On the Sixth Day of Christmas I visited a person in jail. Technically, it was the House of Correction (HOC). When the HOC was built in Boston, the powers that be decided that anyone trying to visit also needed to be punished, so there is no public parking. Consequently, I always take a bus to the Boston Medical Center (BMC) and then walk on over to the jail when I need to make a visit. The BMC basically serves as the public hospital for the homeless and mentally ill of the city. The streets around the hospital teem with lost souls seeking medical care, shelter, or one of the methadone clinics in the area. I made my way through several knots of junkies and homeless engaged in street drama before I got to the forbidding four lane highway I had to cross to get to the jail.
The House of Correction is set in a forlorn, former industrial part of town. I hurried past old warehouses-some in use, some abandoned. All the side streets are permit parking for the guards. No parking for the public. Everyone else can go screw because, well, the screws got all the parking spots! It was cold and threatening to sleet/snow when I got to the jail. I was in luck because a food truck- not a hip millennial food truck, an old school roach coach– was parked out front with hungry guards milling about. I bought a piece of pizza from the truck and went inside to visit. The visit was fine.
On the way back, I waited alongside the highway for the crossing-light to change. A discarded sign lay on the ground, intermittent sleet falling on it, from one of the many panhandlers who frequent the intersection. Written with magic-marker on the soggy cardboard was something like: I’m not a jerk, I want to work but etc..etc… Not a bad pitch. The light change and I crossed the street.
Looking back I noticed a small flock of geese on a grassy area near an on ramp. Not quite six-geese-a-laying.
On the Sixth Day of Christmas I visited a person in jail.
Happy New Year!!!
copyright 2015 Magnus Incognito