I
was waiting for the bus one chilly morning when
a kid challenged me (I can't remember why) and I
punched him in the nose, he bled, he cried, I felt
happy. I was five years old, maybe six, and had
taken my first steps on the road to becoming a street
fighter, brawling my way through elementary and
junior high school, winning fame in high school
when a gang of black men seeking revenge for one
of their friends who'd been stomped by white boys,
beat, stabbed, and nearly killed me. This attack
left me with a serious brain concussion, several
smashed teeth, and a lip torn open by an attacker's
screwdriver.
I
fought because that's what boys who wanted to become
real men had to do. I wanted people to step aside
when I walked down the hallways of my high school,
and they did. I wanted people to whisper, "There
goes fearless Freddy," when my girlfriend and
I strolled across the dance floor at a sock hop.
For a while, I carried a .25 caliber pistol on the
seat of my car, and a switchblade in my pocket.
When a kid attacked one of my friends with brass
knuckles, I knocked the attacker down and gave him
a couple of good hard kicks. After a fierce brawl,
my friends and I would joke about our bleeding lips
and loosened teeth. After all, we boasted, our opponents
looked far worse.
No
one ever warned me that I might wind up killing
someone, an act I would regret for the rest of my
life. No one-my father, clergy, teachers-ever suggested
that there might be other ways to prove my masculinity,
and that men didn't need to carry weapons or pound
someone's face to a bloody pulp in order to prove
they are tough. Looking back on my youth, I marvel
that I managed to fight so long, so hard, and so
often without seriously injuring another human being.
I
am well aware that thousands of young men and women
in the North of Ireland suffered through the Troubles,
fighting for what they believed to be a noble cause,
risking their lives to free Ireland from 800 years
of British colonialism, dying on hunger strikes
and in fire fights with British soldiers and the
RUC. The first time I walked the streets of Belfast,
in 1970, a British solider stuck his gun in my face
and shouted insults and threats, warning me to get
the f… out of that war-torn city. I left, but
never forgot that frightening encounter, or the
mean-eyed boys racing through Belfast's streets,
swiveling their guns at my wife and I, daring us
to make their day.
I
respected, and still respect, the men and women
who took up arms against these invaders. I am a
great admirer of Bobby Sands and the hunger strikers,
and I use Sands' writings classes I teach at Ithaca
College. Had I grown up in N. Ireland, I'm quite
certain that I would have joined the struggle to
defeat the British and reunite Ireland.
But
now, reading the North's daily papers I feel sad
and confused. Could it be true that some of the
people I supported and admired have turned their
backs on the principles for which so many fought,
went to prison, and died? As the father of a recovering
drug addict, I feel disgust and anger when I read
stories about former freedom fighters that seem
to have given in to the lure of get-rich-quick cash
by selling drugs or protecting those who peddle
death to children. I try to think of a cause worth
supporting with drug money, and all I can feel is
a deep anger, a rage, at people who would dishonor
their own heritage and Republicans like Bobby Sands
in order to drive an expensive car or live in a
large house or act like a big bad man.
Having
spent more than six years on the mean streets of
New York City, I know a lot about drug use and drug
dealers. I've seen what happens to people who get
hooked on heroin. I've seen them slobber and scratch
and nod, I've watched them turn into skeletons who
would steal their own mother's crucifix in order
to cop a bag of smack. I've watched them turn a
decent neighborhood in a living hell, I've watched
junkies die, and I spent ten long years trying to
shake the monkey off one of my own children's back.
I'm
not accusing any individual or group in Ireland
of dealing drugs, but I've visited Dublin enough
times to know that someone is importing drugs into
Ireland, someone is pushing junk on the streets
of that city, and someone, some people, are getting
rich from the scourge of drugs. Greed makes people
deaf, dumb, and dangerous. And I truly hope that
those who point the finger at people who were once
Celtic warriors are wrong. I hope that those who
think they need to prove their masculinity by carrying
guns and intimidating good Irish people will reconsider
what it really means to be a man.
All
of my friends are combat Vietnam veterans who grew
up, as I did, believing they had to act tough in
order to be real men. Now, they eschew violence.
They do not carry weapons. They do not attack their
neighbors. They would never poison anyone's children
for profit. They are real men not because they are
bona fide warriors, but because they have learned
that kindness, gentleness, forgiveness, compassion,
and honesty are necessary if we hope to survive
as a species on this planet.
I
hope that the drug barons in Ireland who use their
feet and fists and weapons to enforce their will
and assure their profits will take hard look at
what it really means to be a man. Once upon a time,
some of these death dealers might have acted in
the steed of generations of great freedom fighters.
Now, they are little more than punks and thugs who
sully the name of all that their proud ancestors,
who were hung and shot and cut to pieces, really
stood for.
I
hope that the news media has vastly overestimated
the number of avaricious vandals who roam the streets
of Belfast and Dublin, and I pray that one day Ireland
will be free not only of the British, but of any
and all who profit from destroying the lives of
their brothers and sisters. People who sell death
for a living might walk and talk like men, but they
are a disgrace to the memory of Robert Emmet, Wolfe
Tone, John Stuart Parnell, and so many brave men
and women who sacrificed their lives so that Irish
children might one day live free of violence, oppression,
hunger, and early death.
