Playing Fair and Being Kind

I’ve written about Ben Adams before. I’m not sure that he is included in any of my entries on this blog. At any rate he is now.

Ben and I met in Boston around 1981. He was director of a Detox center in greater Boston and I was director of a large half-way house. Naturally our paths crossed early and often. We also were members of the Mount Auburn Hospital AA Monday night recovery group. I found Ben to be an egghead and a real gentleman. He was also caring of all his acquaintances as well as his clients. That could have been Ben’s downfall over the years. If you can imagine that caring too much for others would shorten your life. Ben wore himself out; never took care of himself.

I lost touch with Ben around 1987. He was living in someone’s house in Alston just across the bridge from Harvard in Cambridge. Whenever I was in town, I always sought him out. We’d have lunch or something and spend a few hours catching each other up on the politics of human services in Massachusetts. Ben was a keen observer of who and what was happening in the alcoholism recovery field. He knew all the vulnerable spots in the system and who was slipping it to whom. Ben loved the intrigue of municipal governments. His forte was to appear harmless, no threat to anyone. Then he was usually the recipient of the latest gossip. He shared a lot of the intrigue with me. I was always prepared for the shiv because Ben kept me aware.

I’m getting way off topic here; pardon my loose-lipped nature. Ben and I lost touch and I was living in Connecticut and then I moved to Maine for a radical career change in the eighties. Then I experienced a few major life changes and by the year 2012 I was thirty years older and eager to leave the east coast for a while. In the month of October, I left Maine for an extended trip west. I intended to travel to southern California to reunite with my estranged children who were now in their late forties. I also had Ben on my mind but I was not actively seeking him although I had made internet searches. One other old friend from my half-way house days was Rick Mobbs. I’d discovered he was living in Santa Fe and he had become a talented and successful artist. I easily found Rick through the internet search system because he had a blog of writings and he had posted some of his art. Rick had a family as well. I contacted Rick and we excitedly talked about me visiting him in New Mexico. 

During my trip south and west (the southern route, as it is called, avoided the snow areas of the central U.S.) Rick contacted me via email. He had found Ben. What an exciting bit of news that was. Ben was in New Mexico as well. Great day! I was going to see two of my best old pals from twenty-five years ago. 

When I arrived in New Mexico I went directly to Albuquerque where Ben had an apartment. I wasn’t prepared for what I found. Ben was a wreck. He had aged not so gracefully. His cigarette habit had devastated his physical well-being. He was on oxygen and using a walker. He was grossly overweight and barely able to leave his apartment. He was still in fairly good spirits though. Ben always had a sly sense of humor that stood him in good stead through all of his tragic experiences. He probably developed that during his tenure in municipal politics. 

I spent a couple of weeks in Albuquerque with Ben and in Santa Fe with Rick. While I was visiting Ben, we ate out all the time. His apartment was unlivable to me so we spent no time there. We would do as we always did back in Boston, that is we would go to a diner or favorite eatery that Ben had scoped out and enjoy comfort food and heavy deserts with cups and cups of coffee. I always paid. Ben was never well compensated for his work. He was always too polite to complain directly to his bosses; they had him figured out. Especially now, that he was on disability, he had very little income and he was watching his pennies.

During one of our daily forays into the inner parts of Albuquerque, we were idly speaking about the east coast and how it was for Ben to be out west. I had assumed correctly that Ben was living in New Mexico for the dry climate. Still, I asked him, why he had chosen to move to New Mexico and specifically why did he choose Albuquerque? Why not Taos or Santa Fe where there were more upscale people and more art centers? Ben’s reply was surprising when it shouldn’t have been. He had moved to Albuquerque based upon an old love of his. There was a woman living there while Ben was still in Alston. He had been in contact with her and she suggested to him if he lived closer, they could be partners in some venture she was developing. They could be involved she intimated. That was all Ben needed. He moved to Albuquerque.

The venture did not come into being. Ben was really in failing health before he moved west and when he arrived his friend saw that he was not the person of her memory. He was deteriorating quickly. COPD is a killer that grips and never lets go. At the time I was visiting Ben he had no regularly scheduled treatment with any agency or clinic. I think it was more a case of Ben refusing treatment as a form of denial.

By the time I found Ben and began our visits he was in sad shape and his apartment was cluttered to the point the floor was barely visible. There were bags of clutter strewn about and newspapers, Ben’s favorite news source, stacked atop counters, tables, shelves, etc. Ben had his computer on a desk top and he was actively on-line on social media. Ben’s intelligence was admired by many of his friends. When I met some of them, they were profuse in their admiration for Ben’s social skills and sense of humor as well as his ability to talk on any subject. Due to his history and breadth of experience, Ben was a hero of sorts to his friends in New Mexico AA.

One salient feature of Ben’s was his sense of humor, as I’ve mentioned several times. He was able to find a way to take a mundane bit of conversation and turn it into a light hearted moment. People, like myself, often would ask him about where he came from and why did he choose to move to Albuquerque? Ben came up with a stock answer for that particular question and he had perfected his response. He would tell people he had come to New Mexico for his health. He came for the waters. The other person would look incredulous. What waters? They would ask him. There is no water in New Mexico! I was misinformed! Ben would say. They would slowly realize that Ben had snagged them with his satirical predicament. After a while people would ask Ben the question just to see his routine and delivery. They loved it. The layer that was not always noticed is that Ben was quoting the Humphrey Bogart character, Rick Blaine, from the movie Casablanca. When this scene was reenacted in my presence, Ben always cast a look in my direction and he would wink slyly and slightly so as not to give away the second layer of his joke. Ben was quite alive inside his failing body.

My trips west were annual events. I would leave Maine when the weather became unbearable and my thoughts would turn to places like Borrego Springs and Coronado. I could feel the warm breezes and the salt water on my ankles and knees. I visited Ben two times, a year apart. Then during one of the periods when I was enjoying Maine, Ben died in hospital in the middle of December 2014. I’m glad I found Ben when I did. We were progressive and we did things in Boston that no one else could do. Then Ben’s and my friend Rick died almost two years later. He died in Santa Fe in 2016; cancer. I still come to New Mexico; every year except for two. I missed last year and the year before. I’ve made this place my own now. I’ll keep coming here as long as I can drive a car.

Peace,
Gentle George
February 3, 2020