"You Are Here"

(May 10, 2001)

Oh," I ask. "You're saying you're not from around here? So where are you from?"

If you ever find yourself talking to me, about to open your mouth to answer this question, and the where is within forty miles of the here, you are an ASS. Close your mouth. Go away. And get a goddamn map.

This weekend I was ten minutes into a conversation with someone to whom I'd just been introduced. Nice guy. Young, very excited about stuff in general. But, he managed to work it into the conversation three times that he'd "just moved here."

We're standing in the yammering, beer-soaked, smokey after-Rumble atmosphere of The Middle East Upstairs. The show's over, the work lights are already up and the band members are doing their best to pack up their gear and weave through the milling crowd, loaded down with amps and drums and crates. Bleu is onstage rolling cables and packing effects pedals. The panties that had gotten tossed at him during the set are strewn about, and he's donned an apron with a naked guy's torso screened onto it, lifesized. Kim's running around taking pictures of the Waltham girls with her new digital camera. Slater's baseball-capped high school friends are singing something loud and badly and high-fiving everyone who answers to the name "Duuuuude." On a normal night the bulk of the crowd would've tumbled out into the front room after the last band. But it's the Rumble, and you gotta wait to see who won the night. The milling, the singing, the yammering will go on until Shred or Juanita gets up and announces the winner. I'm mostly listening to my new friend talk about being bopped on the head by somebody, but I'm also looking around to see who's sticking around to hear the winner announced. I spot Hub, he's found a hunk of wall to lean against and he's thumbing through the latest Noise. Somebody flicks a cigarette to the floor and I grind it out with the toe of my big clunky shoe.

...and I'm a nice guy, right? And I just moved here...

Okay, fine, he's pee'ing his pants to discuss it. I ask. He tells me.

Worcester. He moved from Worcester. Pretty much a conversation stopper right there. If he'd said Rome or Ohio or India I might've had something, but I had nothin'. It's Worcester. I say something like, "Mmhuh." I WANT to say "Worcester is half an hour away. The guy in the next fucking office from me commutes from Worcester every single day. I was just in Worcester yesterday. If you're FROM Worcester you're FROM 'around here.' Dumbass." What did he think I meant by 'around here'? That he'd been birthed right in that room?

This happens all the time. I don't know what it is about Massachusetts folk, but they are extremely town-centric. I noticed this soon after I'd moved here from New York. I got a job and met Meg, a skinny hypochondriac brunette with a shock of white hair in front. We were physically located in Bedford for this conversation, discussing my newness to the area, how much cheaper the train is in Boston compared to Manhatten, etc. Naturally I ask her, "Are you from around here?"

No, I'm from Newton. My parents still live there.

Seriously. Folks? If we felt like it, we could've gone to Newton for lunch so she could show me the place from which she pulled up roots to move, fearlessly, knowing she might never again see family left behind, without knowledge of what lies ahead, far, far up the treacherous Route 128...about twenty minutes.

And then there was the time when Hub and I were at Ames in Acton, picking up a few things. The greaseball teenager at the register was bursting with conversation. He was all coffee-torqued, apologizing for fat-fingering the price of our toothpaste, attributing his manic mood to the fact that "I was travelling today. I just got back." Stupidly, I inquire from where had he been travelling?

Methuen. MAYBE half an hour from Acton, forty minutes if there's traffic. Another conversation stopper. Unless...

Oh, you're from WORCESTER? I've always wanted to go there! I've never met anyone from Worcester, what's it like? Now, tell me, is there a time difference, because time differences can be confusing, did you have to reset your watch?

Methuen, wow! Now tell me, I've always heard that you can't drink the water there, is that true? Did you have to pack your own water when you went? Did you have a tour guide who spoke the language, because that's gotta be one of the hardest parts about travelling to distant lands.

Newton? Well that's such a coincidence, I JUST saw a special on Newton on Wild Discovery. How old were you when you moved to Bedford? I mean was it hard to learn the customs, coming from so far away?

As if people don't think I'm sarcastic enough.