“You can depend on us, Angelo. Thanks a million.”
“We’ll be there.”
All three men shook hands, and Angelo offered, “Come in some night with your Missus. You too, Rookie. On the house.”
The two peace officers continued on their beat, past meat markets with freshly cut chickens hanging in the windows, sweet-smelling bakeries, busy tailor shops, family-owned grocery stores, delis, restaurants and colorful flower stalls, and gift shops of every variety: souvenirs, luxury leather goods, Italian pottery, fine fabrics, and decorative glass.
Old men seated on stoop stairs tipped their hats or gestured hello in a manner that looked like a priest blessing his flock. Old women peered down from their eagle-eye view in apartment windows above and very often informed agente di polizia of supposed crimes in progress. “Those boys onna the corner looka like they up to a no good.”
More often than not it was a false alarm. The North End was one of the safest places in the city. Recently, Officer Kane advised a lady who asked him for directions to Paul Revere’s house and timidly inquired, “Is that area safe for my little girl and me?”
“You have nothing to worry about, Missus. It’s the North End, and they’ll kill anyone who tries to harm a mother and child.”
Bob liked walking the beat in the North End where the people were full of life but not much trouble. And the food was delicious. Both cops continually touched the visors of their caps in respectful greeting to passersby.
Officer Kane said, “Jesus, Bob, you could have blown the whole deal for us. This kinda work is helpin’ me put together a down payment for a car. Listen, pal, and I’m only sayin’ this for your own good, no offense, but you’ll get a lot further if you take the humble route, especially with these guineas. We’re in their territory, and that makes them boss. The guy’s offerin’ us good dough to keep an eye on the Blessed Mother. In my book, it doesn’t get much better than that.” His usual smile returned. “Capiche?”
“No offense taken, Ed. I’m used to those Beacon Hill types who nail down everything, especially if a buck’s involved.” Bob stopped walking, and Ed followed suit. “Just last week a wise guy over on Acorn asked, ‘Officer, could you help me with these jammed window screens? It shouldn’t take much of your time, only two are stuck, and please don’t expect any compensation. I understand there are people who tip public servants, but I’m not one of them.’ Can you believe the gall of that guy, Ed?”
“The call boxes were accessible only by an officer with a key. Most of the officers were on foot and had no radios. They were to make their rounds, open and pull the lever in the boxes every forty minutes or so. This connected them to a signal desk and let the station know they were where they should be. The station could also send a signal to the box, and a flashing blue light on top would alert the officer they were looking for him. And every box had a direct phone line to the station.”
Captain Murray – BPD
Despite tightfisted Brahmins, summers so hot “you could fry an egg on the sidewalk” and bitter “Jesus, it gets colder than a witch’s heart out there” winters, Bob Donnelly loved his job. Oh, he had plans for getting ahead, “But for now,” he told someone, “it’s a helluva good situation.”
Where else could a “regular guy” enjoy the freedom a beat allowed as he patrolled through “the greatest city in the world,” even if he did have to check in with the station every forty minutes from a B.P.D. call box or work overtime without further compensation?
Where else could a regular guy have a decent amount of respect for the work he did, wear a fine-looking uniform, and spend day after day with the policemen of Station 3, who were like fraternity brothers to him? They worked together, ate together, drank together off-duty, played cribbage, and covered each other’s backs for whatever reason needed: a medical emergency, death in the family, new baby, wedding, house or apartment that needed painting or some other kind of attention, a move to “new digs,” loan until the next pay period, switching shifts, or providing a valid excuse for unaccounted time away from home to stop for a drink or a game of cards, or venture to Scollay Square.
Officers Donnelly and Kane ducked into Finocchi’s Italian Market & Deli for a quick sandwich. When they finished ordering and pulled out their wallets, the proprietor wouldn’t hear of the two carabinieri paying for the spuckies, fresh coffee, and mouth-watering Italian cookies. “Put your money away. It’s no good in here.” Mr. Finocchi then spoke in rapid Italian to Mrs. Finocchi, who warmly led them to one of three tables crowded into a small space by the window. “Please, please sit down. Give your feet a rest.”
“So, Bob, how’s it going with you and Rita and the kids?”
Bob Donnelly was meticulous about his uniform, taking extra care to brush it free of lint, polish his shoes to a mirror finish, and see that the badges on his hat and chest were smudge free.
Bob Donnelly really appreciated Ed Kane, who wasn’t hesitant to help bring his game “up to snuff.” George McDonough was a good stepfather, but George Mac was a guy with lily-white hands, a pharmacist. What did a pharmacist know about the streets, about getting ahead in the police department? Ed was a seasoned veteran and a good guy in Bob’s book. He used to be at the Joy Street Station but was transferred a while back, and covered the North End now. When there was a shortage of patrolmen, Bob was detailed out to work right alongside him, and he never left Ed’s company without knowing more than before.
“Great, except with the new baby, we definitely need a bigger place.”
“You’re kiddin’ me. I was just gettin’ ready to ask the fellas at the station if anyone’s interested in a reasonably priced apartment in Jamaica Plain. My mother has a three-decker and the top floor is available first of the month. Would seven rooms be big enough for you?”
“What’s the rent and when can we see it?”
Jamaica Plain wasn’t Southie, but it was close enough, and the Donnelly family would now have the space they so desperately needed.
They’d been through some hard times with the tragic end of Rita’s pregnancy, her subsequently missing work, and back for only a short while when she found herself in a family way again, which was good news in the long run. Another baby was coming, “thank God growing in the right place.” It was also not so good news; she’d miss more work. But Rita was determined to get their family out of the project, and she continued working at Steuben’s until two months before the baby arrived. The white half-apron that covered her black skirt helped to hide what the other waitresses kindly called “barely a bump, honey.”
The owner of Steuben’s was a benevolent man and never short of good help for that very reason. He deduced Rita was in “a delicate condition” and discreetly made sure she was the only one on her shift permitted to fold napkins and refill salt and pepper shakers, a coveted sit-down job.
The new baby was a healthy, auburn-haired, blue-eyed porcelain doll. Catherine Louise was the apple of her mother’s eye, her father’s pride and joy, big sister Ruth Ann’s “baby doll,” and brother Bobby’s “lil’ sister.” For the time being, Rita and Bob firmly agreed they’d be more careful when tracking the only birth control sanctioned by the church, the rhythm method.
The third-floor apartment on Arcola Street in Jamaica Plain was so large, Bob’s mother coined it a barn, but the Donnellys relished every square inch: a living room, three bedrooms, small eat-in kitchen with a big, old-fashioned, black iron stove that Rita had to learn to master, walk-in pantry, formal dining room, large bath with a claw foot tub, pedestal sink, and pull-chain toilet, and a big back porch the entire width of the apartment.
The formal dining room remained empty until the Donnellys bought a walnut table with two leaves, six chairs, and a small buffet from a regular customer at Steuben’s, a widower who was moving to Florida and, as Rita told Bob in order to justify the purchase, “was practically giving it away, honey.”
Blessed Sacrament Church was within walking distance, and there were two m
om-and-pop grocery stores, one on each corner of the entrance to the Donnelly’s street, which dead-ended against one of the top sledding hills in the neighborhood.
Each grocery store had its own specialty. One featured a butcher shop, while the other provided fresh packed ice cream and ice cream cones, “Jimmies extra,” and a pay telephone booth.
RUTH ANN REMEMBERS
WE KNEW THE FOOTSTEPS IN the back stairwell to our third-floor Jamaica Plain apartment were his. We knew the sound of heavy, shiny, black policeman’s oxfords, and we knew the repeat of his quick pace; each step barely landed on as he flew up the stairs. My brother Bobby and I would shout, “Here he comes! Daddy’s home!”
As soon as we said it, Mummy would appear with baby Catherine on her hip and join us at the top of the landing.
In preparation for Daddy’s homecoming, and to calm things down a bit, Mummy would always set us up for quiet play. When it was at the kitchen table, we knelt on the matching honey-colored chairs. Our choices were crayons and coloring books or modeling clay, one box each, with different colors lined up in perfectly scored rows, ready for sculpting, or as my mother used to say, mayhem.
“You’re to keep everything on the table this time, kids,” she warned, remembering when we’d rolled clay worms and placed them all over the kitchen and hallway, where they were unknowingly stepped on and dragged throughout the apartment. “I’m still picking up those worms.”
“We won’t do it again, Mummy,” Bobby said as he squished two hues of clay into a muddy-colored ball.
“Or do you want to play Pick Up Sticks?” She’d set us up on the shiny, waxed but worn, red linoleum kitchen floor. That too came with a warning: “And stay on the rug. I don’t want you two catching cold.”
We loved to play, but nothing could completely distract us from listening for Daddy and the squeak of the downstairs back door when his huge hand turned the old-fashioned, brass doorknob. Every step of his homecoming was a kind of dance that produced its own music and varied with the seasons.
Tap, tap, tapping meant he was getting the snow off his boots; shuffle, ball change, meant shaking spring rain from his umbrella and placing it opened next to baby carriages, roller-skates, and bicycles on either side of the stairs. My father seldom moved slowly, but in the humid summer, he waltzed. One, in the door; two, pause; three, grab the railing for support. One, two, three, and slowly he would ascend those three flights. The crisp air and vibrant colors of autumn energized him, and many times he opened the back door with such vigor it banged against the wall, a percussion prelude to his quick, long-stride tango, two smooth stairs at a time, into the arms of his waiting family. There wasn’t a car to listen for because we didn’t own or need one. Our father took the train from Park Street Station in Boston to Jamaica Plain and walked home from the subway, passing Blessed Sacrament Church, Al’s Shoe Store, Gambon’s Liquors, Busy Bee Cleaners, Friend’s Food Shop, and other small businesses along the way.
Sometimes he stopped to pick up a quart of milk, dozen eggs, can of Franco-American spaghetti or whatever other provision my mother had asked for when he took the time to call from a public telephone somewhere downtown or on the vast city park, Boston Common.
The Common, one of the places in the Beacon Hill area where five and sometimes six days a week my father went to work as a cop on the beat. At night, he went to school at U. Mass because he wanted “something more, something different than three-family apartment houses, a cop’s beat, and winter.”
Those sounds of the back door opening could have come from any of the other families living in that three-decker.
There was the O’Day family on the first floor, best described to you in my mother’s words. “Dan’s a milkman for Hood, grew up in Medford, and Ginny’s from Southie. We went to Gate of Heaven together. They have five children, four girls and the youngest is a boy.”
The pretty O’Day sisters were older than me. During the week, we all wore navy-blue Catholic school uniforms, but I was in awe of their weekend petticoats, poodle skirts, twin sets, and pert hairdos. Their brother, Danny, was, in my mother’s words, “such a good boy.” I remember Mr. O’Day coming home from work during a scorching heat wave and telling his daughters and me, as we all sat outside on the front stairs, fanning ourselves with pleated Seventeen magazine pages, “Very clever girls.” Then, with the gentlest of smiles, he shook the red-and-white cardboard box he was carrying and announced, “After supper, Hoodsies for everyone in the building!”
Boston Common and State House
Or a member of the Ed Kane family could have turned that doorknob. When Grammy asked about them, my mother answered, “Ed’s on the force too. His mother owns the building. That’s how they got the middle floor, cooler in summer and heated by the other apartments in winter. You’d think they were Protestants though, with that small family of theirs. Imagine just the two children.”
Mr. Kane was tall and thin, Mrs. Kane short and pleasingly plump. In less charitable moments, my mother would say, “Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean, and so between them both, they licked the platter clean.” Their children were built just like them, the oldest, a boy, short and chubby, the girl, as tall as a high schooler, although she was only in fifth grade. What I remember best about the Kane family is they were very quiet and kept to themselves, except for fleeting hellos and touting Mr. Kane’s mother’s handmade braided rugs. “You won’t find a better price for the quality.” My mother bought two, one at a time as she could afford them, for each of the children’s bedrooms.
Unless we had company and my father was running downstairs to answer the door, our family seldom used the formal, winding staircase in the well-kept front hall.
The three tenant wives took turns washing and waxing the entry and stairway and scrubbing the white granite steps outside. Sweeping the sidewalk was relegated to older children.
When our doorbell rang, my father would hit a security button inside our apartment that released the door lock to the building with a loud buzzing sound. And he’d proclaim, as if for the first time, “Rita, I’ll go see who it is.”
To which she repeatedly replied with a certain exasperation, “Bob, you’re supposed to look out the window and see who it is first, then ring the buzzer.”
“Rita, will you stop making a goddam federal case every time I go to open the front door.”
To us, the back staircase above the second floor was like the entrance to a private club, The Donnelly Family ~ Members Only Please.
And we only had to hear two or three footsteps to know it was Daddy. “Daddy’s home!”
Bobby and I would dash out the kitchen door, lean over the stair rail, our hands poised on top to lift us just enough so we could peek down at Daddy coming up.
When we heard the rustle of a paper bag, which he did intentionally, it meant presents: a ball and jacks, balsa wood airplane, bubbles, brightly swirled lollypops, a kaleidoscope, or storybooks.
“I’ve got surprises,” echoed up the stairwell, landed in our hearts, and settled there for a lifetime. I cherish these memories, although I learned years later Daddy wasn’t always eager to “get home to Rita and the kids.”
CHAPTER 30
He especially avoids giving cause for gossip or scandal by
conversing with women in the streets at night when
he is in uniform, whether on his route or not.
THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
– DIVISION OF CIVIL SERVICE –
A MANUAL FOR THE INSTRUCTION OF APPLICANTS FOR
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE POLICE SERVICES, 1940S
EXCERPT FROM: PARTICULAR DUTIES AND
RESPONSIBILITIES OF PATROLMEN
CORDELIA PARKER LOOKED OUT ON the torrential downpour and grew increasingly impatient with herself for such inordinate care. Good heavens. He’s a grown man and not your concern. Mr. Miller survived World War II. Surely he can navigate a New England storm.
Earlier that night, she’d putt
ered around Chandler’s Linens after hours, while waiting for the storm to subside before walking home, but when she turned the radio on to catch the latest forecast, listeners were warned the worst of the blustery nor’easter was yet to come.
Cordelia telephoned Rolf. “Please secure whatever you possibly can.” He replied, “l took care of that all late this afternoon, Miss.”
She called for a taxi, though she detested paying for one, always mindful of the meter ticking, but thought it better than taking the risk of being blown into injury or, heaven forbid, struck by lightning.
The Yellow Cab slowly swooshed up to the curb in front of Cordelia’s Mount Vernon home. “Here we are, Miss.”
She already had the fare in hand and hopped out before the driver could open her door. He rushed to her side and shouted over the wet, windy weather. “Jeez lady, at least let me carry your packages,” and he grabbed all three.
Cordelia quickly opened her umbrella and covered both of them. “Yes, yes, thank you, but please, let’s hurry.”
They dashed through the shadows and puddles, the house completely dark save a desk-lamp glow from the second-floor window in Richard Malmgren’s room. She opened the front door to more darkness, flipped a light switch on, and instructed the driver to put her wet packages on the rug inside. “Thank you.”
Dining room
91 MOUNT VERNON
BOSTON, MASS.
Lately, it had been Cordelia’s experience to return home from work to the warmth of the porch lantern and once inside, a small hall lamp too, as well as the distant kitchen light that made its way to the entry in dim, beckoning beams, David Miller forever sitting at the kitchen table with his medical books, tea, and partially smoked cigarettes. But not tonight, the house was dark. David Miller was not there.
How fortuitous. Now I won’t have to bring my dinner to the dining room. Good. I’m much too tired for all that rigmarole.
The Red Coat Page 33