On the Waterfront by Budd Schulberg Page A

following. Then one day he just walked into the office of the local, the little joint on the wharf, and when Fisheye came in he threw him out, into the scummy water of the slip, for all to see. “I’m the new president of Local 447,” he explained. That’s how union officers won elections on the waterfront. A few days later Hennessy came into the Friendly Bar (the Shamrock it was called in those days), and offered to shake hands with Johnny, but the hand had a knife palmed in it and in a flash Johnny’s neck was wide open like a jack-o’-lantern mouth. Ten days later the water-logged, fish-mutilated remains of Hennessy were brought to the surface with grappling hooks. Johnny was brought in as a material witness, along with Specs Flavin. But no one could be found to testify as an eye-witness, so they were released in a few days. Turkey Smith was found in the Jersey marsh about a year later. He had been eaten away by lime and looked more like an anthropological discovery than a recently departed member of the human race.
    Terry knew the old story, chapter and verse. The rapid and thorough way Johnny Friendly had come to power on the docks of Bohegan had a mythical hold on the local imagination. As did the promptness with which President Willie Givens and the bunch of lushes he called his District Council recognized and embraced the new slate of officers for 447. Of course Willie Givens, the Communion breakfast star, old Weeping Willie, professed to blissful ignorance when anyone so much as suggested that his Bohegan local was manned by the wrongest bunch of trade unionists this side of Dannemora. It wasn’t his job to inquire too closely into the doings of the locals. He was a champion of local autonomy. As long as the locals paid their per capita to Willie and the International, Willie was all for their independence. With his twenty-five thousand annual and his unlimited expense account and his special fund for fighting subversives and his welfare fund and his gratuities from the shipping companies (Merry Christmas, Willie!) he could drink to his heart’s content and his liver’s distress at the Fleetwood Country Club with his good friend Tom McGovern while the Johnny Friendlys did the dirty work. Takin’ over the local took a little doin’. Terry knew the whole story, chapter and verse.
    “I know what’s eatin’ you, kid.” Johnny kept his arm around Terry and Terry wished Charley hadn’t brought this up. He didn’t need all this crap. What he needed was to get gassed somewhere and knock off a little piece. He’d be all right in the morning. But Johnny was hanging onto him. Maybe they should’ve spelled out the whole thing for the kid, Johnny was ready to admit. So it wouldn’t come as such a shock. But Rule One was: only tell each fella what he needs to know. One of these days maybe they could tie Terry in a little closer. But he always seemed like a kid, a natural fringer, a bum in his heart, and in this business as in any business you needed a little ambition. Just the same, Johnny remembered the Faralla fight and some favors in the ring that had paid off in thousand-dollar bills. So he took the trouble to explain to Terry. Hell, he liked the kid. And he was feeling good tonight. It was a relief to have Joey Doyle out of the way. Longshoremen were unpredictable. Johnny had been one of them, and he knew. They could lie smoldering for years, and all the time you think you’ve got them. Then all of a sudden something sets them off and whammo! it’s like snoozing on top of a volcano. Joey Doyle might have thrown the switch on him if he had had a chance. And there were rumblings of revolt in other parts of the harbor. And a new contract with the Shippers was coming up in a few months and that was always a touchy time.
    “Look, kid, you know I got fifteen hundred dues payin’ members, that’s fifty-four thousand a year legitimate. And when each one of ’em is willin’ to put in a couple of bucks to make