All politics aside
They could have rented out Florian Hall or the Bayside, but what fun is that? And it's not like you have to ask Raymond Leo Flynn twice to go to J.J. Foley's.
During Flynn's 10 years as mayor, there were as many policy discussions held under the ornate tin ceiling of John Foley's tavern in the South End as there were between the soulless cement walls of City Hall. And so they went to Foley's Saturday night, 25 years to the day that Ray Flynn was elected mayor.
It was to Foley's, after all, that Flynn and his eclectic band of street-corner pols and college-boy socialists - Southie meets Sandinista - retired in the early hours of Nov. 16, 1983. Boston was coming off 16 years of Kevin White as mayor and a decade of racial turmoil brought on by the desegregation of the public schools. And Ray Flynn was running for mayor against a black guy, Mel King. It could have been a disaster. Instead, Flynn and King pulled it off with aplomb.
"Race was always an issue in this town," Mickey Roache was saying.
Roache grew up with Flynn in South Boston. Flynn made him his police commissioner and the two of them desegregated the projects in Southie.
"I was the most hated guy in town," Mickey Roache said.
"No," Ray Flynn corrected him. "I was."
But it got done. Flynn got an ambassadorship after he got Bill Clinton into the Eire Pub. What's getting Barack Obama's aunt into the projects worth?
"It's got to be worth something," Flynn said, laughing. "I'm waiting for the phone call."
There are, on the walls of Foley's, many pictures of Flynn's hero, James Michael Curley. Curley's dead these 50 years. With no local rascal king available, Buddy Cianci, the former mayor of Providence, drove up I-95 and filled in.
If the sight of Buddy Cianci and Mel King, deep in conversation, was downright incongruous, the sight of Mel King and Ray Flynn embracing each other was downright beautiful.
Brian Wallace, the state representative from South Boston, looked at Flynn and King and smiled.
"Those two brought the city together," he said.
Flynn said he missed his aides, Ray Dooley and Arthur Jones. They were remembered not because one was white and the other was black, but because they were good men who died young.
There were other faces missing. Joe Mulligan, the lawyer. John Foley, the barman. Scotty, big Tom Scott, the detective who guarded the mayor. All of them, passed on.
John Foley's son Jerry stood behind the bar, beaming.
"Like old times, huh?" he said.
The BC game was on the TV, and when you looked up you half-expected to see Doug Flutie dropping back to pass. Instead, it was a kid named Crane.
Jerry Foley's son Pat was working alongside him, wearing the crisp shirt and tie his grandfather insisted all professional barmen wear. Patrick Foley was born the year Flynn was elected mayor.
Mel King said some nice things but left before Ray Flynn spoke. Just like 25 years ago. You make a concession speech, but you don't hang around to listen to the guy who beat you. Mel looks great. He plays tennis five times a week. He looks back on that campaign 25 years ago and thinks it had something to do with the fact that today we have an African-American governor and just elected an African-American president. The tone he and Ray Flynn set all those years ago resonates across the state and the country.
We were standing near the door and Mel King looked out at the rain and pulled his jacket collar tight.
"Every act of kindness is an act of greatness," he said.
Mel King stepped through the side door, into the alley. He walked up to East Berkeley Street, around the corner and past the spot where he was born, the raindrops bouncing off his shoulders, like applause.
Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com 