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From "Riding," a series of vignettes set on the "T," or mass transit system, in Boston
By Tom Howland '06Written for English 243, Creative Non-Fiction Writing
I am shoulder-to-shoulder in a crowd that fills up Kenmore Station and spills out onto the street. Everyone who goes to Red Sox games regularly knows that Fenway Station is farther from the park than Kenmore. The warm summer air carries the smell of hotdogs, sausages, Bud Light, and sweat. It is 10:30 at night, but the streets are extra bright from the lights that illuminate Fenway. It is easy to tell if there is a baseball game at night in Boston because the lights are visible anywhere in the city if you can see over the buildings.
The throng is composed of tanned or burned white people adorned in jerseys bearing the numbers 45, 32, 24 and 5 chanting "Yankees Suck." The crowd jostles good-naturedly for a spot on the next train. Anybody wearing paraphernalia from another team draws attention from the crowd. Taunts and insults are slung back and forth. The All-Star break has not yet happened, so the Red Sox are still in first place before their yearly slump. The fans know that chances are the Yankees will be in first by the end of July and so they celebrate while they can. Hatred for the Yankees runs so deep that my friend Melissa's father still argues that it was worth losing his season tickets for the pleasure of pouring beers on Yankee players while they were in the dugout.
The trains that stop in Kenmore leave the station so packed that people sometimes miss their stop because they can't push through the crowd fast enough to get to the doors. It takes half an hour to get down to the platform and I barely make it onto the train that my friends get on. I wedge myself against the door which says "Do Not Lean" on it and yell through the crowd to make sure my friends are all set. It is good to have something to lean on even if it may open at any moment.
Unfortunate souls in the middle of the aisle have nothing to hold on to or lean on and so they sway and wobble with the movements of the train. People fall all over each other and onto the laps of the few who found seats. A drunk begins to swear to his friends and a concerned father who just took his family to the game tells him to shut up. Instantly, the train is divided between people who agree with the father and people who support free speech. The driver seems not to notice.
A minute later we arrive at Park Street. Most of the mob scrambles through me to get off the train. I let myself get pushed out the door and wait for the train to empty before attempting to get back on. We travel a stop farther to Government Center, and jog up the escalator eager to get to the fresh summer air. We head for Meredith's apartment, which is right next to the New England Aquarium on the waterfront. Usually we would take the blue line from Government Center to Aquarium, but the stop is closed for construction.
We sit on the sea wall with our legs dangling over the water and talk. Across the harbor we can see the lights of jets as they take off and land at Logan. Doug's mom picks him up and won't let me take the T home so I sit in the spacious back seat of her black Jetta and joke until they drop me at my house. I am glad I don't have to walk.
Getting a ride occasionally is nice, but I cherish the freedom that the T has given me. When kids in the suburbs are worrying about how to get a ride from their mothers, all I have to do is walk to the bus or train. Massachusetts law prohibits minors from driving after midnight or having other minors in the car for six months after getting their license. The T has none of those restrictions; I have been free since I began taking the T home from grade school. I can ride the train anywhere I want from open till close, six in the morning until one thirty at night. Once I'm on the T the doors to the city are flung wide open and I am free to roam where I will. Red Sox games, rich suburbs, poor neighborhoods, the beach and everything else the city has to offer are mine to experience.