Chinatown Frankie P

To kill time, some people go for a jog, maybe go for a stroll or take in a movie. In Bridgeport, you go for coffee. It's a neighborhood ritual: five days a week, certain types--political insiders, local big-shots, aspiring wannabes--collectively known as Magaffers, meet for coffee in Bridgeport restaurants with lots of talking and bullshitting and cigarettes. At these cultural summits, plans are made and deals are cut that eventually make it to the light of day in the form of newspaper headlines that almost always involve corruption and scandal. In the old days, the mecca for these meetings was David's Restaurant on the corner of 31st and Halsted. Although just a coffee shop, the minimum price range of every conversation began at ten thousand dollars and soared into the hundreds of thousands. "Despite all the money coming out of their mouths," the owner once said, "if they could, half of them would skip out without paying the check." David's burned down in 1980.

I am older now, and my father is much, much older. We too go for coffee, still, grab a newspaper, and comment on the day's events with a few friends in much the same way they do on any TV news show. Last year, when the "Trucks for Hire" scandal broke, I said to my father, "Why do these guys always persist at getting caught? They know the Feds are always watching, yet they can't keep their hands out of the cookie jar. They're like addicted thieves that can't kick the habit." Then he gave me an unusual reply:

"Why not?" he said, "They should steal."

"What? I replied.

"They should steal," he repeated, "It's all they're good for, it's all they know."

He went on to explain that like accountants crunch numbers and athletes play at sports, certain types from the old Bridgeport were born and raised to be thieves. "If you got a hunting dog," my father said, "it hunts. Thievery is not a chosen lifestyle for these guys, it's who and what they are. And it's about time the rest of the world understands this."

First, I am not a pot that's about to call the kettle black. It's important to note that my father is a convicted felon. He was a safecracker, and served seven years at Joliet Penitentiary during the late fifties to early sixties. Chicago's Bridgeport was once home to almost a dozen small brewing companies like Edelweiss, Canadian Ace and Meister Brau. These companies only did business in cash, so they were lucrative targets for my father and his associates. But it's important to note that any job that was pulled first had to be cleared with either an 11th Ward, Bridgeport, official, or a 1st Ward, Chinatown, official, meaning that certain people had to get a cut before a job was given the go-ahead.

I don't know if it's something in the air or in the water, or perhaps it's a geographical anomaly, but there's one thing that sets Chicago's Bridgeport apart from almost any other place in the nation, if not the world, and that is its very deep and earnest non-work ethic. For the movers and the shakers of the area, it was and always has been the very ethos of the neighborhood. How this came to be, in a nation where the Puritan work ethic is the gold standard, will always remain a mystery to me. If this seems to be bordering on a joke, I couldn't be more serious. I speak from experience. I was raised with it, steeped in it, lectured in it, and so were many of my friends. My mother, now deceased, never told me that I had to go to work but rather apologized for the fact that I would one day have to. My father, after his release from prison, had to go to work as a general contractor. It crushed his spirit. He'd take me to work not to teach me a trade but rather to lecture me. "It this what you want? Is this what you want?" he'd say, looking at me with frustration in his face and holding his tools as if they were chains. And when I'd ask him what I was supposed to do, "Learn to use your head," was his answer. I knew people who worked and kept it secret, because working was associated with being a loser. Not working, living by your wits, using your head and being well connected, perhaps being a shrewd gambler, meant that you were a winner, a success, one of the boys. Is it any great surprise then that Chicago excels in what's called "ghost payrolling," guys who get paychecks without having to do anything? And the trucks-for-hire scandal is the same thing, getting paid for parking a truck on some godforsaken corner in the city. You get a big fat contract and pay your nephew to sit in the truck. But the important thing is that you're not showing up for work yourself. In short, the very idea of work would drive many of us into deep depressions, and if we persisted in it, that is, work, we always felt it would ultimately lead to suicide. Work was a disease.

Of course the majority of Bridgeport residents are hard-working, dedicated people. I'm speaking of a diminishing group of old timers, many currently under federal indictment, that were raised in the neighborhood during the fifties and sixties, those who sought favor either with the political machine or with the Mob, and most times with both, again, those collectively known as Magaffers. But a little history is appropriate here. It is inappropriate to say the non-work ethic of Bridgeport when, in fact, the correct term is the non-work ethic of Chinatown-Bridgeport (this does not include the Chinese). In the old days, Chinatown was run by the Italians and was in fact an Italian neighborhood, from 24th and Wentworth to 31st and Wentworth and was part of the old 1st Ward. Fred Roti was the alderman, and nobody ever denied his connection to the Mob, not even Freddy, as everyone called him. He was a man beloved by all. Even nobodies could get a favor and a handout from Freddy. During the sixties and seventies, it was still an era of compassionate corruption. Today, in the current political environment, if you're a nobody you're treated as a nobody, and they even tell you to your face that you're a nobody. Back then, during the reign of Richard J. Daley the father, crumbs were left on the street for the little guy to eat. You could buy a fix or ask a favor. Today, the fix has moved from the streets up to the corporate suites, exclusively so.

Yet the mystery remains. How, in a nation that worships the work ethic, can the non-work ethic exist? My father's answer is always that these are simply people who use their heads; who believe work is for people who aren't too bright. He always insists that feeling like this isn't a choice but rather what and who these people are. And he goes so far as to credit them with nation building. And again, this is not a joke, he really means it. According to my father, the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois are prosperous and booming not in spite of corruption and graft but rather because of them. According to him, your mothers and fathers and your sisters and your brothers exist on and eat the fruits of corruption and graft, byproducts that emanate from the ethos of the non-work ethic. This is why, perhaps, Richie Daley cries in front of TV cameras every time his men are caught stealing. He knows the truth but can't tell you: His thieves are really economic chancellors, developers, builders that bring economic benefits to the city of Chicago.

There's a joke in Bridgeport that if you offered a Magaffer one of two deals--one perfectly legal and one under the table and fixed--that the Magaffer would always pass on the legal deal and always take the fixed deal, even though they were the exact same deals that would yield the exact amount of profit. The thinking goes like this: anything legal is seen to be open to natural market forces and therefore risky business. In short, you're taking a chance. Whereas, the exact same deal, under the guise of corruption and a fix, is not subject to chance, but will rather be shepherded, from beginning to end, to success. After all, the fix is in. Thus corruption, for the Bridgeport mind, is seen as a bird in the hand and legality as two in the bush. Men who use their heads are not risk takers but rather those who believe in predetermined outcomes. Federal indictments prove that this is not always true.

They also say that, now bear in mind that this is just restaurant gossip, or let us say Bridgeport myth, that when you're asleep at night, feeling safe and snug in your sack, Daley takes chauffeured limo rides eyeballing the property that he will eventually seize through eminent domain, and that his developer friends, fat and flush from fresh steaks and fine liquor, also take the same sort of rides, feasting their eyes on future dinners. They'll eventually get their pal Richie to take it for them, through legal channels, for pennies on the dollar. My father always says that the most genuine tears come from alligators; that the alligator cries because he can't bite your head off. These are the tears that Daley sheds anytime his legalized thieving is interrupted. He breaks down and tells you how he loves "this city." Well my gosh, who wouldn't when "this city" is your own personal goose that lays hundreds upon hundreds of golden eggs. Yet, to call Daley a thief is unfair and inaccurate. When he is better likened to Fagan out of Charles Dickens' "David Copperfield." Fagan sends his boys out to seize the loot and bring it home to the boss. He is more a prince of thieves than an actual thief, allocating who can steal what and when. Incidentally, these Bridgeport restaurant conversations do not have tones of accusation but rather tones of admiration, as many of us dream of a goose that will lay a golden egg.

The citizens of Bridgeport (and Chicago) condemn Daley with their mouths, but love him in their hearts. He's the mayor for life, the beloved dictator. Were Daley to close up shop tomorrow, the Chicago media would cry the loudest. The man is solid, guaranteed copy. He and his crew inflame and enrage, but above all titillate. They are our celebrities. Contrary to what you might think, those from the neighborhood who are indicted and sent to prison return as celebrated heroes and not in shame. They are someone you should know, men of wisdom and experience, men who get respect. Which has always led me to believe, absurdly perhaps, that these men subconsciously wanted to be caught, so as to partake of Chicago myth and legend, to be a part of Chicago history. It's time for Chicagoans to admit that we love our thieves. Not only do we partake of the economic bounty that they provide, but also the myth and legend that inspires our lives. Mayor Richard M. Daley is perhaps nothing more than a reflection of the highest aspirations of Chicago.

As the mayor goes, so goes the future of Bridgeport. When Daley passes, the neighborhood will experience a slow devolution. They call Chicago the city that works, but in reality it's the city of "You'll take it and like it." When you're raised in Bridgeport, and indeed in most wards of the city, you are told when to vote and who to vote for. We live in a democratic dictatorship of sorts with virtually zero political representation. The biggest problem faced today in Iraq is in trying to instill democratic values into a people that have no understanding of democracy. This will be the problem that Chicagoans will face, especially Bridgeporters, when Daley is gone. People will have to learn to make choices. This will be especially difficult for Bridgeport Magaffers: coming from a world of predetermination into a world of free choice will be terrifying. Some of these guys might even have to go to work. The city and even Bridgeport itself will be up for grabs, open to an open political process. But if democracy can take hold in Iraq, it can also take hold in Chicago. But as sure as we live, Daley will be gone one day. My father says that, like it or not, the city is going to have to learn how to make an honest buck and stand on its own two feet, and the non-work ethic will be replaced by survival of the fittest.

(2006-05-02)

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