And why not? the men in the bar said. Fucking starving, they said. Ass-fucked and broke- down and handcuffed to a job that gives us no way to feed our families and no way to see them properly either.
"My youngest," Francie Deegan said, "my youngest, boys, is wearing clothes he got from his brothers and I'm shocked to discover the older ones ain't wearing 'em still because I'm working so much I think they're in second grade, but they're in fifth. I think they're at my hip, but they're at me fuckin' nipple, boys."
And when he sat back down amid the hear-hears, Sean Gale piped up with:
"Fucking dockworkers, boys, are making three times as much as us coppers who bust them on drunk-and-disorderlies on Friday nights. So somebody better start thinking of how to pay us what's right."
More shouts of "Hear! Hear!" Someone nudged someone and that someone nudged someone else and they all looked over to see Boston police commissioner Stephen O'Meara standing at the bar, waiting for his pint. Once the pint had been drawn and the quiet had fallen over the bar, the great man waited for the tender to shave off the foam with a straight razor. He paid for the pint and waited for his change, his back to the room. The bartender rang up the sale and handed the coins back to Stephen O'Meara. O'Meara left one of those coins on the bar, pocketed the rest, and turned to the room.
Deegan and Gale lowered their heads, awaiting execution.
O'Meara made his way carefully through the men, holding his pint aloft to keep it from spilling, and took a seat by the hearth between Marty Leary and Denny Toole. He looked at the assembled men with a soft sweep of his kind eyes before he sipped at his beer, and the foam crept into his mustache like a silkworm.
"Cold out there." He took another sip of his beer and the logs crackled behind him. "A fi ne fire in here, though." He nodded just once but seemed to encompass each of them with the gesture. "I've no answer for you, men. You aren't getting right-paid and that's a fact."
No one dared speak. The men, who just moments before had been the loudest, the most profane, the angriest and most publicly injured, averted their eyes.
O'Meara gave them all a grim smile and even nudged Denny Toole's knee with his own. "It's a fine spot, isn't it?" His eyes swept them again, searching for something or someone. "Young Coughlin, is that you under that beard?"
Danny found those kind eyes meeting his and his chest tightened. "Yes, sir."
"I'll take it you're working undercover."
"Yes, sir."
"As a bear?"
The room broke out in laughter.
"Not quite, sir. Close."
O'Meara's gaze softened and was so stripped of pride Danny felt as if they were the only two men in the room. "I've known your father a long time, son. How's your mother?"
"She's fine, sir." Danny could feel the eyes of the other men now.
"As gracious a woman as any who ever lived. Tell her I said hello, would you?"
"I will, sir."
"If I may inquire--what is your position on this economic stalemate?"
The men turned in his direction while O'Meara took another sip of his beer, his eyes never leaving Danny's.
"I understand," Danny began, and then his throat went dry. He wished the room would go dark, pitch- black, so that he could stop feeling their eyes. Christ.
He took a sip from his own pint and tried again. "I understand, sir, that cost of living is affecting the city and funds are tight. I do." O'Meara nodded.
"And I understand, sir, that we are not private citizens but public servants, sworn to do our duty. And that there is no higher calling than that of the public servant."
"None," O'Meara agreed.
Danny nodded.
O'Meara watched him. The men watched him.
"But . . ." Danny kept his voice level. "There was a promise made, sir. A promise that our wages would freeze for the duration of the war, but that we would be rewarded for our patience with a two-hundred-ayear increase as soon as the war ended." Danny dared look around the room now, at all the eyes fixed upon him. He hoped they couldn't see the tremors that rippled down the backs of his legs.
"I sympathize," O'Meara said. "I do, Officer Coughlin. But that cost- of-living increase is a very real thing. And the city is strapped. It's not simple. I wish it were."
Danny nodded and went to sit back down and then found he couldn't. His legs wouldn't let him. He looked back at O'Meara and could feel the decency that lived in the man like a vital organ. He caught Mark Denton's eye, and Denton nodded.
"Sir," Danny said, "we have no doubt that you sympathize. None whatsoever. And we know the city is strapped. Yes. Yes." Danny took a breath. "But a promise, sir, is a promise. Maybe that's what all this is about in the end. And you said it wasn't simple, but it is, sir. I would respectfully submit that it is. Not easy. Quite hard. But simple. A lot of fine, brave men can't make ends meet. And a promise is a promise."
No one spoke. No one moved. It was as if a grenade had been lobbed into the center of the room and had failed to go off.
O'Meara stood. The men hastily cleared a path as he crossed in front of the hearth until he'd reached Danny. He held out his hand. Danny had to place his beer on the mantel above the hearth and then he placed his own shaky hand in the older man's grip.
The old man held it fast, not moving his arm up or down. "A promise is a promise," O'Meara said.
"Yes, sir," Danny managed.
O'Meara nodded and let go of his hand and turned to the room. Danny felt the moment freeze in time, as if woven by gods into the mural of history--Danny Coughlin and the Great Man standing side by side with the fire crackling behind them.
O'Meara raised his pint. "You are the pride of this great city, men. And I am proud to call myself one of you. And a promise is a promise."
Danny felt the fire at his back. Felt O'Meara's hand against his spine.
"Do you trust me?" O'Meara shouted. "Do I have your faith?" A chorus rose up: "Yes, sir!"
"I will not let you down. I will not."
Danny saw it rise in their faces: love. Simply that.
"A little more patience, men, that's all I ask. I know that's a tall order, sure. I do. But will you indulge an old man just a little longer?" "Yes, sir!"
O'Meara took a great breath through his nose and raised his glass higher. "To the men of the Boston Police Department--you have no peers in this nation."
O'Meara drained his pint in one long swallow. The men erupted and followed suit. Marty Leary called for another round, and Danny noticed that they had somehow become children again, boys, unconditional in their brotherhood.