A F. . . ing Brilliant Idea:

This is the natural follow-up to the strange dream I had which I told you about yesterday.

There are many things I associate with the Irish an ethnic group that was introduced into this trial during the opening statement by J.W. Carney who set out the proposition that the Irish hate informants and therefore Whitey being Irish he couldn’t be an informant. There are in this area two types of Irish, those from the Auld Sod and those born here. Among the many things that separated us were the use of two words, the F word and the word brilliant.

I grew up hanging around outside the house with my friends from a very early age, my mother would shoo me outside having enough problems handling my siblings without another whining voice. Outside was as safe as inside in those days in Old Harbor Village which was filled with one’s companions. Boys played with boys, girls with girls. The F word was common among the boys – actually it would stay that way into the early teens.

I had a cousin who lived near me who was similar to many of the other boys who thought the English articles of “the” and “a” had an ending which was the word f…ing; or that f… was a mandatory adjective before every noun. One thing we never did was to use the word in our house or in front of women, or what we used to call girls. In a recent  conversation with woman from a younger generation she dropped the F word here and there. Suddenly she stopped. She asked me if I was offended that she used that word as it it was one I had never hear.

There would be exceptions. When someone would lose control and get highly irate, as we saw with Fortnight Weeks and Whitey in court, the inhibitions come down. Both men uttered “F.U.” to one another.

In my adult years I had a friend from Ireland, a highly accomplished person, who we’d get together with off and on. While I maintained my inhibitions about using the F word, he would sprinkle it throughout his conversations as naturally as using more appropriate language. No one took offense or felt it was out of course or crude. It was the way he talked. Had I tried to do it then it would have appeared as artificial and I would feel awkward. Notice how even my posts I can’t bring myself to writing it out.

Another peculiarity of my friend’s conversation was to emphasize something by using the word “brilliant.” In recent years the Irish fondness for that word was made famous in the Guinness ads. We use it sometimes but the Irish use it all the times.

Thinking of all this in relation to the Whitey trial and our discussion over whether Whitey will testified combined with the dream, it came to me. Whitey using his background, his wit and guile that allowed him to thrive as one of the most evil persons to grace the shores of Boston, I concluded that even though he should not testify, he has a compelling urge to use the last platform he will ever have to “set the record straight,” or to tell us how he perceives himself and his life.

We all know that whether it is truthful or not it will be a bloody good tale, one we are anxious to hear. I assume if he testifies he will tell us about not being an informant and not being a killer of the women, he may say he was not involved in the murders Martorano and Howie Winter did for the Boston Mafia, or he had to kill the old Mullens in self-defense, or place Weeks into the position where Benji Ditchman has placed him. Why not try to beat everything?

That’d be worthwhile but his defense plan has already been to admit to being a drug dealer and bookie. An acquittal on the murders gains him nothing but talking rights. He knows he’ll soon be shuffled off to Colorado.

There’s only one thing left for him to do that will overcome the deficiencies in his application to the “Gangsta Hall of Fame.” He has to go out in a blaze of glory. He has to elevate himself from just being another small town gangster to one who deserved to be number one on the FBI’s most wanted criminal’s list. In other words, Whitey, must do something he will forever be remembered for doing.

The Irish word for that is he did something “F…ing Brilliant.” He told me what it was in the dream. He is going to tell his story in fine detail, I’ve watched him keeping notes during the trial. I know he was making sure he forgot nothing of his history. He is compiling his testimony into a long story, a long compelling narrative, worthy of the most honored Irish story tellers that he will spin out hour after hour on the stand.  There will be no way to challenge what he says; it will remain as the final word in his trial.

When he finishes he will step down from the stand and resume his seat in the courtroom. He will refuse to be cross-examined. Perhaps he will state that at the end of his tale. He does so with the supreme and sublime confidence that nothing can be done to him.

The judge can’t punish him. Holding  him in contempt is an exercise in futility; nor can she ordered him turned over to some of our secret operatives to be tortured, that would interrupt the trial too much. She can order his testimony stricken but how, if he implicates himself in murder, does she do that? Imagine the confusion in the minds of the jurors trying to separate what Whitey told them from what others may have done if the judge struck his testimony and asked the jury not to consider it. She could order a mistrial but that’s what Whitey would beg her to do.

He’d go down in Irish history, and be admitted to the much sort after hall of fame without a dissenting vote. He’d have his picture up on the same wall as that of Professor Moriarity.

I’m not sure if that is his plan but it is the best I can make of my dream.