I finally ran Boston. It was the spring following my divorce. And the year the bombs went off.
It was a good day for running as I set out from Hopkinton and on to Ashland and Framingham, then Natick, and Wellesley with the halfway marker. I was still feeling fresh as the course turned onto Commonwealth Avenue with its four Newton Hills, including the infamous Heartbreak Hill along Boston College.
I emerged from the hills and turned onto Beacon Street. I turned back onto Commonwealth Avenue and under the Mass Pike. From there, it wasn’t long to Boylston Street where the finish line became visible. I crossed over the painted line and under the banner and smiled. A volunteer came over and checked on me and then shepherded me into the Boston Athletic Association tent where I joined other runners in the mandatory post-race banter about how this wasn’t our best day. But it was mine.
I collected my BAA finisher’s swag from the table and left to find Turtle who was waiting for me at the finish with my warm-up clothes and my phone. I’d been staying with him since my divorce. I was a mess when he came and picked me up off the floor. Just showed up. Then he and Eliza offered to let me stay in one of his kid’s vacated bedrooms. I was supposed to stay until I found a room of my own, but it had been six months and I had yet to even look at a single apartment listing.
Turtle’s post-race plan was for us to saunter back to his house in Brighton. We made our way along the Commonwealth Avenue promenade and turned back onto Beacon Street where the same crowds that had cheered me, continued to loudly support runners as they willed their way to the finish line. With Fenway behind us, I was ready for some coffee. We stopped at a favorite cafe and I took that first sip – that blissful moment of inhaling harmony, at 2:52. I would typically not remember the time, except that was when everyone’s phone lit up. It was 2013, and the whole world knows what happened at the Marathon’s finish line at 2:49:43 p.m.
Turtle and I looked at each other. “Is this real?” he said. We were seeing similar texts about an explosion at the marathon’s finish line.
“I was standing 10 feet from there before I went to meet you,” Turtle whispered as we read our messages.
“I ran right past there.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
Two paramedics, who I hadn’t noticed in the corner, grabbed their gear and bolted. Several other patrons packed their stuff in silence and left in a hurry. I started getting texts from friends who knew I was running. I tried to send group texts to let friends know that I was okay, but they weren’t going through. Turtle reached Eliza who said she would call their girls. The sound of sirens suddenly filtered through the open doors. Those were soon joined by the sound of helicopters. Someone placed a laptop on the counter, and we watched the chaotic scene by the finish line unfold two miles away.
We left the café and were no longer sauntering. On Beacon Street, runners looked lost. Many had stopped running and were walking aimlessly, though they were still heading toward the finish line and their bags, their clothes, their phones, their family, their friends.
When we reached Carleton Street the Boston police were setting up a roadblock. The race was over. The finish line was a crime scene. Nearby Temple Ohabei Shalom had opened its doors to shelter runners. Everyone was warned to stay clear of trash cans and mailboxes.
Turtle and I continued along Beacon Street,. We stopped by a runner sitting on the side of the road. I told her what we had heard and offered to walk her to Ohabei Shalom. Turtle let her know she was welcome to come with us to his house to warm up and eat something and wait there to get picked up. She just wanted to sit and not move was all she said.
Soberly, we continued making our way down Beacon Street which was at once both familiar and threatening. We passed curtainless windows of apartments where we could see groups who had surely gathered earlier to celebrate and cheer the marathon participants, now gathered silently huddled around televisions sets, watching images of Copley Square flash across the screen.
Eliza greeted us with hugs and an update. As I showered, I thought about the what ifs. What if I had a cramp and had to walk it off and arrived at the finish line later. Or if the bombers had arrived earlier? Or if Turtle and I had lingered at the finish line to watch runners arrive? I knew that both good and bad things happened when I was looking the other way. How many times had I been in proximity to disasters and not known it?
I taught high school and was off for Patriots Day, a Massachusetts state holiday which commemorated the battles of Lexington and Concord and the birth of the nation. Most Bostonians thought the day off was to observe the running of the Boston Marathon and to attend an 11 am Red Sox home game. Which, I suppose it had become. But this, this changed everything.
After I dressed, I joined Turtle and Eliza on the couch where Turtle channel surfed in search of any new news from the finish line, any explanation of what had occurred. Eliza filled the coffee table with a post run feast. I was too hungry to feel guilty for enjoying her culinary skills while listening to updates to the growing list of injuries. Plus, Eliza had gone to so much trouble. I was glad there weren’t any reports of other bombings in other cities. For now, at least, this was not September 11. What was clear was that a massive city-wide hunt was unfolding, with every branch of law enforcement pledging all its resources. What was becoming clear was that no one knew anything.
Later that evening we learned that the bombs on Boylston were literally pressure cookers filled with nails and ball bearings and left on the ground. It didn’t take long before the broadcasts went from reporting to repeating to guessing to spreading rumors. That’s when Turtle shut the TV, grabbed three glasses and a bottle of Tequila, and led us out to the deck. He poured us each a drink and put on some music. Eliza asked me about the race. It was awkward to recount what for me had been a very good day. Two drinks and three songs later, Eliza went inside.
“I thought getting older would take longer,” I told Turtle when we were alone.
“That's funny,” Turtle laughed.
“Not as I understand funny.”
“Are you getting sad? Sometimes you get sad.”
“I’m not sad.”
“Okay,” Turtle said, “but if you get sad, I’m leaving.”
“That’s what I want to do?
What
Leave Boston
“Because of the bombing?
“You know Boston is the only place I’ve ever lived?”
“Even if I didn’t already know, you tell him all the time.”
“And I love this city. But that’s not the point.”
“You have a point?”
“I don’t want to die there,” I said.
“See, that sounds sad, bro,” Turtle said. He grabbed the Tequila. “You’re worried about more planes? More bombings? Everywhere is dangerous these days.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Zach said.
“You need another shot.”
“I don’t want to die without having lived somewhere else. I never planned on being in one place, forever.”
“Well, everyone knows that Wendy never wanted to move.”
“Being married kept me afraid. Boston winters keep me cold. I would like to discard both of those feelings. I wake up these days thinking that Boston is no longer my home.”
“This is your post-divorce blues,” Turtle protested. “It’s natural to feel a bit lost after 25 years of marriage.”
So, yeah, I was married once. And then I wasn’t. In the end, all it took was words. Decades vanquished in a few sentences. Gone. Nothing was left. I felt empty. Missed the fullness of a together life. The knowing where I lived and what I was going to do next. So many years since I didn’t know these things.
And then I began to embrace not knowing. I found courage in not knowing, because that moment of uncertainty held the promise of possibility. New words. A new narrative.
“You can’t that good stuff happened to you here,” Turtle said.
“Indeed. But I am at present frustrated with my fears. I need to shake off anxiety. But it’s simpler than that.”
“I’m listening.”
“I woke up. I checked the clock. And I realized decades had passed.”
“Clocks will do that. They do not care,” Turtle said.
“They do not,” I said. “They absolutely do not,” I repeated. “It’s a terrible thing to admit to oneself, to myself, and have to face the fact that I let myself, that I let things happen to me. That I let my life be overtaken, ruled by others because I thought they knew better for me than me. That I didn't take a stand for me. That I fought the wrong fights.”
“You’re talking about Wendy, right?
“Not just Wendy. Really it’s about me. I’m talking about me. Things happen to us that we can’t do anything about. Like at the finish line today. But I let things happen to me that I could have done something about. And I didn’t. And I should have.” I poured us each another shot.
“Okay, then,” Turtle said. “I have heard you ask yourself the same question all your life.”
“What question is that?”
“Is this all there is? And you’re afraid the answer is yes.”
“Some days I think it is. Other days I’m not as sure.” I pushed my chair back and stood.
“Why are you standing?”
“To show the seriousness of the occasion. I stand in honor of the monumental momentousness of the moment.”
“I don’t think you can say momentousness of the moment. And you may be drunk.”
“I am definitely drunk. Too drunk to edit while I speak.” I filled our glasses and raised mine. “To south and west.”.
Turtle stood and tapped my glass and drank with me before asking, “What is south and west?”
“Los Angeles. The Pacific Ocean. Santa Monica, Venice. A road trip.”
“Road trip?”
“A one way road trip. I’m going to move to LA.” I sat again, feeling fatigue in my legs. “Like the pioneers of old, I am heading west to start over.”
“Really?” Turtle asked me. “You’re just going to leave.”
“Sure. Why not? I mean, I’m basically packed because I never unpacked.”
“What about your job? You always loved teaching.”
“That was then. This is now and there’s no longer a place left in public education for a good teacher. They win.”
“Who wins?”
“The small-minded administrators, the petty parents, the selfish voters, the whole system. They win. Let someone else deal with global warming, global warfare, global concentration of wealth, the eradication of creativity. I. Officially. Do. Not. Care. Anymore.”
“You’re a good teacher. And you will always care.”
“I’m a great teacher,” I said as we sat.
“So why quit?”
“To put an end to the mockery,” I said too loud. I grabbed my phone.
“Now what?” Turtle said.
I was typing an email to everyone who needed to know. I told I was leaving and that they needed to find a permanent replacement. I was not taking a break. I was out. Mic drop out. I hit send and let Turtle read it.
“Damn,” Turtle said as he read.
“I have officially left the classroom.”
“You really did that?” Turtle said handing me back my phone. He tapped my glass and we drank.
“Time for me to leave other people’s kids alone.”
“Is that why you and Wendy never had kids?”
“Let’s go with that.”
“Right now, I need to put food in my belly which at present is mostly full of Tequila,” Turtle said. “What’s your plan?”
“I could eat,” I said. We gathered stuff and made our way back inside where the remains of Eliza’s feast awaited us. I made a plate and sat by the table.
“What’s your thinking?” Turtle asked. “Do you have a plan?”
“Show we and see what happens,” I said. “It’s as good a plan as any,” I said as I scooped up guacamole.
“Well, it’s really not, but let’s pretend it is for now.”
“Tolstoy said that all great literature is one of two stories. Someone goes on a trip, or a stranger comes to town,” I told Turtle. “I will be taking a trip that will make me a stranger in LA.”
“Can we even make new friends at our age?”
“I’m about to find out,” I said. “But I’m going with yes.”
Elan Barnehama’s second novel, Escape Route (2022, RWP), is set in NYC during the late 1960s. Previous publications include Drunk Monkeys, Rough Cut Press, Red Fez, Boston Accent, Jewish Fiction, Writer’s Digest, HuffPost, the New York Journal of Books, public radio, and elsewhere. At different times Barnehama has taught college, led community-based writing workshops, was a flash fiction editor at ForthMagazine, had a gig as a radio news guy, and did a mediocre job as a short-order cook. More at elanbarnehama.com