Ralph will make do with the name "doll" if you don't bother to tell him what they really call you. Every so often we come across one another in Central Square. I'm not sure when he decided that I read poems, but this is indeed something that I happen to do from time to time. It is the only thing he knows about me, and I have to admit that it doesn't make my life seem very remarkable. So I let Ralph call me "doll."

All I can say about Ralph is that he gambles. He claims that fierce gamblers run the Combat Zone and he enjoys explaining the strange code, he calls it, that requires them to squash you if you don't hold your end of a deal. "You like to read, uh, poetry, right? Well these people like to gamble; that's their poetry, gambling."

I can't say who operates the Combat Zone just by looking around, so I take Ralph's word for it that sharpers have the upper hand. The scribbler putting the white space on the publicity posters at the Colonial Theatre to more efficient use is without a doubt near the bottom of the hierarchy. He favors light blue ink for his graffiti. There's barely enough room left for the note that he's carefully marking in tonight: "ChRiStiANS G.Green SAYS The OnLy Good 1 SA DEAd ONE. MASTER of CEREMONIES OF MONIES $ OR MASTERS OF DECEIT The ANGLOS." He shuffles to one side and blinks at his spectator, the corners of his mouth twitch as though my bewilderment amuses him. "Did you know about the Polish-Americans?" The general manager sneaks up while the scribbler is saying that he would prefer to continue our conversation in Polish or Lithuanian. The general manager intends to lock this lunatic up, or give him the ax: he sends the usher to find an ax. The lunatic asks if this place is chauvinistic, which sounds like a reasonable question to me. But an approaching police siren shoos him off without an answer. I must be staring at the frenzied general manager a little too suspiciously, because he chatters, "He's the insane one, yes dear, he's insane. You should see all the damage he's done inside. This is certifiable."

The cops are too late so I figure they won't mind if I waylay them with a few questions. They're reticent talkers. About six months ago the department assigned the highest percentage of plain-clothes officers in the city to the Combat Zone. The commander of vice, John Doyle, handles inquiries into the reasons for this policy. But they tell me that all you really need to know about the Zone is that it's a dangerous place, and you shouldn't be nosing around in it. It becomes clear to me that of all zones--parcel post, erogenous, no parking and what-have-you--it is least permissible to ask for the facts on this one. If the police department's activity here were less mysterious, I am warned that it would run the risk of being less effective. Security within the police van is tight.

A salesman in an "adult" book store on Washington St. tells me that the police converge on the area in cycles. Large patrols cropped up a while before the last elections. Most of the hookers have been flushed out of Beach St. since then, and if Timilty had won, the cashier guesses he would probably be stranded without this job.

He is convinced the Combat Zone is more likely to soothe people than incite crime. His store accommodates clientele ranging from derelicts to gentlemen in Brooks Brothers suits, and sales are brisk during the day, when people feel safe in the Zone. The men aren't particularly discriminating. They seem to be interested in the simplistic tomes on Hitler and Toshiro, sensational descriptions of sodomy and pederasty, and devices for simulating sex when a complete partner isn't handy. They don't even complain when the peep shows they expected to see for a single quarter stop abruptly midway through the reel. The women who venture in tend to buy vibrators.

Women are scarce in the Zone in the night time. Two girls perch on a concrete trash bin near me in Liberty Square. A lanky black man in a floppy tweed coat ambles up to them, cocks his head and murmurs, "Ain't you kinda young to be downtown?" I don't catch their reply, but he looks satisfied and saunters on. The two friends on the cylinder look at each other and one says "Girl, you know you ain't 19."

A lot of the entertainment here is restricted to people over 21, but no one takes age any more seriously than the pair of kids in Liberty Square. "The World Famous 2 O'Clock Lounge," its facade emblazoned with the graceless silhouettes of dancing women that look like the figures on the Hillbilly Shak at the fair, boasts continual striptease. Women with names like Tiffany Taylor and Sandy Beach parade along an elevated runway inside a long oval bar with the fluid stride of Miss Americas--they just tend to jut their pelvises a little farther forward. Their bodies are shivered by strobe lighting and their images are tossed between parallel mirrors, but the men rarely strain their necks to watch these dancers. Their nakedness is monotonous and distant. There are other women roving the floor who will buy a customer a drink and smooth the wrinkles in his shirt for $6.00, and several men seem to be waiting suspensefully for the one in the white gown with sharply etched shoulder blades and pointed elbows, or the one in the pink leotard riding high over tremulous flanks.

In the pizza joint across the street the pocket of a man slumped against the counter has just been picked. The cop figures he's a junkie. After robbery, larceny is the most common crime in the Combat Zone, he tells me.

An old Italian serves my coffee. A photo of Chesty Morgan is pasted on the wall behind him. He asks if I would like some music--I wouldn't mind. The old man walks out from behind the counter and spreads change for the juke box on top of a gorged flip-top trash barrel. There is a die and a hinge in the collection of coins. I think that he's a scavenger, like the pick-pocket; even his shoes, with the heels sagging off his ankles like pouting lips, look as though they were plucked out of an alley.

An old Irishman sits behind the counter at a place that identifies itself by the word "ROOMS." At first he just points to a small placard that says "for men only." When he realizes that I only want to talk, he tells me about business. "This is the heartland. It's a good business for everybody. Just look at Jordan Marsh that moved in up the street." I ask him how long he has worked in this hotel and he replies coyly that it's been a few days now. His face crinkles into a silent laugh as he takes this information back. It has actually been 18 years, and business was better before they tore down the ship yard. The Navy boys made good business for everybody.

He looks confounded when I ask if there is much crime in the Zone and simply says "Broadway," with gruff conviction, upping his chin in the right direction. He's pretty voluble on the whole, though, and assures me that this section of town is worth visiting because there is plenty to do here. He likes it almost as much as the open country. There's pleasant country in Ireland--he has seen it three times.

A plump, muscular young man interrupts by asking if he can help me as he swings behind the counter. His glance seems impatient and annoyed, so I hustle toward the door. Before I am out, the old man volunteers information for the first time without prodding--his seventy-fourth birthday was last Tuesday.

The people with the least authority in the Combat Zone seem to feel easiest about telling me what they do here. The bartenders, for example, are in control. They ignore you unless you're soaked. A hefty woman who punches tickets to pornographic films, on the other hand, has a lot to say.

People filter by her randomly, oblivious to the start and finish of the film they'll happen on. Mostly men buy 300 passes to the triple-X-rated features each day. These movies are made for men, she says. They realize that she knows what they plan on doing in there, and they're timid. A few Orientals brush by with their hands shoved stiffly into their pockets. They probably came down Beach St. from China Town.

The ticket puncher recommends two pornographic films, The Devil in Miss Jones, and The White Rainbow, but she's generally in-different to movies. I leave her mixing and downing endless shots of soda and worcestershire sauce in the uppermost of a stack of miniature paper cups. She gets a kick out of the way it fizzes. Lawrence Welk flickers on the T.V. set in her booth.