Moon Over Boston.

A true Christmas story.

Couple things before we jump in 1) the names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty 2) the first 5 folks to leave a comment get all three art collage cards shipped to them for FREE! 3) this story is for paid subscribers. Short on dough? Refer three pals (they don’t have to join) and get a month of premium access!

And away we go…

I was eighteen and a freshman at college. I had already been kicked out of one dorm and on my way to getting punted out of a second. Christmas was approaching and I had nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing to be. 

I was amazed at the other college students. They buzzed around campus with such purpose, knowing where to go and why, how to balance a check book and their lives.

Some were just a little older than me and starting something called a career. Nobody had a career where I came from, just jobs, and the quality of the job was based on how much you could sleep on the job without getting caught.

I watched in awe and terror at these college students entering the adult world, which seemed to only have one rule - those who surrendered the fastest sailed the highest.

"My older sister is having a Christmas party," my friend Peter told me, "You should come."

Peter knew I was an animal. I knew he knew. He knew I knew he knew. He was a junior and interning at a company he hoped to gain full time employment with. He owned a pair of khakis and a judicious pair of dress shoes.

"Bring somebody if you want," Peter said, "It will be my sister's work friends, but it should be a good time."

A good time? Maybe. But also a potential trial run at adulthood, to dip my toes in the raging waters of sanity. 

While I was trying to figure out who to bring, I saw my good friend Eddie walking down Sheridan Road. At the time, my GPA was a .453. Eddie's was a negative integer.  We were both freshman and both on our way out.

"What are you doing?" I asked Eddie.

"Nothing," he said.

"Wanna go drink?"

"Yep."

So we hit the corner bar and before we knew it, were back in our mutual friend Peter's apartment, still drinking, just the two of us, with the sun coming up.

Eddie turned to me and said, "Have you ever seen the moon over Boston?"

"Nah.  Never been to Boston." I replied.

Eddie stood, strutted around the coffee table, turned to face me, and pulled his pants and boxers down to his shoes revealing a giant penis that looked like a pink paper towel tube dangling between his legs.

This is weird, I thought. 

I wonder if asking somebody if they have ever seen the moon over Boston was secret code for, "Hey, we been up drinking for two days straight, and I was wondering if you’d fancy a peek at my comically large penis?"

Then Eddie rocked his hips back and forth, causing the garden hose god blessed him with to swing back and forth like the pendulum on an old grandfather clock. 

His penis swung up to his stomach and then under his legs. He snapped his legs shut, like he was standing at attention, spun around, his back now to me, then bent forward at a 90-degree angle, his penis now proudly poking out under his ass and above his balls, thus the moniker - Moon Over Boston.

It was then and there I knew Eddie was going to be my guest for the party.

The day of the party Eddie and I spared no expense in our preparation. We took our least dirty, least wrinkled shirts and pants, laid them under our rock-hard dorm mattresses and then took a long nap to iron them out.

We met up by the Sheridan El stop and took the train to Peter's sister's apartment. When we walked in, we immediately felt out of place, not because they did anything wrong, but because they appeared to be doing everything right. They were dressed wonderfully, laughing, smiling and hopeful.

It was disgusting.

To make matters worse, his sister put incredible time, attention, and care into making her place look as beautiful and festive as possible. Tinsel, decorated trees and large, bowls of spiked punch.

"I need a drink," Eddie said, "And not out of a bowl."

Eddie and I made our way into the kitchen where there was a table full of hard alcohol, a cooler full of beer and a counter full of mixers.

Eddie poured himself a pint glass of Vodka and I chugged two fingers right out of the whiskey bottle.

"I gotta use the bathroom," Eddie said.

"Stink it up," I suggested.

He took off, leaving me alone in the kitchen.

A guy walked in, mid-twenties, and poured himself a drink.

"Some shindig, huh?" he said.

"Yeah," I answered.

"You know Colleen?" he asked.

"A little. I'm friends with her brother Peter."

"Peter's cool," he said.

"Sure is."

"You want some acid?"

I froze. This was a party of young adults on their way up. What was this guy doing offering me acid?

"You a cop?" I asked like an idiot.

"A cop on acid," he said.

"Really?" I asked.

"Kidding about the cop part."

"Do they know?" I asked.

THEY.

He smiled a beautiful anarchic smile and said, "Who gives a shit what THEY think."

YES!

He dug through a pack of cigarettes and pulled out two hits of acid on small squares of paper.

I grabbed both, tossed them in my mouth and swallowed. The guy's eyes went wide.

"What?" I asked.

"Those are microdots man, so they’re actually two hits per hit, so you just took four hits of acid," he said through a giggle then walked away right as Eddie entered.