Brutal_ The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob - Kevin Weeks [21]
But there were some real funny times during those years. When Kevin Barry was born, I asked Kevin O’Neil if he would be the godfather. He agreed, but when Jimmy said he wanted the honor, I said, “No problem,” and told Kevin he’d have to wait till the next kid. The baptism was held at St. Augustine’s in South Boston when Kevin was a couple of months old. Pam and I were up at the altar with her sister Sue, who was the baby’s godmother, while Jimmy held Kevin. The priest asked Jimmy, “Will you watch out for this child’s spiritual well-being?”
Jimmy kind of smiled and said, “Yes, I will.” There were other families there that day whose kids were being baptized and they all knew who Jimmy was, so everyone in the church started laughing. Except for the priest, who had no idea who Jimmy was or what was going on. Pam and I were living in a first-floor apartment at 178 L Street at the time, and our family and close friends came back to our place for a celebration after the ceremony.
In 1983, I bought a nice one-family house in the suburbs. With the help of some friends in construction, I fixed it up and put in a Jacuzzi, a sauna, and a weight room. When Kevin was maybe six years old, he fell down while he was outside playing. His whole face got scraped up, his nose, his lip, his forehead. When he came in the house, Pam began to clean him up. She stopped for a minute and looked up at me and saw that my eyes had teared up and she shook her head. But I couldn’t help it. It really bothered me to see him like that. All I wanted was to take the pain for him. For both my boys. Whenever they got sick, it was devastating. I had so many scars all over my face, all over my body, but my kids were different. Sure, I was a criminal and I fought all the time, but my kids were young and I wanted to protect them from any pain. I also knew that I didn’t want them to be any part of the criminal life.
As the boys grew up, I made it to as many of their baseball, basketball, and football games as I could. Most nights I got home for dinner, and then, after the boys were asleep, I headed back out after nine to spend the rest of the night driving around, doing business with Jimmy. I brought in good money then and made sure the three of them had pretty much everything they needed.
I did take my boys to Disney World when they were nine and six, and we had a great time. We should have taken more trips like that. My brother Jack and I had a place in North Conway, New Hampshire, where we would all go skiing. Pam’s family always had big get-togethers, at her father’s or one of her sister’s houses. As a result, the boys were closer with their cousins on Pam’s side. To this day, neither of my boys has ever gotten into trouble. They’re great kids. That’s because of how Pam raised them, as well as the environment. It also shows that they have chosen a better life than I did.
Jimmy was generous to both my boys, giving them $1,000 savings bonds and cash for their birthdays and Christmas. But he had his own philosophy about children: If you’re going to be a criminal, don’t get married and have kids, because everything you do affects them. If you have no responsibility and you get pinched, you just have to worry about yourself. But if you’re the main support for your kids, it affects you and them, emotionally as well as financially. He was right, and I experienced exactly what he said. But still, I never regretted having my boys. I couldn’t be prouder of each of