The director handed the children’s photos back to their proud father and inadvertently encouraged his need for a change. “Bob, we often have a need for someone like you, a guy who knows police work, an expert to do just what you’re doing for us here in Boston. You’d love California.”
And so it went until the movie company wrapped up production and said their goodbyes, but not before Detective Bob Donnelly, “a hell of a nice guy,” was more than enticed by visions of California, where “the sun is always shining” and “the sky is the limit!”
CHAPTER 38
“I like this place,” said Mrs. Mallard as they climbed out on the
bank and waddled along. “Why don’t we build a nest and raise
our ducklings right in this pond? … What could be better?”
MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS
ROBERT MCCLOSKEY
THE CAMPAIGN FOR CALIFORNIA HAD already begun but Rita didn’t take it too seriously, thinking the more distance between her husband’s experiences with the Six Bridges people and real life, the less he’d nag her about considering the prospect of moving out there. She was wrong.
Bob took every word the filmmakers said to heart. And spending so much time with all those movie stars left the impressionable detective with what his mother, Mrs. Mac, went on to call “Hollywood Fever.”
Bob simply couldn’t get “the land of sunshine” out of his mind and repeatedly tried to reason with his wife, as he did one night after their children were tucked in bed with a kiss, “good night, and God bless you,” the girls in their frilly room with ruffled, white, Pricilla curtains, rose-pink bedspreads, and a taffeta-dressed doll lamp on the dresser. Bobby in his “boy room” with airplane and train print curtains (one seam mistakenly sewn with a plane and train headed for imminent collision), tan sailcloth bedspread, and trio of model airplanes suspended from the ceiling with fishing line.
“I don’t understand why you’re so against it, Rita. It’ll be great for the kids. Remember what that director said? Honey, he’s really interested in putting all three of them in the movies. And he said a real cop’s input is often needed on movie sets.” Bob raised an ice-filled glass of whiskey and ginger ale from his comfortable seat on the living room couch, as if toasting. “Meanwhile, I’ll get a job with the L.A. Police Department.” He looked away just long enough to flick the ashes from his Lucky Strike cigarette into an amber glass ashtray supported by a brass floor stand.
Rita answered his latest pitch from the other end of the couch. “I’m not worried about you getting a job, Bob. You’ve always been a hard worker. I just don’t want to live out there. I like it here.” She placed her teacup on an end table. “We have a nice home, the kids are in parochial school, and our families are close by. And another thing, I don’t know how to drive. I understand you can’t get anyplace out there without a car.” Rita sat back with a certain resignation, crossed her navy-cotton pedal pusher-clad legs at the ankle, and needlessly adjusted the cuffs of her yellow poplin blouse. “What’s wrong with our life here?” she asked and folded her arms while waiting for an answer. Please, dear God in heaven, take this foolishness out of my husband’s head.
“Jeeesus, Mary, and Joseph, Rita! Why do you always have to make a goddam federal case out of everything?” Bob was on his feet now and pacing.
“Because it is a goddam federal case.” She lowered her voice, concerned they’d wake the children, though the intensity remained unchanged. “‘Jeeesus, Mary, and Joseph, Bob!’” she mocked. “Why this burning desire to see your kids in the movies? Give me a break! You want to see your kids in the movies? Get the projector out and take a look at the ones you took of Ruth Ann’s Communion, Catherine’s birthday, and all the others.” She grabbed Bob’s highball from his hand and raised it. “Featuring the Donnelly family, and starring the detective without a lick of sense, his goddam federal case of a wife, and their three unfortunate children.”
Rita stormed upstairs, and Bob caught her by the arm midway. “Let me make you a drink to help calm down those nerves.”
“I’m not going to California.”
“I understand that. Tom Collins, gin and tonic?”
“I’ll have what you’re having.” And if you think this is going to get me in the mood for anything other than a peaceful night’s sleep, you’ve got another think coming.
Ten-year-old Ruth Ann was still awake and took in every word.
The Donnellys’ saltbox, red-brick home in Mattapan looked like the happy houses children tend to draw: two stories, five windows (three up, two down), with a front door in the middle, and a “just big enough,” three-step, cement porch with white lattice trellises on either side. The look of a child’s drawing continued with precisely centered tieback curtains on the second story, and a single, full-foliaged tree out in front, circled with whatever bloom was in season; orange, pink, and yellow zinnias were Rita’s favorite. All she ever wanted was a happy home. And 97 Standard Street was so much more than she’d ever expected.
Upon entering the house, you’d right away step on a scatter rug, which protected the wood floor of the small entry space. The living room was to the right, kitchen to the left, and the cellar door was straight ahead. In winter, Rita would usher the children to “go directly downstairs” to shake the snow off and hang wet garments on a wooden clothes rack to dry. Their Nordic-patterned slipper socks were lined up on the bottom three steps, ready to warm cold little feet. She basked in the comfort and convenience of their new home. No sharing stairways, backyards, and cellars.
Bob and Johnny King had created a knotty-pine rumpus room out of half the cool, cement-floored basement. The finished side was tiled with red linoleum and furnished with everything second-hand, a red-and-tan, wooden-armed couch, two coordinating chairs, and a bar the brothers-in-law had fashioned from Rita’s buffet. Its roomy cabinets held variously sized glasses, and mixers, bitters and grenadine syrup, jars of cocktail onions, olives and maraschino cherries, canned mixed nuts, small plates, bowls, paper cocktail napkins, and way at the back, Bob’s crispy cheese crackers from S. S. Pierce. Rita enjoyed keeping it stocked and orderly.
Where the bar butted up against a wall, two bracket-supported shelves held gift bottles of liquor arranged by size. A Zenith tabletop phonograph sat atop a non-descript cabinet, and a small refrigerator had been cleverly built into the paneling but stuck out like an uninvited guest in the laundry room on the other side, which also housed a punching bag Bob frequently pummeled in rapid succession. Pert, modern, geometric-print curtains covered the ground-level windows, and the happy homemaker was pleased to say, “I made them myself.”
In the humid heat of summer, her children spent the hottest afternoons inside. “It’s cooler in the basement. You can play down there for a while.” Rita joined them when there was sweltering ironing to be done.
In 1954, the city of Boston had so many polio cases that parents drove their sick children to Children’s Hospital and sat in their cars on the street while resident physicians decided who would go inside for care.
Massachusetts Society for
Medical Research
Presently the concerned mother was doing everything she could to keep her children cheerfully isolated at home. “Who wants Kool-Aid? And Ritz crackers with Skippy peanut butter?” Rita wanted them away from what she feared most: polio.
The epidemic was at its peak, and panicked parents on Standard Street made a pact to keep their children separated, believing such a precaution would protect one and all from catching the crippling disease.
Playmates of every age could be seen waving and calling to each other across or up and down the great black asphalt divide.
“Hi, Jeannie. Hi, Judy. Hi, Francis.”
“Heyyyy, Stevieeee!”
“Olly, olly, oxen, Andy!”
Four-year-old baby Catherine got a swat on the bum for getting halfway across the street before her mother caught her.
Rita and Bob’s children came through the su
mmer of 1954 unscathed, but one wandering neighborhood boy didn’t. Despite everyone’s sorrow, his plight validated the wisdom of “keeping kids at home ’til this horrible thing blows over.”
The Donnellys’ living room, observed by others as “just like you’d see in a magazine,” was furnished with a pearl-gray couch piped in a green-fern print that matched the pinch-pleated drapes and round toss pillow on the “beige goes with everything” easy chair. Mahogany end tables held tall, green-based, lord and lady pastoral scene lamps with silk shades. A compact cabinet encased the strategically placed “so everyone can see” television set, and a gold, urn-shaped TV lamp on top provided low light for optimum viewing.
The green hassock with black metal legs and a black-button-tufted top improvised nicely as a coffee table. Rita changed area rugs with the seasons, sisal in summer and wool in winter. During warm weather, upholstered pieces were slip covered in a cool green print, and drapes were replaced with custom, roll-up, bamboo blinds.
Rita’s modest kitchen had rich, ruby-red and pearl-white checkered broadcloth café curtains hanging from shiny brass rods, and the room extended into a dining area with a picture-window view of the Keaghan family’s home. The back door window’s sheer curtain was stretched vertically on tension rods, and cinched in the middle. A steep staircase led to three bedrooms and one bath.
The well-ordered kiosk was filled to absolute capacity with magazines and newspapers of course, but also candy, chewing gum, cigarettes, cigars, aspirin, cough drops, pocket Kleenex, plastic, accordion-pleated rain bonnets, and an assortment of souvenirs: postcards, pens, key chains, combs, and miniature toys as well as Boston’s cherished children’s book,
Make Way for Ducklings.
To say the décor on the first floor of the Standard Street house was beyond the Donnellys’ means would be an understatement. But they hadn’t paid a cent beyond the TV set, dining set, and wool rug. The rest came from the most unexpected source. Bob had a friendly acquaintance with a news vendor on the Boston Common.
Although Maury Lowenstein, with his wool cap, layers of mismatched clothing, bulky coat, and print-smudged canvas apron, had the look of a humble hawker, he in fact owned a good many newsstands throughout the city and philosophized, “A nickel here, a dime there, it all adds up to a pretty penny.”
Maury was beloved by his customers and had a kind word for almost everyone, each exchange an affirmation of good will on both sides, until that fateful Saturday night, at the dimming of the day, too late for afternoon business and too early for the “night on the town” weekend crowd.
“Okay, old man.” A twenty-something tough guy grumbled as he pulled a gun from his jacket pocket. “Ya know how it goes. Ya money or ya life. Hand it over.”
The vendor reasoned, “You don’t want to do this, buddy. Put the gun away.”
The mugger pushed his firearm against Maury’s heart, “Don’t think I haven’t been watchin’. Gimme me the big money ya keep under ya coat. Or else.” He put the gun back in his pocket, where it still remained pointed at his victim. Maury reached for the thick envelope of bills he did in fact keep under his coat.
Nothing about the news vendor’s expression revealed anything other than unmitigated fear as he handed it over. It was at that exact moment when the robber was watching Maury’s every move that Officer Donnelly stealthily approached from the rear, grabbed the gunman’s arms, and handcuffed them behind his back.
“You stupid bastard. Did you really think you’d get away with armed robbery when your intent could be seen a mile away?” Bob confiscated the weapon and roughly spun him around.
The thug demanded, “Get your hands off me, ya dirty copper,” and Bob took him by the collar.
“You’ve got to be the slowest goddam thief this side of a moron. Gun in your pocket, gun out of your pocket, gun in your pocket.” Bob shook the daylights out of him. “This is a good man, and you’re going away for a long time, pal.”
Maury slumped down on a stack of newspapers, wiped his sweating brow with a handkerchief, and heaved a sigh. “You saved my life, Bob. You saved my life.”
Sylvia Lowenstein, well dressed in a black gabardine, straight-skirted suit, carried a leather portfolio in one hand and an umbrella, like a walking stick, in the other when she showed up at Station 3 the next day and asked for Officer Donnelly, who happened to be coming on duty.
“Hey, Bob, there’s a real classy-lookin’ older dame out there askin’ for you. Anything you’d like to own up to, Officer?”
When Bob got to the front desk, Sylvia introduced herself and thanked him profusely “for saving my Maury’s life.”
“Mrs. Lowenstein, I was simply doing what the good people of Boston pay me to do, serve and protect.” How’d a crumpled up guy like Maury get a beauty like her?
“That’s all very noble, but out of gratitude I’d like to offer you my services.”
Several officers looked up.
“I’m an interior designer here on the Hill, and it would be my honor to give you and your family a room of new furniture and window coverings as well.” She handed him her card.
Bob’s first thought was, Jesus, Rita would love that, a Beacon Hill designer. The next was job preservation. Damn it, if the sarge wasn’t listening to every word, I might be able to take her up on this.
“To tell you the truth, we’ve got all the furniture we need, Mrs. Lowenstein.”
“My husband tells me you have a family. I’ve no doubt you’ll be needing more furniture in the future.”
“I don’t think the department would take too kindly to me accepting your offer.” He smiled now. “Thanks anyway, but I need my job more.” The police sergeant’s resounding double rap on a desk all but said, “You’ve got that right.”
“Very well, Officer. ‘Thank you’ seems terribly inadequate but again,” she extended her gloved hand and shook his, “thank you.” All eyes were on the shapely matron as she exited the building.
The next time Maury saw Bob, he had a message for him from Mrs. Lowenstein. “First, let me say my Sylvia never takes no for an answer. And secondly, out of respect for your job concerns, she wants you to know this gift will be for your wife. You’ll let us know when Mrs. Donnelly is ready.”
When the time came, shortly after Bob’s promotion and the move to a new home, it was evident the living room needed attention. Over cups of hot tea and detailed discussions about décor, Rita Donnelly and Sylvia Lowenstein enjoyed each other’s company, prompting the uptown interior designer to offer window coverings for the kitchen and dining area as well. “Coordinating color flow is absolutely essential when there’s an open plan such as yours, Rita.”
“Thank you, Sylvia.” My home has an open plan … la de da.
Rita Margaret King Donnelly ran her home with such precision you’d have thought she’d spent time in the military. The children’s schedules were precise and her household was shipshape. She felt safer that way. Those days in Southie after her mother died were without provision, protection, beauty, and order. And they were terrifying.
When Norah was alive, no matter what wrongdoing Rita’s father was up to, her mother made sure the children were provided for, and Norah’s youngest daughter loved the memory. God only knows how she did it. There was food on the table, “It might be simple fare, but you’ll not go hungry,” her mother often said. The clothes on their backs were “few but fine, and decent enough to hold your head high,” and there was always beauty in their home.
It was Norah’s way to cover the table with a clean, pressed cloth and pop a stem of lilac or hydrangea, even pungent smelling geranium, from their landlady’s garden in a glass or small pitcher, reserving her one and only vase for special occasions. “Girls,” she told them, “it’s a reflection on your character, the way you keep house and put a meal on the table. If there’s not a penny to be had, and only a few crumbs to eat, it’s still no excuse for sloth. Just ask yourself this. If Our Lady, the Blessed Mother herself, came knockin�
�� on the door and asked to come in for a cup of tea, would I be delighted or sorely despondent with regret for the mess of the place? And you boys would do well to pay attention to what’s being said. You never know that our Lord won’t call you to a life of bachelorhood. Though I pray He doesn’t. Unless it’s the priesthood you’re after.”
And Rita recalled, with a great deal of pride, how she and her siblings all had household assignments from an early age, causing neighbor ladies to comment, “I don’t know how you do it Norah King. All those children in a three-decker flat, and your home’s as spic and span as a spinster’s.”
All of that went away when Norah passed away.
Replicating her mother’s mode brought Norah into Rita’s home. Order, predictability, and beauty—Rita held them and they held her.
RUTH ANN REMEMBERS
MY EARLY CHILDHOOD HOME HAD a basement. The best thing about it was that our mother always had wonderful surprises hidden down there for my brother, Bobby, sister, Catherine, who we called “baby Catherine,” and me.
One laundry day, Mummy called, “Ruth Ann. Ruth Ann! Come down here right now!”
I was ten years old and remember everything about that spring afternoon. I can still hear the pat of my saddle oxfords as I ran down the hollow-sounding wooden, cellar stairs. And I can still see my mother, as she was that day, wearing a yellow-and-brown mini-plaid 1950s housedress, and facing the washing machine as I breathlessly answered, “Yes, Mummy.”
When she turned around, her pretty smile told me I wasn’t, as I’d feared, in trouble. “There you are. Daddy and I are very pleased with your schoolwork, especially your last arithmetic test. Here’s a present for your Ginny doll.” She reached behind a storage box and presented a wonderful surprise: a tiny doll-sized raincoat, boots, and hat.
The Red Coat Page 42