Darkend Paths - Massachusetts

Salem Sightseeing
Salem, Massachusetts - 21 March 1999
Submitted by the Dead Parrot

Before this trip, Lilith and I had spent the most wonderful week together growing closer together. We had been taking small trips all week in her car. It was fun, but I missed driving my 'grocery getter' [the Ford]. We returned from Pennsylvania to my mother's in Connecticut Friday evening. We drove through New Jersey traffic for a few hours. By the time we got back, she seemed dead tired from the drive, even admitting road weariness. I was more than happy to do the driving up to Massachusetts the next day.

We set out at about 11am for Salem, Mass from Shelton, Conn. First stop was at Dunkin Donuts in Seymour for coffee to go along with our semi-stale 5 day old Genuardi's muffins. Onward we went up through Waterbury and onto Hartford. In Hartford, the traffic was real slow. Lilith was hoping for some 'entertainment' at the end of it. Sure enough, there it was; an overturned car beside an exit ramp. Flipping your car in the Insurance City is never a wise thing to do. Not even if its a stolen car!

Once we got through the traffic jam, Interstate 84 East was clear sailing out of Connecticut and into Massachusetts. Before getting on the Mass Pike outside of Worcester, I had to fill-up on gas. I almost forgot to do this, and had we gotten on the Mass Pike, that would have ended the day fairly quickly. Exits are 10 miles apart, and service stations are 20 miles apart. We filled up, got our ticket for the Mass Pike ["Is that a pilgrim hat on that sign?"], and set out for Rte 128. The last time I travelled to Salem from Connecticut, I got caught in air show traffic for over an hour. There wasn't even any "entertainment" at the end of it; just a line of cars going to Hanscomb AFB to an air show. Luckily, that did not happen to Lilith and I. No traffic delays to be seen.

Its always nice having someone in the car with you when you travel and you hear a song on the radio that you haven't heard in years...like "Paradise City" by Guns'N'Roses? Such conversation is much more interesting than coming to the conclusion that you're the only one who actually LIKED that song.

Anyways, we exited Rte 128 in Peabody, Mass and headed on down into Salem. This was the only other place we hit traffic...due to construction. But it wasn't at the best place. It was right before an intersection that I can never seem to remember what lane I want to be in. I picked the right one fortunately. Now I knew my way in pretty well. Left at some traffic signal, another left at the next one, right, left and left into the garage. I'd made such a habit of it only because I've never bothered to learn another route.

We walk out onto Essex St and walk into our first witch shop for the day. There are a few other kids in there. Its at this time that Lilith begins to notice that people are looking at us. As usual, I'm too oblivious to notice something like this. In this case, however, the young couple looking at us approached us. I can't recall exactly what they asked, but it wasn't anything deroggatory or stupid. Elsewhere in town, as people kept "looking at us", I never noticed this. Perhaps Lilith has a paranoid side that I have more to learn about. I've been stared at before by normals...right in Salem, in fact. When I brought Bean there last year, a tourist with a videocam taped us walking by the Wax Museum. I just stopped and glared back at him. He shut the camera right off. Nobody was filming us this time, but they were, apparently, looking our way.

Our next stop was at Fool's Mansion, which is where I had bought a purple velvet ruffle shirt the previous month. I introduced Lilith to the friendly Scottish woman that worked there named Nina. She showed Lilith several dresses. She tried on a few. One thing about gothic clothing seems to be that the companies who make the clothing seem to be operating under the premiss that goth girls don't have breasts. I know more than one exception to this statement. Also, most stores seem to only stock no larger than size medium. Anyways, Lilith did try on one dress that she liked, and subsequently, bought.
I didn't buy much of anything in town, but Lilith got a few other things. A Celtic pentacle from Crow Haven Corner, and a Book of the Dead at a relatively new bookstore across from Pickering Wharf. We wandered around for a little while, took pictures of the water, and found a couple more witch shops that even I didn't know about. Had I known, I would have gone over to the House of Seven Gables to take a picture or two there. But, we did get plenty of pictures from the old Cemetary and the Witch's Memorial right next to it. On our way out of town, we took a couple of pictures of the Witch's House...from the car. Too much traffic to stop and get out.

We got back on the road and set out for an evening in Cambridge. For the longest time, I had NEVER taken the same route from I-93 to Central Sq twice. I tried many combinations looking for the shortest route. However, after a while, I found a route through Union Sq in Somerville. Its not convenient for getting to the parking garage near ManRay, but there is plenty of parking along Bishop Allen Drive [one block over from Mass Ave]. Its not often that I ManRay was having its usual New Wave/Disco Saturday thing, so we didn't go there. But, we did go straight to Hubba Hubba; a fetish shop. Pretty much the only of its kind in Cambridge, as far as I know. Lots to see, good selection, but rather pricey. We walked our way up to Harvard Sq, where I _love_ to do my CD shopping. The walk was a good opportunity to talk and laugh ["I'm a little teapot..."] while drinking coffee and leaving the empty cups atop a pay phone. We were half-paying attention to the time. It was the equinox, after all, and Spring was to begin at 8.36pm. We got up to Harvard at 7.15pm. We looked around in the Garage Mall at the Jewelry Gallery, Newbury Comics, and one or two other shops. We each saw crosses at Jewelry Gallery that we liked, but we did not get them. We walked all around the neighborhood there, seeing the somewhat upscale businesses, like the Harvard Co-op, Brew Moon Cafe, Out of Town News, and Urban Outfitters.

We rode the T back to Central Sq [which was a little warmer than walking], and started looking for a place to eat. Lilith had been looking for a Mexican restaurant ever since relocating to Pennsylvania from Georgia. She hasn't found one that she likes. But, we did find a Mexican cafe near Buck A Book in Central Sq. The burritos seemed a little pricey to me, but we ordered one each, along with a side of rice, only because we weren't sure how small the burritos would be. As it turned out, they were about 3 inches across, and more than twice as long. Lots of food to eat! I finished mine off fairly quickly, while Lilith barely got through half of hers before she heaped it onto my plate. I just gave her a look like, "Are you SURE you want me to eat more Mexican?". So, I finished it off while she just looked at me. Without realising it, Spring arrived while we were eating there.

The drive back was relatively uneventful. We hit the road at 9.30pm, because I didn't feel like driving until 3am. God knows I've done that more than once going back to Plymouth. We were on the Mass Pike before 10pm, in Connecticut around 11pm, and back home shortly after 12.30pm.