packie run

The other day, in a conversation with some people, I mentioned the words “package store,” which is Massachusetts talk for liquor store. Plural – Packies. After the event I walked up to a guy I’d seen smile when I said “package store” and asked if he was from Boston, making a connection obvious to me. He said no, but added he had spent six months in a mental hospital there back in the day. “A big area, with rolling hills,” he said, though he couldn’t remember its name. “McLean” I said, and there were the smiling eyes again. “Yeah,” he said. I knew McLean from working with teenagers who bounced in and out of there. I hung out there with a “Visitor” pass.

This morning I thought about how so many, maybe most, mental hospitals could be found in what you’d call idyllic settings. Like finding yourself looking over a lovely, green dell; sitting by a babbling brook; in a place where every star in the sky showed up to greet you in the dark nights – like, maybe, finding yourself in a poetic setting may ease your troubled mind. Which – thinking about it – may not be the smartest plan. Say, instead, all mental hospitals (includes facilities) are placed on the 17th floor of a 40-floor high-rise in a cluster of similar high-rises – think your introduction to the Bronx driving south on 95 – and the pastoral dell is replaced with the lingering odor of aging urine; moms screaming for their invisible kids, what you hear instead of the babble of the brook; water-stained panels above.

See – then there’s no payoff to be there, no one ever able to make the case your experience will be like a relaxing vacation. Wouldn’t that encourage people to just get it more together and not be so crazy? It reminds me of Eddie putting his arm around Frenchie and, looking at me, pointing at Frenchie, saying, “If you continue to drink, this will happen to you.” And if you think there is some debate about if people can simply choose to be less crazy, I’m not interested in having it with you. This is a story about package stores. Which, point of information, that name just sort of floated over to Massachusetts from England with the Pilgrims and the follow-up English invaders.

There was a musician back when I was younger, in fact when I was working at a runaway house on the lovely, rolling-hills grounds of Danvers State (mental) Hospital, named Martin Mull, and he had a song called “Loser’s Samba”, with the line, “Cause the bag I’m in is just a package from my package store.” A song about packies. Maybe it’s on YouTube.

The point is, if you’re trying to check someone out, maybe it’s a Match.com date or while hustling Amway, you might say you need to make a “packie run” and see if something like a twinkle in their eye appears. When “Love me some Bay State” is number one – with a bullet.