E-Mail This Article to a Friend Juiced, jaded, faded (continued)

STRANGE INTERLUDE

Immediately beyond Alewife Brook Parkway (which marks the Arlington/Cambridge border) lies a sort of no man’s land, populated by little more than steady traffic and a few businesses with no-nonsense names — Jack’s Gas, Fast Phil’s Haircuts — that sound like they belong in a cartoon. Maybe it’s the heat or the dehydration, but after I’ve walked for almost three hours, the vibe on the street gets strange.

A blind woman with blond ringlets and orange sunglasses, walking the opposite direction, stops me on the sidewalk. She asks where she can find a Bank of America farther up the road. I’m nonplussed. It occurs to me that I’ve passed probably half a dozen Bank of Americas so far, but can’t recall precisely where any of them are. When I tell her I can’t help her, she seems angry with me.

Inside Kaleidoscope Tattoo & Art Gallery, hangs an enormous painting of jowly Joe Friday from Dragnet, standing in some psychedelic dreamscape. There’s also a towering 10-foot crucifix, cobbled together from car parts. While I gaze upon Christ’s forlorn-and-shiny face, Bronson Arroyo and Johnny Damon sing "Dirty Water" on the radio. I decide to leave.

SUNBATHERS AND HOBOS

"North Cambridge grew gradually along Massachusetts Avenue," reads a tourist information sign near the Harvard campus. "For years it was a livestock center and the Porter House Hotel flourished in Porter Square, leaving its name to us on a fine cut of beefsteak."

I already knew that.

I lived here for three years, and have walked the stretch of Mass Ave between here and Central Square countless times. Porter Square’s strip-mall charm feels like home. From the window of Koreana restaurant, a mother and her baby even wave to me as I pass.

Farther up the road, an MBTA tram idles near Cambridge Common while sunbathers and hobos alike splay indolently on the grass. A black-and-white dog on a leash suddenly and inexplicably lies down in the middle of Mass Ave as traffic approaches. Time slows for a moment as her owner, mildly panicked, drags her across the road.

Above the stone archway marking the ingress to Harvard Yard is a chiseled inscription: ENTER TO GROW IN WISDOM. So I do. On the oak-shaded lawn, hundreds of people mill about, pointing, looking at maps, posing for photos next to the John Harvard statue.

Overrun by bland chain stores and the bland people who patronize them, Harvard Square may be a sterilized shell of what it used to be, but it still has its characters. In front of Au Bon Pain is the man-mountain African-American who’s been selling Spare Change there for years. If you’ve been to Harvard Square, you know him. He’s said hello to you — "Ma’aaaaaam!" "Hellooooooo, sir!" — in that singsong voice that seems vaguely mocking. He twirls in slow circles as if to music only he can hear. Meanwhile, the people he says hi to walk right past, their expressions — amused, determinedly neutral, openly annoyed, mildly chagrined — acting as windows to their souls.

Near the Pit, where teens skateboard and assorted other characters loiter fecklessly, sits a woman whose matted hair is one single, enormous dreadlock, as thick as her torso and nearly as long as she is tall. Meanwhile, a severe-looking woman of indeterminate age with cropped hair and a pinched face sits at a small table near the subway. "Animal rights! Sign the petition," she screams at no one, without looking up. "Animal abuse!"

She’s probably unaware of the man sitting kitty-corner from Leavitt & Pierce tobacco shop. His cardboard sign says he’s homeless. Next to him, a dog and a cat lie limply on a fully loaded shopping cart. In this oppressive heat, both animals look dead — the cat rests its head on a pewter bowl, its tongue protruding limply — and their owner doesn’t look much better off.

FRANCHISE CREEP

I pass through the Furniture Ghetto, as the stretch between Harvard and Central Squares is sometimes called, and walk down a set of street-level stairs and into Looney Tunes records. Mission of Burma drummer Peter Prescott is behind the cash register. (He works there when he’s not touring or recording.) A copy of this very paper spread out before him, he chuckles a little as he glances backward toward the Mass Ave sidewalk above.

"I don’t wanna be the old fart that says, ‘Geez, it used to be cooler,’" he says of Mass Ave. "But y’know, it kinda was."

If the street is still a stage for life’s rich pageant, franchise creep has also taken its toll. Sure, it’s got character — just not as much as it used to. Prescott remembers the old days, when he could walk home from his Newbury Street record store, up Mass Ave, and stop to paw through vinyl stacks at other record stores every few blocks along the way.

"It was definitely the central artery that ran through both towns before," he says. "But now it’s just ... there."

Cool stores like Looney Tunes "can’t really exist on this street anymore," he says. Rents are too high, gentrification too entrenched. Looney Tunes only barely scrapes by every month. Mass Ave used to be different, "used to have more impact. Used to be more impressive to me. I can’t imagine a kid who came here the first year for school would have any affinity for it. It’s just a street now. It’s just a place."

A couple blocks away, Mike White is feeding the sparrows that are hopping around the fenced-in lawn of a residence wedged back between stores. "I try not to feed the pigeons," he says as a pigeon pecks a crumb.

White owns Mojo Music, next door. He’s worked in five record stores in the area over the years. He’s also worked at Oona’s, the secondhand-clothing store that’s been on the corner of Mass Ave and Bow Street for 33 years (his sister owns it). Whether working retail or gigging around as a musician, much of White’s life has been spent "up and down the Ave."

But, he says, "it has changed a lot." He thinks back on the clubs he used to play on and near the Ave. Jonathan Swift’s. Jack’s. The Oxford Ale House. All gone. Mojo may be gone soon, too. "My lease is up in March, told [the landlord] if I couldn’t get the rent less, I’d have to close. Business has slowed down, and I’m not making any money."

Just down the street is the Plough & Stars, which opened in 1969 and closed indefinitely "for renovation" just weeks ago. When — or if — it will reopen is anyone’s guess. Lately, the Plough’s cadre of long-time regulars has been gathering instead at the nearby People’s Republik. They aren’t there today.

MENTAL SQUARE

On the grass in front of Cambridge City Hall, a woman sits Indian-style, reading. A man sleeps, his face to the sky. They’re oblivious to the tumult of nearby Central Square.

Ah, Mental Square. Loud with crowds, jostling and hustling and yelling and laughing. Pungent with sun-cooked trash and exhaust and stale urine. It’s great.

I duck into Cantab Lounge to get out of the sun. This afternoon, it’s cool and dark, and largely quiet. A painting of a woman, turning away, a towel draped just so to reveal the small of her back (and a little more) hangs above the bar. A clock’s swinging pendulum ticks away the minutes.

A gin and tonic, stiff, is $3.75.

Grizzled guys with smoker’s coughs sip mugs of beer, staring at reruns of Walker, Texas Ranger on a corner TV. When a commercial comes on, they keep their eyes on the screen, but it’s hard to tell if they’re staring at it or off into space.

Snatches of conversation suggest hard-bitten lives.

"Yeah, he’s a troubled guy," says the man next to me. "He’s got some good things going on inside ..."

"But his anger," says his lady friend. "You gotta get rid of the anger."

Every couple minutes, a patron ducks out into the late-afternoon glare to smoke and watch the traffic pass by.

Outside, I meet a guy named Gary. He’s got a Colombian red-tailed boa constrictor wrapped around his waist like a belt.

"Usually she’s around my neck," he says. "She loves this heat. You can touch her if you want."