THE END OF ALL THINGS GOOD (standard:drama, 2705 words)
Author: Anonymous	Added: Jan 04 2003	Views/Reads: 3779/2367	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
This 3500 word story is about the destruction of the Quincy Quarries outside of Boston for the Big Dig highway project interwined with a challenge to teewnage immortality set in the 1960s.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

as patriots in the struggle to preserve a way of life, for jumping from 
the Rooftop's cliff into the spring-fed water had been a time-honored 
rite on the South Shore. Our parents had forbidden us, our teachers had 
warned us, and the police chased us. Being twelve and a little wild, 
their collective disapproval was all the encouragement my friends and I 
needed and on the first warm day of 1964 we climbed Rooftop for our 
passage from boyhood. While watching the divers of Acapulco on Wide 
World of Sports, we had boasted, “We can do that." yet now the sheer 
drop of seventy feet paralyzed us and the older teenagers on the ledge 
clucked out calls of chicken, until my best friend, Chuckie Manzi, 
said, "There's five of us, right?" We each nodded meekly and he said, 
"I'll go first, you're second, then you, you, and you. We yell out 
Geronimo on the way down. Are you with me?" None of us had come up here 
to not jump, so we shouted, "Yes." Without warning Chuckie threw 
himself off the cliff. His cry of Geronimo died with a splash into the 
water. When he whooped out my name, I ran, until there was nothing 
under my feet. I plummeted off-balance and smacked into the water, yet 
I was ready to do it again and the gleam on Chuckie's face told me he 
with me 100%. With a shriek our friends appeared high overhead 
seemingly suspended in mid-air before falling like stones. One landed 
on his side, another on his back, and the third cannonballed into the 
water. When they broke surface, we howled for joy. We had done it and 
we did it again and again. As recently as 1999 I had leapt off Rooftop 
for my nieces and nephews, yet this Fourth of July no one was jumping, 
for the quarry was clogged telephone poles and Josephine's, where girls 
swam nude, was buried by a mound of dirt. Gone were the 'lungiefish', 
the echoing shouts of naked boys, shooting guns at the cliff faces, and 
drinking beer underage. All of it gone. I wandered to the bridge 
spanning Brewster's Quarry. Once a terrible emptiness yawed beneath 
this structure. A deadly drop no one could possibly survive, yet a 
summer day in 1967 had proved that impossible is just a word used by 
people unwilling to defy death. In San Francisco hippies were dropping 
acid, while longhairs in New York demonstrated against the war being 
fought by boys from the South Shore. Cities were burning all over the 
US and Asia. None of us at the quarries were old enough to understand 
the change in the air, for that year the South Shore had a new legend 
about three boys who acted as one. Donnie, Lee, and Eddie. Their names 
were on everyone's lips. How they had stopped a fight at the River Club 
in Mattapan. How they were the best dancers at the Surf Nantasket. That 
nobody dressed sharper and no one kissed better, but I hadn't seen 
them, so when I heard they were at Wollaston Beach, I drove my Vespa 
down to the Clam Shack, where I asked a girl in a bikini, if she had 
seen Donnie, Lee, and Eddie. Before she could answer, something smacked 
me in the head and I wheeled around to face six older teenagers in 
leather jackets and pointy-toed boots. They were 'rats' and hated 
anyone who dressed like a 'mod'. It was a stupid reason to not like 
someone, but the biggest one shoved me hard. "Who invited you to this 
beach? I'll tell you who! No one! Your type ain't wanted here! But now 
that you're here, we're gonna have some fun." Having been beaten up 
every day in sixth grade, I had learned that if someone talked about 
fighting, then he wasn't joking, and I clocked the greaser with my 
helmet. He collapsed like his bones had been jellied, however his 
friends immediately ratpacked me in revenge. I ducked, bobbed, and 
weaved through a medley of punches and kicks, until one blow rocked me 
in the temple. When I stumbled to the ground, a boot to the ribs 
knocked the wind out of my lungs. Things were going bad fast, then 
suddenly the beating stopped and someone helped me to my feet, asking, 
“Are you all right, kid?" "I think so." My nose was bleeding, but 
unbroken. Two of my attackers were lifting their fallen friend from the 
pavement, while the others backed away. The girl in the bikini stood 
under the arm of a tall, tanned, muscular Italian teen whom I thanked. 
"Hey, it's nothing." He shrugged with utter cool. "You looked like you 
could use the help. My name is Donny Lianetti." "D-d-Donny Lianetti?" I 
was stunned by the miracle of three people becoming one. "Yeah, do I 
know you?" He squinted like we might have a problem. "No, no, but I've 
heard a lot about you." "Yeah." "I thought you were three people. You 
know, Donnie, Lee, and Eddie." I lifted a finger with each name. He 
laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. “I never heard that before. 
Donny, Lee, and Eddie. You take care of yourself. Maybe we'll see you 
around." And we did, though all he ever did was wave from a distance. 
From someone else this might have been considered an insult, but like 
everyone else on the South Shore I was happy with any attention Donny 
Lianetti showed in my direction, especially as Donnie's fame rocketed 
with a series of swan dives from the quarry cliffs. Each successful 
plunge reinforced his aura of divinity and everyone figured he would 
stop at Rooftop, however for the Fourth of July Donny announced a dive 
from Brewster's rail bridge. For our brave men in uniform. At noon. The 
Fourth was a warm day and at Eleven O'clock Chuckie and I began the 
long walk through the woods to the quarries. On the way we greeted kids 
from other neighborhoods. Everyone had a different tale to tell about 
Donny. Some of the stories might have been lies, but I proudly retained 
some bruises to prove my tale was true. By the time we approached the 
quarries our number neared a hundred and we mounted the rocks to 
Brewster's rim. The crowd was mostly boys and young men, yet no one 
could recall seeing so many girls at the quarry before, but then again 
we had all come here to see Donnie Lianetti demonstrate that teenagers 
don't die. Peering over the edge, I wasn't so sure, for an uneven wall 
slanted to the bottom. The water seemed a mile away and I gulped from 
fear. No one could survive such a dive, yet if anyone could pull this 
off, it would be Donnie Lianetti, who appeared on the bridge, only 
wearing cutoff shorts. We clapped wildly and the girls' collective sigh 
confirmed he was as much their dream date as he was our hero. Raising 
his arms to quiet us, Donnie spoke with a clear voice echoing off the 
steep stone, "Thank you all for coming to honor our boys overseas. Now 
if you don't mind, I'll need a little quiet. You guys ready?" We all 
looked at each other, but his last sentence had been directed far below 
to the floating figures acting as his safety crew. It was at this 
moment that we heard sirens of the police coming to stop Donnie, but 
they were too late. "He isn't gonna dive, is he?" Chuckie asked. "No 
way," the greaser beside me said through an exhale of cigarette smoke. 
“No one's that crazy." He was wrong, for Donnie pushed off from the 
steel beam, his arms spread like featherless wings. Everyone held their 
breaths, as his body picked up speed to become an incoming ICBM. 
Halfway down he must have realized how suicidal it was to dive and 
tried to correct for a feet-first entry, but he ran out of space. A 
huge plume exploded from the water and the crowd groaned, for many of 
us had bellyflopped before, though never from a hundred and fifty feet. 
"See, I told you he wouldn't dive," the greaser said with a smirk and 
added, "He chickened out." Normally his comment probably would have 
started a fight, except everyone's eyes were riveted on the surface, 
for Donnie had yet to re-appear. His friends frantically clawed to the 
point of impact and dove under the water. Several seconds later they 
bobbed up with Donnie. The crowd cheered and our hero raised his hand 
in triumph. Unfortunately our celebration was cut short by the arrival 
of the police. Everyone scattered into the woods and seconds later the 
quarry was as deserted as it would be some thirty-three years later. 
While Donnie Lianetti and his friends escaped, his name faded from 
fame, as we turned our worship to Hendrix or Morrison. In 1970 I grew 
my hair and moved into a collegiate commune in Allston. One morning I 
was hitchhiking up Commonwealth Avenue and a Cadillac stopped. Even 
from the backseat I could tell the girl driving was beautiful, though 
her passenger slouched like he might have OD'ed. Crossing Brighton 
Avenue he turned around and said, "I know you. You're the guy who 
thought I was three people." "Donnie?" The god had fallen to earth 
hard. "What happened?" "What happened?" He laughed. "You must have been 
there. The day of my great dive. This is the reward I've been living 
with ever since. Don't get me wrong. I'm not angry or nothing. My 
father sued Quincy and with the settlement I'm good for life. I can 
walk sort of and Sheila loves me. We have two kids. So don't say, 
"Sorry." because I heard enough of them to last a lifetime." After 
speaking briefly of the old days, Donnie Lianetti settled into his seat 
with a pained sigh. "Hey, do me a favor and tell Sheila here how 
good-looking I was." "There was no one better looking." "Thanks, we'll 
be seeing you around." After I got out of the car, Donnie Lianetti 
vanished for good. Standing above the empty quarry, I thought about how 
offended he would have been by the sacrilege to nature being committed 
by the city of Boston, so that people could drive through a city five 
minutes faster. Filled with the loss I walked back to Rooftop and 
stared down at the empty pit, slowly realizing the quarry was not gone. 
It was still below me. The only thing missing was water. All someone 
had to do was firebomb the pumps. The water would return and time would 
flow backwards, so the past became the present, which would always be 
the future. It sounded crazy, but someone had to do it. If not me, then 
someone. Until they do, protect those places you love from those who 
have no respect for anything in this world or else those places will 
vanish forever and you wouldn't like that. Trust me. I know. And 
somewhere on the South Shore, so does Donnie Lianetti. 


Tweet