Briefly Boston

I got one more good night's sleep at Kayla's place, the next afternoon she dropped me off up the road a little bit aiming towards Providence. In no time I was picked up by a guy who introduced himself as having been a pro hitchhiker. He told me a story about making it from Mass to Florida in 2 days with just 4 rides. He took a slightly different route in order to drop me off in Providence, a 30 minute drive from where he picked me up. He pointed to a mall and left me right on the freeway, I walked back a bit towards a hill I could climb up to jump the fence, my friend Sean called during this process to add an extra layer of entertainment for onlooking traffic. I crawled and slipped up the hill on all fours and snuck through the fence, I was in Providence.

I walked towards the mall, settled for a book store coffee shop nearby. I still hadn't a place in mind to sleep the night, so I sent a couple more messages on couchsurfing and searched for local breweries. I wandered outside again with the Union Station brewery on my mind, I got a text from a couchsurfer confirming I was welcome on her couch and she worked nearby, willing to pick me up when she was done. I asked some suits if they knew where the brewery was, they were headed in the general direction and I followed them. I had a beer and was talked into a burger and another beer, the bartender talked about brewing and gave me various sampler shots of their other beers.

I met up with my new couchsurfing friend, she picked me up and we went to a house where she got a haircut, then back to her place. We talked a bit and eventually faded to sleep. In the morning I had plans to meet up with a girl headed to boston, she posted a ride online and wasn't interested in gas money, just company for her commute. I ended up hopping in her car at the on ramp to the freeway, force of habit perhaps. She was a nice girl who spoke softly, on her way to work with instruments barely south of Boston. We talked the short ride up and I jumped out on the freeway where our roads split, I opted to stay on I-95 and curve just around Boston.

I found the shoulder of the road getting narrower until I was marching through the snow off to the side, a spectacle for the slow moving rush hour traffic. I was just getting around the bend and onto the main stretch when a trooper pulled over, barely leaving room for other cars to pass him. This police thing is far too familiar, lucky for me they don't keep a tally, or my subtle "play dumb" routine would be falling short by now. This one used words like trespassing and continued to ask what I was doing. I told him I was trying to get to Portland Maine to see friends, mostly true, he asked why I wasn't taking a bus or a train, I told him I didn't have the money for it, he went in his car with my license.

He came out shortly after asking for my bag, "any drugs in here, weapons?", yes, I had a jar with the last of my pot from trimming that was caked with the hash that stuck to the scissors while I clipped, just opening the jar was known to stink up entire rooms in seconds, "nope", I replied. He went straight to the trunk and threw it in, didn't ask to search it. He patted me down asking if I had weapons on me, he pulled my harmonica out of my jeans pocket and put it back. "Do you have money for a bus?", "nope", I said, he'd already asked me that question, he opened the back door for me, "Do you have money for a train?", I could only laugh at that point and shake my head, "So are you some kinda hobo or something?", I chuckled some more and gave some response he didn't listen to as he closed the door.

I wasn't sure where he was going to drive me, "You're not getting to Portland today" is what he said when he got in and started driving, turns out he was right, turns out I wouldn't be going to Portland at all anyhow. He took me to the train station just off the freeway a few miles up saying $5 would get me to Boston and that I better call my friends, him seeing me again wouldn't be as pleasant he said. I relaxed in the warmth of the train station again, it was still before noon. Portland was 2 hours driving, Boston was just 4 or 5 bucks away on a quick train ride. I could go to Boston and either stay a night or even take public transit as far north as I could and get back on 95 headed to Portland. Before doing that I figured I'd give the nearby on ramp a shot, I went to it and ditched my pot in a place I thought I may be able to find it again, there was a decent chance the cop might be back and I'd be better off without it. No one stopped after a half hour or so, barely anyone drove by, I reunited with my jar and got my train ticket to Boston.

The train got me to Boston in 20 minutes or less, South Station. I looked at maps, inquired about prices, then wandered the city. I sat in a starbucks when the cold mixed with wind, it wasn't very late, but I wasn't sure I could make it all the way to Portland given the time it would take to walk or public transit my way to a suitable spot near the freeway. The cold got me thinking about tequila, that got me thinking about the stash in Astoria, all the sudden I was stepping on back to south station and getting a fung wah bus ticket to chinatown NYC.

Four or five hours later I was there, a subway ride after that I was in Astoria buying 24oz cans of beer, then I was at my old apartment greeted by smiles and a fridge already full of 24oz cans of beer, 16oz cans, and 12oz cans, coors light, Destiny was over for dinner. I had my tequila, some beer, we had a cheap bottle of rum later as we shot the shit in front of a camera under the idea of filming "Visibly Drunk", a show Mark and I came up with that's just that.

The next day I went to the studio with Mark and Carl to record drums tracks, typical Astoria days followed after that, a drink here, a trip to starbucks there, Sean's cooking here and again. One such night of many shots almost ended with me packing my bags and fleeing in the middle of the night with a single bottle of home brew in tow, I stayed the night playing Tanks on the Wii instead, Sean's words and cooking the next day kept me around even longer, some sort of open faced sandwich smothered in melted cheese, perfection on a plate.

A night or so later I got the urge to get up and go, I was in grand central sitting on a train headed to Connecticut inside 33 minutes from the thought, from the door of that old apartment I could always make it to the tracks in about 28 minutes, it's 10 blocks, 2 subway rides, a mess of stairways and a herd of tourists and commuters away. Once I did it in about 21 minutes with my brother, and he was hauling what had to have been a 70 pound sack of awkward weight, I had to hold the door for him for just a second as he trailed me on the platform, booking it with it that thing. This time though I was on the train with a clean 7 minutes to spare, got myself a seat anyhow, and relaxed my was to New Canaan.

I've been here a few repeating days, catching up on sleep, blowing my nose, coding away, it's mostly quiet and relaxing at the folks place. I'll head back to the city no later than super bowl sunday when we'll at last taste the result of the beer that's been brewing. I managed to find a bus ticket headed to Washington DC for 50 cents the tuesday after, a good head start to somewhere.