Grays Ferry

The name itself is dismal. Stumbling

Into adulthood, I spent a year there,

On a narrow, much interrupted street.

My austere block had a single, sick tree.

Tim Fender and I rented a row house

For only 50 bucks a month. Basically,

It was a shell, bought by this gay man

Who thought he would fix it up, but

Grays Ferry made him so depressed,

He just had to bolt. Being Catholic Irish,

This hood couldn’t have been congenial

To someone gay, unless he’s a priest.

Still, I seriously doubt the neighbors did

Or said anything. They certainly didn’t

Show hostility to Tim or I, two art fags.

Everyone suffered in Grays Ferry, and

In 1986, it literally stank, for there were two

Huge lots filled with garbage, thanks to a

Twenty-day strike by Philly’s garbage men.

I had left art school without a degree,

For why borrow money to learn painting

From all these failed artists? Why not just

Slink somewhere and paint? Though I never

Amounted to crap as a painter, I’ve taught

Myself to write, sort of, instead of hocking

My life to a bank, just so I could be misled

And muddled by stunted or puffed up typists.

That year, I manned up and mainlined Celine’s

Death on the Installment Plan and his Journey

To the End of the Night. After the first

Paragraph of Death, I knew there were risks

To reading further, but until I could finish all

One thousand-plus pages of these books, I

Didn’t leave the house. It took me a week,

Then I started my own novel, from which

I’d read on UPenn’s WXPN.

The response was great, actually, but

People were just astonished by my

On-air delirium, for the writing

Was a goofy mess. I had to toss it.

(WXPN liked my raving so much,

It even made me a host, until I

Really went nuts on a live show.)

The Grays Ferry shell was freezing.

I ate badly, drank rather well, kissed

Rachel upside down, bit her lips, and

Not in a nice way, either. I apologized,

And I’m saying sorry again, for one

Can never say sorry enough. I’m sorry.

Any lived life will trail loose ends, but what

Are unforgivable are malice and betrayal.

For a month, Tim had a boyfriend then,

Much later, told me he wasn’t really gay.

I wasn’t too gay, myself, for my prospects

As human, artist and writer were pathetic.

Irrelevant, young artists and writers lie

On gray sheets and dream of greatness

As society sinks further into stupid.

Hi, I’m stupid. This is stupid.

Nice to meet you, stupid.

The local, though, can never be stupid,

But I didn’t know it then, so I missed all

Of Grays Ferry’s breadth and depth, which

I never bothered to investigate. Tense,

I talked to no locals. I simply assumed

My future was in New York or, at least,

Downtown Philadelphia. What a farce.

Had I mingled in Grays Ferry, I might have

Discovered its trade in soiled underwear.

For 17 years, neighborhood boys would run

To swank Rittenhouse Square, to sell their

Skid-marked Fruit of the Loom to Fast Eddie.

A UPenn dropout, Eddie also paid these

St. John Neumann kids to piss, shit or throw up

Into his mouth. He kept shit in pizza boxes.

Though HIV-positive, Ed had butt sex

With some of these teenaged boys.

Before his trial, Uncle Ed died of AIDS.

Eddie studied economics, then music,

Married his high school sweetheart, divorced her.

The love of his life, though, was excreta.

Messy yet meticulous, he saved all of

His boys’ underwear in 312 trash bags.

To be an artist, you must not blunt your

Troubling vision, no matter how queer.

Hedge and you’ll be a half-assed punk.

To be true, you must be willing to die.

You must, as Gary Snyder says, “kiss

The ass of the devil and eat shit.”

You must have as much integrity

As Uncle Eddie of Philadelphia.