All Souls: A Family Story From Southie

Ma begins playing the accordion at anti-busing rallies. In September, she lets the children skip the first week of school, as part of a neighborhood-wide school boycott. On the first day the buses come, most people in the neighborhood stand outside in protest, shouting at the police, who are wearing riot gear. A bottle is thrown and instantly everyone around Michael seems to be fighting the police. Frankie finds Michael and yells at him to go home. Michael runs. When he gets home, he turns on the TV news, hoping to see his family on the live footage of the riot.

Every day, the MacDonalds join other families to harass the buses and their police escorts. They all throw rocks, but Michael is always secretly glad when his stones never hit the buses: “I was only eight, but I was part of it all, part of something bigger than I’d ever imagined, part of something that was on the national news every night” (85). SWAT teams are called into the neighborhood to assist the police: “It felt good, the hate I had for the authorities. My whole family hated them” (85). Michael begins to view the battle between the neighborhood and the police as David versus Goliath.