The Contender and The Champ
From Dear Me — the Diarmuid Cleary tales
I was 5 years old when she took me to see my first movie. It was Tom Sawyer, the one with Johnny Whitaker as the titular character and Jodie Foster as Becky. Funny to think that Foster would play an underage prostitute in Scorcese’s Mean Streets just a few years later. But I was too young to know or even care about that then.
For the longest time, I thought the movie was on my birthday. But the Internet dispels as many fictions as it creates. A quick check of IMDB tells me the movie came out in March of ’73, two months after my 5th birthday. So, it’s possible mom took me there as a belated birthday present. I remember other kids I knew being there, too, which is why I’ve assumed for so long it was my party.
Truth be told, maybe one or two of my schoolmates just happened to be there with their moms the same time I was with mine. Mystery solved.
I do remember going to McDonald's after the movie and getting a strawberry shake, something you couldn’t pay me to drink now. And we met Ronald McDonald, which I naturally assumed mom arranged for my benefit. She could perform minor miracles back then. Or so it seemed to me.
Time and distance make the details fuzzy now, but when I think back on that day I’m filled with a sense of wonder. Maybe because it was just me and mom and no one else from the family there. I’m the sixth of seven children and have tons of memories of all or most of us together: packed into my dad’s pipe-smoke-filled car for weekly trips to church, or getting chased by our dog Barky in a riot of wrapping paper and limbs on Christmas morning.
But the memories that burn the brightest are those that feature just me and mom. I don’t know how she found time for this, given the gaggle of kids she cared for on a daily basis; nor am I sure whether she was able to do the same with each of my brothers and sisters. But the fact that it was just the two of us during what seemed to me now pivotal moments is remarkable.
My older brother turned me on to the Beatles, but it was my mother who let me use her card to take out their records from the library. Beatles VI, Beatles ’65, Yesterday and Today, Hey Jude — mainly the Capitol releases. I remembered playing Hey Jude nonstop for two weeks. Eventually, I lost the vinyl disc in my cluttered room. Frantic searches turned up only the cover. Costly late fees racked up and, eventually, the library revoked my mom’s card. Her disappointment gutted me precisely because her approval meant so much. I laugh now imagining some square librarian shaking her head in disgust at the thought of some suburban mom throwing it all away for the long-haired freaks who sang “Revolution.”
My mother marched me back to the library and made me own up to my careless mistake. My brother had long since moved on from the Beatles, but I still needed my Fab Four fix. But from then on, I had to listen to my favorite records while at the library.
It would be a few years before I was old enough to get my own library card. By that time I didn’t need one. Not for records, anyway. Thanks to a newly acquired paper route, I was living large with my own cash. I spent every dollar of it on LPs and 45s. Actually, it was mostly singles at first, since they were 50 cents or a dollar. Long players were between $5 and $7.99 brand new, a luxury I couldn’t afford in those pre-baller, prepubescent days.
And like my brother before me, I soon started to venture beyond the lovable mop tops. Some of the first singles I bought that weren’t made by the lads from Liverpool were Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street,” Village People’s “YMCA,” and Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” And who do you think was with me when I bought them? More often than not, my mom.
East Northport’s lone record store was just across the street from the Grand Union where she shopped for groceries on occasion. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement: we’d take the Huntington Area Rapid Transit (HART) bus up Larkfield Road and get off at the Pulaski Road stop; I’d help her pick out a few bags worth of food, whatever we both could carry, and she’d indulge my passion for vinyl with a trip to Smitty’s Records and Tapes. I’d pick out a 45 or two, maybe an album if I was feeling profligate, and proudly pay with whatever I’d saved up.
Around that time I also got into stamp collecting. So sometimes we’d venture a bit further up Larkfield Road to the post office. The hobby shop next door to Smitty’s had a small but enviable selection of collectible stamps for sale, but those were typically too rich for my blood. On rare occasions, my mother would chip in so I could get a mint condition, unperforated something or other.
Not too far from Grand Union and Smitty’s was Carmine’s Pizzeria. I remembered it being the best pizza in town, which is saying a lot, considering Long Island, NY was then and still is today home to some of the finest pizza parlors in the NY Tri-State region. If I’m being honest, though, what made the pizza taste so good wasn’t the dough or the sauce, per se. It was the fact that my mom was treating me to it after I’d scored a cache of prized records or stamps.
One evening someone came into Carmine’s who threatened to steal my mother’s limelight. It was “Gentleman” Gerry Cooney, the boxer. This was 1980, maybe early ’81 when Cooney was still considered a serious contender for the heavyweight crown; before Larry Holmes’ late-round knockout in ’82 set him on the path to becoming more of a punchline than a feared puncher. Back then, though, Cooney was on the rise and somewhat of a local hero. He’d grown up in Huntington, NY, a few miles away, and, I found out later, had an apartment in East Northport.
I was a sports fan back then, but I was into baseball, hockey, and soccer. I didn’t know too much about boxing. A few years later I’d get caught up in Tyson Mania along with the rest of the world. Back then, apart from the Thrilla in Manilla and Rocky, I didn’t have much interest in the sweet science. Still, even I knew who Gerry Cooney was. Maybe it was because he was the latest in a long line of so-called “Great White Hopes” that his matinee-idol mug donned more than just the cover of Boxing News (eventually, he made the cover of Time Magazine alongside Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa). But Cooney had a legitimately lethal left, and all 6’6” of his hulking frame was right there in the pizza place with me and my mom. Much had been made of his Irish Catholic roots in the papers, so even my Irish-born mom knew who he was.
“Hey Ger, how’s it goin’?” said the guy behind the counter.
“Hey, Sal, good, good. Lemme get two regular slices and, uh, one pepperoni. And a coke.”
“You got it. Stay or to go, Ger?”
Cooney turned around to survey the place. It was empty except for me and mom.
“You know what, Sal? Lemme get that to stay.”
“You got it, pal. Comin’ up in about 5 or 10 minutes. You could have a seat and I’ll bring it to ya.”
My brother was about 9 years older than me, and a few years prior to this, while scouting colleges in Boston, he took me to a ballgame at Fenway Park. Even though I was a die-hard Yankees fan and he a Mets fan, I didn’t pass up the opportunity to get Jim Rice’s and Long Islander Carl Yasztremski’s autographs before the Red Sox’s pre-season game with the Kansas City Royals. I can’t remember who won or lost but that was the closest I’d gotten to a famous person until that moment in Carmines.
Cooney sat in a booth on the other side of the parlor, facing our way. He must have noticed us staring and acknowledged us with a brief smile. My heart started doing the Ali Shuffle but my brain felt like it had just been rope-a-doped. I had words to say but couldn’t get them out. Just after Sal brought Gerry his slices, I heard my mother’s voice.
“Excuse me, Mr. Cooney, I’m so sorry to bother you, but my son Colm, he loves soccer so much but he’s also a big fan of yours. We just wanted to say hello.”
Cooney looked up from his slice in the midst of biting into it.
“Hey there, nice to meet you. Colm is it? That’s a nice Irish name.” He put his slice down without taking a bite. “So who’s your favorite soccer player?”
I sat there dumbfounded like I’d just been hit with an uppercut.
“You like Pelé, right?” my mom said to my mute punim. “He likes Pelé,” she said, turning to Gerry, “and … who else, Colsom?” I stared ahead blankly. “Oh, Shep Messing, I think?” She turned and said to Gerry, somehow divining what I was thinking.
Everyone knew Pelé, but my mom’s deep knowledge of the NY Cosmos roster impressed me, even in my starstruck catatonia. I wasn’t aware she was paying such close attention to my soccer obsession.
“Well, I don’t know soccer too well, ya know,” said the fighter, “but uh … do you play it, too … Colm?”
My mom, once again, fielded the question without hesitation, saving me from myself.
“Oh yes, he loves it! He’s on the Northport Traveling Team, you know.”
Cooney didn’t seem to know what that meant, but he gave a polite and encouraging response.
“That’s great, kid. Good for you. Keep it up.”
The sentence that would have explained it all to him formed perfectly in my mind, but my vocal cords refused to deliver it. I gulped down some Coke to lubricate my throat. My mother had already moved on.
“Speaking of nice Irish names, Cooney is a great one, haha. Do you know where your people are from?”
Cooney had started eating now and his mouth was full. I couldn’t be sure, but he looked vaguely annoyed as he held up a finger to indicate we should wait for him to finish chewing.
“Canada, ma’am,” he finally said. “My grandparents were born in Newfoundland up in Canada.”
“Oh ok. No, I meant in the old country … Ireland.” My mom laughed in that way that always seemed to put herself and others at ease.
“Oh, yeah, well, I’m not so sure. Somewhere up north, I think. Leitrim, maybe?”
“Well, I’m from Enniskillen in County Fermanagh and we had a Father Cooney, you know, who was from Cavan, just below the border, and he was a big tall …”
I couldn’t speak but my elbow still worked and I used it to nudge my mom.
“What is it, Colsom, honey?”
“Mom, shh,” I whispered loudly.
I loved my mother, but I’d witnessed her talk many a stranger’s ear off. Ordinarily, it was endearing; one reason why more than a few of them — usually, aging women — found their way into our home as lodgers years later, after my parents divorced. But this was Gerry Cooney and he was trying to eat for God’s sake! I feared we were about to find out whether the “Gentleman” moniker was reality or myth.
“Cavan! Yes, that’s it,” he said, genuinely enthused. “That’s where my people are from. I think. You know, it’s too bad my mom ain’t here. She would probably know … even though, ya know Cooney’s my dad’s side and all.”
His mom, Eileen, still lived in Huntington, he told us, where she had raised six kids. “Oh, a big family just like ours!” is what I wanted to say, but my mom found the words instead.
I didn’t know it then but Cooney’s dad passed away when he was 17. A bad drunk, he sometimes beat and bullied his kids, including Gerry, who would fight battles outside the ring for years, dealing with his own addictions and demons.
Of course, Gerry didn’t go into any of that at Carmine’s that night.
“Mom, can you stop? He’s trying to eat!” I’d found my voice now and it was whiney, pestering.
“Ok, ok,” mom said to me. “We’ll let you finish your dinner, Mr. Cooney.”
“Call me Gerry.”
“Ok, Gerry, well, you tell your mom Sarah and Colm Clark said hello. Good luck to you.”
I didn’t say much to my mom on the bus ride home. I just sat there with my hands over my mouth blowing until my oversized glasses fogged up.
“Well, how about that?” mom said, laughing in that squeaky way of hers. “No one’s gonna believe who we ran into. Oh, but we forgot to get you his autograph. Oh, shoot!”
“It’s ok, mom. I didn’t have anything for him to write on.”
“Well, we could have used a napkin or your stamp book. Och, what a shame.”
Truth is, I’d thought about getting his autograph but was too embarrassed to show him my stamp book. What would a big-time fighter think of a four-eyed nerd who collected stamps? I didn’t let on to my mom. I played along, pretending to regret not getting the autograph.
I wasn’t upset with her on that ride home. Instead, I beat myself up. I was ashamed I couldn’t muster more than a shaky “hello” and “bye” to Cooney. It was the start of a life filled with debilitating concern for what others might think of me.
Not too long after this, I started hanging out with my small gang of friends more and more; so often, in fact, they eventually seemed more like family than my own parents and siblings did. Of course, the band of ruffians I rolled with didn’t always have my back like family did, and I would go on to do things with them that must have embarrassed my mom a lot more than the library incident had.
When I stole a case of Budweiser and the Foodtown clerk tackled me hard on the pavement outside, it was my dad who came and bailed me out. The sight of him looking at me with my split and bloodied brow hurt more than the gash. My mom’s face, though — with its mix of shock, disappointment, worry, and shame — made me lose my tough-guy veneer and weep openly. But there was something else there, something that offered a path towards redemption. Understanding, I think it was.
Still, I invented reasons to resent my mom. Maybe it was a need to distance myself from the obedient and dependent cub I’d been up till then, the momma’s boy of Grand Union, Smitty’s, and Carmine’s. I can’t speak for my siblings, but as an unruly teen who wanted to occasionally cut class and stay out late, I chafed at my mom’s comparing us to our New York-area and Irish cousins, listing all the ways we didn’t measure up to their angelic perfection (I mean, read the room, mom, jeez! lol). But she wasn’t mean-spirited or cruel about it. And though I couldn’t see it then, I know now she was likely just trying to make us do better — to toughen us up like any good parent or cornerman should.
Gerry Cooney got unfairly knocked around by the same press that sang his praises on the way up. Maybe his only sin was that he stuck around the ring too long. Longer than he should have.
In the 1950s an Irish farm girl came over on a boat to the mean streets of New York City. She would eventually move to a sleepy suburban town 45 miles east of the city where she’d raise seven kids in a marriage that ended in divorce. She’d fight and win a battle with cancer while suffering the loss of friends and family. She’d face countless other trials and tribulations, while quietly helping others get back up after they’d been knocked down.
She’s 92 now. She’s gone the distance. She’s my cutman and my promoter and I’m lucky to have her in my corner. But she’s the real champ, performing minor miracles ever just beyond the limelight.
