Cantabrigians don't like trolls. That explains why we don't drink in Allston bars, as well as why our ancestors dug the Charles out with their bare hands. We had industrial machinery working around the clock to widen the river. It seemed we were creating a dilemma: Bridges to Boston must be constantly lengthened. We hate trolls, but if we build more bridge, well...

A convoy of MBTA busses lined the MIT bridge-mouth. Ram horns had sprouted from the upper corners of the windshields, coarse gray hair covered the flanks and tires were cloven as hooves can be. But the drivers appeared relaxed, nonchalant. Sure they had all abandoned usual routes for shuttling shifts, but these billy goats belched diesel fumes. Any trolls could have easily been run off the bridge.

I followed the flow of the crowds as we emerged in the hot sunlight from our cool worm hole. At the top of the T stop stairs I saw the convoy of bridge-crosser billy goat buses. Over the hairy heads of the throngs I spied heavy horse-powered spiders and caterpillars, methodically elongating the bridge. Boarded the human saturated shuttle bus that replaced the train over the bridge under construction... The driver waited patiently as we passengers crawled in on top of one another... Once a hundred or so humans were inside, snapped closed both front and rear doors, we rolled out.

The bus made the Boston side of the river just before the human beings inside could congeal into the Blob. As soon as we stopped at Mass General I disembarked. The billy goat bus clopped off at a good clip in the direction of Park St., and I waved it on, disgusted as I am by the Blob. Never mind the fact that making out with armpits rubs dissonantly against my sexual orientation.

Taxicabs paraded by with aggressive bumper guards. These bull horns were useful for impaling trolls, Blobs, and bicyclists. For taxi travel I doffed a yellow shirt, never a red. With my frantic hand waving technique I hailed the passing cabs as best I could, but was beat out again and again by oyster-faced old ladies with strings of pearls around their skinny chicken necks. Whole minutes passed, and other people's sweat that had soaked me on the bus ride was washed away by my own. Weakened by dehydration, I took up a desperate position at the edge of the traffic rushing through the intersection.

When an empty cab breezed by toward the elderly I leapt in through the rolled-down back window, as a schnauzer can soar through a flaming hoolahoop. The trick amused the Indian cabbie, and he giggled. Oyster-faced Old Money was not so easily amused, and that lady spat at the window, which I had rolled up just in time. Fung Wah, I told the driver. Saliva slid down the glass, white, with cubes of potato and pink clams streaming away. He misunderstood, replied chowder. Yes, he said, the older women in the town spat Boston's Best clam chowder, which they always had churning in the depths of their four stomachs. Sacred cows.

Fung Wah, explained the cabbie, had moved out of Chinatown to proper digs in the bus terminal at South Station. The Chinese had taken up with the madly barking Greyhounds, which naturally, were no good to any of us unless they were running. If the Greyhounds wouldn't run they were of course, promptly destroyed. No one in this town had room for any eighteen wheel pets.

The driver told all of this to me underground, as we passed through the central artery of the Big Dig tunnel, which he described as a fantastic construction project. I jabbered that South Station is becoming more and more like the Neverland Ranch... middle-aged Peter Pan shacked up with young Chinese and a couple hundred greyhounds, that never stopped barking. I then asked the Indian if the media in his country were wild dogs, but at that moment a softball size chunk of tunnel ceiling smashed through the windshield struck his head and killed him instantly. Or so I thought.

He rapidly regained consciousness and settled the cab's course. Mostly Styrofoam, the Indian said smiling, eyes shining, as he held up the hunk for inspection. It had knocked out one of his teeth and his mouth was bloody but I said nothing, nodded amiably. I had to escape the Massachusetts madness. Again we emerged into the hot sunlight out the other side of the tunnel, wove through concrete obstacles, and pulled up the to the terminal. Fung Wah right inside, the cabbie marble-mouthed, as I paid and bid him farewell.

The bus terminal was as loud as a racetrack kennel 'round chow hour... the polar opposite of Logan International where people follow orders to whisper amidst the piped in carousel music. Poor people are very loud, but have great respect for both carousels and painted ponies. Fung Wah! I hollered over the din of endless barking. No answer. Mere minutes remained for me to catch the hourly bus. I glanced about. Red necks, Haitians, Puerto Ricans, blacks, vacuum salesmen, but no Chinese. Realizing the Indian had probably lied due to Indo-Chinese economic tensions, I dashed over to an automatic Pan ticket teller, and begged Peter for help.

Instructions on the touch screen indicated precisely the place to stuff in all my remaining cash, which I did. I also swiped my charge card through a slot, and then delivered my social security number via keypad. Evidently all this financial / identity information would be divvied up amongst the passengers in authentic Never Neverland fashion. After I let the machine scan my driver's license it finally printed my ticket to New York City... The Chinese, meanwhile, are happy to receive their fifteen dollar fee in quarters, and happier still when the Fung Wah is not pulled over on Interstate 95 by some insane state trooper who demands a troll tax be placed in his pig claw...

Peter Pan had me by the short and curlies... It was only when the ex-cons, single mothers, unwashed students and I filed our way onto the bus that I realized the driver was NOT in fact even Peter Pan at all. He was black, for one. Every bus in the Peter Pan fleet does have a special name, at least. Ours was Ticking Kroc. I fell asleep as we pulled down the interstate towards the City that Never Sleeps