The Fence - Dick Lehr [24]
The family room, or den, was in front on the second floor overlooking H Street. This was where the kids hung out, where the large TV console was stationed, where Maureen was at her most imaginative. One wall featured a fake fireplace that, when turned on, made crackling sounds and flickered with phony flames. “The room had a country feel,” Kris said. “It sounds tacky and crazy, but it worked.”
The move to 78 H Street was hardly a big one for Kenny, his two sisters, and their parents—just around the corner from the apartment on East Fourth. They now faced the side of the telephone company building instead of looking out onto Tar Hill, the parking lot behind the building. But there was one key difference—their stretch of H Street was atop one of Southie’s hills. Looking south on a clear day, Kenny was able to glimpse the ocean waters of Old Harbor off Carson Beach, the main beach in Southie.
The corner at H and Fourth Streets, along with the next corner—H and Fifth—defined Kenny Conley’s universe. “Nothing’s changed since I lived here,” he once said while standing on H Street as a grown man. As a little boy Kenny made friends who then became friends for life. His best friend, Michael Doyle, lived on East Fourth in a house located between Kenny’s old apartment and his new house. “In front of his mother we called him Mike, but 90 percent of the time he was just Doyle,” said Kenny.
Kenny, Doyle, the other Mike—Mike Caputo—and other pals turned the corner of H and Fifth into their own Fenway Park for wiffleball. Using the same kid ingenuity that had led to sledding down Tar Hill, they made the four street corners the bases. Home plate was located at the southwest corner—which meant hitters drove the wiffleball slightly uphill and upwind. Games were interrupted by passing cars almost always occupied by a neighbor or relative. Between games they’d take a break and wander into the variety store at the northwest street corner (third base). The store, where Kenny’s parents often sent him to buy bread or milk, was owned by Mike Caputo’s parents. Kenny usually bought a Pepsi and Reese’s peanut butter cup.
The boys owned the corner—a hangout after school and during the summers. In the ninth grade, Kenny scribbled an ode to his friends and their place inside the closet door in his bedroom. It read: “H + Fifth…#1.” Under that, Kenny then drew a shamrock and wrote “Southie” underneath the shamrock, and then he wrote his friends’ names.
Sports were king. Kenny and his friends played wiffleball, baseball, pickup football, just about any game they could come up with. Lots of kids in Southie laced up ice skates and became hockey players at the neighborhood rink, but Kenny never caught the hockey bug. Right away, his favorite game was basketball. He was always tall for his age, an advantage Kenny had right into adulthood, when he topped six feet and kept going.
But his height did not necessarily mean Kenny was the hot player everyone wanted when it came to choosing up sides. “I wasn’t usually the first pick,” he said. Kenny was not what was called a “skill player.” He wasn’t a fancy passer or ball handler whose slick moves faked and fooled players on the other team. He didn’t possess a sweet shot, either beneath the hoop or from far away. Kenny was the opposite of finesse. “My game?” he once asked rhetorically. “I don’t got game.” He joked: “I’m not known for anything except for standing there.” His game was physical, rugged, and without nuance. He pulled down rebounds. In fact, his game mirrored his personality—straight-ahead and no bull. There was never anything slick about Kenny Conley. On and off the court, what you saw was what you got—a hardworking, unpretentious kid without a shred of guile.
Kenny played most of his basketball one block away from his house in the second-floor