***Out In The 1970s Film Night- With Robert Mitchum’s The Friends Of Eddie Coyle In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

It was a shame, a crying shame when they knocked off Eddie, Eddie Fingers. Good old Eddie Fingers, Eddie from the old school, the old school of hard knocks, the school of life, life on the mean streets, the mean streets of Boston. Although the guys, the corner boy guys that he grew up with around Millie’s Variety Store over on M Street in Southie, had heard through that seamless grapevine that corner boys and career street lugs have no matter how far removed from the sacred soil, that he had lately placed himself and his family out of the city and into North Adamsville. Away from the corrupting city influences, the n----rs Eddie said, them and every son of a whoremaster who might want at his three lovely virginal and very Irish Catholic daughters being properly novena and rosary bead brought up by his ever-loving wife. So maybe he wasn’t so old school, so committed to the old ways since they all, and their families too, had stayed on the old sod. And maybe those whispered rumors about who Eddie was, or was not, seeing of late, had a little more truth to them that one might have previously dismissed out of hand.

Yah, Eddie, Eddie Fingers had been a stand-up guy no question, a guy who knew the rules, a guy who had your back, a big hefty raw-boned guy who was handy to have around when fists began to fly, a guy nobody figured to wind up like some crushed paper doll in the front seat of some classy late model vehicle with two big slugs running through his brain. And that, the two slugs, and the Eddie didn’t figure to be wearing them, got the guys, some of the guys, some of guys around town, around the old neighborhoods, maybe a little nervous about their own futures, figuring out, trying to figure out as a far as possible, and no more, what transgression did Eddie in, what made him a pin cushion and his children fatherless.

Eddie Fingers was nothing but a soldier, had always been nothing but a soldier despite his handiness in a fight, a guy pretty far down on the totem pole though so it didn’t figure he got hit, hit bad, for trying to get too uppity, trying to move up the food chain, or worse, trying to go independent. He was just a soldier and, frankly, just too old to be acting like some two-bit kid just off the street (and every guy had some funny, now funny, stories about how they were going to be the king hell kings of the Southie, or name your neighborhood, when young before they wised up, or were wised up, that the thing was rigged, fixed, sewed up long before they drew breath and just took their places assigned in the food chain) or just out of reform school to be thinking about making some big splash.

Eddie had done alright, alright for a half-bright guy (eighth grade dropout , or put out, in any case nobody at home or school was pulling for him to stick around, especially after he almost killed the headmaster at the Tobin when that man tried to give him the ruler) who got caught up with Big Jim, Big Jim from the old Southie neighborhoods, when he was making his big moves around the city. Eddie’s brother, Boyo, had been tight with Big Jim and hence Eddie got some leavings, some easy work without working, and no heavy lifting either. Toward the end he was just drawing dough for his old reputation as a knee-breaker, and that was enough in Boston anyway to scare guys straight. Until that one night when he screwed up, showed up drunk, maybe had a little reefer thrown in, and some side honey to share it with, to calm the nerves, and worse late, and Big Jim wound up doing a nickel, a hard nickel , at the state pen. And Eddie earned his nickname, earned it the hard way, but also the forever way every time he looked at his hands so it didn’t figure he screwed up again either.

See though crime, money crime, robberies, heists, big dough stuff, transporting stolen goods, and all, that is for young men, young and agile men, and quick-thinkers too. Eddie, well, Eddie had lost a step or two, maybe more, and so he got clipped, clipped bad one night coming down some road from hell loaded with more booze than you could shake a stick at. And see that lost step or two cost him since he had eased up on the coming around those hell road curves and “uncle”was waiting for him. Waiting all decked out in shotguns and semis so Eddie, thinking of that wife and three kids (and maybe that reefer honey too, everybody knew they had been together for years after the wife decided that she wanted to sleep alone) stopped. Stopped and took the fall. And thus was facing something like a nickel or a dime’s worth all cozy and out of the sunlight.

But see too a guy, a guy too old for the runs, if he has done a stretch or two already gets real shy, almost girlishly shy, about going in again, about taking the big step into that small good night. And so old stand-up Eddie, old school Eddie, sensing his time was short, sensing that that old school was out and gone, reconsidered his options. So he thought, night sweats thought, about seeing“uncle” about seeing things uncle’s way and about getting out from under that rock. As so Eddie slipped down the slippery slope. As the corner boys figured away, and figured out what Eddie (or any guy, especially any family man guy) would, or would not, do it came up “snitch.” It had to be that without getting to close on the question. So every corner boy, every lowly soldier from Southie to Charlestown looking to keep his head unfilled with those nasty pieces of metal put two and two together and decided, decided not to take the Eddie way, no way. But a few guys too thought, hey, if a stand-up guy like Eddie could be turned then they had better watch their corner boy friends too.