Chapter 81 Milo
Milo
Margie had done some detective work in the library.
She had found a photograph of the Reverend Doug Cooper and the Boston DA together at a golf event.
There were other people in the photo too, and they weren’t standing beside each other, but it was proof that they weren’t strangers.
My attorney refused to bring this up in court.
And afterwards, when I tried to appeal, no attorney would touch the notion that the city’s DA might be complicit in framing me.
I went up for parole every couple of years after the first eight and they’d ask me if I regretted raping Ruby Cooper, and I would say no, I did not rape that girl, and then I went back to the slammer.
I survived those years because I had some protection.
Even though Whitey Bulger, the notorious organized crime boss, had skipped town, his crew ran the prison, and my uncle Shaun had done some (legit) work for him and his congressman brother back in the day.
I had some protection from the gangs. But I have scars on the inside that run deeper than the one I got when a psychopathic cellmate decided to cut my heart out.
Those three weeks in the sanatorium were like a holiday.
No wonder so many inmates were cutting themselves, eating crushed glass and provoking fights they knew would lead to injury.
Some risked death, and for a few, the risk didn’t pay off.
Most of what I saw in prison is stuff I don’t want to remember, but I know some things for sure.
The worst thing you can be in America is mentally ill, poor or addicted, and you throw African American or Hispanic in there and you’re double-damned.
I swore that if I ever got out, I would do something to help those guys on the outside, the ones who looked like they might end up inside or the ones who were out and doing their best to stay out.
I suffered from depression. The black dog would descend on me.
All I wanted to do was lie in my cell and not communicate with anyone.
I would take a risk too, start a fight, or steal something belonging to a cellmate, anything to get a week or two in solitary confinement.
Margie came to visit me once a month without fail.
I don’t know what I did to deserve a sister so loyal, especially after Mom died.
I didn’t really want to go on after that, but I knew that if I gave in, it would leave Margie with nobody, and she deserved better than that.
Surprisingly, Principal Bermingham came to visit in the early years.
He had always taken a special interest in me when I was at Altman, I expect because he was from Southie too, but when he visited he spoke so violently about Ruby and Erin and what he wanted to do to them, it unnerved me.
He lost his job at Altman but wouldn’t tell me why.
I took him off my visitors’ list. Ben Roche came at least twice a year right to the end.
He insisted on collecting me when I was released.
Getting out of prison was as confusing as going in.
Southie as I knew it had completely changed.
The whole Seaport area was developed with bars and restaurants and high-rise luxury apartment blocks.
I had proper clam chowder and Boston baked beans and Brigham’s Ice Cream and, man, they tasted like home.
Whatever swill that passed as chowder in prison tasted like dog piss or human piss, most likely.
My first St Patrick’s Day back in the old neighbourhood also helped to rebuild my sense of belonging.
Uncle Billy gave me my job back and a room above the diner that was also a storeroom.
It was smaller than my cell had been and, while I was grateful to Billy, it was hard not to be depressed.
I ignored any young girl that came in the door and went out of my way to stay out of their lane.
Some of Billy’s regulars knew me and where I’d been, but the ones who knew me well, they knew I was innocent and gave me extra clothes and shoes.
One of the old guys said I could have a room in his house if I helped out a bit.
Mickey Dolan was in his early eighties. He’d been in Vietnam as a young man.
His hands didn’t shake because he was old, they shook because of what he saw there.
He often showed up with cuts on his face from shaving.
The first morning I woke up in his house, I got a bowl of hot water, shaving soap and a towel and gave that man the best shave of his life.
I continued to do that every few days until the end.
I saved up some money working in Billy’s, and when he wanted to retire, I was the obvious choice to take over.
Billy had daughters who had moved up in the world, working in various computer jobs that we didn’t understand.
Hell, I could watch music videos on my first cellphone and that was like a miracle to me.
I could have moved out of Mickey’s place long before he died, but it got to the stage where he couldn’t do much for himself.
I stayed to return the favour and looked after him as best I could until he passed.
When he died, I had enough to rent a studio in Southie, brand new.
Mom would have been proud, I know it. Margie was living with a nice fella called Fred Dominguez, and they lived way out of town up in Salem, but we got together whenever we could.
We went to Red Sox games like the old days, and we laughed and talked about Mom, and how funny she was, and how she had been proven right about the Catholic Church.
I was scared to date anyone for quite a while.
How could I trust them? But there was one woman who used to come into the diner regular enough and we’d get to talking.
I didn’t have the courage to ask her out.
Bonnie was gorgeous, she was like a fun-size Rita Hayworth, flaming red hair and as cute as a button.
Eventually, after a couple weeks of exchanging views on politics, TV shows and baseball versus football, she said, ‘Are you going to ask me for my number or what?’ and the next day I called her up and asked her out on a date.
We hit it off straight away. She made me laugh.
But the first time we went back to her place, I had to tell her about my false rape conviction.
I didn’t want her to find out from someone else, and I needed to tell her before we slept together.
We did not sleep together that night. But we continued to see each other.
I answered every question she had as honestly as I could.
And I knew she’d been googling the case and found it.
My ‘victim’ was unnamed in the court records.
I could not explain the DNA to her any more than I could to anyone else.
When I’d got out of prison, I thought those bouts of depression would lift, but from time to time I had to lock myself away and speak to nobody.
Mickey understood it, but he was the last person I wanted to hurt.
I told him about these moods straight up.
He said it must be post-traumatic stress disorder from being inside, but I knew I’d been suffering before I went to prison.
It was part of who I am. I didn’t want Bonnie or anyone else to see me like that.
I spent a lot of money going to a psychiatrist that Ben suggested could help me.
He prescribed anti-depressants. I didn’t see the point in taking them when I wasn’t feeling depressed, but when I went back to him six months later after a week in bed, he insisted I had to take them every day.
Gradually, the moods began to lift. I was relieved when I noted a whole year had gone by without a depressive episode. It was like a miracle.
The first time Bonnie and I slept together, I stopped so many times to check she was okay that she ended up yelling, ‘Just give it to me already!’ We continued to see each other, and when she got to know me well enough, she said, ‘That kid lied,’ and Bonnie and me, we became like glue.
And then I met Erin down at the shelter.
I was surprised to see her. She was older and a little heavier and as beautiful as ever, but she looked like she wanted to run away.
The old guy with her turned out to be her husband.
My heart pounded. He said his son was missing.
Even though I owed her nothing, Erin had been in my thoughts since the day I met her.
I would often recall the day we spent on Salisbury Beach, swimming in the sea, and how her body looked in that swimsuit, the sound of her laughter when we went go-karting afterwards.
The shared future we had planned was in ruins, but if I could find her stepson, maybe she would think more kindly towards me.
Still there was Bonnie, and she was such a sweet girl.
I never wanted to hurt her. But I think I did.
About a year into our relationship, we were lying in bed one Sunday morning, untangling ourselves from each other’s bodies in her apartment.
I was cleaning myself up. When I was done, I threw the Kleenex towards the trash can across the room.
I missed and, when I got out of bed, I picked it up on my way into the shower; it was wet and sticky, and that’s when it hit me.
That’s how I would clean myself in Erin’s room all those years ago.
Ruby must have got hold of one of those tissues.
‘Damn,’ I hollered at the top of my voice.
Bonnie came running. ‘What’s up? Did you hurt yourself?’
‘I know. I know how she did it!’ I explained it to Bonnie, and she was a little doubtful at first, but then she agreed. That’s what had happened.
I had to tell Erin, but that didn’t end well.
I couldn’t remember whether there was a keyhole in the bedroom door or not.
I knew there was no lock because the risk of getting caught in Erin’s bed by her parents was real.
Everything we did was silent, and the risk made it even more of a turn-on.
I could think of nothing else the day I went to see Erin.
Erin said there was no keyhole in that door and that I was disgusting for even thinking of such a thing.
I knew I was right about Ruby using the tissue.
She must have watched us, but I had no way of proving it.
Had Ruby been able to hide under the bed?
Was she in the wardrobe? I gave up trying to clear my name and Bonnie got tired of hearing about how I’d been denied justice.
A few months later, she broke up with me.
I had kept the flyer that Erin’s husband had given me with his son’s photo on it.
I sought him out, asked around. Finding Nick wasn’t a total coincidence.
I had been training as a counsellor, and I finally saw him at a shelter downtown years later.
I owed Vince and Erin nothing, but this kid was just the kind of guy that I had promised myself I would help, and at heart, I would still have done anything for Erin.
The mess he was in was not his fault. Very gradually, I earned his trust. I enlisted the help of my old friend Ben Roche and eventually got Nick the right meds and supports to be able to bring him home.
After I got to know Vince through Nick, I knew that he didn’t believe I could hurt anyone.
But then Leo Bermingham started showing up at the diner, wanting to talk to me about what we could do to punish Erin.
He’d been around Bonnie when I was seeing her, and she had told him everything.
She should have known to keep her mouth shut.
He had been put away in a state psychiatric facility twice.
He had harassed his ex-wife, and his own mother was terrified of him.
I told him not to come around the diner any more.
I even tried to get a restraining order against him, but the cops weren’t too keen on helping a convicted rapist. At least he didn’t know where I lived.
When Leo kidnapped Erin and called me to tell me, I could scarcely believe what he was saying.
He made everything worse. I was arrested again.
I was accused of conspiring with Bermingham in waging a campaign of harassment against Erin.
I was only held for a few hours, because Bermingham admitted he’d done it all for me and that I didn’t know a thing about it.
Erin was really shaken and badly injured.
Her beautiful face was scarred, though still beautiful to me.
When Erin showed up in the diner and took me to the old family home to show me the evidence of what I had long suspected and that her mother had confirmed, I didn’t feel the overwhelming sense of relief that I’d been hoping for.
I needed to process the information away from Erin.
I could not handle her upset on top of my own.
I called Margie first. Who else would understand?
She screamed. She wanted to bomb Erin Cooper off the face of the earth and tear Ruby limb from limb.
We cried hard about Mom. She drove down from Salem and asked when they were going to be arrested.
She wanted to call the cops right there and then, but I said no.
It had been twenty-six years, what difference would a few days make?
I had a hard time getting my head around it.
Why would that kid hate me so much? Yes, I absolutely rejected her, but like I foolishly said at the time, nobody had to know.
I wouldn’t even have told Erin. In court, Ruby twisted those words to make me sound like a pervert.
I was nothing but nice to her, even though she was always weird around me.
It took me twenty-six years to realize it was nothing to do with me.
She wanted to hurt her sister, because Erin was prettier, smarter and a whole lot kinder than Ruby was, though I didn’t see much evidence of that kindness from Erin after the so-called rape.
Except for the fact that Erin kept sending me those parcels for thirteen years.
She had denied it but who else could it have been?
Since I had been released, Erin’s heart grew a hard shell and the way she looked at me and spoke to me on the few occasions we met was horrible.
I know she’s sorry now and I know she’s upset and devastated and confused.
But that’s on her. I always loved that girl.
The depression is back, but it’s different this time.
The pills don’t help. I should be happy. Why can’t I be happy?