RUN MOTHERFUCKERS RUN

During the ECAC hockey tournament at old Boston Arena BC High was playing Somerville. The year might have 1968. My older brother attended BC High. I was at Xaverian. His classmates hated my school. We were a new powerhouse on the South Shore, but his friends accepted my support for this game. The Somerville fans were underneath the elevated seats. BC High students dropped M-80s on the opposing fans.

Good Catholic schoolboys to the core.

The Somerville football team tried to charge up the stairs, but we beat them back with fists.

It was a fair fight.

BC High scored an upset victory and at the end of the game hordes of cops separated the two rival groups of supporters. Somerville left first, furious at their loss and our behavior. The police let us out to face hundreds of Somerville fans. They were big boys and it seemed like all the entire town was waiting in the alley.

Our friends gave the Somerville fans the finger. I shouted out obscenities. My brother nudged my ribs.

We stood in a gauntlet of teenage thugs.

My brother, his friends, and I turned to retreat back into the arena.

Clang. The cops had shut the doors to stop the possibility of a riot. We were on our own. The Somerville fans were slow to react to this advantage.

A clear path ran up the middle of the alley to Mass Ave.

One of my brother's friends shouted out, "Run, motherfuckers, run." We didn't need to be told twice.

I ran the 440 for my high school. My older brother the 880.

Our best times for a dash were that night, as we outraced our enemies to the safety of Mass. Avenue and Kelly's Bar at the bridge. I knew the bartender there. He came from Jamaica Plains.

Like the wind we ran with fear on our heels. I reached Kelly's first. The bouncer saw the approaching horde and said, "Let inside quick." Jimmy was 6-8 and connected to the Winter Hill Gang. I bought him two beers as thanks. "JP." He clinked my glass. I had been drinking there since I was twelve. Run motherfuckers run was a good joke for years to follow, this day whenever someone says that they are from Somerville I never mention the word 'hockey' or run motherfuckers run.

It was better than way.