Saturday, May 14, 2016

'Whites Had Ghettos,Too'

The following story comes from a remarkable out-of-print 1971 book called "I, Pig" and is subtitled "or how the world's most famous cop, me, is fighting city hall." The book was transcribed by Paul Neimark from taped recordings of Jack Muller. I blogged some of Muller's thoughts on policing the Chicago conventions in 1952 and in 1968.

The following excerpt is the opening salvo in the book and helps explain events which shaped Muller's character:
For me, World War II began in 1928.
      In 1931, at eight-and-a-half years of age I was stopped on the way to Hebrew school by a gang of Dago toughs and ordered to suck their pricks if I wanted to make it to schul that day.
     In 1936 I had the toughest hood on the west side of Chicago tell me to get out of town within twenty-four hours or get dumped on a pile of ashes in the alley.
     In 1943 I stood frozen while a horde of Japanese dive bombers spewed bullets between my legs, felt my intestines go to dry ice when we were torpedoed and dozens of my buddies died just yards from where I was.
     But those times I knew how to fight. In fact, I learned goddam soon how to battle the world's dirt with the dirtiest fighting I ever saw.
     But in 1928 I was helpless.   
We lived on Douglass Boulevard then. I'd just started school. My oldest sister and I were playing in the tiny yard behind our apartment building. It was about an hour before dinner. My mother was in the house cooking and scrubbing. God, how she scrubbed those floors.
     Suddenly, an expensively dressed teen-age boy from the "other" side of the neighborhood came into our yard. The last couple of days I'd seen him looking at my sister--she was seven, a year and a half older than I was--when we walked home from school together.
    "There's something I want to show you," he said to her.
    "What?" My sister was so innocent.
    "Let's go to the basement," he said, taking my sister's hand and walking down the five stairs. After they got to the bottom and he'd turned the handle to the rickety basement door, I heard her scream.
     I ran down the basement stairs and peeked through the partly opened door. What I saw will be burned into my mind even after even if I fight fifty wars. My sister was naked. And this kid--he must've been seventeen or so--had one hand over her mouth and the other hand way up between her legs. Way up. His prick was out, big as life.
     I ran for my mother, screaming.
     "Ma!" I sobbed. "Some boy's in the basement! He's doing something bad to Sis!
      She had a soaking mop in her hand, and didn't even put it down, just ran past me out the back door. The kid must've heard my screams and was racing up the basement steps.
      My mother was a small woman, no bigger than five foot one or two, and she didn't weigh much. But when she got mad, Celia Muller was like two wildcats. I'd already gotten a bunch of beatings from her (and was going to get a helluva lot more), and I knew that when my mother wanted to punish the guilty, there was no way out on heaven or on earth.
      The rich kid tried to get by her. When he couldn't he went for the railing to escape. But she just started hitting him with the dripping mop, again and again, so fast that the thing looked like blur, until finally he was cowering on his knees back at the bottom of the basement steps.
    By this time some neighbors had gathered. The police were called. They came and took him away.
     The next week was horrible. My sister didn't stop shaking. She couldn't sleep until the end of the second day. Then, it was only out of exhaustion in my mother's arms, and time after time she'd jerk up five minutes later, sobbing hysterically. It was almost a month before my mother  could even send her to school.
     But eventually my sister learned to live with it as well as anyone can. Gradually our shock over what had happened to her turned to anger that some well-to-do pervert had been able to stroll down the block and fuck around with my sister.
     We didn't realize then just how well-to-do he was.
     We waited for the case to come to trial. We waited. And waited. But the case never came to court. Two days after this rich kid had molested my sister, I'd seen him walking down the street, big as life, staring at some other little girl. I saw him a lot of other times after that. Because he never went to jail, never came before a judge, probably never even had his grimy hands slapped.
     His father had put in a fix.
I hated what happened to my sister, but what I despised even worse was that this guy who did it had gotten away free as a bird. The next day, the next week, the next month he could do the same thing to some other seven-year-old child--maybe even my sister again--and never pay for it. And so could a lot of other guys just like him who lived around us in the melting pot--or was it a pisspot?--that was the west side of Chicago in the "golden twenties."

32 comments:

chickelit said...

Muller dedicated to the book to his sister:

To Janet...

and to anyone like her
who's fought the rapists
of this world toe to toe
and learned that they
can only screw you
when you hold still...

edutcher said...

Five will get you ten, Daddy or no, fix or no, somebody caught up with him and put the fix in permanent.

That's the way it was done back then.

Before the courts decided criminals had rights.

rcocean said...
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rcocean said...

Guy writes in an odd manner. "Hordes" of Japanese dive bombers "spewed machine gun bullets between his legs"

Really.

Chicago has always been one of the most corrupt cities in the USA. The melting pot never really melted. Rudyard Kipling wrote a short story where a bunch of uber efficient and civilized aliens who come to the earth to clean things up. First, thing they do is wipe out Chicago.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Gripping stuff.

rcommal said...

I am reminded of scene from the book "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn."

An example.

rcommal said...

Five will get you ten, Daddy or no, fix or no, somebody caught up with him and put the fix in permanent.

Bull-f'n shit, you ignorant dumb ass, edutcher.

rcommal said...

As for your "The Blonde," I see no reason at all, anymore, despite my previous understanding, to give a shit about her, either. My conclusion is based on what you, edutcher, have said about her for many years, how you have described her, how you have referenced her, the way in which you've used her, at various times, as weapon or validation.

-----

If, indeed, she is like you, edutcher, she is just sliding by, wanting all the kudos without accepting the criticisms. I suspect that's NOT true of her, but what the hell: If you insist that she IS like that, then what the hell?--who am I to to question otherwise?

Trooper York said...

Ouch.

Trooper York said...

Everybody likes to slap poor Eddie around.

chickelit said...

rcocean said...Guy writes in an odd manner. "Hordes" of Japanese dive bombers "spewed machine gun bullets between his legs"

Really.


Muller didn't "write" anything. He spoke it. Into a microphone, decades after the events. Neimark wrote it down, so he's the "guy." Take it up with him, I gather he's still alive.

ampersand said...

In the 20's that neighborhood was hardly ghetto. The neighborhood then was heavily middle class Jewish. There are many Synagogues still around re-purposed as Baptist Churches. He lived on Douglas Boulevard,which has some well built homes still standing.If that neighborhood ever gets gentrified those homes would sell for a couple of million.

The guy has an interesting wiki page, his run in with the Jewish judge and his wife reminded me of my neighbor. He came to New York in the late 40's from Italy. He bought a car and a friend talked him into driving to Atlantic city, he was hesitant as he hadn't bought insurance yet, but he succumbed. Before he even got out of town he tapped the rear of a Cadillac limo. The occupant was a New York judge. They made arrangements to settle.

My neighbor had to meet the judge at his swank appartment. When he got there the judge was wearing one of those huge whiplash collars. The judge's wife was also there ,they played some sort of good cop bad cop act,where the wife pleaded "Oh Papa please forgive the young man he made a mistake don't ruin his life". The judge said " But Mama he was careless and must be taught a lesson" Bottom line, my friend ended up turning over his meager life savings to the judge to avoid more trouble.

edutcher said...

rcommal said...

As for your "The Blonde," I see no reason at all, anymore, despite my previous understanding, to give a shit about her, either. My conclusion is based on what you, edutcher, have said about her for many years, how you have described her, how you have referenced her, the way in which you've used her, at various times, as weapon or validation.

-----

If, indeed, she is like you, edutcher, she is just sliding by, wanting all the kudos without accepting the criticisms. I suspect that's NOT true of her, but what the hell: If you insist that she IS like that, then what the hell?--who am I to to question otherwise?


Not sure what that was all about, and, Lord know, I really don't care, but it seems we have another here who comes at me after clearing all the gin bottles (or is it reefers?) off the keyboard and engaging in a bleary rant which had nothing to do with anything.

Or is it just because I don't genuflect at the mention of the One True Ted?

Trooper York said...

Everybody likes to slap poor Eddie around.

Interesting you say that. Seems like I get yelled at, sworn at, and, when I respond, I'm the one who's asked to cool it.

Considering I just state an opinion like everybody else, I have a right to it. You want to keep the occasional commenters coming, how about a few words his/her way, hmmm?

Trooper York said...

Hey eddie you missed the point. I am on your side. You are a very valuable commenter here. But you have strong opinions. So you are going to get push back. Just like I get all the time. It comes with the territory.

Push back on what you are saying is fine but I think too many people make it personal with you. That's not right. I hope that people will stop a minute before they go personal. Attack the position not the person.

Trooper York said...

I only asked you to go easy on April because she is all alone in her stance these days so I don't want us to pile on. That doesn't help our guy. Just sayn'

ndspinelli said...

LOL! Attila tries vanilla. A kinder, gentler, version. It's phony. Just sayn'.

ndspinelli said...

edutcher, We have gone toe to toe many times. You dish it out and you take it. I don't ever remember you whining about taking shots, only hitting back.

ndspinelli said...

You just took a shot @ me. I can take it, I'm just a gin guzzlin' pot smokin', no account.

edutcher said...

nd, I really don't try to take shots at you (maybe in fun once in a while), but I know you've got a perspective I don't, you've lived a different life than me. Sometimes I point out we disagree (and I try to back it up), but I try not to give you a hard time.

Trooper York said...

Hey eddie you missed the point. I am on your side. You are a very valuable commenter here. But you have strong opinions. So you are going to get push back.

I don't even know what the issue was about. Tell me what I said that got you so mad, then I can give an intelligent (we hope) answer.

My point about the post was the guy was bitter about the creep's father having connections, but, as you've noted on more than a few occasions, guys like that never know when to quit and eventually mess with the wrong people and get found in pieces in some alley.

chickelit said...

I want to comment on what rcocean implied. There is something odd about Muller's story. Like how he implies that no time elapsed between his sister disappearing with the creep and his investigation. I'll bet there was a moment or two. And maybe Muller feels bad about that.

As I wrote, the whole book is essentially a long, transcribed monologue. It is best read aloud as if an old guy were talking your ear off. Of course in any oral history, the truth morphs a bit.

Kudos to ampersand for getting me to read Muller's bio more closely. I was wrong in my very first comment. Janet was Muller's wife, not sister.

Trooper York said...

Eddie I didn't get mad about anything. You misunderstand. I was just laughing at rccomal who always jumps in late at night with nonsensical observations. You usually does that to me. I thought it was sort of amusing.

I think you take a lot of shots from a lot of people. That doesn't make you a victim and I know you don't claim that status. You can take care of yourself. It just makes you a target.

Just because you note something doesn't mean you are complaining or whining. That is just the interpretation of people whose only goal is to disrupt the blog and cause trouble between the commenters for their own twisted psycho problems.

Trooper York said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Trooper York said...

In another thread ricpic and Ritmo are going at it for some crazy reason. People get at cross purposes sometimes and rub each other the wrong way. Sound and fury dude. Sound and fury.

Trooper York said...

I misspoke. She usually does that to me. She likes obscure elliptical comments that you need google maps to decipher. Which is also fine. I say some obscure stuff too. It is just a style. No biggie.

chickelit said...

I take light-hearted pot shots at edutcher via my chirbits, but these aren't intended to to be malicious. I also mock people of higher authority who have singled out ed, often using their own words: link.

ndspinelli said...

ed, We are cool. I respect your toughness. And, I don't see "giving a hard time" to someone as a negative. That used to be part of the deal w/ all of us..until recently. I'm going by the rules we operated by for years. Take a punch and punch back. You still do that.

rcommal said...

edutcher:

Or is it just because I don't genuflect at the mention of the One True Ted?

Yee--aah... well... I am so NOT ... a Cruz fan.

At least here a couple-so commenters could attest to that, but they won't. My objectionS to Ted date back several years.

Hey, whatever. So it goes.

rcommal said...


"Bull-f'n shit, you ignorant dumb ass, edutcher."

Wow,that came out of left field. But I'm not the tone police, so I'll stay out.


No, it didn't. Not in terms of the left field and also not in terms of the tone.

rcommal said...

Hey, what the hell: While I'm here, anyone where wanna wish my son kudos for his graduation ceremony later this evening (Tuesday)? He's earned an official certificate from a part of the local community college that educates people in actual skills. And he's done this before he turned age 16.

We went for AND not OR. He's been doing the whole academic high school thing (very much college prep, six purely academic classes each and every semester), but ALSO has spent every Friday, all day, for the past two years, his freshman and sophomore years in high school, earning an official general facilities maintenance certificate from the local community college. Due to that Friday thang, he's been "doing" various sorts of "schooling" for a couple of years, which means at least 6 days a week he's been a-workin' at sumpin'.

For the record, I am not a robot. Nor is my husband. Nor is our son.

rcommal said...

I just wish that bags was still around, although from what I ever could tell he had no use for the likes of me or of mine. Still, despite the reality of that, and and also that I disagreed with his focus on Ted Cruz (not to mention his weirdly non-reflective take on health insurance, as if he hadn't been subsidized by others in the commercial, so-called private, health-subsidy world, back in the day, for many years) I miss him here at Lem's.

Ain't that a gas.

Innit?

rcommal said...

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/280122-trump-on-tone-im-fighting-for-survival

rcommal said...

I mean, c'mon now. Aren't we all in that sort of mode?^