I assured them both that I’d show up for The Man’s speech in Faneuil Hall at nine, and they left for the Harvard Club. I debated with myself for a moment when I got to the hotel lobby, then decided to walk to my own dinner appointment.

It had been only a little more than two years since I’d left Boston to join Halliday’s campaign and eventually become a member of his White House staff. The city hadn’t changed much. A couple of new towers going up in Back Bay, their gaunt skeletons outlined against the dusk. The same gaggles of students in their raunchy Guccis and carefully scuffed sneakers, out looking for an evening’s fun. The same chill wind that cut through you, no matter how heavy a coat you wore.

I walked briskly through the deepening shadows, watched the evening star duck in and out behind the buildings, and refrained from making any wishes. I felt cold, alone, and suddenly damned bitter. I was heading for the North End, to have dinner with an old newspaper buddy, and the past couple of years were unreeling in my mind like a rerun of a TV documentary. I should have been proud of every minute of it. It should have been a great time in my life. No one except me knew that it wasn’t. At least, that’s what I thought and hoped.

There’s a particular rhythm to a city, different for each one. After so many months in Washington, which is really a Southern town with ulcers, I could tell that I was in Boston even with my eyes closed. The chaotic snarl of traffic, with each driver making damned certain King George III won’t tell him which side of the street he could drive on. The anguished nasal bleat of the improper Bostonian telling his neighbor to “Have a haaaht, willya?” or “Open th’doah, fir the luvva God!”