Fenway Follies

June 26, 1976, a Saturday, I was lucky enough to watch Louis Tiant go 9 complete in a 2-1 win over the Detroit Tigers. In a quick game, 1:57, it looks like the Sox 3rd baseman Rico Petrocelli drove in the winning run in the ninth. Yaz had two hits. Detroit outhit the Sox 8-5.

As part of the contigent from the VA Substance Abuse Ward we had 'earned' our attendance by participating in behavior modification sessions disguised as group therapy. We had worked our way past wearing piss cups and signs around our necks to become gods of the ward with our civilian clothes and weekend trips. All earned by showing feelings about our actions. Crying to signal remorse about our various transgressions. The bum checks. The rifled houses. But much more than property crime were the crimes against others. Parents. Wives. Children. We were making amends.

I had shot to the head of the class by breaking down in group and crying for almost two hours. I just broke up and years of rage and grief and fear poured out of me. I didn't know what I was crying for but I knew it was OK to cry and beside once I started I couldn't stop. Making yourself vunerable in a room of sharks scored points with staff. Junkies are always gaming but if you were crying, more often than not, you weren't bullshitting. Mostly.

So I had opened up and I had privledges and I was at a Sox game, in the Grandstand on the 3rd baseline. Great seats. While we were waiting during batting practice we hailed Mark Fidyrch, and were rewarded with a ball. Actually we told this really attractive Psych Nurse, our chaperone, who he was and she got him to toss her a ball cause she had batted her baby blues at him. Know for talking to the ball and taking strolls around the mound, Mark "The Bird" Fidrych was the American League Rookie of the Year for 1976, with 23 complete games and an ERA of 2.34. He looked like Big Bird on the mound.

The VA got tickets for this particular game because it was like, Tard Day at the park. We were there with some of the major Psych Wards in the state of Massachusetts, Belchertown, Metropolitan State, Danvers, Bridgewater. Industrial strength state lockups. I had been at Bridgewater voluntarily for 14 days one time in my storied career to dry out. I was broke so 4 days of methadone looked good. That was the "Hospital Side" of the compound. Stateside of Bridgewater was the mental ward of the Mass corrections empire. Albert Desalvo. Titticut Follies. Droolers and diddlers. But I digress.

We had, from what I could see, all the "defective deliquents" of the state at the ballgame to root for the crafty Cuban lefty. The big outing of the year was being celebrated by some passionate clinches in the stands which progressed into public porno before the participants were pried apart. As the innings flew, the action in the stands was constant and widespread with hands disappearing in blouses and pants to such a extent that we though it might be a scheduled event. This mixing of the male and female wards in a public place might have been the social event of the year. An underground annual ceremony like in the movies where the whores visit the prison at midnight once a year. The Midnight Special at Fenway.

The junkies were dying though. We had kicked junk of one form or another and were now horny, with the usual 20 somethings desires and the return of long suppressed libidos smothered by skag. The Tards were going to town, there was quite a display of real passion. The carnality heightened by the twisted faces, the gnarled hands, the impossible torsos. We were looking at some of the most neglected and battered folks in the state groping in the Grandstands and envying their fumbling, honest intimacies. A little garden of earthly delight right by the third base foul line