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Cheap Tourists

Momo was not having a good day. He’d already busted two reeds, hit a sour note twice on his second go-round of Misty, and only had a lousy 15 bucks to show for his troubles.

He broke down his clarinet, scooped up the change, and headed up the stairs with his wooden box and case. Damn cheap tourists from the suburbs — they canceled their European vacations and took day trips inside the Hub instead. Used to be, he’d rake in at least $100 before rush hour. Nowadays, he was lucky to make half that.

Ducking off the curb to avoid a gaggle of fat Canadians in polo shirts and sneakers, he sprinted across the street as the light changed from yellow to green. The driver of a beer truck honked, narrowly missing him.

"Carrajo!" yelled the driver, flipping him the bird.

Momo returned the gesture cheerfully, then turned toward the flat expanse of Copley Square. A few moments of cool dark inside Trinity Church, and he’d head downtown to Park Street for the commuter crowd.

He glanced up. The cool glass wall of the Hancock building loomed above Trinity Church’s ornate façade. After twenty years in the city, he’d seen a lot of things change. But the absurd juxtaposition of these two buildings always struck him. It was like Boston in so many ways: opposites all pushed and jumbled together. Drunken college students riding the train with buttoned-down yuppies, stodgy old matrons rubbing shoulders with the faeries on Newbury Street, Cambridge radicals across the river from Young Republicans. And everywhere the goddamn racism. Friends down in New York kept trying to convince to abandon this provincial city with its small-town mentality. From time to time, he considered it. But he couldn’t go back to New York. There were too many memories to keep him here.

As he settled down in the back of the church, he pulled out an old, creased photograph.

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