Eye On The Roads

Roads only end in Arizona.  Roads there run north to south, or east to west.  And sometimes, you'll be on a street, going to somewhere else on the same street with the same name.  But, then, the street stops.  There are buildings and vacant lots in the way.  And you have to take a left or a right on to another road, and then turn right or left on yet another road, and then, after several blocks, the road you were already on returns, and you can continue your journey.

Boston roads don't end.  I'm not saying they make sense.  It's just that, instead of ending, they just become something different.

After several months of living in my closet, working in the same building as me, and being a major part of my, and my roommate's lives,  I eventually decided to get Sora his own set of keys.  He was, after all, paying rent.  I think.  In theory.  Possibly.

The first three alleged key copying places in the area around my house proved not to exist.  It's not that there weren't hardware stores or locksmiths at the addresses I'd found via Google, it's that the street addresses simply didn't exist.  For kicks, I googled "gay-friendly locksmith" and actually found one.  I figured theater district, and was very much correct.  I figured pink awning, and Shakira on the radio (these being the halcyon hip days of 2005).  And I was not wrong on either of those counts, either.  Either.  But the address was on Tremont Street.

Tremont Street is the ultimate in the ridiculousness of Boston roads.  Heading toward the Mission Hill apartment, you had to get get off the highway, and make your way to Tremont Street.  You then had to take a left on Tremont Street, and drive up the hill, and you reached my apartment.  The trouble is, once you find Tremont Street, which is not so hard, you're driving along for a few blocks, and suddenly, you're not on Tremont anymore; you're on Columbus.  In order to stay on Tremont, you have to take a hard right, because sometime in 1647, a cow farted and turned ninety degrees to the right, so that's the way the road has gone forever and ever amen.  Tremont Street does this several times during the course of its roadliness.

Knowing this, I got off the T on Tremont Street, and paid really close attention to the street signs.  And, after taking a left where I could have gone straight, I stayed on Tremont at the 300 block.  And the address I was headed to was 420 (shut up, hippie).  And there was 380, and 400, and 120.  What?

400 to 120.

400 to 120.

Another fucken locksmirage?  I was never going to be able to get keys for Sora.  I started loudly seething, and apparently actually said "Mothercunting Tremont Street" out loud, as the guy beside me stopped and said, "Are you lost?"

"No.  I'm not lost.  The fucken road is.  I'm looking for 420 Tremont Street, and the numbers just went from 400 to 170, and the numbers start going down from 170 instead of up, and I'm trying to get--"

"The hardware store?"

"Yea."

"It's up there.  Technically, these are the sides of the buildings on a perpendicular road  So, the 170 isn't 170 Tremont it's 170 Herald Street.  The signs are just really poorly placed.  The hardware store is the next building on your left."

He wasn't shitting me. 
So I got the key copied, got home, and gave it to Sora. 
"I'm confused."  Mazarine says.  "You gave him the key?  Or you 'gave it to him'?"

"I can't mean both?"  I say.

We're driving home from Madison, and we're both stupid tired.  Poetry - sleep + driving - sleep + a large amount of cigarette breaks - sleep = me telling stories to keep myself awake.  Because, it's either that or sing along loudly with my Zune, which we'd purchased an adapter for on the Boston to Madison leg of the trip.  And I'm telling her the Sora story because it involves roads, and I'm seeing roads everywhere, which is good, because I'm driving, and not seeing the road = car crash.

"So, are you two, still an item or what?"

And I consider for a moment that my relationship with Sora is a Tremont Street.  A series of weird, unnecessary turns.  I don't think either of us ever really know whether or not we're together.  And while I've been driving excessively for the past year or so, only once or twice have the tires of the vehicle I'm driving ever touched down on Tremont.  "Not really."
And, yet, he's the first person I IM when I get home.  I tell him most about my trip to Wisconsin, and he tells me about work, and then we discuss missing each other.  And then I sign off.  And I click on Craigslist.  Because I miss him.  And that is never enough.