A Show We Love: Greater Boston

This week, we're introducing you to Greater Boston!

This is an excerpt from Season 1, Episode 1; 4 seasons are out now anywhere you listen to podcasts. Find all episodes here!

About the Show:

Greater Boston is a bi-monthly full-cast audio drama that blends the real and the unreal, the historical and the fantastical. It all begins with the death of Leon Stamatis, a man for whom the least hint of uncertainty makes life unbearable. But by leaving the world, he has irrevocably changed it. Greater Boston is written and produced by Alexander Danner and Jeff Van Dreason. A production of ThirdSight Media LLC.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey, Ned Hartford here, and I'm really excited to tell you about the episode drop we're doing this week. It's an excerpt from episode one, season one of Greater Boston. It's a socially conscious story of community and the human quest for purpose. It satirizes the culture and politics of contemporary Boston and beyond. Okay, so this first episode is this beautiful character study of this fellow, Leon Stamatis. Now he's a man who can bear no uncertainty, no surprise, and we delve into Leon's life and his worldview in a way that is Chekovian. Beautiful little short story gem as it develops. Yet little layers of absurdity keep coming along in the story until Leon finally, when faced with the overwhelming uncertainty of simply going on a roller coaster ride, makes a seemingly if you take it out of context text, it's a huge absurdist leap, but perfectly within the logic that's been built in this beautiful little gem of a short story. It's a, like I said, absurd yet believable within the context of the story, kind of like a Jorge Luis Borges story, just beautifully written. And his death is the thing that moves the whole story forward. He changes the course of lives all throughout the city as a result of what happens in this excerpt. You should listen to this uh little ten-minute excerpt from episode one, season one, and then you should go find Greater Boston anywhere you listen to podcasts. Here we go.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Leon Stamatis died on a roller coaster at the age of thirty-two. It was not a dramatic death. His car did not detach from the rails, his body did not loose itself from its seat. His death was quiet, unobtrusive. In that way you could even say that Leon found the kind of death he'd always planned for. He'd had profound misgivings about boarding the ride in the first place. He'd never been an adventurer, not like his little brother Dimitri, who had disappeared into the mysterious labyrinth of the world, nor a thrill seeker like Nika, who grinned wider for every inch the line advanced. It had been Nika who had goaded Leon into coming here in the first place, escorting him via the red line from Porter Square to Park Street, briefly boarding the green line to reach the government center connection, where they boarded the Stygeean Blue Line, which ferried them mercilessly to its terminus. Wonderland. Once there, Nika insisted that the absurdly named roller coaster be their first stop, pulling him by the cuff of his sleeve. She had brought him out here specifically to cheer him up after the end of his most recent relationship. She saw not so much a responsibility as an opportunity to be useful, and Leon felt obliged to indulge her, to allow her that pride of having comforted a loved one in need. So he put on his smile, took deep breaths, and shuffled along the crowd control maze that guided him toward his destiny. He knew he could change his mind. It's not as though he had inscribed this into his schedule. The trip itself, sure. It was right there in his Google Calendar. Post-relationship outing with Nika. Destination, Wonderland. But nothing committing to the roller coaster. Certainly not some rickety monster called good lord, Wurladon? And if it wasn't on his schedule, then he didn't have to do it. He reminded himself with every step. As he approached the polo-sherted teen with the child measuring rod, he reminded himself. As he stepped off the platform into the third car from the front, he reminded himself. But when the shoulder cage descended over his head, he realized he was too late. The appointment was confirmed. He didn't even mind so much that his relationship had fallen apart. He was more concerned about the precarious state of his job. He'd found the relationship stressful. Louisa expecting outings on a moment's notice, to movies, to dance clubs, all the way to the North End for Florentine Cannoli at Mike's Pastry? It wouldn't have been so bad if only she had planned ahead, given him a month's warning? Maybe two. Heck he liked North End, where the streets were permanently tacky from the Great Molasses flood. So you had to slow down your step just a little, or the sidewalks were pull your shoes right off. But Louisa sprang things on him. Cooking classes, and dinner reservations, and IMAX showings of documentaries about Antarctica. It was too much. The operator released the cars, and Leon was jerked forward. He laughed once, the way a condemned man laughs when he doesn't quite believe what's coming. Nika misunderstood, gave him a nod and a grin. As the car rose, Leon began planning. He would keep his hands and arms inside the car, of course. He would not give up his one means of anchoring himself should the safety harness fail. There weren't any good handholds. Holding the harness itself wouldn't help. If the harness detached, he'd just have a good grip on it as they flew off into the atmosphere together. But there wasn't even a lap bar, since the five-point harness was expected to suffice. Liam was not so trusting. He understood the need to be proactive, to ensure his own security. That was why he'd begun job hunting, despite having a job in which he'd been content for ten years. The publishing industry was shrinking. He had survived the first round of layoffs, but he needed to be ready for the second. The cars clapped, dragged forward by the chain through the ratcheting mechanism of the side rails. He understood that this was a safety system, an assurance that the cars could never fall backwards, simultaneously snapping the necks of every passenger on the train. Understanding made the sound no less ominous. Up they clapped, up and up and up. He couldn't believe how far up, how long they ascended, whole lifetimes passing while Nika bounced in the seat beside him. He had never been good at anticipation. There was no joy in it for him. Only the dread of uncertainty, the panic of surprise. As a child, he had refused to open his own Christmas presents, insisting that Nika and Dimitri do it for him while he waited in the next room with his eyes closed. His siblings reported back to him dutifully, carefully detailing what they had found. Most significant presents first, so as to ease the greatest anxieties, then continuing an order of diminishing value to end in the familiar safety of socks and number two pencils. Only once he knew every item, had assuaged all lingering mystery, would he dare to set eyes on the totems of affection his family had chosen for him. He discovered that if he stretched his arms far enough, he could hook his fingers under the bottom of the seat itself. The metal was filthy and unpolished in this unseen space. It cut into his fingers. He calculated dates to reassure himself that his tetanus inoculations were current. They were. So that was one less thing at least. Tetanus was not among the uncertainties. Leon could bear no uncertainty. He was the sort who would gladly accept knowledge of the exact time and cause of his death given the opportunity. He wouldn't even try to change that fate. The knowing would be enough, more than enough. Better than avoiding it only to land back in the limbo of uncertainty. He'd even applied for a position at an astrology magazine, not because he believed in astrology, which he did not, but simply because he respected the art's goal. The complete elimination of the unknown. A life without surprises, without the unexpected, without unanticipated terrors. However, much about the world changed, superstition would always be a constant, perhaps all the more so in times of upheaval. Just look at Dimitri, run off into the woods in search of implausible creatures, or Nika hanging her hopes on chance encounters with famous strangers. Yes, astrology was a counterintuitively solid post to which Leon could tie his ship. He thought about all of that during the interminable rise along the track, but soon enough all that time was reduced to a mere blip, and come much too soon, as Leon saw the passengers in the head car raise their hands in the air just before disappearing over the zenith of the track, followed by the second car, and then there he was at the peak, looking out over the edge at a 200-foot vertical drop, followed by an array of twists and loops. He tried to make the calculations to consider how best to turn his body or shift his weight or anchor his hands, but he knew it was hopeless. Whatever was going to happen would happen far too fast for any of his careful preparations to mean anything at all. Either his little pod would drive itself into the ground with crushing force, or it wouldn't. It would fly free of its rails, or it wouldn't. It would kill him, or it wouldn't. There was no solution to this puzzle, save to wait and hope. And now here was Nika tossing her hands in the air with no concerns at all. Leon just couldn't do it. He took one look from atop that rickety wave of track, that dizzying array of speed and surprise, and embraced the greatest certainty he could muster. He muttered a single word. Nope. Then preemptively expired. Willfully exited the world without feeling even the first breeze of descent.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

I worked in the publishing industry for several years. I am currently deaf. Not just him, the same telegram guy, too.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

I would. But we're coming up on our stop. Rewire a wife, relieve our strife, remove the knife!

SPEAKER_03 11:17

And who have you in mind to lob the first tone or whatever ceremonial silliness? Choose to be the best ban Aflet you can be. Turns out nobody ever wanted to watch me kill Superman.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Do you have any properties with tooth?

SPEAKER_00 11:30

I don't know where this guy gets his information, but it's like he's got a crystal ball or something. We're certainly not Muppets.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Cheese balls!

SPEAKER_02 11:40

How could he have a B, C, D, and E trink, but no H ring? That seems a little far-fetched, doesn't it? She enabled my saviors to rescue me from that malevolent villain's secret laboratory.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

This is so awkward.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

He'd like a book about lockpicking. No cheese, no ketchup, a single fresh pick.

SPEAKER_03 11:58

Hire me? This is what you fucking get. Along with a badass veterinarian who will nurse every one of your animals back to health with love and medical fucking know-how.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jonestown Massacre!

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Season 4 of Greater Boss and finally coming this fall of 2022.

SPEAKER_03 12:14

It's a weird spot to be living in.