Just then John Joseph appeared with a smile, the fiddle and bow held together in his left hand as he amiably extended his right. “Mornin’, Officers. What’s goin’ on here? Have me boys been up to some kind of mischief?”
Trembling, Norah held out the shoes. “John …”
He took them from her and laid his fiddle and bow on a small table by the door. Confused, he asked, “What’s the meaning of this? Aren’t these Noni’s shoes? Or are they Rita’s? But wait, Rita’s in the …” He looked over his shoulder. “Kitchen.” He looked back at the police officers. And as if someone held up a sign with the answer, he knew. He bowed his head and ran his hand over his thick hair. “God Almighty.” The panic-stricken father practically threw the shoes at Kay. “Hold onto these.” John Joseph ran after Norah who’d already pushed past the policeman, crying, “Noni, Noni darlin, I’m comin’,” as she ran down the stairs.
Norah and John’s footsteps sounded like thunder on the bare wood stairs, and her cries pierced the air with alarm. Other apartment doors opened, and the landlord shouted as the couple ran past him, “What is it? What’s happened?”
Norah kept crying out Noni’s name, and John demanded, “Where is she Nor’?” following her lead down the dewy, early morning streets.
“I sent her to the store for a loaf of that rye bread.”
Neither one was prepared for what they saw next. A paddy wagon, ambulance, and countless men, women, and children were crowded on the street in front of Mulkerrin’s Grocery Store with several policemen saying, “Break it up now. Move along folks. Let’s show some respect here.” Officers Palma and McCarthy were running close behind the distraught couple, and one yelled, “Make way for the girl’s parents.”
GIRL FATALLY HURT BY
TRUCK IN SOUTH BOSTON
Norah V. King, 8, of 2 E Street, South Boston was fatally injured by a truck while crossing the street. The operator, Harold Geisler of South Boston, was booked at the Athens St. Police Station on the technical charge of manslaughter and released on bail for appearance in the South Boston District Court.
The Boston Globe
Saturday, July 20, 1929
The curious crowd parted, creating a path no parent wants to take and sight no mother or father should ever have to endure. Norah reached Noni first, fell to her knees, and pulled back the officer’s jacket. She took her second youngest daughter into her arms and rocked back and forth, keening, “Éirigh agus seas suas. Éirigh agus seas suas.” Rise and stand up. Rise and stand up.
John stood straight as a rod before his wife and daughter, arms folded across his chest and legs apart. Turning toward the crowd, and sheltering Norah and Noni as best he could, his arms sprang from their locked position and his hands, knotted in fists, shook as he furiously shouted, “Have you no decency? The child is gone. Haven’t you seen enough? Go home!”
It’s said that God doesn’t give us more than we can bear, but “the tragedy,” as it came to be known, met John Joseph’s predisposition for the drink outside a pint or two after work. It marked the end of family joy, and beginning of drunkenness, violence, and financial strife beyond Norah’s ability to stretch a dollar. Eventually, John only paid the rent, and more times than not, the electricity. The rest: coal, food, clothing, school supplies, medicine, and everything else, was up to Norah and the children.
“Here, Ro, add this too. Now all we have to do is pray the old man doesn’t drink every penny of it.”
“Of course he’ll drink every penny, Kay. I’m only giving half to him and the other half to Mum later on.” Rosemary had two five-dollar bills, seven singles, and now with Kay’s three dollars, twenty in all. She chose to give her father the ten singles hoping the sheer volume would please him and sway his thinking.
“Thank you, Kay. With all my heart, thank you.” Rosemary tucked the rest of the money in the sleeve of her cardigan sweater and reached for her sister. They held hands and exchanged a look of surety as Rosemary said, “John Michael will come back to us, Kay. He’ll come back,” while the roar of their father’s shouting echoed down the hall.
“Rosemary, where the hell are you?”
John Michael King walked to church on Sunday morning a new man. He slipped out of the apartment early to avoid going with his family, and so he could meet Marion Callanan without his siblings jibing, “John, whose yer girlfriend?” Or as Timmy had teased last week when he saw Marion wave to Johnny from a distance, “Oh, Johnny boy, I’ve been waiting for so long.” This way there wouldn’t be anything to be concerned about other than the preferred company of “the one.”
John pulled the Navy paper out of his shirt pocket. Will ya look at that. They both signed.
Mr. John J. King – July 5, 1941
Mrs. Norah C. King – July 5, 1941
One week, and I ship out. Now all I have to do is convince Marion it’s for the best, and ask if she’ll wait for me. Oh God, what if she says no? His heart wandered back to the beginning.
Rita and Marion were the best of friends and each was the sixth child in a large family. The Kings had nine children, and the Callanans beat them with twelve. One day, after the teen girls got ice cream cones at Morris’s Drugstore, pharmacist George McDonough teased the soda jerk, “Ah, John, it’s a wonder how you can get a double dip in the single scoop. I don’t mind, but you’ll want to keep an eye out for Mr. Morris. You never know when he’ll walk in.”
George Mac, as most called him, chucked Johnny on the shoulder. “You wouldn’t be tryin’ to impress that cute blonde now would you?”
What Johnny didn’t know was that, on the way home, Marion had asked Rita, “Does your brother have a girlfriend?”
“No. But the way you two were making eyes at each other, I think it’s pretty safe to say he’ll have one pretty soon.”
Marion Callanan was standing right where she said she’d be, by the main doors. “And I’ll be there early, so we have plenty of time to say hello, go in, and find a good seat,” she’d promised.
That statement surmises just what attracted John Michael King to Marion Louise Callanan, well thought-out planning, dependability and a desire for good. Well, that and a great pair of legs. Lithe Marion was tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and according to Johnny, “sharp as a tack, always ahead of the game.”
Marion waved. He waved back, began jogging and ran up the church stairs. “Hi doll. You look great.” He kissed her on the cheek.
“John, not in front of the church and all these people.” She took his hand. “I’m glad you’re here though. Come on, let’s go in.”
“Mar, I have something to show you.”
“Can’t it wait?”
“No, please, Mar. We still have time.” He handed his sweetheart the Navy document. “Read this.”
Marion read only as far as she needed to. “Why?”
“I’ve got to, Marion. You know how it is with the old man.” Johnny held the valued paper up in the air, at eye level between the two of them. “Consider this an investment in our future. I’ll be able to save some money, and they teach you something, Mar. I can get a real job when I get out. The big question is, are you willing to wait for me?”
Marion began to cry, threw her arms around John Michael, and kissed him right on the lips. “Of course I’ll wait for you. No one else could fill your shoes, no one.”
CHAPTER 9
On New Year’s Eve in days of old, single young Irish girls went to bed
with sprigs of mistletoe, or holly and ivy leaves under their pillows.
According to legend, this hopeful act would bring
a dream of their future husband.
Moments before going to sleep, some might say,
“Oh, ivy green and holly red,
Tell me, tell me, whom I shall wed?”
IRISH LEGEND
“SO, I TOLD THE FELLA next to me, ‘See that girl, the one in the red coat? I’m going to marry her one day.’” Tony Williamson loved to tell his “the first time I saw Rosemary�
� story. “That fella thought I was dreaming. Rosemary far outclassed me when it came to looks, and besides that her friends thought I was a stick in the mud. She enjoyed a good time and was always laughing. They simply couldn’t imagine the two of us together. And for a while, neither could she but I finally brought her over to my side. Must have been my Italian charm.”
The reference to being Italian was made tongue in cheek. Tony’s name was misleading, and when it went before him, most people thought they would be meeting an Italian, including Rosemary’s father, John Joseph King who’d roared, “No daughter of mine is steppin’ out with a goddam guinea.”
Scotch Irish, Tony Williamson was an only child, whose parents married late and, against all odds, miraculously conceived. They gave Saint Anthony, to whom they prayed night and day, fearing Mrs. Williamson’s fertility had been lost to an advanced age, all the credit. And when it came to naming their son, they paired the patron saint of things lost, Anthony, with Ignatius, the patron saint of generosity, believing God exceedingly generous in giving them such a healthy baby boy. There wasn’t an ounce of Italian blood in Anthony Ignatius Williamson, but you couldn’t convince John Joseph King that someone named Tony wasn’t a “wop.”
At the time, the Jesuit-founded Boston College was primarily a commuter school and almost exclusively for male students.
Tony was tall and lean with a long neck, observant hazel eyes, and straight brown hair save the slight wave where he combed it back, and though he and his widowed mother were of modest means, he had the carriage of an aristocrat. His keen intelligence and clever way with words won him a scholarship to Boston College where he majored in business. One night, as the story goes, after a Christmas concert, there was a party in Milton, at his friend Don Campbell’s family home. And when one of the other BC “fellas,” James Sheehan, walked in the door with his sister, Patricia, and her best friend, Rosemary King, for Tony, it was love at first sight.
The Campbell home looked like houses Rosemary had only seen in Christmas cards. Visible from the main road, the thirty-eight-room Victorian mansion, with glowing candles in every window, sat atop a long, sloping hill—the surrounding snow undisturbed, as if in preparation for the perfect Christmas party. At first, Rosemary thought the meandering, freshly plowed driveway was a street. James Sheehan slowly drove up to the porte cochere in a Ford coupe his uncle had loaned him for the night, and his sister, Patricia, spoke first. “James, you actually know these people?”
“Just the son,” her brother answered.
Rosemary was astonished by the mansion’s size. “Can you imagine living in such a place, Patricia? Oh, I can’t wait to see what it looks like inside.” She thought of her mother, and how they’d sit at the kitchen table later that night, and she’d share every detail about the party.
“Are they snobby, James?” Patricia asked, peeking over the front seat. “If they’re snobby, I’m not going in.”
“Come on, Patsy. We’re going to have a great time. Don Campbell’s a real, regular guy. One of the few I know who isn’t working his way through BC, but I never would have guessed he came from this kind of money.” James put the stick shift in neutral.
“Pop says that when the money’s old, there’s nothing to prove. Bet we’re looking at an ancient fortune here. All right, I’m freezing. Let’s go in.” Patsy tilted the rearview mirror in her direction, pushed a few curls back in place and bit her lips to a fresh-faced pink.
They climbed a broad stone stairway to a deep terrace overlooking the property and went up more steps to the enormous, wreath-adorned front door, which was wide open, letting in the cold. Others had walked in only a moment before them. James turned to make sure no one else was coming, and tentatively closed the door, sealing in peals of merriment that had called all the way from the drive.
There was an air of gaiety and an abundance of guests, laughter, music, and holiday joy as people greeted each other with pats on the back, handshakes, hugs and air kisses. All the while, heads turned this way and that, looking beyond the person in front of them, and taking note.
Straight ahead was a grand, carved, dark wood staircase. Evergreen garlands tied with red satin ribbons festooned the railings, and midway up was a stained-glass window as large as any Rosemary had ever seen in a church. Except this one had an elaborate floral design. What a shame to have something that special without a saint, our Blessed Mother, or the Holy Family gracing it.
Arty Feeney and Tony Williamson were sitting on that very staircase, discussing Boston College’s amazing victory over Tennessee in the last Sugar Bowl. It had been almost a year since the traditional New Year’s Day game but as loyal Eagles, they relished going over the 19-13 victory, play by play, time and again. Then Rosemary arrived.
Later Tony would say that once he saw her “Arty’s words sounded like they were coming from the bottom of a barrel.” Everything was secondary to the radiant blonde in the exquisite red coat.
“Williamson, I don’t think you heard a word I said.” Arty waved his hand in front of Tony’s eyes. “Williamson?”
“You see that girl over there, the one in the red coat? I’m going to marry her one day,” Tony declared.
“Whoa! Who’s that? Little Red Riding Hood, come to Papa. And look at those gams.”
“Knock it off, Arty.” Tony smiled, and stood up. “Come on, Mr. Feeney. Introductions are in order.”
Rosemary went through the motions of removing her coat with James’s assistance. “Here let me help you with that, Ro,” he said as he lifted the coat off her shoulders and thought of how very good she smelled. Her fragrance was nothing more than soap, water, and Castile shampoo.
Girls in Southie called James a real catch because of his striking black Irish looks, athletic build, and promising future. “Jimmy Sheehan’s going places. He’s a college man,” they’d swoon.
To Rosemary, he was simply Patsy’s older brother, who always seemed to have a five o’clock shadow. James, who his family called “Plan man,” because he was so good at reaching his goals, had big dreams: a college degree, law career, and life beyond Southie with Rosemary as his wife.
If Betty Boop had a less cute but prettier sister, it would have been petite Patsy Sheehan with her doll-like face, dark hair, and cerulean-blue eyes. James was the first in his family to go to college, and Patricia had established the small flower concession in their father’s grocery store with the as yet undisclosed intent of opening her own “high-class floral shop” downtown one day.
Although James and Patsy’s family owned a successful corner market in South Boston, it wasn’t quite profitable enough to put their only son through Boston College. Breaking one of Boston’s Blue Laws, which forbade the selling of alcoholic beverages on Sunday, paid for most of James’s tuition. During the week, groceries went out the front door, but on Sundays, Mr. Sheehan’s brother-in-law ran the illegal liquor business out the back door. The only stipulation made for purchase was that customers request it for “medicinal purposes,” thus easing their consciences of any wrongdoing and avoiding “God forbid, bringing the place down with a curse for doin’ regular business on a Holy Day of Obligation.”
Sheehan’s Grocery, Fresh Produce, and Meats was a perfect front for such goings-on, and was fiercely protected from the authorities by Southie’s close knit community, including native son Police Officer Regan, who often enjoyed “a little pop” at the end of his beat, which happened to pass right by Sheehan’s.
“And how are you doin’ this fine day, Officer?” Colin Sheehan would inquire of his friend, Daniel Regan. The two men who had known each other their whole lives; made their First Communion and Confirmation together; played kickball in the same vacant lot; pilfered penny candy from that very store when it was owned by the Muldoon family; chased waves at Carson beach every summer and shoveled snow in front of Saint Peter and Paul’s every winter, as all altar boys were required to do; danced at each other’s weddings; and mourned parents now gone, would take the time to
enjoy a bit of refreshment.
Around five o’clock, they’d sit out back on wooden crates pushed against the grocery store’s brick wall. In the winter, they retreated to the shelter of Colin’s cramped office, where they clinked teacups that never saw a cuppa with a familiar “Slainte,” and more often than not, jumped at the chance to bless and amuse each other with a variety of Irish toasts.
Colin Sheehan took his “tea” leaning forward, hunched over. “Dan, just remember, God is good, but never dance in a small boat.”
Saints Peter and Paul’s Catholic Church & Rectory
SOUTH BOSTON, MASS.
Officer Regan preferred to lean back and hold the cup and saucer close to his face. Sip. Clink back in the saucer. Sip. Clink. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Daniel Regan put his cup down, stood up, took his hat off, and held it respectfully across his chest. “Here’s to Clare O’Hara, for her life it held no terror. Born a virgin. Died a virgin. No runs. No hits. No errors.”
James was duly impressed by the grandeur of the Campbells’ home. He’d never been anywhere like this in his life. Impressed but not overawed. James liked who he was and where he came from. But what a perfect place to bring Rosemary.
In the middle of the mansion’s grand entry, a round, marble-topped table held a huge floral arrangement of white roses, holly, and pine. Evening bags surrounded the sizable cut-crystal vase like clockwork, and Patricia tried to look nonchalant as she circled the table admiring each one, and finally placed her own simple, black, embossed-satin drawstring next to a golden-chained, plum needlepoint.
Rosemary peeked around the other guests into the expansive but still-crowded parlor, where a massive Christmas tree gave the room a warm, welcoming atmosphere, and the glow of its lights made everyone look, “just dreamy,” as she later told her sisters.
The Red Coat Page 10