IN MEMORIAM FRANCIS JOSEPH MCGUINN

 IN MEMORIAM FRANCIS JOSEPH MCGUINN

I had travelled from Texas to my home town to visit my family for the Christmas holidays. My wife spending the Christmas holidays with her ailing mother, it was just me this time. After driving my grandmother home to her apartment on Broadway, I decided to take a trip down memory lane. I shifted the transmission into Drive and eased out into the wide four lanes of Broadway. Fog had stolen over the area, sneaking up the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River, crouching and springing over the row of nursing homes on the east side of the street, and settling over the entire cityscape. Sound was muffled in the fog tonight.

   There should have been snow on the street, but what little the city had received a few days earlier had melted by now, the fog painting the whole scene with a ghostly greyness enveloping all that stood up in it. It didn’t seem like a night; it was like a hazy dream that I was driving through.

  You travel south on Broadway to Loughborough, where you turn right and climb its long hill west for six blocks until you reach Michigan Avenue. Here you are near the heart of my old stomping-grounds. I had walked all of these streets many nights during my adolescent and teen years and had seen many things happen that had left indelible marks in my memory, stored deep in cells somewhere in my brain. Some of these memories I wished I could forget, but nevertheless memories which I reveled in at times like now, in a gray and ghostly December. “…in a deep and dark December, I am alone,” a snatch of an old song that described both the present moment and the general mood of my teenage years.

A block ahead, at the crest of the hill, I saw the stop sign across from the corner variety store on the right. One more block and I would come to my old junior high school. They call it a “middle school” these days, and I guess it was then, the middle of puberty between childhood and “maturing” in high school. But tonight the school wasn’t my destination. I was in my old neighborhood, and the center of my old neighborhood lay down Michigan Avenue to the south. So I turned left and drove slowly down the silent street, past the brick flats and single-family frame houses staring vacantly with unblinking yellow eyes in the stark glare of mercury-vapor street lights arching over the street. I met no traffic, nor was I followed by any. The street was mine tonight.

Up ahead, just two blocks past the first stop sign, I could see it. Its darkened marquee still hung out over the sidewalk, protecting its ticket window. As I eased the car down the street, more of it came into view in the thin fog. Now I could read the letters up on the marquee, in bold yellow letters within a red rectangle surrounded by an oblong of a red and yellow sunburst: MICHIGAN. Once upon a time the marquee was aflame with neon lights. No more. Finding a vacant space by the curb at the end of the block, across the street from the theater, I pulled in silently and parked. I was now across the street from the “show,” the Michigan Show, as we called it. This was the sole reason that I had driven through the old neighborhood. I was only a block and a half from the house where I grew up, over one block west, but tonight coming home meant coming to the Michigan Show.            

I pushed the gear shift into Park and turned off the headlights. I turned in my seat to get a good view of the theater. I thought my parents might wonder why I’m late getting back, but I’ve got to spend some time here tonight. Now I was really able to see the old building, whose every fault lay exposed in the foggy amber glare of the mercury vapor street light. Funny, I thought, they never had those lights when I was growing up. Whatever became of those concrete lamp posts topped with globes, their golden lights glowing warm? Whatever became of a lot of things?

 The glass-enclosed playbills had been boarded up, one pair on each side of the two sets of double doors that guard the ticket window in the center, like silent sentinels. Those playbills—so colorful each week, with posters of the current attractions and the coming attractions. The glass on the aluminum-framed enclosures protecting the posters had long since been broken by vandals. And on the plywood boards were the new playbills proclaiming “Foursquare Gospel Church of God in Christ Fellowship,” painted in uneven red letters.

I looked up and down Michigan Avenue to see if any cars were coming. I wanted this moment to be all mine, the spell to be unbroken. I turned off the engine and slid out of the car, crossing the wet street, breathing the heavy mist tinged with the faint odor of industrial pollution from the chemical plant down on Broadway several blocks away. Two fuzzy headlights now approached up the gentle slope of Michigan from the south, resolving themselves into the dark shape of a slow-moving car. I turned my back to the street, hunched up, and waited for the car to pass. As it went by, its tires hissed as they sprayed up the moisture from the pavement. Then I became aware of the sound of brakes and the red of brake lights. The driver shifted into reverse and backed up, gears whining, until the car slid into the curb next to me. It was a police car. The cop rolled down his passenger window and called me over. When I got there, hands in my pockets, he asked me, “What’s your business here?” 

The cop was about my age, and he didn’t look threatening. Nevertheless, I put on my respectful face. “Well, sir,” I said, “I’m visiting from Texas. I grew up in this neighborhood, and I’ve come back to my local theater to have a look. This is where we all went on weekends. I just wanted to reminisce, that’s all.” 

Satisfied by my answer, he warned me about the neighborhood. “This neighborhood isn’t like it was when you were young. There’s trouble on the streets. Be careful, and don’t stay too long.” 

I thanked him for the warning, and he pulled away onto the street and proceeded slowly north. Funny, I thought, I had a couple of encounters with the police when I was a teenager. They didn’t go nearly so well.

Hands in pockets, I stood under the marquee, my breath creating transitory puffs of steam, my nose growing cold. I put my face as close to the cold glass of the door as I could without touching it, and peered inside. It was too dark to make anything out. I walked towards the north, or left, of the face of the show, which joined the old variety store, dark now also, as were the two other business establishments which were part of this complex dominated by the old theater on the corner. I had never noticed before, in all the times that I stood outside in line to buy tickets as an adolescent, how the Michigan was tiled with large rectangular rose-beige panels, perhaps three feet by four feet, whereas the other smaller establishments presented dark red brick fronts. It occurred to me then that the Michigan shared the same characteristics as some bathrooms and showers I had seen before.

I stared at the boarded-over playbill, entranced. As an adolescent and teenager, I had walked the block and half on Friday nights to the show and witnessed teenage events that now resided in my long-term memory. Like the night after the show was over that two teenage girls got into a fight in front of the theater, pulling hair, punching and kicking each other. The alpha female threw her opponent to the concrete pavement and jumped on her mid-section, grabbing her hair and pounding her head into the pavement…until she was pulled off by a few onlookers. The scene made my stomach turn. Those were the days when boys and girls got into fist fights and walked away rather than pulling out guns and shooting each other. 

There was one night when violence broke out inside during the movie. That was when I first heard of Frankie McGuinn, known in the neighborhood as Frankie Mac. If the neighborhood toughs had a club, Frankie would have been President. What we all witnessed that night was my introduction to Frankie Mac, when I beheld his behavior from afar. Later I would witness it personally. This particular Friday night I was there with my best friend Denny for a double feature with cartoons in between. The first movie was about a half hour into it when we heard a disturbance behind us in the lobby. Next thing we knew, someone was running in the dark down the left-side aisle, whipping something around in the air. He went around the front aisle, right under the screen, and found someone he was looking for. There was a ruckus, and that someone rose up from his seat and pushed the one with what looked like a chain and ran up the right-side aisle, followed by the one with the chain. By this time the theater manager and an employee had grabbed the one with the chain and tossed  him out of the theater onto the sidewalk. 

Denny and I got out of our seats and went back to the lobby, where there was a crowd of boys standing outside of the men’s restroom. We pushed our way through it to see a teen with a red chain mark slanted across his face, standing inside the restroom, smoking a cigarette. I didn’t know who he was, but I found out later he was Johnny Downs, one of the neighborhood toughs. He drew on his cigarette, then exhaled the smoke. Speaking through the smoke, he intoned, “Frankie McGuinn is a dead man.” Everyone in the small crowd there said that Frankie was drunk. He obviously had some kind of vendetta with Johnny and sought him out at the Michigan Show. We heard a week later that Johnny had caught up with Frankie and beat the crap out of him.

Then a few weeks later I had my first close encounter with Frankie Mac. One Friday night my best friend Denny and I were in the diner down on Ivory Street playing on the pinball machine, located at the end of the long room across from the end of the counter. The bathrooms were just past the pinball machine. This evening there were perhaps seven customers in the diner, sitting at the counter and at one or two of the small square tables by the windows. Denny was standing next to me mesmerized by the action of the steel ball, the flashing lights, and the ringing bells. I was into a good game, on the third ball, when I heard the outside door whoosh open and the bell mounted on its top frame ring. New customers. Next thing I knew three legendary neighborhood toughs that I had only seen from afar at the Michigan Show came sauntering over to the pinball machine. It was Frankie McGuinn and two sidekicks, clothed in black leather motorcycle jackets, decorated with zippered pockets and metal studs. They headed for the restrooms at the back of the diner.

After they finished their business, they came out. As they neared the pinball machine and me, Denny mumbled something about getting a cherry Coke and made his way hurriedly to the counter. Soon I realized that Frankie was standing just off my left shoulder, along with one of his two buddies. The other stood off my right shoulder. All were looking at the pinball machine and the ball I was manuevering around the layout. I nervously turned my attention back to the game, just in time to flip the ball before it rolled through the center and out of play. My face flushed, the strength fled from my legs and arms, and my heart pounded in my chest. My stomach knotted itself up, expecting a blow. From what I had heard from Denny, Frankie wouldn’t just stand around and watch a pinball game. Losing my concentration, I watched the third ball roll unchallenged through the gate and out of play.

Frankie pulled out a cigarette and asked me, more like commanded me, “Got a light?” “Sorry,” I squeaked, “I don’t have one.” Fortunately one of his buddies had a matchbook and gave it to him. He lit up, hands cupped over the match, and blew it out with his first puff of smoke. Cool, I thought. Smoke drifting up in his face made his left eye close, and he cocked his head to the right, dragging long on his cigarette thoughtfully. Cool, I thought. But I was getting more nervous the longer he stood there looking at the display. Frankie looked at the score—837 at the time—and then at me, as I launched ball four up the chute. “What ball?” he asked.

“Third. No, I mean fourth. That was the third. This is the fourth. This one.” My own coolness had vanished by this time.

“How much for a free game?” He dragged deeply, and the cigarette went erect and glowed red. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and absent-mindedly plucked a tobacco grain from his lower lip. Tough guys don’t smoke filter cigarettes; this one was probably a Camel or Lucky Strike. Then he exhaled, as if he were a storied dragon.

“1200 points,” I squeaked.

“Betcha don’t make it,” he said casually, his arms now crossed on his chest, the metal studs on his jacket flinging the light in my face.

“Huh,” I grunted, perhaps too strongly, for I only meant “You’re so right.”

“What?” he challenged, one eyebrow arching as a shadow crossed his face. His black greased pompadour shone in the fluorescent light, and his arms dropped down to his sides.

“You’re probably right, “ I gasped, and watched helplessly as the fourth ball sped through the space between the flippers. 949.

He dragged long again, and blew the smoke in my face as I launched the final ball. “Hey motherfucker,” he said, “you like that?”

His buddies chuckled. The one standing off my right shoulder elbowed me.

My whole body was tensing up, awaiting the imminent blow. I swallowed and said timidly, “It’s okay.” Where Is Denny?

“Hey Frankie,” his other buddy called from the counter, where he had gone to look at the menul. “Let’s go, man. Ain’t nothing here for us. C’mon, man!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Frankie sighed. He relaxed some, then gathered his spirit once more, and turning to me, tilting his head back, snarled, “Hey, dipshit, you better watch your mouth; one of these days you gonna get it smashed in real good, you hear?” He sneered into my amazed face and feinted a slap. My eyes widened like saucers, and I flinched away, raising my left elbow to ward off the blow. Smirking, he turned to go. I could hear the door of the diner open and the street sounds rush in as they left. I let out my breath and returned to the pinball machine in time to watch the last ball drop down the center between the stationary flippers. 999. Game over.

Frankie was right. I didn’t make it to 1200.

Denny came back, a glass of cherry Coke in his hands. “Wanna sip?” he asked.

“You son of a bitch,” I said between gritted teeth. “Where were you?”

The little bastard had left me alone when he saw Frankie and his buddies come in. He knew the limits of his own private world, and Frankie was beyond them in another, darker world. Most adults ultimately were powerless before Denny because their flaw was adult mercy. They could discipline you, but they couldn’t break your spirit. They wouldn’t beat the living daylights out of you or worse yet, cut you into slices. They would stop just short of cruelty. Frankie and the other predators in the neighborhood wouldn’t stop short, however. They were the real rulers of the night jungle, and guys like Denny and me quailed before them, like I had just done. Denny wasn’t a predator; he was more a foraging rodent, darting back and forth on the forest floor, in search of weaker animals, annoying and stealing from the larger animals, and staying out of the way of the predators. He was teaching me the ways of the rodent also, preparing me for survival in the jungle that is the world of the working-class teen on the block. I wasn’t aware of this back in the day, of course. What I was aware of on that occasion, as well as on one other occasion later, was one fact, a fact that brought him back down to my level. He might have been my mentor, but he was a coward. He knew it, and I knew it. And he knew that I knew it. It was fun to be with Denny, so long as we didn’t get caught being rodents. But I couldn’t count on him as a friend when I needed a defender. He was a coward, and on this occasion, I was mad at him.

Again I said, “Where were you?”

“Getting you a Coke, of course,” he smiled sheepishly, his eyes sparkling. You could never stay mad at Denny for long. And I didn’t. But that wasn’t the only time that Denny left me in the lurch with Frankie McGuinn.

A few weeks later we were at the Michigan Show again on a Friday night. Every Friday and Saturday night at the Michigan Show pre-teens and teens practiced politics. Boys and girls whose hormones were backed up all week in school broke the dams on weekend nights at the show. They bartered, they dealt, and they negotiated. Were the negotiations simply long-standing tradition, or were they the result of instinct? Did my older sister’s generation do the same thing as mine? 

The kids rarely came to the show as couples; instead, they arrived in same-sex pairs or packs and spent the pre-movie time parading back and forth between their seats and the lobby or bathrooms off the lobby—girls usually down front and boys usually in the back section. This custom allowed the girls to see and be seen, as the boys usually splayed out near the back of the section, sometimes even behind the wide aisle that stretched across the show about halfway down.

During pre-movie time the Michigan was a riot of noise. The girls down front were screechingly loud, glancing back every once in a while and giggling. Meanwhile, the boys in the back were laughing and telling coarse jokes, often at the expense of the girls making their way up the aisles toward the lobby. The boys would watch the parade and make their choices, those who wanted to snuggle up with a girl, that is. Not all of the boys did. Usually the choices were the results of the rumors heard at school during the week. This girl is a dog; that girl is cute; this girl made out with a boy in the hall; that girl has a boyfriend, that girl puts out, etc. Some of the rumors were true, but most of them probably weren’t. 

Then, sometime after the previews started, either a boy would send his emissary down to set him up to moving down to “sit with” her, or a girl would send up her friend to invite a particular boy to come down to sit with her. I always enjoyed being an emissary because it was easier for me to scout out my own girls than it was to bargain directly.

Sometimes we would go down front or wherever the girls sat and sit in the row directly behind the one or two girls we were interested in. We would make our presence known by putting our feet or knees up on the back of their seats and pushing to get their attention. This action always got results, though sometimes not good ones. A conversation might go like the following:

Girl: “Hey, quit pushing on my seat back!”

Boy: “I didn’t push on your seat!”

Girl: “Yes, you did. Now stop it.” But she giggles. That’s a good sign.

Boy, after screwing up the courage to get to the point of the interaction: “Are you in Miss Underwood’s class?” Mental face slap: ouch, she’s in my class.

Girl: “No, I’m in Miss Schute’s class. You know that, because you’re in my class!” She probably knows what’s coming next.

Boy, about to lay his cards on the table: “Oh, sorry.” Screwing up his courage, “Hey, can I sit with you?”

And now the wait. How long before she answers? Will she? Won’t she? Why is she talking to her friend? To get advice? To see if the two boys behind them can come up to sit with them? 

I was successful this Friday night, sitting behind a girl in my 8th grade class, who was sitting with a couple of her friends. Negotiations were successful, and soon I was sitting with Angela Andrews, a buxom blonde with a riot of frizzed hair. I screwed up my courage and put my arm around her—success!—and we went to town. What was the movie? Who cared? We were getting it on well. Denny was sitting next to me, whispering obscene comments. He didn’t have a girl to sit with, so he concentrated on me and what Angela and I were doing. 

When the movie was over, I found out that Angela lived just a block north and one over from where I lived. I offered to walk her home from the show. The three of us left and walked two blocks toward her street. After we turned the corner north, Angela told me she lived about half a block north. Fine, I thought, not a long walk, as we walked, arms around each other’s waists. I would sneak my arm up a little higher to graze her breast and get a charge. She never pushed it down. Denny walked behind us, whistling and mumbling more obscene comments about us. 

Just then a car pulled in to the curb next to us, and we heard the sounds of talk from inside the car. I looked off to the side and saw that it was occupied by four teenage boys, and from the sounds of their talk, they had all been drinking. The back passenger door opened, and out popped one of the boys. I recognized the black leather jacket and studs. It was Frankie Mac. As he came up to Angela and me, we stopped and separated from each other. He came over and pushed me out of the way and grabbed Angela, fumbling for the buttons on her blouse. “I wanna see what you got under there,” he said. She pushed him away, saying “Stop! Get off me!” Surprised at this rebuff, he staggered and regained his composure. Then he looked at me and came over. He said, “Hey, don’t I know you? Gimme a cigarette.” Standing there alone before Frankie, Angela off to one side and Denny—where was Denny?—I replied, “I don’t have any cigarettes. Sorry.” 

Frankie didn’t like my answer. He rared back his arm and said, “Why, you little motherfu—” when one of his friends caught him in a bear hug from behind and said, “C’mon, Frankie, don’t bother the kid. Let’s go.” He pulled Frankie back into the car, all the while Frankie fixing me with a glare. The car sped off. I turned around to see Denny standing back about ten feet. “Where the hell were you?” I said. 

“Sorry, buddy. We’re no match for Frankie,” he answered. And that was that.

The groove that Angela and I were getting on was spoiled. I wasn’t her knight in shining armor. When we got to Angela’s house, her disappointment and disapproval showed on her face. We said a tepid goodnight and parted. Denny and I disappeared into the night, still shaking from our encounter with Frankie Mac. 

Later in the summer of that year, after graduating from 8th grade, I was heading home from the corner store at the end of the block when a police car slowed down and pulled to the curb. The officer leaned over and rolled down the passenger window. He said, “Hey kid, come over here a minute. I want to talk to you.” Oh my God, I thought, what have I done? Am I in trouble? I did as commanded and walked over to the car. The policeman said, “Do you know where Frankie McGuinn is? Have you seen him?” 

Puzzled, I answered, “No, sir. I don’t. I haven’t seen him in a long time. I don’t even know where he lives.”

“We know you hang out with the bunch he hangs out with, so you must know.”

“What?” I said, “I don’t hang out with him or anyone else in his crowd.”

“Are you sure? You look like one of those guys.”

“I’m sorry, sir. Frankie Mac is bad news, and I don’t want any part of him. I haven’t seen him, and I won’t see him.”

The officer glared at me, then softened. “OK, kid, sorry to bother you. Stay away from Frankie and those guys he bums around with. He’s going down one of these days.”

“I will, sir. Don’t worry about me,” I said.

The officer then said, “OK, kid, have a nice day,” and he put his car in gear and sped away. I was tempted to make a parting shot as the car sped away, but I thought better of it. I didn’t want to “go down” like Frankie Mac.

Snapping out of my reverie in front of the Michigan Show, I looked at my watch and saw how late it was. I crossed the street to my parked car and drove back to my parents’ house, all the while pondering those incidents with Frankie Mac.

Somehow I survived my adolescence and teenage years, went off to college, got married, went to grad school, got a good job, and had children. However, despite the many experiences we had in the family through the years, I never forgot about Frankie Mac and my encounters with him. I sometimes wondered what happened to him.

I got my answer yesterday.

I picked up the daily paper on the front lawn and brought it in to the kitchen table to read while I ate my breakfast. My wife having passed away from cancer six months ago, I was still not used to eating meals alone. The paper, or any reading material, helped to pass the time while eating, forgetting my loneliness for a while. As I turned to page 3 of the paper, I noticed a short article on the execution of a convicted murderer at the state prison. Appeals exhausted, convict is executed, said the headline. Scanning the first paragraph before turning the page to the sports section, my eyes were arrested by the name: “Francis Joseph McGuinn, 57….” Frankie Mac? Surely this was a coincidence, and so I read the article. It turned out that Francis McGuinn was convicted following a string of several robberies and assaults. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison at the age of 19 as a “persistent offender.” According to the newspaper account, almost from the beginning of his sentence he was raped repeatedly. Two years later he was charged with the murder of an inmate—who was stabbed over 50 times—and his sentence was lengthened to life without parole. Fifteen years later he took part in the stabbing death of another inmate, for which he received the death sentence. The past twenty years his attorney had been filing petitions for clemency, but the last petition had been denied, as had all the others, a week before, and the execution was scheduled. He was executed yesterday, and his wife witnessed the execution. How did he get married while in prison? I wondered.

Reading this news made me profoundly sad. I wondered how Frankie was raised to be such a violent person with no conscience. Why did he become an alcoholic as a teen? What happened at home? And when he went to prison what a horrible discovery that he was no longer a feared predator but had become the prey. Why did he murder two inmates? With a different life he could have been a normal person with a loving family, maybe even a professional of some kind. And then I thought how close I had come to being part of his solar system, as that cop had thought. I knew guys who knew Frankie. Hanging around with Denny was Step One along that road. I am glad that I didn’t take any further steps. 

So, Francis Joseph McGuinn, I will never know the answers to my questions, but I will remember you as one of the boys who made it out of the hood but went the wrong way.