Home Is Where Life Is

Going home after a long time away is sometimes disorienting.

I touched down at Logan on Friday morning. I immediately set off for Cambridge to see an old friend for lunch. On the way, I mistakenly thought that the Red Line went to Lechmere. I should have gotten off at Park Street and taken a Green Line train northwards, but now I have to get off at Kendall/MIT and walk 15 minutes to the Cambridgeside Galleria. Overly confident in my ability to navigate the mean grids of East Cambridge, I walked several minutes in the wrong direction before checking my phone and seeing that I was walking away from the mall rather than towards it.

Has my sense of direction in Boston atrophied this much? Yes, it really has. But it wasn’t the only thing that has shrunk.

Originally, I was planning to spend this weekend at the Penny Arcade Expo, but decided to sell my tickets and see old friends instead. While the closest friends maintained their availability for me throughout the weekend, others were more cagey. A few people ignored my texts. (A snafu involving miscommunication over where I was resulted in an acquaintance telling me to kindly “fuck off” and implying that I had wasted his time.) Of course, PAX was in full swing, so I couldn’t have expected too many people to leave the convention just to see me. But, it was still a reminder of how much my previous relationships in Boston have atrophied.

I spent most of Saturday evening with a pair of two old friends. They were a couple and I played third wheel with them for most of the evening. Even though our lives are no longer intertwined in the same place, I was satisfied that some of the relationships I truly care about in Boston were still solid.

I can only count the number of friends I keep up with in Boston on less than one hand now. Only the strongest relationships had survived the purge between Boston and DC.

After ending an early night of drinking with these aforementioned friends in Somerville, I returned to my old neighborhood of Allston-Brighton via the 57 bus. Even though only a year had passed, I noted that the skyline had grown somewhat more since I had last visited. Boston’s moving on up, away from me and my ability to keep up with its changes. But the constant is always change, right? Since I am no longer present in Boston, I digest these deltas in increasingly larger chunks and much more intermittently.

While on the bus, I read some texts that I had missed. There were a few from several friends in DC who happened to be in Austin. Sandwiched between a few drunken selfies, one text read:

“We miss you Perry”

My heart fluttered a little. I missed them, too. I had enjoyed all of the antics we’ve been through together in DC: the late drunken nights in Adams Morgan and U Street, the few times we “worked from home” together, the Bollywood movie nights, and cooking a meal together because we were feeling too cheap for a restaurant one night. I might have been in Austin with them if I hadn’t planned this trip to Boston months before. But, alas, I can only spread the love in so many places at once.

Shortly after 11PM, I stumbled into one of my favorite haunts in the neighborhood — the Last Drop off Washington Street. When I lived in the neighborhood, I sometimes would come here after a long night of drinking to finish off a Miller High Life or two and shoot the breeze with bar patrons before settling in for the night. The doorman out front looked at my DC driver’s license and asked me if I was visiting from out of town. I replied that I was — but I was one of Brighton’s native sons not too long ago.

“Welcome back!” the doorman bellowed, before letting me inside.

It was rowdy and raucous inside, piled deep with 20 and 30 somethings drinking the night away and playing pool and darts. I seated myself next to a burly man scrolling through his Instagram feed as he quietly nursed a Bud Light and a shot of whiskey. I ordered two Miller High Lifes for myself.

I looked at the burly man. “How are you doing tonight, man?” I took a sip of High Life.

The man put away his phone. “Good, how are you?”

“Just visiting from out of town.” I set down the bottle.

“Oh where?”

“Washington, DC.”

He gave me a wistful look. “You are far away from home, dude.”

I cracked a chuckle. “I grew up in Boston, so this is home for me. I used to come to this bar all of the time before moving to DC about a year ago. How about you? What brings you here tonight?”

The man took a shot of whiskey. “I had a second date with a girl I really like. It went really well so I’m feeling good enough for a few more drinks tonight.”

I smiled. “Well, I’m really happy for you, man. Hope it continues to go where you want it to go.”

“Yeah me too. Should have asked her out sooner. Like years ago, you know?”

I nodded. “I know that feeling. But better late than never, right?” I decided to switch subjects. “Where are you from?”

The man winced a little. “Newark, New Jersey. God, I’m glad I got out of that shithole.”

I leaned back on my stool a little. “Well I’m sure it’s not that bad. I’m sure there are people you love and miss there and there are aspects of home that you also miss.”

The man laughed a little. “Well, yeah, sure, I miss some people there. It’s been five years though. I miss them less and less. You know, one of my old friends was visiting there recently and he ended up getting shot accidentally by some gangbangers. Was totally innocent. Good God he survived that bullshit. Fuck Newark. No one gives a shit about anything there.”

He looked at my eyes. For the first time throughout our exchange, I noted how wide his pupils were, how animated he had become after shittalking his hometown. “Home is where life is, dude. Boston is home for me now. I live here, not in Newark. I dunno about you, but eventually you live in a place long enough and it becomes home.”

I nodded and bade the man a good evening.

I finished my Miller High Lifes and walked out into the clear, chilly night.

“Home is where life is,” I thought to myself.

My phone pinged. A friend had given me a heart reaction to my text affirming to them that yes, I’ll be seeing them on Thursday after work.

DC is home now.

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