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.
come on lads, the man is a piece of shite and the sooner he and his cronies disappear from this town the better off the rest of us are. They preyed upon weak characters. They haven’t contributed an ounce of anything to society. If you want to attribute some savvy to these connivers just measure them against their competition in their milieu The sad thing is that now that many of the sons of Hibernia have secured two toilets in the suburbs they have been replaced in town by a new wave of picaroons preying on their own weak neighbors only the end product is worse than a beating for not coming up with the vig it is death by heroin.
The real story is how the Irish bad guys worked for so long with the Italian bad guys before the inevitable culture clash came to head and how J. Edgar Hoover’s altar boys sold their souls and lost their panache in order to bring down the Sicilians.
Whitey would have been better off being a scatback with the Chippiwas and working at Gillette. His life would have had more meaning and value Tell him that he should be careful that the cell door doesn’t hit him in the ass
Hopalong:
Excellent comment. I really enjoyed it. It hits to the heart of the matter.
Bleedin deadly, Matt. If Whitey does play the seanachie, over here we would say he was a “fecking cute old hoor.” Right now he probably spends sleeples nights wondering who will play him in the film (screennplay by Dennis Lehane, of course.)
Henry:
Bloomin f . . . ing great comment. I wish I had a better grasp of the auld sod and I might have come up with the title you suggested. But being only connected to Ireland through all my grandparents and leaning most of my Irish lore from reading and the streets I do not have the sense of the appropriate as you do. I just hope whoever writes the screenplay – not like the disasterous film that won the academy award with Jack Nicholson – will reach out to lads (an Irish term) like yourself and others who comment here to get the right feel for the many incongruities in the matter of Whitey.
yes gus! he spent is days at the beach, and in a perfect world he will ruin the books of future for carr and stand his ground,not a rat,not gay and has mint-like breath! walk off telling his tale then a month later we hear he has passed! FING-BRILLIANT!!!
PAR2E:
The trial has already shown that the prior tales of Whitey should go on the same shelves as the tales of Robin Hood in the fiction department.
It’d really be something if members of Whitey’s defense team, or even Whitey himself, are readers of this blog and are paying attention. If starting w/ the premise that Whitey never had a chance in this trial, then he really has absolutely NOTHING left to lose. Get on the stand, testify, tell his story HIS way and then tell everyone to ” Go BLEEP themselves” ! Stay thirsty my friends !
F….in’ brilliant finale!
HL:
Glad you agree.
That’s the plan.
Ernie:
Got to admit it will send your buddy Wyshak over the edge.
That’s the plan