Ever since I was reading chapter books, my favorite genre to read was historically based writing. Fiction or non-fiction - it didn't matter to me. My love of history and story-telling comes directly from my father, and his love was passed to him by his father.
Last year, my family visited Pop and Nana Donovan in sunny Marco Island, Florida. We LOVE Marco Island. My sister and I instantly take on our geriatric alter egos. We get up at 7am, go for a jog (well, she does - I usually help Pop with the daily crossword), eat lunch at 11:30, lay by the pool, catch up on the condo gossip, hit up the grocery store, family dinner at 5:00 with jazz playing in the background, bed by 9pm, rinse, repeat. Heaven on earth.
One thing I can count on is that Pop will always have an amazing book suggestion for me, and this last trip did not disappoint. Pop suggested the book Paddy Whacked by TJ Engligh to my sister and me. The book is the story of the Irish mob in America starting in New York and South Boston, migrating south to New Orleans, and then west to Chicago. The book is written in such a way that you find yourself identifying with the gangster characters during prohibition. You're in the garage with Whitey Bulger as he's dealing with the Italians in the North End. However - none of these stories, no matter how well-written they are, can compare with the story Pop told us one night while drinking cabernet after dinner. The story is one of his childhood inspired by a passage he read in Paddy Whacked. As he was reading, his eyes were opened to a world that his boyish naivete did not see at the time. I hope I do it justice.
It was the 1930's in Boston. Jack (Pop) and his buddy (we'll call him Sully, not because that's his name, but because I want to) were hanging out on a sunny Friday after school. Sully reaches into his cotton-twead pockets disappointed at how empty they are.
"Hey Jackie, we gotta make some dough."
"How we gonna do that Sully?"
"Well, I sees these guys down by the docks. Maybe we can get some work there."
The next morning, bright and early before the roosters have begun to stir, Jack and Sully head down to the docks. They see a mob of men (pun intended) fighting for the foreman's attention praying to the Virgin that they get selected to work that day so that they can feed their wife and brood of ginger kids. Sully and Jack work their way up front.
"We'd like to work, Sir." The foreman looks the two scrawny pre-pubescent boys up and down. "Oh you do, do you. Do you know what you're getting yerselves into, Boyle?" "Yes sir. We are hard workers. Whatever you need." Sully does all the talking. Jack's knees and teeth are chattering. "Alright, go over there on the ship and report to Murph."
The boys head over in the direction to which the foreman gestured. They were given two extremely large, extremely sharp hooks. They were then ordered to stand on the platform; the platform was going to lower them down into the cargo hull. Once there, they were to load up the platform with the merchandise down below so that it could be unloaded for sale to their vendors. At the end of the day, they'd send the platform back down and they could go home.
The boys do as they're told without asking questions. They nervously step on the platform, and the platform begins to descend. Almost instantly, a vile stench consumes their nostrils. The boys hold back gags and dry heaves. The ship was from South America. The cargo: cow hides. There was no way out. They were stuck with the rotting hides until the platform was sent down at the end of the day...twelve hours later. The boys worked - back breaking work - hour after hour in silence trying not to inhale lest they pass out from the pungent rotting odor. At the end of the day, the two ascended out of the hull like Lazarus rising from the dead.
The boys walked over to the foreman. Sully tapped him on the back. "Scuse me sir. Can we collect our pay." The foreman laughed. "You boys are still here? Well whatdoyouknow. Of course, here's your cut." He hands them each a dime. "You know, you boys are okay. If you come back tomorrow, you got yerselves another day of work." Sully looks up at the foreman. "But sir, tomorrow's Sunday. We gotta go to church." The foreman's jaw drops to the ground, and then he errupts in painful, sidespitting, uproarious laughter.
On the way home, the boys continue their self-imposed vow of silence. Jack walks into his home past his mother shreaking after him, "Where have you been all day? Jackie! Jackie!" He strips off his clothes, goes to the yard, grabs a barrel and burns them. The next day, the boys went to church - like good, Catholic, non-mob affliated Irish boys should.
****
Pop didn't know at the time that this day was his brush with the Irish mob. And to be honest, after reading Paddy Whacked, I bet it wasn't the last. "Those guys" were your neighbor, your best friend, the grocery store manager, the guy down the street. In order to get money to support your family, you needed to work. In order to get selected, you had to have connections - and many times those connections needed to be through organized crime. It was a way of life, a way to survive in a country that didn't want them. If hindsight is 20/20, what does that make looking back 70 years later through the eyes of an expose on your culture?
