It was a parade. My mom, always with an eye out for the goings-on about the neighborhood on display just out the grand front window, spotted the motorcade first. The caravan had just entered the intersection in front of our house and was proceeding up Sonoma road.
I look out. Yep, there goes Gangsta Georgie's parade.
This occurred about ten years ago. It wasn't the first time the cops had charged en masse up Sonoma to "catch" the FBI's most wanted mobster recently on the lam.
This particular crook, I'll just call him Gangsta Georgie, was actually from two towns over. He had apparently holed up for a while with his moll in her house up the street. I asked my my Mom--you think they'll get him this time? We both laughed.
At that time it was not known that Gangsta Georgie had in fact killed one of his local-kid gang members who--to Georgie's thinking--had double crossed him. That particular victim--one of many--had grown up just one street over. At the time alls anyone knew was that John McIntire had just disappeared.
Now you might be thinking—what kind of place did you grow up? Well Quincy , as one of those seaside towns south of Boston, seamlessly offered the best of both worlds; a small town feel (relative to Boston) with the sophistication of a larger city.
My Mom and Dad--she worked as a data-entry supervisor and he was employed as a janitor—-did all right. We lived in a beautiful colonial they built and paid for themselves. In fact my father, who was very knowledgeable about architecture and building designed the house himself--with a huge "bay" window for Mom. And my Dad planted the front and back yard with beautiful trees, ivy and gardens over flowing with roses and every type of flower he could make grow. Lots of flowers. Lots of pride.
Of course we were poor—-the family car was usually a used Ford station-wagon. The wagon was always American, and usually a lemon too. In fact Dimples spent more time down at the gas station to be fixed than in it did in the driveway. And when it wasn’t at either place my brothers were busy driving it into walls or just otherwise mangling it with more dents. Excuse me--dimples.
I never met Gangsta Georgie--wouldn’t want to—-but I think I know that type of character. As a career criminal Georgie was very successful—and accordingly he played to win at any cost. And since he grew up in and operated in a place that was essentially about 'every man for himself' he fit right in. People looked up to, loved and adored him.
But it turns out Gangsta Georgie—-in between selling drugs and killing people--was "working" for the cops. He was a rat. A rat looking out for his own self-interest.
For that reason, most people today hate Georgie--because of his "betrayal". But what exactly did he betray? Certainly not any ideals or principles--there were none. And as it turns out, the information he did give to the cops was completely worthless. Maybe he's hated for simply betraying the tribe. You know--as a matter of pride. To some people that’s the worst thing you can do. That kind of assault on pride can be damaging to a distorted sense of what it means to belong.
It’s possible the benighted small town depicted in Dennis Lehane’s "Mystic River" was loosely based on the real life home-town of Gangsta Georgie.
The story, at it’s heart, is about the impact the structure of a given society can have on everyone. Through the experience of one individual, Lehane’s story ambitiously attempts to illustrate how the residents of an otherwise fair and decent community—when tested by moral crisis—abandon conscience for the darker side of human nature and a predatory culture.
The individual, disconnected from any larger sense of principle or ideals, falls back on tribal loyalty and the exchange to "do whatever he has to do for those he loves." Likewise, the rest of the town’s inhabitants have also separated into islands both from each other and the rest of society.
It’s a world fractured in to the pieces: the strong devouring the weak; self-interest triumphing virtue; and certainty dominating ideals—-all paradoxically interconnected and glued by each of the resident's individual crimes and darker nature.
In last Thursday’s "Making big money off city property" in The Washington Post George F. Will seemingly extols the "wisdom" of privatizing common property on the basis of efficiency and economics. Using Chicago’s Skyway as an example, his column (hmm... helpfully?) sketches the role ambition plays in the dynamics of the father-son relationship:
"Richard Daley, (former mayor of Chicago and father of the city’s current mayor) who was mayor form 1955 until his death, was a builder. He thought of urban success the way many mayors then did and still do, as the improvement and enlargement of the city’s physical assets—bridges, roads, public housing, etc."
Historically, our ‘fathers’ were the builders of a nation dedicated to the ideals and principles of freedom. But today, what they so successfully achieved is being tested. Accordingly George Will writes:
"Today, some mayors and governors are discovering the wisdom of, in effect, cashing in municipal or state assets."
For Lincoln, in his Lyceum Speech the moral of the speech is concerned with the fact that the fathers'
"ambition aspired to display before an admiring world a practical demonstration of the truth of a proposition, which had hitherto been considered, at best, no better than problematical; namely, the capability of a people to govern themselves."
But with the experiment sucessful, Lincoln observes:
"[T]he game is caught; and I believe it is true that, with the catching, end the pleasures of the chase. This field of glory is harvested, and the crop is already appropriated. But new reapers will arise, and they , too, will seek a field."
Each generation, like their fathers before them, seek their own fulfillment, their own gratification. Which brings us to the problem of today to which Lincoln poses the question:
"[C]an that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others?"
Lincoln contends it cannot. Eventually our ideals and principles of freedom will be once again tested. And therefore, according to Lincoln, meeting each test will:
"require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent..."
In contrast George Will writes:
"perhaps the moral of Chicago’s story is that what government can shed, it should shed."
Today’s market enthusiasts operate on the same moral plane as Gangsta Georgie. Neither deals in abstract concepts such as principles and virtue. Both live by the rules of self-interest. They see ideals as best suited for the idealistic. They call for certainty—which in turn necessitates "reality" which depends on being "realistic". All to the better service of the market.
As for Gangsta Georgie—no one knows where he is—excepting his brother—former president of the state senate and UMass president. Georgie might have run away but rest assured he’s sitting no less comfortable than his ideological colleagues thanks to the "essential superiority of free enterprise".
Oh, and the moral of the story? Gangsta Georgie makes big money off the city, state and feds—-in exchange for practically nothing.