‘Lucy was raped some weeks ago, but Ruby didn’t believe her.’ Jack was stunned. He barely moved. ‘How could she do that? Why would she do it?’
I couldn’t even begin to imagine why Ruby would think that her daughter would lie as much as she had.
‘I’m so sorry. She’s so young.’
‘Does the guy –?’
‘Milo.’
‘Milo. Does he know?’
‘Yes, I had to tell him.’
‘What’s going to happen to her?’
‘I told Milo it’s up to him. I recorded the conversation with Mom, and he has that recording now. He’ll be the one that decides.’
‘I think she’s on the run.’
80
Ruby
I flew Business Class to Perth, Australia. I put it on Jack’s credit card. I figured it would be quite a while until I was going to be in such an environment again. Perhaps I’d never come home to Ireland. I refused the glass of champagne and all the other alcohol I was offered. I tried to look forward to a whole new life with new people. I was sure it would be hard to settle in at first. Work would be different, but I’d get used to it. This was going to be a long flight, and my best option at that moment was to readThe Big Book– written in 1939 by Bill W, it was the handbook of Alcoholics Anonymous.
81
Milo
In 1999 and 2000, everybody wanted me to lie. Once the DNA evidence came to light, the public defender wanted me to say that sex between Ruby and me was consensual. I was sure they’d made a mistake with the DNA, or that somebody had planted it. I couldn’t imagine how, but it was my lawyer’s job to find out. I’m sure she never believed me. But, in court, she questioned how the DNA was handled. The sexual assault forensic examiner was called as a witness, who explained that the semen sample taken from Ruby was brought to a lab where it matched with my saliva sample. My attorney cross-examined her. She was adamant that there would have been no chance of cross-contamination or that my sample could have been compared to another of my samples by accident. ‘We are not amateurs,’ she said in a haughty tone, ‘there are no accidents.’ I remember thinking to myself that she was lying on behalf of the DA.
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 inme 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 haddaughters 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 ourrelationship, 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.
