Three Stories of Boston Spleen

Station to Station

David is riding a train underground. Then above, as it crosses over the river. The Sun-rise is dazzling. It reflects off the mirrored facades of downtown, and the train car is briefly golden. Then back down again.

A couple gets on at Park Street Station, and sits across from him, man and woman, wearing down jackets, and carrying suitcases. Their lips peel back, exposing yellow teeth and overgrown gums. They’re engaged in conversation. David can’t hear them, he’s listening to “Never Be Like You” by Flume on repeat at full blast, scanning the rest of the car for a single pretty face. Some respite. He finds nothing. He prays for a derailment. Some respite. He finds nothing.

They exit the train at South Station, leaving David in an empty car for the last leg of his commute. He read on the news the other day that the outgoing president gave permission for Ukraine to fire some new long-range missiles into Moscow. His co-worker takes it for a grave escalation. He’s afraid, his blonde hair is probably even lighter now. It makes sense, he has a family and a house. He has faith in a loving God. David has an apartment with six roommates, no prospects beyond slavery and confiscatory taxes, and he’d like to see it all go up in flames, preferably while he’s there.

His train car enters Broadway Station, and David exits, summiting the stairs and walking to work, chain-smoking all the way. The sky is blue and clear. He smiles. Eventually the Sun will expand, swallowing all.

Under the Black Flag

Three young men in a Ford Escape, driving down Morrissey Boulevard, away from the beach at Castle Island. To the right, a once-hallowed, now-hollowed place of Jesuitic lower learning, the Latin School casts a shadow. The passenger window is down, and one young man holds his underwear aloft to dry, soaking as it is from impromptu swims. They laugh and carry on, three punks looking for something to take and make theirs.

Behind and unbeknownst to them, an old black cop rides in an undercover sedan, seething at the wheel until he lets it fly. The siren sounds, blue and red lights flash and they all convene by the side of the road. The officer stomps up from behind them, sweating through his dress blues.

“Whattaya doin!”

“Just trying to dry my clothes. Is that a crime?”

The officer takes a raging beat before he answers back.

“Dry ’em at home, dude!”

He gets back into the undercover car and speeds off down the boulevard. 

“Cocksucker.”

“Like he doesn’t have anything better to do.”

But South Boston now contains more dogs than children.

Sugar for Breakfast

On a blue fall Sunday, Venus is displeased with me. She leaves in tears. I remain with me displeased, and walk the length of Commonwealth Ave with no destination, each road ending in another, a destination unknown to me, where I might be unknown, nigh impossible to find when one has lived a lifetime in a single place.

I walk the gusting Avenue with my fly down, hoping that a wayward seagull will rip my cock off of my body and gobble it up, gulped down whole, or take it and fly into the Sun-set, finally dropping this wretched member from such a great height that it meets oblivion on a sandy beach among the fragmented shells of crabs and mussels. I do not have the strength to bear my sex.

Two young lovers walk arm in arm behind me. He is telling her that it’s worse to win the silver medal than it is to win the bronze. She laughs in agreement. It’s better to have loved and … will I ever be alone!

My meager will falters, my legs lose strength to walk, so I hop a train the rest of the way, emerging at Arlington station. Wandering the empty edge of downtown, I enter an alleyway between forty stories of granite. It is the nadir of a valley, and the sky a silken ribbon overhead.