Crescent Moon Howling At The Fool {Reversed}: 12:} 1960's Lilliputian Mission Hill

The first picture, taken from the top of Mission Hill in 1910,
is out of a a book entitled ‘The Glories of Mary in Boston',
written by a parish priest who chronicled the origins
of Mission Hill and Church, recording in minute
detail the two puddingstone birthplaces
of the yet-to-be steepled
Basilica of Our Lady
of Perpetual
Help.

As kids,
my cousins Joey,
Stevie and I grazed
the astonishing pages that
portrayed our small world way
over seventy-five years before.

The second picture depicts the
Church's central location to downtown
Boston high above the rooftops of Hillside and
Cherokee Streets, just to the right of Pontiac Street.
Next comes the corner store known long ago as 'Louie’s'

at the intersection of Hillside and Calumet Streets.
It was the main hangout for generations of
neighborhood kids and many more from
surrounding neighborhoods who
shared common bonds as
Mission Grammar or
High School
classmates.

There was
a cement wall
with concrete steps
where the laundry is in the picture.
This is where everyone sat or stood around,
talking, drinking sodas and scarfing bags of potato
chips, popcorn, or a wide variety of assorted goodies.

Many smoked cigarettes while some rolled joints to smoke,
and all hung around wondering who would show up that day.
They met every day here before school, during lunch,
after school, at night and every weekend!
In the middle of Hillside Street by the
rear of the first vehicle is the
manhole cover upon which
I sometimes played
‘Columbian',

losing rolls of quarters
to those with superior aims.
In Louie's one morning before school
I learned one of life's most important rules.
While standing next to my sister Margaret, who
was browsing around for something, I so deftly
slipped a pack of Snowballs inside my coat
she was completely unaware of my
delinquent act! But Louie was
sure as hell aware, having
observed my plunder
from the 'secret'
mirror on the
other side
of his
store!

And after
he told my
father that
night I never
again stole or
'shoplifted' any
thing from any store
ever again! It was but
one of merely half a dozen
lessons he ever bothered himself
with about me, and only because it
became gossip, embarrassing him terribly.

Next is a view of Mission Church from the
unpaved beginning of Alleghany Street.
This vantage point is the junction of
what was known as 'the big ledge'

{meaning only kids bigger
than us could go there},
and 'the little ledge'
{just outside the
picture's
left}.

In the
wintertime
this was the most
awesome place for
sledding and slipping,
sliding and tripping plus
snowball fights during those
carefree first and second grades.
Sparkling sunbeams preserved in
warmth and time my short-lived,
enchanted delight with life.

From the third grade on,
snowballing difficulties got
reported four times a year on
cards that would forever change
the entire course of my life. They
contained information about poor study
habits and lack of attention to details that
produced terror-inducing grades. Everything,
that is, except unwritten assessments regarding
unrecognized ADHD, Innattentive Type, that kept
me floundering and flopping everywhichwhere.
My shameful test scores generated various
condemnations of rotting disgust
accompanied by rage-fired
beatings mixed between
daily, ceaseless,
emotional
cruelties.
For
drawing
the scolding
ire of all the nuns
who would tell her
I had never even tried
very hard to learn anything,
she suffered terribly from the
embarrassments thoughtlessly, perhaps
even intentionally, produced for her by me.

Seen on the right is the chain-link fence encircling
the farthest end of the nun’s well-manicured,
meticulously maintained yard, after which
spring into view many kinds of flowers,
shrubs and greenery that blend into
the puddingstonework-boundary
wall of next-door Mission High.
This immense yard is the
domain of the feared,
savage beast called 'Caesar'.

And woe-be to the kid who accidently
tossed a frisbee inside from the barnfield,
or knocked a baseball over the fence for a
bittersweet home run. The only way to
retrieve booty lost to the canine
buccaneer was to ring the
doorbell and wait for
Caesar's Lords and
Masters, usually
a frail and
elderly
nun
to
answer
and shuffle
out to wrest the
captured item from
that four-legged thief!
Items lost were returned
to us along with admonitions
regarding further 'accidents'.
Sometimes we just left our
stuff in there so we
wouldn't have
to hear their
monotonous
sermons!

One
overcast morning
during the 3rd grade
I am walking down the hill
with my sister Mary, who is a
year younger than I, to Mission
Grammar School. It is in front of the
Mission Church Gift Shop, which faces
the church itself on the corner
of Pontiac and Tremont
Streets, where I become
acquainted with Marty,
who is one year older
and in my cousin
Stevie's class.
Eye contact
compels him
toward
me,
sporting
a shit-eating grin.

Tethered by lacings,
a brand-new pair of ice
skates orbit at light speed
in his clenching, gyrating hand.
Towering over me in entrapment,
he slowly inches the menacing
ground-upward-spin of the
skates in my direction.
Mary yells at him to
cut the shit or
else she will
punch his
fucking
face in!

And she's
ready with an
outstanding surprise
that will likely leave
him in a great deal of pain.
But this is absolutely the worst
possible thing Mary could ever say
to Marty in my presence on my behalf.
I twist and turn to avoid contact,
then after biting down hard on
his lower lip, a blade slices
a crease straight up
through my
crotch!

I fall to my
knees in the pain
of indescribable agony
as Marty laughs wickedly
then merrily skips and hops away.
For many years to come from this moment on
Marty becomes my outdoors tormentor and persecutor,
and he always catches up with me every time eye contact is
made, regardless of distance, how fast I can run, or where I hide.
A few months later I had to have surgery at Mass General Hospital
in which one-half of one of my damaged testicle was removed!