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| Scoott Ruescher (photo by Bridget Ganske) |
" Like William Butler Yeats in the opening lines of "The Circus Animal's
Desertion,"I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,/I sought it daily
for six weeks or so." Only for me it took ten years or more to figure
out a fresh approach to the notorious and troubling Charles Stuart case
that tragically confirmed again the legacy of blatant racism in Boston.
It was remembering a friend at work running to tell me that Stuart had
jumped from the Tobin Bridge that gave me the poem. This originally
appeared online in The Tower Journal--and it also appears in my
full-length collection, 'Waiting for the Light to Change' (Prolific
Press, 2017), along with many other poems on similar themes."
Beneath the Tobin Bridge
Beneath the Tobin Bridge
Now
I close my eyes and see my friend Regina running,
Not
from her parents’ Victorian house near Franklin Park
In
the Dorchester section of Boston, not from the starting line
On
the track in the stadium behind the suburban high school
She
attended on the METCO program—for disadvantaged
But
aspiring kids from the city—and not from the bus stop
At
Mass. Ave. and Tremont to the Josiah Quincy Middle School
On
the border of Chinatown and the South End,
As
husband Melvin used to do, racing the school bus
With
his friends and closest cousins every morning—
But
from one polished end of the hallway to the other
On
the second floor of Longfellow Hall, where we used
To
work together, at the Harvard Graduate
School
of Education, on this, the fourth of January, 1990,
At
the beginning of the all-too-ordinary workday,
When
everything is quiet, the students all gone
On
winter vacation, and the professors home in their sweaters;
Running,
that is, to tell me the news that she has just heard
On
the radio in her office—that they have just dredged the body
Of
Charles Stuart up from the green tidal waters
Of
the misnamed Mystic River, beneath the Tobin Bridge
That
spans Boston Harbor from Charlestown to the North Shore,
The
cover of the psychopath who blamed the murder of his wife
On
some anonymous black guy blown at last, his dream
Of
living with the rich blonde he worked with at the fur store
On
chic-chic Newbury Street now just a nightmare,
His
brother Matthew having confessed this morning
That
it wasn’t, after all, some desperate black junkie
Who
killed Chuck’s wife, the lovely Carol DiMaiti,
In
a botched armed robbery after their weekly birthing class
At
Brigham and Women’s Hospital on Huntington Ave.,
In
an alley across the street on Mission Hill in Roxbury,
But
Chuck himself, who hoped to get the insurance money
And
run off with that goddess from horsey Dover-Sherborn—
News
good enough, after years of wondering why the tide
Of
racism in Boston has not yet receded, to break Regina,
Against
the better judgment of her Christian education,
Into
a fit of giggles that keeps her from crying
In
moral indignation at how the Boston cops, believing
Every
word Stuart said, contrary, apparently,
To
the intuition of the nurses in the emergency room
Where
they sewed up the wound Stuart had made
By
shooting himself in the leg to make his story plausible,
Went
right ahead and conducted that month-long investigation
For
the criminal in question, bringing every black man
On
Mission Hill with a record in for questioning,
Even
booking on suspicion one repeat offender
Named
Willie Bennett who’d been in and out of prison—
News
that cracks Regina’s composure open in a carefree chuckle,
Speeding
her down the hall, even while her plaid skirt
Restricts
her strides, while her brown feet in black flats slap
The
shiny hallway tiles, and while the matching unbuttoned lapels
Of
her red cardigan sweater open to the white blouse,
Itself
unbuttoned at the throat to reveal the gold cross
Against
the rich brown skin, which somehow sets off
The
red clip in her pressed hair, above the left brow,
And
the ornery and elated smile on her broad brown face.
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