If you walk by Boston Harbor in early July, a conflicting number of smells are sure to assault your nose. If you asked any passing dock worker what the smell was, surely they would tell you it was money. Me, I thought it smelled like home in a strange sort of way. Sea brine and open air, a smokey sort of meat smell that came from some of the shops along the harborwalk, and if you got unlucky, the stench of the treatment plant on Deer Island. They named it that because the deer ran from the wolves on the mainland and hid amongst the trees there. This was long before the trees were hacked away in favor of developing the land for far less natural uses. It had been a detention center for Native Americans in the 1670?s, long before my family ever came to the new world. Many of them died, or so I?ve heard, making for quite the bloody start to humanity?s hold on the little isle. Between then and 1840?s, I?m not really sure what they did to the place, but I?ve got cousins whose families landed there during the Great Famine.
God damn Irish and their potatoes.
Supposedly those that made it off of Deer Island were lucky. I guess the hospital the city ran there didn?t do a whole lot of good. When the Irish finally stopped bleeding into the city, they turned it first into an almshouse for the poor and then into a prison, which is suiting I suppose, all things considered. I always wondered just how many of those who came through the island ended up there once more. For almost one hundred years that prison stood. In fact, I remember my dad pointing it out to me on more than one occasion when I was really young. Maybe I don?t remember what it looked like per say, but I think that?s because I couldn?t quite see out of the back window of his old Crown Vic, let alone across the harbor. The prison finally fell to the wayside some time in the early 90?s, I think it was, and they expanded upon the little bitty water treatment plant there. It grew and grew, and now it takes up most of the island.
It?s pretty gross, I can?t lie. In particular during the summer when the wind blows just right. Today was one of those days and as I wove down the shoreline, the stifling heat carried with it the smell of wastewater and a touch of sulfur leftover from the Fourth of July. Or so the locals liked to claim, passing off the lingering scent of brimstone as if it were nothing. I had spent many an Independence Day in Beantown (don?t ever call it that to a local, they?ll strangle you), and unless my memory was failing me, I knew that smell seldom lingered at the sea?s edge where the salt in the air was all too keen on wiping away the last bits of blown up ?Freedom?.
The sun was just beginning to dip behind the skyline at my back and Moakley Park was set with a hazy orange glow that might have been called beautiful had my mind been in the proper frame. But much like the skyline, the park also faded away behind me, basking in its untouched beautiful for however brief of a time it had. I could take the Harborwalk the rest of the way to my destination though I was quickly remembering just why everyone took the T despite Boston supposedly being America?s Walking City. Whatever the Hell that meant. At the very least it meant that the smell of Deer Island was fading too and soon I cut away from the Harborwalk and across a nearly empty parking lot that denoted the edge of UMass?s Boston campus.
Six towering flood lights spread their glow across pavement dotted with twelve (I counted) cars of various makes and models, all washed with a pallid tint thanks to the white fluorescence that bathed them from above. The dying day cast long shadows that stretched just far enough to be struck down by the next artificial light and it?s swarm of moths and mosquitos that traced their own shadows on asphalt like skittering bit of black, aimless in their intent but perpetual in their motion. It didn?t take me long to weave a path of my own, my shadow chasing me in circles with each lamp post passed.
Forsaking concrete still warm with the day?s heat, I sought reprieve in the cool grass that stretched carefully clipped fingers up to welcome the crushing pressure of my Converse. They left little trails of emerald on white, stains that wouldn?t soon come out if I didn?t wash them away soon. It wouldn?t be the last pair of sneakers marked with the scars of my treks, so they would survive for the time being. Pristine footwear was for the birds after all. That and those with budgets far greater than mine. With the shop?s sales hitting a lull and our investigations coming to a grinding halt, I couldn?t exactly afford any unnecessary expenditures. Maybe tonight?s expedition would change that.
The front doors of the Archive building wouldn?t be open at this time of night, but I was expected so I wasn?t surprised to find the very last door propped open just barely with a piece of duct tape pressed over the latch, preventing it from locking. Perfection. With the barest squeak of the door, I made it inside and so I began the descent into the musty dark with one name on my mind.
Darius Westfield
God damn Irish and their potatoes.
Supposedly those that made it off of Deer Island were lucky. I guess the hospital the city ran there didn?t do a whole lot of good. When the Irish finally stopped bleeding into the city, they turned it first into an almshouse for the poor and then into a prison, which is suiting I suppose, all things considered. I always wondered just how many of those who came through the island ended up there once more. For almost one hundred years that prison stood. In fact, I remember my dad pointing it out to me on more than one occasion when I was really young. Maybe I don?t remember what it looked like per say, but I think that?s because I couldn?t quite see out of the back window of his old Crown Vic, let alone across the harbor. The prison finally fell to the wayside some time in the early 90?s, I think it was, and they expanded upon the little bitty water treatment plant there. It grew and grew, and now it takes up most of the island.
It?s pretty gross, I can?t lie. In particular during the summer when the wind blows just right. Today was one of those days and as I wove down the shoreline, the stifling heat carried with it the smell of wastewater and a touch of sulfur leftover from the Fourth of July. Or so the locals liked to claim, passing off the lingering scent of brimstone as if it were nothing. I had spent many an Independence Day in Beantown (don?t ever call it that to a local, they?ll strangle you), and unless my memory was failing me, I knew that smell seldom lingered at the sea?s edge where the salt in the air was all too keen on wiping away the last bits of blown up ?Freedom?.
The sun was just beginning to dip behind the skyline at my back and Moakley Park was set with a hazy orange glow that might have been called beautiful had my mind been in the proper frame. But much like the skyline, the park also faded away behind me, basking in its untouched beautiful for however brief of a time it had. I could take the Harborwalk the rest of the way to my destination though I was quickly remembering just why everyone took the T despite Boston supposedly being America?s Walking City. Whatever the Hell that meant. At the very least it meant that the smell of Deer Island was fading too and soon I cut away from the Harborwalk and across a nearly empty parking lot that denoted the edge of UMass?s Boston campus.
Six towering flood lights spread their glow across pavement dotted with twelve (I counted) cars of various makes and models, all washed with a pallid tint thanks to the white fluorescence that bathed them from above. The dying day cast long shadows that stretched just far enough to be struck down by the next artificial light and it?s swarm of moths and mosquitos that traced their own shadows on asphalt like skittering bit of black, aimless in their intent but perpetual in their motion. It didn?t take me long to weave a path of my own, my shadow chasing me in circles with each lamp post passed.
Forsaking concrete still warm with the day?s heat, I sought reprieve in the cool grass that stretched carefully clipped fingers up to welcome the crushing pressure of my Converse. They left little trails of emerald on white, stains that wouldn?t soon come out if I didn?t wash them away soon. It wouldn?t be the last pair of sneakers marked with the scars of my treks, so they would survive for the time being. Pristine footwear was for the birds after all. That and those with budgets far greater than mine. With the shop?s sales hitting a lull and our investigations coming to a grinding halt, I couldn?t exactly afford any unnecessary expenditures. Maybe tonight?s expedition would change that.
The front doors of the Archive building wouldn?t be open at this time of night, but I was expected so I wasn?t surprised to find the very last door propped open just barely with a piece of duct tape pressed over the latch, preventing it from locking. Perfection. With the barest squeak of the door, I made it inside and so I began the descent into the musty dark with one name on my mind.
Darius Westfield