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ninth grade. Nearly all of them were from the suburbs, and even though it wasn’t a religious school, most of the kids were Jewish. They even had this mandatory retreat for Yom Kippur. They were smart, nice kids, but I was an Irish kid from Southie and all I wanted was to be with my girlfriend. It was culture shock to be with these kids. I was a complete outsider and felt lost there.
    The school was in a Victorian house with small classrooms, no more than twelve to fifteen kids in a class. I liked the classes, but I didn’t fit in at all. Things came to a head for me in the dining room. Each kid was supposed to set the table and serve the food for a week. I had no desire todish out anybody’s food, and I never liked anyone telling me what to do. “Hey, you’re big boys,” I told a couple of kids who put their plates in front of me. “Here’s a spoon. Help yourself.”
    When one kid said, “You have to serve me,” I did. I threw a plate of food in his face. I finished the week out and never went back. I had lasted two months there. But I felt great; no regrets. Johnny was a little upset and felt like I’d thrown away my chance to go to Harvard, but my parents were okay with it. Besides, they were older and more tired by then. As I had gotten older, they had less and less control over me. My father had his first heart attack in 1974 and wasn’t doing great. My mother’s arthritis was as bad as ever, and she was even more exhausted than he was.
    I have no idea why I was the only one in the family to become a criminal. No one else in my family rebelled against my father, and all my sisters and brothers became hard-working, law-abiding professionals. Today, all of us are close. My brothers would do anything for me, short of killing someone. The only difference is that if necessary, I would take it one step further. Yet in some strange way, my father lived through me and the life I chose. Here he had these two great sons, both of whom graduated from Harvard and went on to lead successful, respectable lives, and he was the most proud of the son who became a criminal. It’s hard to understand. And sad.
    But back in the fall of 1975, I was eager to get my job back at South Boston High, and help out my parents. I had been back working at the high school for just a few months when I ran into a problem. A new principal, Jerome Winegar, had been brought in from Minnesota to replace Dr. Reid, who was forced out. Winegar seemed to think he was intellectually superior to everyone around him. He had thin hair and a pock-marked face, and looked like a tall version of the comedian Professor Irwin Corey. I only wish I could have used the cord attached to the glasses that hung around his neck to strangle him. It was something that they brought in a guy from Minnesota to show the city of Boston how toachieve integration in a high school. Winegar came for the money, not because he believed in the concept. Every time I saw him involved in a situation, he was cajoling the black students or favoring the minority teachers. He was there for six or seven years and the problems from busing certainly didn’t get any better under his leadership.
    One day, a few months after I’d returned to my job at the high school, a group of us aides, including Richie Turpin and my best friend, Billy Connell, were on the second floor of the auditorium, taking a break. A black kid walked by and said something smart to Richie, who said something smart right back to him. The kid went home and told his father, and a couple of days later, we had this big meeting at the school. Winegar set up this long table for the major from the state police who was in charge of the troops at the school, the vice principal, the black student and his father, and Richie, Billy, and me. Richie, Billy, and I were sitting on one side and the black kid, his father, Winegar, and the police major were on the other side. We were all