Birthday Party

IT'S a tawdry section of the city and an easy one to miss. It's stuck in a little corner between the Boston & Maine Railroad's potato shed and the Hoosac piers. The Hon. Frank E. Mullen Express-way, a big green steel structure, zooms over part of the neighborhood, the Everett-Forest Hills Elevated zooms over another part. Every two or three minutes an MBTA train passes overhead and the whole neighborhood rattles and shakes. In the middle of the neighborhood is a dirty, unkempt, little, asphalt-paved park dedicated to the memory of a Congregational minister who settled there in 1634.

And it's not a very pleasant place either. The only businesses are barrooms and army-navy uniform stores. One tavern, which the neighbors call "The Bucket of Blood," was the scene of a gangland murder a few years ago. There's another tavern, which they call "Dodge City," that is supposed to be a little bit safer. Then there's another bar called Frank the Gook's. In Frank the Gook's you can buy anything you want. Lined up with the bottles on the back part of Frank the Gook's bar are all sorts of things. Timex watches, kid gloves, candy bars, workmen's pants, parchesi boards, post of glue. And pasted on the mirror is a little poster "Buy now on our Xmas Lay-A-Way Plan. See Frank or Chester."

Further up the street, closer to the potato sheds, is another little bar named McNulty & Grogan's McNulty & Grogan's is what they call a "family tavern," meaning that the management encourages a quiet sort of clientele and that it doesn't want any trouble. Outside, on the front door of the tavern, is a sign that reads: "McNulty & Grogan's Tavern: Near the potato yards, come in and meet the real spuds." There's a Separate Entrance for Ladies with Escorts.

In honor of Washington's Birthday Grogan had Peter the bartender put bunting up over the windows. Peter, on his own initiative, dusted off the colored lithograph that hangs over the bar and also dusted off the photograph of old John McNulty that hangs beside Kennedy's picture. McNulty, who had gone to the Boston Latin School, was quite a man. Big, gruff, and hearty, he was quite a wit and was responsible for the sign over the barroom door. He died last year.

LAST Thursday, in that quiet part of the mid-afternoon that bartenders call the "Angelus" or the "Holy Hour," there were only a few in McNulty & Grogan's. Grogan was standing at the far end of the bar nursing his cup of Darjeeling tea. "My God," he said, "those Chinese. They got one word for two words."

"Say one word high-pitched and it means newspaper; say it low-pitched an' it means cabbage. My God, jeveh heah of such a language?"

He muttered it again, "one word, it means two things." Grogan is an interesting man. Every Sunday morning he goes to early Mass at the Arch Street Shrine downtown, then he buys the Sunday papers and goes to the Statler-Hilton Hungry Pilgrim Restaurant for breakfast. He claims that one Sunday the papers were so big that he had to stay for lunch at the Statler before he could finish the papers. On Sunday afternoons he goes up to the Boston Public Library in Copley Square and reads.

Mr. and Mrs. Danny F.X., a frumpy couple in their sixties, came in through the separate entrance. No one seems to know Mr. and Mrs. Danny F.X.'s last name and no one seems to care. So everyone just calls them Mr. and Mrs. F.X. Mrs. Danny yelled up to Grogan from her end of the bar, "We been up the State House with Danny F.X.'s brother Ernie to shake the Govahnah's hand at the Washington's Birthday party. All Ernie's teeth are comin' out. They's beautiful teeth but they got to come out."

Someone pointed out that Peter had cleaned off the pictures over the bar and Grogan began talking about his friend McNulty. He talked about McNulty's practical jokes and good deeds. With a tiny rhetorical flourish he remarked, "Never speak ill of the dead, and as the poet says, 'Goodbye, Good Prince, the flights of angels will sing thee to thy rest.'"

And Mrs. Danny F.X. who had been standing by the juke-box finally put in a dime and a voice started singing "Red Roses for a Blue Lady."

"That Wayne Nootin," she said as she waddled back to the bar, "he's Mr. Entertainment."