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second time, Joe bailed me out. A state senator by then, he got me a staff job on one of his committees.
    During my time at the State House, I stayed in touch with the city through someone I met on Joe’s campaign. Often identified as “a longtime counselor to the Kennedys,” Gerry Doherty was an old pro from Charlestown. He became my friend and mentor, inviting me to join the Park Street Corporation, a discussion group on urban issues led by a Paulist priest, Robert Quinn. I showed up for every meeting, and learned a lot from the academics, high-tech entrepreneurs, and developers who spoke.
    I was the guy who supplied the bagels. But Gerry saw something in me. “Most of the people you meet, they flash their teeth and shake your hand, while at the same time they’re looking over your shoulder,” he told the journalist Joe Keohane. “He didn’t do that. When he walked into a room, he wouldn’t galvanize it, but by the end of the night he could tell you exactly who was there, what they did, what they didn’t do.”
    In the post-Watergate era, when nobody trusted politicians, Gerry thought my “quietness of style” might come across as sincerity (it was) and help make me a successful candidate. I agreed. But for what office?
    The Boston City Council? Its nine members ran “at-large.” I couldn’t win a citywide race. All my connections were in Hyde Park. In 1982 the playing field shifted my way. The council was expanded to four at-large and nine district seats. District 5 covered Hyde Park and slivers of other neighborhoods, including Roslindale and West Roxbury. The legislature had to approve the change. Joe Timilty looked out for my interests at the State House. The Hyde Park seat? “It was created for him,” he said.
    Just as I started up the political ladder, Joe stepped off it. Following his third defeat by Kevin White, in 1979, he soured on politics and resigned his Senate seat five years later. He moved his growing family out of their small Mattapan ranch to a more spacious house in a suburb of Boston. After 1984, the
Globe
reported, Joe engaged in “an intense pursuit of money, losing many of his old contacts and friends.” His new friends were “big-money developers.” I believe he made some bad decisions. In May 1993, after a trial in U.S. District Court, Joe was convicted of being part of a “conspiracy to commit fraud.” I was mayor when he was sentenced to four months in federal prison. The contrast in our fortunes was painful to me. And tragic for Joe, a guy who poured his heart into helping those who had no voice. One of his greatest legacies was founding Camp Joy, an oasis for kids with special needs.
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When is the last time a city councilor fried anybody?
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—speaking at a Cleary Square debate in 1983
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    I was a campaign operative. An organizer. “An extension of Timilty.” A backstage guy whose career nearly ended the second he stepped on stage.
    I announced my candidacy for City Council in the backyard of my childhood home at 1449 Hyde Park Avenue. I got through that fine. Not so the first candidates’ forum held at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Hyde Park. Before the debate started, the candidates were scheduled to introduce themselves and say why we were running. All I had to do was read a three-sentence statement. All? No one liable to use “condoms” for “condos” would say “all.”
    When we drove up, I said I couldn’t do it. Those were my friends inside! It would be using them to ask for their votes.
    My campaign staff, sacrificing their time and energy to put me over, threatened bodily harm. I relented.
    I can still see that lectern. The microphone. The crowd.
    Standing in the wings, I took a deep breath, then walked out on the stage.
    And froze.
    I was supposed to begin “I just want you to know I’m running for . . . ,” but