Martha's Vineyard Burning

by David Duarte, Ginger Martin

Overview

Martha's Vineyard Burning is a tragicomedy memoir of DAVID DUARTE, a second generation native of Martha's Vineyard who turns to petty crime at the age of 13 when he discovers that his father is blatantly cheating on his saintly mother with numerous women. It's the mid-fifties and the Island is a small community and David is a highly sensitive youngster whose embarrassment for his mother and the family—he is one of 4 siblings— increases to a burning rage and resentment against his business-savvy, larger than life father, Manny Duarte. David, a young man with exceptional good looks, has never felt comfortable in his own skin and his increasing alienation from his family causes him to seek close alliances with his school chums who join him in his forays into vandalism, pranks and petty theft. David finds empowerment and self-esteem in his role as ringleader of his small gang of followers. However, when he comes up with the suggestion to commit arson and set fire to The Tashmoo Inn in Vineyard Haven, the other teenagers reluctantly agree to take part in the shocking misdeed but fail to show up and follow through.
When 16-year-old David lights the match and holds it to the drape of The Tashmoo Inn during the early morning hours of June 8, 1958, he has no idea the stately Victorian landmark on Martha's Vineyard, which has stood for over ¾ of a century, will burn to the ground. He assumes the fire will be called in early on: "I tear a match from the book. It takes two more tries before the flame flares up. My nostrils inhale the sulfur as I get down on one knee and touch the lighted match to the right-hand corner of the curtain willing the material to ignite. It takes a few seconds.... I make my way back home, take off my clothes and go to bed. I keep waiting for the town alarm to go off. A half hour goes by, then 45 minutes ..." The youngster doesn't have a clue that he will spend the next five years doing time in places like the infamous Bridgewater Hospital for the Criminally Insane (of Titicut Follies fame), Taunton State Hospital, Barnstable House of Corrections and ultimately the Plymouth House of Corrections. He is the youngest inmate in Bridgewater and one of the few that ever leave who are still able to read and write. The manuscript depicts in graphic detail the horrific medieval and subhuman conditions existing at Bridgewater in the mid-fifties. David describes the harsh and indifferent medieval treatment the inmates received by the guards: the requirement of the inmates/patients to strip naked publicly, the bullying and the filthy, unlit housing. David subsequently writes a letter to help close the old section of Bridgewater down forever. David is able to survive the horrors of Bridgewater with the encouragement and worldly knowledge of his alter egos, a little worm in his gut named JIGGS and a friendly turd named EARL.
David is released from the Plymouth House of Corrections following 5 years and 11 days of being imprisoned. The first 18 months of incarceration was spent in reform schools, hospitals and the Dukes County jail waiting for trial, the same jail Senator Ted Kennedy was held in during his infamous Chappaquiddick trial. David has paid his debt to society and is determined to go back to high school and get his diploma. David wants to "make something of himself." He makes an appointment with Charlie Davis, principal of the MV regional high school. Davis tells David that he and the school board have decided not to allow him to come back to school because he is two or three years older than the rest of the students and having been in prison, would be a disruption for the school. This is devastating news to David and strengthens his deep-seated resentment toward authority figures. Undaunted and encouraged by Jiggs and Earl, David soldiers on with his life finding employment in construction and finding solace in women and the emerging drug culture of the Sixties. His home becomes a commune, the Love Inn, and he spends the next ten years perpetually stoned and strung out on amphetamines, marijuana and LSD.
This story takes us through six decades in the life of David Duarte: his troubled youth, his issues with a dysfunctional family, his incarcerations, his drug addictions and hedonist sixties lifestyle, his four marriages and numerous bizarre romantic alliances, his epiphany and 25 years as a Jehovah's Witness and subsequent break with the congregation. It is an interesting story of one of the descendants of Portuguese settlers who first came to the Cape and Islands on the whaling ships of the 1800s.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940162643609
Publisher:	Outskirts Press, Inc.
Publication date:	09/11/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

David Duarte is a native and life-long resident of Martha’s Vineyard. David is a retired shellfish warden for the Town of Oak Bluffs and now works in eldercare. He wrote his memoir in collaboration with his fourth wife, Ginger Martin, a semi-retired freelance writer and humor columnist. They live in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts.