Boston, late night, Logan airport run. Guy with no luggage. Just a phone and the stare of a man leaving something behind.
Anywhere but the arrivals terminal, buddy.
We drive out toward the Ted Williams Tunnel. He does not look back once. Everybody leaving Logan looks back. Not this guy.
Rough flight?
Rehab, he says. Three weeks in the desert. Pills first, then the gambling apps. The app knew me better than my wife did. Free bets when I was down. Confetti when I lost. The wins never felt like winning. The losses felt like drowning.
Nine days sober. So far.
We surface from the tunnel into South Boston. He holds up his phone. Three apps left. A map. A Nostr client. A Bitcoin wallet.
I say downsizing.
Last resort, he says. Everything else I trusted turned out to be a casino. The banks, the apps, the betting, the pension fund my father worked forty years for. At some point you look around and realize the whole building is slots. So I deleted it all. Somebody in group said Nostr has no algorithm and the wallet has no house. I do not know if that is true. I do not know anything anymore. But it is the one thing I have not tried yet.
I say wicked smart, the three apps.
Small laugh. First one all ride.
He watches Charlestown roll by. Long pause.
What happens now?
Honestly? No idea, buddy. Wife is in Worcester now. Job is gone. The apartment is a buddy's couch in Southie I have not asked for yet. Counselor says one day at a time. I keep the wallet mostly because my cousin set it up before I flew out. First thing in years somebody gave me that nobody can take back. Maybe it is nothing. Maybe it is something. I will find out.
Dropoff near Broadway Station. He pays cash, counts it out slow, like a man relearning what money feels like.
At the door he stops.
The apps gave me confetti when I lost everything, he says. The wallet just gives me a number nobody touches. I am not saying it saves me. I am saying it does not lie to me. That is new.
He walks toward a rooming house, phone dark in his hand. Curls a lip at the Dunkin sign on the corner. The one thing still true in this town.
Nine days sober. Three apps. No confetti.
Some people quit the casino. He does not know yet if he won.
#btc #nightfare #stories #nostr #sobriety