3:} Rainbows End Over Prison Point

Since 9 or 10 years of age,
I have terribly missed an entire half
of our family. With a broken heart I lived
for years agonizing about why. My brother and
sisters either didn’t know themselves, or
were sparing me from painful reality.
Her cruelty began early on
and greatly intensified
throughout her
lifetime...


The dimly lit
bridge disappears
into the night sky. At the top
I light a cigarette and look over to
see the Charlestown prison below me.
The pitch of gloom cloaks everything.

My father always recounted the
times Uncle Jackie spent
down there, becoming
tougher every time
he got out and
how no one
dared
mess with him.
Sacco and Vanzetti
were executed there.

And because he hated all
religions so much, Malcolm
‘Red’ Little was nicknamed
‘Satan’
by both guards and inmates.
Just before his release
he renamed himself
‘Malcolm X’.

I read all about this after
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination.
Almost three years ago, to my dismay, the
TV cut to live coverage of the motel balcony
in Memphis where his aides pointed
towards the source of the shots.
I had been following the many
thousands of people who
marched alongside him,
unshakable in their
courage and

conviction
to minister
his dream of
peace, equality
and justice for all.
My father’s response
was most disheartening:
“Good! There’s one more
dead n----r!” The shame
of his words will forever
plague my sentiments.

Next morning on my newspaper route,
headlines lauded Robert Kennedy’s
speech about the assassination.
To extinguish rising flames
of anger and hate he
emphasized what
Dr. King
stood
for.

He
related
that a member
of his own family was
also killed by a white man.
The story said he never before
mentioned the assassination of his
brother JFK publicly until this day.
He urged America to pray for our
country as well as our people.
Just two months afterward,
Robert Kennedy himself
was assassinated!
The world just
gets crazier
every day.

Near the bridge’s end I observe
lighted trains flying above Main Street.
Their chatter reaches my ears seconds later.
A tinge of excitement reminds me I have never
been here by myself. The El and Main Street bring
awesome memories of Flag Day parades and trips to

Ma and Pa’s cottage
when our family was whole.
There was always Ma and Pa,
Aunt Mary, Uncle Sonny and kids,
Uncle Jackie, Uncle Georgiewith
his sweet tobacco pipe smoke;
because of childhood polio,
he wore a metal brace
on his leg and used
a cane to help
him limp.

I
once
visited
him at work
in a building on
Tremont Street across
from the Commons. Sitting
on a fold-up metal chair,
he brought people up
and then down in
the elevator he
operated!

Up Main Street I hop over
every other rectangle of light
projected onto Main Street through
the tracks of the El. Halfway up Eden
Street I stop, facing the schoolyard where
we used to play stickball. The windows are
caged over and we never held back
swinging our broom handles at
half pimple balls...

Turning

about face,

I walk into the

twilight

of their street...