From the Eyes of a Juror

by Frank Terranova

  Chapter 75 – Bar Hopping

  Tuesday evening June 17, 2008 – 11:55 PM

  Court Officer William Brady, better known to the jurors in the John Breslin murder trial only as “Billy”, was having himself a roller coaster of an evening. Billy’s day had been bad enough, but his night got off to an even bumpier ride as it crested towards its first downhill jaunt. First of all, he had incurred the wrath of Judge Gershwin due to his less than stellar supervisory skills, and in turn he was forced to take it out on the jurors by cutting off their cell phone privileges. And on top of that, his plans to spend the night out on the town, carousing with his friends while watching the Celtics game, was met with fierce resistant from his wife Joanna. But in the end he got his way as he almost always did; despite the jurors’ maniacal complaints; despite his wife’s relentless objections.

  Of course, once Billy stepped foot out the front door, his mood brightened considerably, and as he and his troupe of merry men hopped from bar to bar to bar, consuming enough booze at each location to quench the thirst of a small army, they were feeling no pain. In the course of a few short hours, they had made their way through just about every pub in Northtown before eventually settling in to watch the fourth quarter of the game at the Lucky Shamrock, where they ordered up a bottle of Dom Perignon in celebration of a victory which, much like them, was in the bag so to speak.

  Billy and his gang’s barhopping excursion was quite an impressive accomplishment when you consider the fact that Northtown was home to more pubs per square mile than any other city neighborhood in the entire country.

  Ironically, the Northtown section of Boston was the same world where both Billy Brady and Sammy Fox had come of age. Ironically, Northtown was a world where a punk like Billy Brady could emerge to become a court officer, employed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, while at the same time someone like Sammy Fox could also prosper (in between stints in prison that is).

  Northtown was an equal opportunity melting pot where a man could make an honest buck while living side-by-side with minor league hoods of every shape and size imaginable. They were all there; the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Mexican, and every skin color in between, and they all strived for the same goal, which was of course to work their way up the ladder of respect in this cold, cruel world. Whether it was a lifetime gig with the police department, or an induction into the big time rackets of organized crime, it didn’t much matter which career direction these goodfellas chose because either way, they’d get their fair chance to rule the city of Boston with an iron fist.

  In many ways, Northtown was the perfect hometown for a man of Sammy Fox’s repute, since he himself was an equal opportunity entrepreneur. Fox was equally comfortable working with the Russian mob, the Asian ruffians, the Hispanic switchblade brigade, the inner city gang-bangers, as well as the aforementioned Irish and Italian gangsters.

  And so for better or for worse, it was in this world that Billy Brady grew up; it was in this world that he had transformed himself into an unsophisticatedly urbane professional; and for that matter, even though the neighborhood had changed significantly over the years, it was in this world that he still lived, and he had no intentions of ever leaving, right up until his dying days.

  There were people in certain pockets of Billy’s world who looked up to him as if he were a king for the mere fact that he had risen from the ashes of their meager roots to make something of himself, while at the same time there was also yet another brand of people in Northtown who simply tolerated his presence and his choice of profession. Yes, for the most part, the seedier element of Northtown simply ignored Billy and he ignored them. That is to say, the crooked con men working on the wrong side of the tracks simply ignored Billy, except of course for those rare occasions when he might prove to be a valuable resource to one of their many causes; except of course on those rare occasions when he might be able to provide them with a wealth of useful information; except of course on those rare coincidental occasions when he just so happened to be presiding over a criminal case in whose outcome they had a vested interest.

  And yet, despite its many tempting faults, it was in this world that Billy Brady was having a whale of a good time for himself. It was in this world that he would flirt with the lovely local ladies who admired him from afar each night as he returned home from work adorned in his alluring court officer’s uniform. It was in this world of multicultural diversity that he strutted around like some sort of UN ambassador of goodwill.

  It was in this world that Billy was ordering drinks for all, and like everyone else in the city, he was basking in the glory of another Boston championship. After the final buzzer had sounded, Billy and his raunchy pals ventured outside to smoke a victory cigar in the tradition of the late Celtics patriarch Arnold “Red” Auerbach. But unfortunately for Billy however, it was right around this time that his night took another hairpin turn for the worse. Unfortunately, it was right around this time that a fistful of companions of none other than Sammy the Fox sauntered their way into the Lucky Shamrock like a militia of marauding thugs. Unfortunately for Billy, he was just the person that Sammy’s buddies were looking for. Unfortunately for Billy, Sammy’s henchmen were quite interested in having a little chat with him. Unfortunately for Billy, the “friends of Sammy” escorted him into a private room in the back of the pub that at all times was reserved just for them; a room whose golden walls were painted in the blood of their enemies.

  Billy’s familiarity with Sammy’s crew dated all the way back to the days of their youth when he was a fledgling street punk just like they were. But now these same hoodlums had grown up to become full-fledged gangsters while at the same time destiny had bestowed him with a different calling and steered his life down a decidedly divergent path.

  Just being seen with this motley bunch of ex-cons had Billy on edge, but he didn’t have much choice in the matter at hand. He may have developed and nurtured his share of powerful connections over the years, and he may have had the long arm of the law on his side, but even so, he knew full well that these guys were not to be messed with. He knew full well that if he crossed this savage gang, he could find himself buried in a three foot ditch in the blink of an eye. He knew full well that if these crazy bastards wanted someone dead bad enough then there wasn’t a damned thing anyone could do about it.

  “What’s up fellas?” nervously asked Billy as a round of beers and a bottle of Jamison’s Irish whiskey magically appeared at the backroom’s banquet-sized table within seconds of their arrival.

  “Relax Billy, we just wanna talk to you about something,” slurred the drunken leader of the pack, a mammoth of a man named Tommy Doyle.

  “What is it Tommy? You name it. Anything I can do to help you guys, all you have to do is ask,” assured Billy in his thick Boston accent.

  “Well, we heard that you’re working on the Breslin trial right now so we have a little favor to ask. We want you to find out whatever you can that might be of help to Sammy,” calmly solicited Doyle.

  Billy’s face immediately froze with fear as he contemplated the mobster’s request, but somehow he managed to plead his case.

  “Tommy, if it ever got out that I slipped you guys some confidential information…” groused Billy, but Doyle cut him off at the pass in midsentence and firmly restated his request.

  “I told you to fuckin’ relax Billy. It’s not gonna get out. You have my fuckin’ word on it. Just find out whatever you can…and then you and I will sit down and have a private conversation, just the two of us. And no one will ever be the wiser, you got it,” insisted Doyle.

  “OK Tommy for you, no problem…gotta take care of my homeys,” apprehensively agreed Billy as a weak smile formed on his face.

  “So how’s the trial going anyway?” wondered Doyle.

  “Well, it started out OK for Breslin, but the DA still has her heavy hitters scheduled to testify…like today for instance, her star witness, Nancy O’B
rien, took the stand,” recounted Billy.

  “That fuckin’ bitch…she betrayed her own hometown,” spat out Doyle, and like clockwork his sidekicks concurred by shouting out in unison, “Fuckin’ bitch.”

  “So you think Breslin’s going down?” inquired Doyle. and as Billy thought about the question for a moment, a relevant speck of information came to mind; information that he was more than willing to share, and when he finally replied, he had juror number 8, Frank Newlan, very much on his brain.

  “Well from what I hear, there’s one juror who seems to be buying up everything the defense is selling. But I think most of the jurors have already made up their minds that Breslin’s guilty,” informed Billy in a matter-of-fact tone as he knocked back a shot of whiskey.

  “That piece of shit better hope he never gets out of the slammer or he’s a fuckin’ dead man,” shouted a now angry Doyle, and in return Billy grimaced as he stuttered, “I didn’t hear that.”

  “Do me a favor and see if you can find out why that one juror seems to be siding with the defense. It’s a long shot, but maybe he tells us something that can help Sammy. You never know, at this point I’m just grasping for straws,” requested Doyle who almost seemed to be thinking out loud as he spoke.

  “Can do, can do…but you’re never gonna find twelve gullible fools like this guy,” squawked Billy who by now was very drunk.

  “What the hell’s that suppose to mean? Do you think Sammy did it?” demanded Doyle.

  “No, no, no…you misunderstood me…I didn’t mean that at all,” pleaded Billy.

  “Well good…because Sammy said he had nothing to do with it. And if that’s what Sammy said, then that’s how it’s gonna be. Now let’s go have a drink at the bar,” commanded Doyle.

  As luck would have it, as Billy and his unwanted group of associates took a seat in the rear corner of the horseshoe-shaped bar, who should happen to come strolling into this same fine establishment but none other than Mike Robinson, or “Mike the car salesman in seat number 2” as he was better known as by the jurors in the John Breslin murder trial.

  Mike and his own rowdy cast of characters were also out celebrating the Celtics victory, and by this hour in the evening they were pretty well lit up like a ten foot Christmas tree. And although they had long since passed the legally drunk limit, Mike apparently still had an itching desire to satisfy his insatiable urge for one last thirst-quenching drink before calling it a night.

  But truth be told, Mike also had another ulterior motive for choosing to stop in at the Lucky Shamrock; like Billy, he was also familiar with a few old acquaintances from the Northtown section of Boston who frequented this particular pub, and he was hoping that they might be hanging around the old dive on this joyous evening. And sure enough, almost immediately upon entering the tavern, he recognized his Northtown pals sitting right there at the front of the bar.

  Without so much as an explanation, Mike discretely slipped away from his suburban band of weekend warriors so that he might accidentally bump into his colleagues from yesteryear for an impromptu powwow.

  By all accounts, Mike seemed to be having a fairly animated discussion with what appeared to be his brethren from some long since disbanded brotherhood, and in short order they pointed him to the opposite corner of the bar which was currently occupied by a Mr. Thomas Doyle and his posse, as well as one Mr. William “Billy” Brady.

  When the inebriated Mike grasped that it was none other than Billy the Court Officer who was raising his glass in a toast with this rough-and-tumble looking gang of outlaws, he turned as pale as a ghost. When the boozy Mike realized that Billy was hanging out with a clan of hooligans who were, based on reliable sources, “a bunch of vicious leg breakers”, he retreated back to his table as inconspicuously as possible.

  Mike turned his back away from where Billy was situated and he hid his face in the thick of the crowd as he whispered to his buddies, “let’s suck down these drinks and get the hell out of here.”

  Mike was shaking like a leaf by the time he and his friends left the bar, but luckily for him, the preoccupied Billy never laid an eye on him. Luckily for him, none of his former associates ever mentioned a word to Tommy Doyle about his shady inquiry into the life and times of one Sammy the Fox. Luckily for him, he got out of the Lucky Shamrock in the nick of time and by the skin of his teeth, and he vowed never to set foot in Northtown again.

  The exact details of Mike Robinson’s conversation with his erstwhile cohorts and why it was so disconcerting to him is unknown to all except the parties involved, but was it enough to put an innocent man in prison? Was it enough to set a guilty man free? Was it enough to provide the little extra impetus which was necessary to set the record straight one way or another?

  The answers to these questions we cannot surmise, but what we do know for certain is that fact can sometimes mysteriously be transformed into fiction. What we have seen time after time again throughout the course of history is that fiction can sometimes masquerade as fact. What we have learned on countless occasions over the years is that fact and fiction can sometimes be twisted and turned and shaped and molded and spit out in a form that becomes utterly unrecognizable when seen…from the eyes of a juror.