The New Boston Tea Party

There was never a time in Johnny’s life where he didn’t want to spread gossip he’d heard. It was well known that Johnny Devons was a gossipy bitch, and so he was often kept out of private conversations as much as possible. He reveled in the juicy telling of a good rumor, but this? This was too much. This bit of gossip had the power to ruin a relationship that he never wanted to harm.

“Johnny, you all good?” Asked the one person who could never know about what he knew. She was a tall and slender woman, chestnut hair pulled into a long ponytail.

Johnny could feel the secret threatening to burst out of him like he was Old Faithful. The word vomit would be epic, but how could he do that to her? Jessica was his best friend, and if she learned what he had to say, it could ruin everything for her and her brother.

“I actually… have to go,” he said simply, standing and rushing from the cafe. They met here every second Wednesday for coffee and “tea”. Jessica also wasn’t one to pass by a good bit of gossip.

When Johnny rushed out onto the street, he looked around wildly. He had to tell someone what he knew, it was too juicy, but where could he share it where he was sure it wouldn’t get out?

When the bell began to clamor down the road, Johnny was sure that there was some divine intervention going on. He looked up at the old Catholic Church, whose spire stabbed into the heavens like a great stalagmite. He took off running. If there was one person who could keep this secret, it would be a priest in a confessional.

He raced through the foot traffic, narrowly avoiding a man carrying way too many boxes of cupcakes coming out of Mike’s Pastry. He dove across the hood of a beat up old Toyota Camry and stumbled through St. Leonard’s Peace Garden. When he burst through the doors of the Church, Johnny found a crowd of people standing around the alter, chatting softly amongst themselves. Everyone stopped to look up at him, and he smiled apologetically as he moved toward the confessional. There was a line longer than the one back at Mike’s.

Oh man, he thought. This isn’t good. I gotta let this out now!

Johnny rushed back out into the brilliant spring day and onto the sidewalk. He looked back the way he’d come to see Jessica walking down Hanover Street, clearly looking for him. Ducking down Prince Street, Johnny rushed through the streets of the North End, trying desperately to figure out where he could let out this secret. The problem was that he and Jessica grew up in the North End, and everyone knew their families. If he let this slip to anyone here, the news would surely get out.

“So who can I tell?” He grumbled to himself, and then it dawned on him. “If I can’t tell someone from the North End, then I should find someone who isn’t from Boston at all!”

It was July, prime time for tourists who wanted an overpriced lobster roll and a Duck Bus Tour, and there was a hotbed of tourism not too far from where he now stood. A short nine minute walk would take him directly where he needed to go. He just hoped he didn’t run into anyone he knew before…

“Johnny!” The voice sent a stab of fear through our intrepid gossip. If there was one person almost worse at keeping a secret than Johnny, it was Bucky Lawrence. Bucky was a rotund man in his mid-fifties, known to the locals as “Lucky Bucky”, on account of his impossible ability to get out of whatever dangerous situation he might find himself in. Urban legend had it that Bucky once drunkenly fell off the side of his apartment building’s fire escape only to land on a tarp held aloft by a group of firemen hoping to break the fall of a man about to jump from the roof.

Unfortunately for Johnny, he was very unlucky to be faced with the next biggest gossip in all of the North End. He held up a hand and simply waved at Bucky.

“Where you headed, John?” Bucky asked as he jogged to catch up to the man. Johnny didn’t trust himself to say a word to his friend, so he simply smiled and shrugged. You didn’t miraculously survive as many near-death experiences as Lucky Bucky without being incredibly observant, however. Like a shark sensing blood in the water, Lucky Bucky recognized a piping hot kettle of tea when he saw it.

“You’ve got something locked away in that little head of yours, don’t you?” He asked, eyes narrowing to slits. “Come on, buddy, spill your guts to old Bucky-boy.”

Johnny shook his head vehemently, trying to convey through his smile that he didn’t know what Bucky was talking about. Lucky Bucky wasn’t so easily gotten rid of, however. Johnny knew that the only way he was shaking Bucky was with a clever ruse.

He pointed across the street and gasped, “Is that Matt Damon?”

“Damon?!” Bucky asked, looking across the street. Johnny, who had to listen to Buck’s constant stories about being in the background of several scenes from Good Will Hunting, knew this was sure to get his attention. Once Bucky’s back was turned, Johnny took off running. By the time Bucky realized what had happened, Johnny was already across Cross Street and preparing for his dash through Rose Kennedy Greenway.

Johnny knew his best bet was to cut down North Street to reach Clinton, where his salvation sat waiting for him. It was, of course, Quincy Market he was rushing toward, and when Faneuil Hall came into view he felt a weight lifting from his chest. Before long, he would have some poor tourist cornered and could spill his guts to the country bumpkin or Canadian who came to the city to laugh at the silly accents and see the history of this great city.

Quincy Market was a hub of shopping bent on breaking the bank of any poor sob that came across it. Johnny had vivid memories of walking through with an old college friend from New Hampshire and having to drag them away from the nearly forty dollar lobster roll. When he reached the Market now, he could see Hawaiian shirts, backpacks, ridiculously priced Red Sox hats, still with tags, and the tell tale chatter of excited tourists. Now all he had to do was find his target.

Bingo.

There, sitting outside Faneuil Hall, was a tired looking Asian man with a camera around his neck. He rushed up to the man, who looked up warily at the frantic looking fellow who was panting and sweating from God knows what.

Johnny sat beside him on the bench and said, “Oh man, you have no idea the day I’ve had.” He turned to the man and said, “I have something I want to share with you… but you can’t tell anyone.”

The man grinning, shrugged and said, “Okay.” This man, of course, worked for a Southie gossip rag, and as Johnny spilled his guts, the tabloid reporter started counting the dollars this Boston tea party was about to land him.