After life on Fayerweather Street, I got a job writing newsletters at a commodities firm in downtown Boston. I didn’t know a single thing about commodities or futures but quickly became an “expert” in the eyes of the shady salesmen. In truth, my ignorance in finance wasn’t the only thing I was hiding back then. There was also my growing addiction to alcohol and the forbidden love affair with a fellow group therapy patient.

THIS IS PART 5 of a SIX-PART STORY

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

In the meanwhile, the rest of my life was going pretty well. Jofka and I had moved out of the large, forbidding house on Fayerweather Street and were living in a second floor apartment on a narrow street of closely-spaced houses. Our landlady, an elderly woman named Mary who worked as a house cleaner and had pitchblack dyed hair and the droopy, scrunched-up face of a witch, forever sat guard on the front porch, making me nervous as I dug around in my bag for my keys or lugged groceries from the car up the front steps. 

Our first morning in the place, Jofka and I had been awakened by a male voice yelling, “Eat your fuckin’ Cheerios or else!” Or else what? The voice was very rough and seemed to be coming from the kitchen. But when I jumped out of bed to check, I realized the voice belonged to our neighbor (actually our neighbor’s boyfriend, Manny) and that our windows, across the narrow concrete passage that separated the houses, were so close we might as well have been in the same room. Later I was to become fond of Manny, a car mechanic who kept my little Toyota running and who regularly fished for lobster and brought home a sufficient amount of coke for friends and neighbors to stop by and snort a few lines. But in the beginning all I knew was that my neighbor, a tiny redheaded woman about my age, had six children, an ex husband who visited every day, and a good looking boyfriend who’d slip out the back door the moment the ex arrived. 

That was where I was when I started work at the commodities firm. I loved the apartment, which had two nice-sized bedrooms for Jofka and me, and a pretty study with a wide desk overlooking the street.

Carl moved in with us right around the time I interviewed for the job. He and I were in the same therapy group -- in fact, we’d joined the same day, three years earlier.

He was a pleasant-looking man in his late thirties who drove an ancient white Mercedes, favored short sleeved cotton shirts, and had some sort of complicated job at MIT. I liked him. A lot. But I wasn’t in love with him -- just really enjoyed his company. We had somewhat similar backgrounds in that his family, like mine, had had to flee Nazi Germany. He was endlessly curious and I could talk to him about anything under the sun. And he liked my parents, not the easiest people, whom we drove down to New York to meet one bright fall weekend. He also was crazy about Jofka, not trying to become an instant daddy, like some men I dated, but talking to her naturally, like an interested, older friend. We were happy and well-suited and we flirted a little during those early days with the idea of marriage. The only problem was, he drank too much. 

Next: Read Dark Days, Dangerous Nights