The Bad Flasher

Photograph by Roswell Angier: Washington Street., 1977

In his 1933 inaugural address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said to the nation, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” This is how I felt when I was in The Combat Zone.

I never felt fear there. To the contrary, I always felt safety. Or, perhaps it would be more precise to state that I felt for safety. For me, there was nothing in The Combat Zone to fear, except fear. Mine. I had no business – literally – to conduct there. I wasn’t a drug dealer or buyer, I wasn’t a prostitute or pimp, or a hustler, or a junkie, or a mugger or a patron of the Zone’s numerous bars and taverns and dance halls. I was a street spectator. I liked to watch the business of The Combat Zone; I wasn’t one of its patrons.

When I’d roam Washington, Tremont, Boylston, Kneeland and Lagrange Streets on my bike, I’d always be looking, watching and listening. I’d stay far enough away from what I perceived to be potential dangers to be close enough to examine them with as much intimacy as I dared, in hopes of understanding my perceptions. I paid attention. I remained safe. I didn’t ask for trouble, so trouble never found me to extend its invitation.

Photograph by Jerry Berndt: The Combat Zone, Washington St., Boston, 1967

For example, I’d often ride my bike onto the sidewalk, brake, slow, and stop, and, from the saddle, lean against the cement of a building’s facade and smoke as I watched the nightly parade of cars, and the march of men and women on foot, looking this way and that, as they went hooking and hustling through their nights.

Photograph by John Goodman: The Schlitz Boys, 1978

George Carlin once said that one thing you never see is a junkie with leisure time. The joke being that a junkie has no time for leisure, as they’re either on a nod, or, on a hustle to find another fix. I think the only people who felt fear in, or from, The Combat Zone, were those who expected to only find fear there. Those who didn’t feel fear were like the junkies in Carlin’s joke. We were either enjoying our nod on a sex high, or, hustling to find a fix, sexual or otherwise. We didn’t have time to be fearful. The night, after all, lasts only so long.

Photograph by Roswell Angier: Chorus Girls, Pilgrim Theater, 1973

American Beauty

Within the first second of ever seeing Roswell Angier’s photograph, Chorus Girls, this is what my brain told me I was seeing:

freakish girl-like human with bad make-up and weird tits with heroin-addicted whore with wig, sweating.

When an image like this appears unannounced, as it has here, it’s easy for – natural, perhaps – shadings of repulsion to rise to the fore. But look at the photo again. Chorus Girls is nothing more than a meaningless second in time captured in a black & white photograph. All it shows are two women at momentary ease, partially clothed. It’s a beautiful image of nothingness in a moment of shared boredom in an anonymous, linoleum-lined room. It’s nothing. The Chorus Girls are doing exactly what you and I do every day, just with our clothes on. Nothing.

Photograph by Jerry Berndt: The Combat Zone, Washington St., Boston 1968

The Combat Zone was a place where everyone did what other people did all day, but in clothing a little more ornamental and garish, if clothing was worn at all. On any given day or night in the Zone, commerce and social interaction happened, just like they had happened that very day in Boise banks, Chicago stock yard offices and on car lots in sunny, shiny southern California. But instead of consenting adults exchanging currency for a car, cattle or certificates of deposit, currency was exchanged for sexual services, drugs or pornography. Distasteful? Perhaps. Illegal? Not in every case. Different than the norm? Absolutely.

Photograph by John Goodman: Man Boylston Street,1978

What happened in The Combat Zone was different from the norm. Humans are a social species; we need each other. Because we do, we tend to do what others do. When we see other humans doing things we wouldn’t, or that we don’t endorse, our behavior is usually reactive, and oriented towards withdrawal. Imagine if, instead, our natural reaction was proactive, and oriented towards learning and acceptance?

People sometimes threaten me in email messages because of what I write about here. I’m fascinated and saddened by these communications. I wonder if the people who write such things, and then send them to me electronically, really see what I’m writing about?

Photograph by Jerry Berndt: The Combat Zone, Washington Street., Boston, 1968

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