I Heard You Paint Houses Read online

  From the Harz Mountains we made a right turn and kept on heading in a direct line south in Germany, taking Bamberg and then Nuremberg. That town had been practically bombed to the ground. Nuremberg had been the place where Hitler held all his big rallies. Every single symbol of the Nazis that survived the bombing was systematically destroyed.

  Our goal was Munich in Bavaria in southern Germany, the town where Hitler had gotten his start in a beer hall. But on the way, we made a stop to liberate the concentration camp at Dachau.”

  The Combat Report states that inside the camp there were “some 1,000 bodies…. Gas chamber and crematoriums were conveniently side-by-side. Clothing, shoes, and bodies were stacked alike in neat and orderly piles.”

  “We had heard rumors about atrocities at the camps, but we were not prepared for what we were seeing and for the stench. If you see something like that it gets printed on your mind forever. That scene and that smell when you first saw it never goes away. The young, blond-haired German commander in charge of the camp and all his officers were loaded in jeeps and driven off. We heard gunfire in the distance. In short order all of the rest of them—about 500 German soldiers guarding Dachau—were taken care of by us. Some of the camp victims who had the strength borrowed our guns and did what they had to do. And nobody batted an eye when it was done.

  Right after that we marched down and took Munich, and about two weeks later the war in Europe ended with Germany’s unconditional surrender.

  All these years later and from stirring it up I started having dreams again about the combat, only the dreams were all mixed in with things I started doing for certain people after the war.

  I was discharged on October 24, 1945, a day before my twenty-fifth birthday, but only according to the calendar.”

  chapter seven

  Waking Up in America

  “By coincidence I ran into my kid brother, Tom, on the dock in Havre de Grace, France, in October 1945. The war was over and we were both shipping back to Philly, but on separate ships. Tom had seen a little bit of combat. I said, “Hi, Tom.” He said, “Hi, Frank. You’ve changed! You’re not the same brother I remember from before the war.” I knew just what he meant. That’s what 411 days of combat does to you. He could see it on my face, maybe in my stare.

  Thinking about what my brother said to me on the dock in Havre de Grace makes me wonder if he was looking into my soul. I knew something was different about me. I didn’t care anymore about things. I had been through practically the whole war; what could anybody do to me? Somewhere overseas I had tightened up inside, and I never loosened up again. You get used to death. You get used to killing. Sure, you go out and have fun, but even that has an edge. Not to bellyache or anything, because I was one of the lucky ones to come out in one piece. But if I hadn’t volunteered for action I never would have seen any of what I saw or did any of what I had to do. I would have stayed in the States as an MP jitterbugging to “Tuxedo Junction.”

  You step on shore from overseas and everywhere you look you see Americans, and they’re not wearing a uniform, and they’re speaking English, and you get a big boost in morale.

  The Army gives you $100 a month for three months. The men who didn’t go seem to have all the good jobs and you just go back to where you came from and try to pick up where you left off. I went back to live with my parents in West Philly and back to Pearlstein’s to pick up where I left off as an apprentice. But I couldn’t handle being cooped up in a job after living outdoors all that time overseas. The Pearlstein family was good to me, but I couldn’t take supervision and I quit after a couple of months.

  Many a morning I found myself waking up in America and being surprised to find myself in a bed. I had been having nightmares all night long, and I didn’t know where I was. It would take me awhile to adjust, because I couldn’t believe I was in a bed. What was I doing in a bed? After the war I never slept more than three or four hours a night.

  In those days you didn’t talk about stuff like that. There was no such thing as war syndrome, but you knew something was different. You tried not to remember anything from over there, but things came back to you. You had done every damn thing overseas, from killing in cold blood to destroying property to stealing whatever you wanted and to drinking as much wine and having as many women as you wanted. You lived every minute of every day in danger of your own life and limb. You couldn’t take chances. Many times you had a split second to decide to be judge, jury, and executioner. You had just two rules you had to obey. You had to be back in your outfit when you went back on the line. You had to obey a direct order in combat. Break one of those rules and you could be executed yourself, right on the spot even. Otherwise, you flaunted authority. You lost the moral skill you had built up in civilian life, and you replaced it with your own rules. You developed a hard covering, like being encased in lead. You were scared more than you’d ever been in your life. You did certain things, maybe against your will sometimes, but you did them, and if you stayed over there long enough you didn’t even think about them anymore. You did them like you might scratch your head if it itched.

  You had seen the damnedest things. Emaciated bodies stacked up like logs in a concentration camp; young kids barely shaving and lying about their ages to get into combat and then getting blown away; even your own buddies lying down dead in the mud. Imagine how you feel when you see only one body laid out in a funeral parlor; there you’re seeing body after body.

  I used to think a lot about dying when I got home. Everybody does. Then I thought, what are you worrying about? You have no control over it. I figured everybody is put here with two dates already determined for them; a date for when they’re born and a date for when they go. You don’t have any control over either one of those dates, so “what will be will be” became my motto. I got through the war, so what can happen to me? I didn’t care so much anymore about things. What will be will be.

  I did a lot of wine drinking overseas. I used the wine over there the way the jeeps used gasoline. And I kept it up when I got back home. Both of my wives complained about my drinking. I often said that when they put me in jail in 1981 it was not the FBI’s intent, but they saved my life. They only have seven days in a week, and by the time I went to jail I was drinking eight.

  That first year home I tried different jobs. I worked for Bennett Coal and Ice whenever they needed me. I hauled ice in the summer—two cakes in the icebox—lots of people didn’t have electric refrigerators after the war. In the winter I delivered coal for heating. It was funny that my first job at seven was cleaning out the ashes that the coal leaves behind and now I had made it all the way up to delivering the coal. I worked for a moving company for a month. I stacked cement bags at a cement plant all day long. I worked on construction as a laborer. Whatever I could get. I didn’t rob a bank. I was a bouncer and taught ballroom dancing at Wagner’s Dance Hall part time on Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday nights. I kept that job for about ten years.

  I had too many jobs to remember. One job I do remember was taking hot blueberry pie mix coming out of a cooker onto an ice-cold aluminum conveyor. The more I raked, the cooler the blueberries got before they went into the Tastykake pies. The job pusher kept on me to rake harder. He said, “You’re a little lax on that rake.” I tried to ignore him, and he said, “You hear what I said, boy?” I asked him who the hell did he think he was talking to. He said: “I’m talking to you, boy.” He said that if I didn’t put more effort into the job he’d stick the rake up my butt. I told him I’d do him one better and stick the rake down his throat. He was a big black guy, and he came at me. I tapped him and put him on the conveyor belt unconscious. I stuffed blueberries in his mouth. That took care of him. The cops had to take me out of there.

  After that my mother went over to see a state senator named Jimmy Judge. My mother had some political connections. One of her brothers was a doctor in Philly. Another one was big in the glass union and was a freeholder, which is like a councilman, in Camden. He’s the
one who got me the union apprenticeship at Pearlstein’s. Anyway, one morning when I woke up she told me she had arranged with the senator to get me on the Pennsylvania State Police. All I had to do was pass the physical. I wanted to be grateful, but that was the last thing I wanted to do, so I never went down to pay my respects to the senator. Years later when I told my lawyer, F. Emmett Fitzpatrick, that one he said, “What a cop you’d have made!” I said, “Yeah, a rich one.” Rape, child abuse, things like that I’d have arrested you for. Anything else and you’d have been on your way with an out-of-court settlement.

  I tried to be easygoing again like I was before I went in the war, but I couldn’t get the hang of it. It didn’t take much to provoke me. I’d just flare up. Drinking helped ease that a little. I hung around with my old crew. Football helped a little, too. I played tackle and guard for Shanahan’s. My old pal Yank Quinn was the quarterback. They had leather football helmets in those days, but with my oversized head I couldn’t get comfortable in one. So I played with a woolen cap on my head, not for bravado or anything, but it’s the only thing I could get to fit my big head. There’s no doubt if I was born later on in better times I would have loved to try out to be a professional football player. I wasn’t just big. I was very strong, very fast, very agile, and a smart player. All my teammates but one are gone now. Like I said, we’re all terminal; we just don’t know the date. Like all young people we thought we had forever to live back then.

  One afternoon a bunch of us went downtown to sell our blood for $10 a pint to get some more money to keep drinking shots and beer. On the way back we saw a sign for a carnival. It said that if you could last three rounds with a kangaroo you’d win $100. That was a better deal than the blood money we had just made. So off we went to the carnival.

  They had a trained kangaroo in the ring with boxing gloves on. My pals put me up to fight the kangaroo. Now a kangaroo has short arms, so I’m figuring I’ll knock his ass out. They put gloves on me and I start jabbing away at him, but what I didn’t know is that a kangaroo has a loose jaw so when you hit them it doesn’t go to their brain and knock them out. I’m only jabbing at him, because who wants to hurt a kangaroo? But when I couldn’t’ get anywhere with him with my jab I let loose with an overhand right, a real haymaker. Down the kangaroo goes and I feel this hard whack on the back of my head where my old man used to whack me. I shake it off and go back to jabbing the kangaroo who’s hopping all over the place, and I’m trying to figure out who the S.O.B. was who clipped me from behind.

  You see, another thing I didn’t know is that the kangaroo defends itself with its tail. It has an eight-foot tail that comes whipping up behind you when you knock the kangaroo down. And the harder I hit him, the harder and faster his tail came up behind me. I never saw that tail come whipping up behind me, and I never paid attention to the boxing glove on the tail. He had an eight-foot reach I didn’t know about.

  Actually, my attention was on a pretty Irish girl sitting in the stands with the sweetest smile on her face. I was trying to show off for her. Her name was Mary Leddy, and I had seen her in the neighborhood, but I had never spoken to her. Pretty soon she was going to change her name to Mrs. Francis J. Sheeran, but she didn’t know that then sitting there in the third row, laughing along with the rest of the crowd.

  Between the first two rounds my buddies are laughing like hell, but I don’t know what’s going on. I came out for the second round, and it was more of the same only this time I knocked the kangaroo down twice—which isn’t easy to begin with—and I got hit on the back of the head twice. I was starting to get groggy from drinking all day, selling my blood, and getting whacked on the back of the head. I wasn’t looking too good to the girl in the third row, either.

  Between the second and third rounds I asked my buddies what the hell was going on. “Who’s hitting me on the head?” They told me it’s the referee, that he doesn’t like Irishmen. I walked over and told the referee if he hits me on the back of the head one more time I’m going to knock him out. He said, “Get back in there and fight, rookie.”

  I came out now with one eye on the kangaroo and one eye on the referee. I’m really steaming mad now, and I creamed that kangaroo. His tail hit me so hard my head ached for three days. I jumped off at the referee and decked him. The referee’s people jumped in the ring after me, and my pals jumped in after them. The cops had a hell of a time in that ring sorting things out.

  I got taken down to Moko, which was our name for the city jail at Tenth and Moyamensing. In those days they’d keep you informally for a while and let you go without any legal proceedings. They didn’t work you over or anything, unless you asked for it. They picked their shots. When they thought I had enough punishment they released me.

  I headed straight for Mary Leddy’s house, knocked on her door, and asked her out. We made a date to go see Erskine Hawkins’s big band at the Earl Theater. We had a ball. She was a real strict Catholic, and I was very respectful. She had beautiful dark-brown hair and the prettiest Irish face I had ever seen. And boy could she dance. I had in my mind that night that this was the girl I was going to marry. I wanted to settle down. I had done enough roaming. I meant well.

  They say good girls like bad boys. Opposites attract. Mary loved me, but her family hated me. They thought I was what they used to call shanty Irish, and I guess they thought they were what they used to call lace-curtain Irish. Or maybe they saw something in me; that as hard as I was trying I was still too unpredictable for their Mary.

  Mary went to church every Sunday, and I went with her. I did try hard. In 1947 we got married at Mother of Sorrows Church, where I had gotten bounced as an altar boy for drinking the wine. I was still without a steady job, picking up work where I could, and working at Wagner’s.

  I went around to four finance companies and borrowed a hundred bucks from each one so we could get married. Then when the collectors came around I persuaded them that they couldn’t find me. One of them that I convinced had my case taken over by his supervisor, who decided not to cooperate with my disappearance and showed up one night at Wagner’s looking for Frank Sheeran. He didn’t know it was me at the door. I said to follow me and I’d take him in to see Mr. Sheeran. He followed me into the bathroom and I gave him a shot to the body and a shot to the jaw and down he went. I didn’t give him the boot or anything. I just wanted to make sure he understood that Mr. Sheeran was too busy to see him that night or any other night. He got the message.

  Mary had a good job with the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy as a secretary. We couldn’t afford our own place in the beginning, and so like most of our friends we lived with her parents to start off our married life. I wouldn’t advise that to anyone who could help it. The night of the wedding we had a reception at her parents’ house, and I had a few drinks in me and I announced that I was going to return all the wedding gifts to her side of the family. If they didn’t want me I didn’t want their gifts. I wouldn’t advise that either. I still had that hair-trigger from the war.

  According to my rap sheet, my first real legal proceeding was on February 4, 1947. Two big stiffs on a trolley must have said something I didn’t like, or maybe they looked at me the wrong way. It didn’t take much in those days. The three of us got off the trolley to fight. I was beating the both of them when the cops pulled up and told us to get going. The two stiffs were happy to get off the corner. I told the cop I wasn’t going anywhere until I was finished with them. Next thing you know I’m fighting three cops. This time they booked me for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. I had a pocketknife in my pocket. So to keep the bail high they threw in a charge for a concealed weapon. If I was ever going to use a weapon it wouldn’t be a pocketknife. I paid a fine, and they put me on probation.

  We saved our money and didn’t stay too long with the Leddys, and I kept looking for work I could stay with. I worked at Budd Manufacturing where they made auto body parts. It was a slave pit, a real butcher shop. They had no decent safety standards. Every so
often somebody would lose a hand or a finger. People today forget how much good the unions did in getting decent working conditions. I didn’t feel like donating an arm to Budd so that’s another place I quit, but that job made an impression on me when I got into union work later.

  In desperation for a job, I went walking down Girard Avenue among the real butcher companies. I saw a black guy lugging hindquarters and loading them onto a truck for Swift’s meat company. I asked him about work, and he sent me to a guy and the guy asked me if I thought I could handle loading hindquarters. Three days a week I was going to the gym and hitting the heavy bag, the speed bag, lifting weights, and playing handball. Plus I was teaching dancing, so I picked up a hindquarter like it was a pork chop, and I got the job.

  The black guy was Buddy Hawkins and we became friends. Every morning for breakfast Buddy had a triple shot of Old Grand-Dad and a double piece of French apple pie. Buddy introduced me to Dusty Wilkinson, a black heavyweight who once fought the champ Jersey Joe Wolcott. He gave Wolcott a hell of a fight. Dusty was good people and we became friends. He was a good fighter, but he didn’t like to train. He worked as a bouncer at a black dance club called the Nixon Ballroom and at a bar, the Red Rooster, at Tenth and Wallace. I’d stop in and hang out with Dusty at the bar and drink for free.

  With a steady paycheck coming in and a baby on the way, Mary was able to give notice at her job, and we were able to afford our own place to live in. We rented a house in Upper Darby. We paid half the rent in exchange for Mary taking care of the landlady’s daughter during the day.