad for me over that, because it was the best thing that
could have ever happened. During those years on the job, I spent many happy
weekends at my sister's in Woburn, reunited with my family. When my brother-in-law
retired, he and my sister sold their house and moved to Florida. I followed
them down and eventually settled into a very nice job as a housing inspector
and a code enforcement officer for an old but young-minded and growing
city. I retired here in 1994, very well-off from applying all I had learned
at N.U., on that live-in job, in AA, and even as a bum on the Bowery in
New York. For instance, I could tell right away when a lush was coming
into a building to panhandle-I'd done that, too.
You may be sure I will forever be indebted to AA for keeping me sober,
to Boston and its people for welcoming me back into the fold, and to Northeastern
University and University College for making a cum laude out of a scumbody.
It was like making a fine purse from a pig's ear. The degrees you conferred
on me made me feel like I was someone again.
"Any regrets?" you might ask.
Yes, two. I wish I had joined one or two of the professional organizations
or campus clubs at N.U., like a computer association or one of the fraternities
that had asked that I become a member. I would have more enriching memories
because of them.
The second: I have had to misrepresent myself to survive. In 1984, when
I was being interviewed for a job with the city where I live now, I was
asked about past entanglements.
"Have you ever been in jail?"
"Twenty-five years ago," I began. "A couple of us got
drunk and . . . "
"No, no, no. I don't want to hear about that. It's too far back.
Have you ever committed a felony for which you were convicted?"
"No," I said, quite honestly. "I haven't but . . . "
I tried to tell him I had been in jail umpteen times, but he didn't allow
it.
"Forget it, okay. Now let's go on. Have you ever had your driver's
license revoked in the past ten years?"
"No."
"That about does it then," he concluded, and handed me the
report to take back to Personnel. He should have seen the guilt written
on my face, because I had smashed up every car that I had ever driven-two
of mine, my dad's company car, and two of my brother-in-law's.
I didn't tell him an untruth-but I didn't tell him
the whole truth. Should I have insisted? Yes, I probably should have, but
I wouldn't have been given the job. I had been out of work for a year and
a half; simple survival was now the task at hand. As my files back in Massachusetts
had been sealed, no real harm done, you think?
So I brought to my new job and new life two things: a body that was
tired of sitting around and a newfound conviction that quiet and sustained
effort was the way to salvation. Every morning I count my many blessings
and give thanks for them. And I haven't picked up a drink in more than
twenty-three years.
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