His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [17]
In return, Tony Mac and some of the other boys from the Park Avenue Athletic Club became Frank’s protectors.
“Frank wasn’t much of an athlete, and even though his dad and his uncles tried to teach him how to box, he couldn’t fight at all. I guess he was just too little,” Tony Mac recalled.
“He was a mischievous guy, but he couldn’t defend himself when he got in trouble. He was a real good kid and never gave anyone any trouble. Just mischief, like when we used to go to the movies. If a bald-headed guy was sitting in front of us, Frank would throw his popcorn box at him and hit him in the head. That’s the kind of trouble Frank got into as a kid.
“Other times, Frank and me would be walking along and Frank would tap a guy on the shoulder, jump back, and point to me as if I’d done it. The guy would start chasing us, but we’d always get away. Getting chased was a big deal in those days.”
“Tony Mac always had to save Frank from his scraps,” said Agnes Carney Hannigan, who grew up in the Irish section of Hoboken. “Frank couldn’t fight at all. He was an arrogant kid, though, and would go looking for trouble. Then he couldn’t defend himself, so Tony would have to do it for him.”
By this time, people in Hoboken were listening to the radio for accounts of Babe Ruth’s home runs and Jack Dempsey’s boxing triumphs. The most thrilling event of the time had been Charles Lindbergh’s dramatic nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic from New York to Paris in May 1927. “Lucky Lindy” had become every American boy’s hero, and youngsters throughout the country dreamed of becoming pilots and built models of Lindbergh’s plane, “The Spirit of St. Louis.” In Hoboken the theater chain owners held contests to see who could build the best model Piper Cub.
“Billy Roemer always came in first in those contests because he was the most mechanical of all the boys,” said Agnes Hannigan. “But one year Frank wanted to win the prize, so Billy, who was his best friend, built his plane for him and let him take first place, which was an airplane ride over New York City.”
Thrilled with his rigged victory, Frank ran home to tell his mother, who recalled several years later: “He came in all excited and said, ‘You be sure to look up, Mama. I’ll wave to you.’ And, do you know, I was just as ignorant about flying as he was. I went outdoors and craned my neck, expecting that I’d be able to see him.”
After school, Frank spent most of his time at Billy Roemer’s apartment at Sixth and Park, where he soon developed his first crush. Billy’s sister, Marie, was six months older than Frank. A pretty, blond German girl, and extremely precocious, she was not very impressed with her young Italian admirer. So Frank turned to Lee Bartletta for help. Lee was a Hoboken friend whose parents were very close to Dolly and Marty.
“I was a bit older and inclined to feel like Frank’s big sister, so he asked me how to win Marie’s attention,” she said. “I tried to help him out to the best of my sixteen-year-old knowledge. When we got around Marie to the extent that she accepted a birthstone ring he bought her for St. Valentine’s Day, you’d have thought she had handed Frank the world on a silver platter just by agreeing to go steady.”
Frank followed the birthstone ring with a crystal bead necklace and earrings, two pairs of shoes, four sweaters, a swimming suit, a purse, and, for her sixteenth birthday, a sheer black negligee.
Marie’s sweet-sixteen party was so important to Frank that he bought a three-piece sharkskin suit, which cost him twenty-nine dollars, and he told everyone to “dress sharp” for the occasion.
“One of the crowd, Jimmy ‘Doo Doo’ Shannon, didn’t have any clothes for the party, so Frank bought him an outfit,” said Tony Mac. “For himself, Frankie was sharp. But this was ridiculous. He bought Jimmy loud, checkered pants and black-and-white shoes that were so pointed, the kid had to take them off and walk to the party in his bare feet.”
“I’ll never forget seeing those two