going back and forth over who said what to who. The father, who was wearing a black T-shirt covered with the words SUGAR SHACK in glittering letters, turned around and said to his son, âI donât care about who said what. Just show me the boy who hit you.â
None of us had hit him, but the kid pointed at me of all people and said, âIt was him, Daddy. It was Weeks.â Iâd never had a word with the kid, but the father jumped up like he was coming over the table at me. I jumped out of my seat and suckered him over the table. When Billy and Richie jumped over the table, the state police major jumped in and broke it up.
Jerome Winegar backed the kidâs story, and it looked like I was going to be brought up on charges. The state police major wrote up his report, gave it to Jerome Winegar, and told him, âYou should read it.â
Winegar said, âI think we all saw the same thing.â But he read the report and was dumbfounded. The state police major told me heâd writtenthat the black man was coming after me and I was defending myself. Winegar insisted that he saw it the other way.
The state police major said, âIâve been a trooper for over twenty-five years. In my experience, he was defending himself.â
A week later, Jerome fired me, not Richie or Billy. And I got brought up on charges of assault and battery. This was my first time as a defendant, but the case got thrown out at a probable cause hearing in Southie. At that hearing, I met Billy OâNeil, one of the owners of Triple Oâs, a popular bar in Southie, who had been brought up on charges of beating up a black cabdriver. It was Billy who offered me a job bouncing at Triple Oâs and the chance to get to know James âWhiteyâ Bulger.
I had no idea then exactly what I was getting involved in. But I believed then, as I do now, that every time something negative happens in my life, something good will occur. It was time to begin a new chapter in my life. I never look back on anything that has happened to me and dwell on it. Not then, not now. It happened. Itâs over. I have no regrets about any parts of my life, except for two mistakes: losing Pam and not being a better father to my two sons.
But in the winter of 1976, as I left South Boston High for the last time and traveled one mile to the doors of Triple Oâs, I wasnât entering a completely unfamiliar world. In the summer of 1974, Iâd been bouncing at Flix, a nightclub in the Somerset Hotel on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. The club handled a rough crowd, and the owner had asked if eight of us would come in and clean up the place, which we did. There were lots of fights, and my friends and I were busy every night taking care of them. One night, after the bar had closed, someone rode by on the expressway and shot out the clubâs windows. I have no idea if they were involved in the shooting, but a half-hour later, Jimmy came walking in with Stevie Flemmi. It was the first time Iâd ever seen Stevie, although I certainly knew he was a member of the Winter Hill mob, and had been involved in the gang wars of the 1960s and 1970s. My friend gave the twoof them a hard time at the door and told them the club was closed when the owner recognized Jimmy and Stevie and immediately let them in.
But that was not the first time Iâd seen Jimmy. Six years earlier, when I was thirteen and sitting next to my brother Billy, who was driving my fatherâs car down Burke Street in the Old Colony projects, I had seen Jimmy walk out of the back of a building. It was summertime and he was by himself, wearing a short-sleeved, blue-and-white-striped shirt. He looked like he was in great shape.
âStop staring at him,â Billy had told me. âHeâs Whitey Bulger.â
âI know who he is,â I said.
TWO
MARRIAGE AND THE TRIPLE OâS
1978â1982
On Christmas Day 1978, at her parentsâ house on East Fourth