For the past several years PAPER has been doing its "Beautiful People" issue, and when I look back over time I can remember a few beautiful people that forever colored my life. Here are three favorites.
LOUIS
I once worked for six months with mentally ill
children at a state facility in Connecticut. I worked in the ward for
hyperactive kids, which was a real hodgepodge of mental ailments. But in
the mornings, you had to watch out because the kids would often sneak
off to the bathroom, likely to play with their feces. My favorite tyke
was little Louis, a sweet-faced boy who would run down the walkway and
hug me every morning, and stand alongside me while I was doing my
chores, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. He was a little
angel. One morning I was in the day room getting the kids ready for
breakfast and I heard a horrible crash. Louis had accidentally smashed
his arm through the window. His arm was nearly severed in half, and a
geyser of blood sprayed the room. It's funny how Boy Scout training
suddenly flashed through my brain. I snatched a shirt off a kid, grabbed
a piece of wood and quickly made a tourniquet, holding Louis tight as he
struggled and screamed. I held him all the way to the hospital and into
the operating room and then sat outside, shaking, covered in dried
blood. They managed to save his arm, and when they took him into
recovery I sat with him and cradled him in my arms -- until his drunken
mother showed up and passed out on the floor. That was the exact moment
when I decided to move to Provincetown, Massachusetts. But I still dream
about little Louis and his sweet smile.
BEVERLY
A beautiful African-American girl named Beverly
moved to Provincetown during the '70s and we all fell in love with her.
There was something exotic and strange about her -- and she was funny.
She wore expensive clothes and had a great apartment (the rumor was that
she had a wealthy husband who shipped her to the Cape to get rid of
her). Beverly did lots of LSD and when she started complaining of
violent headaches, we all suggested it might have something to do with
all the acid she was consuming, but she brushed it off. Instead, she
discovered that walking backwards alleviated her migraines. So for a
year, we used to see Beverly strolling up and down Commeal Street,
backwards. It's a tribute to Provincetown's bohemian spirit that no one
seemed to really care. My friend Frankie peered into her apartment
window one time and sure enough, she walked backwards at home, too.
Later, she told us she was going to some swami in India who could
finally cure her of the headaches. (We all joked about her sitting
backwards on the plane.) She disappeared shortly after that, but a
friend said he spotted her five years later walking on the beach in a
ratty raccoon coat, carrying a wooden staff and telling people she was
married to Mick Jagger and that she was also the moon goddess. I like to
think it wasn't really Beverly.
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