Going Public
by Emily Anne EpsteinI ended up in Southie on Friday because I had to pick up a watch that I had left at my friend's house. We slept together. I forgot it. After calling him several times, emailing him and even complaining about the watch to people who didn't know him or me, I moved from New York to Boston. I had been living in Boston for two weeks when he texted me:
"I sent the watch. I expect nudie pictures in return."
It's a shame that he's so good in bed. Sluts get a lot more practice than the rest of us.
So I go to Southie to pick up the watch at the UPS Customer Service Center. It takes three hours and three transfers to get there. I'm glad it takes that long. I'm familiar with his sense of humor. I'm afraid of opening up the package and finding used condoms or something smeared all over my clock.
Disgusting.
I get off the stop I'm supposed to get off, Summer St. on the Silver Line. The Silver Line is the best line, in my opinion. It begins as a subway, turns into a trolley and then is released as a bus once outside the city bounds. What do you call something like that?
Does it actually transform from a subway car to a trolley car to a bus? Or is it always what it is—the Silver Line toward City Point? Perhaps we should just call it a vehicle—but if we're going to ambiguate terms, then a body is just a vehicle too. Sometimes it runs, skips, dances—these are all just different expressions of movement.
I smell the ocean. I'm not sure if it is the ocean, but it smells like seashells and it sounds like seagulls. The building in front of me says 435 and I have to go to 457b Summer Street. I know where I am and I know where I'm going. This always puts me in the best of moods. I notice a woman in white walking by.
"Excuse me miss, could you tell me where 457b Summer St. is? It's the UPS Customer Service Center?"
"Oh, Hi! Um, let me think. I know there is a FedEx just across this bridge and I think it might be a UPS too, like a combination UPS/FedEx or something. Yeah, my girlfriend was telling me it was. Go just across the bridge, make a right and it's right there. You can't miss it—oh wait, maybe it's just across the street, behind that 435 building—see those trucks? They look like UPS trucks! On second thought, go over there and then if it's not UPS go across the bridge and it will be there."
