A friend from high school I hadn’t seen in nearly twenty-five years wrote me an email about a new book yet to be published that was featured in a Boston Globe article along with some of the heavyweight writers from that city (Dennis Lehane, Robert Parker and Jeremiah Healy) to name a few. I found the article on the Internet and was instantly intrigued with the author’s personal story. Richard Marinick was an ex-statie (cop) from Massachusetts who went through a few life changes after leaving a short police career. After traveling to Japan to further enhance his karate skills, Marinick returned to Boston and worked as a bouncer, and eventually became involved in the South Boston underworld. Skip a few beats and Marinick is robbing armored cars and ultimately getting pinched for it. He served ten plus years for the crime. While in prison, he earned two degrees (a B.A. and an M.A.) from the Boston University Prison Program. When he was released, he worked construction on Boston’s big dig, during which he took notes and started to write his first novel, Boyos. Kate Mattes (of the famed Kate’s Mystery Book Store) read his work and before long, Marinick was a published author. Boyos was a very highly anticipated novel. When I finally got to read it, I was overwhelmed by the author’s authentic voice. I reviewed Boyos on my web page, and insist it is one of the best crime fiction reads of all time, right up there alongside my personal favorite, The Friends of Eddie Coyle.
I had the great pleasure of meeting with Rick Marinick and his lovely wife, Elaine, at Kate’s Mystery Bookshop’s annual Christmas Party bash in Cambridge back in December ’04. The next day Rick and Elaine took me and my wife out for lunch and a tour of their city. It was a special day for us (capped off that night by seeing my friend from high school of 25 years before—the guy who wrote me about Boyos in the first place, Eddie Burghardt).
CS: Give us a breakdown of a day in the life of your prison experience, from waking up to lights out vs. a day in the life of an author.
RM: To be honest, in prison I didn’t put a whole lot into the idea that I might one day become an author. I was too busy surviving, trying to avoid all the pitfalls that someone in that environment faces.
My daily routine went something like this. I’d get up around 5:30 am., say my morning prayers, then hit the floor on a folded worn-out old blanket, and bang out a minimum 2000 crunches a day. I worked out like an animal in the can because you never know when that conditioning might save your life. The morning stomach routine was just one of two stomach routines I performed daily as part of that regimen.
Following what passed for breakfast I’d wait for the ‘count’ to clear. The inmate ‘count’ is taken by the screws twelve times daily. Once the seven o’clock ‘count’ had been tabulated the gong would go off and we’d have ten minutes to get to the place where we were going: the yard, the gym, work, etc.
You had to have written passes from the screws to go just about everywhere. If you didn’t make it to your destination in the allotted ten minutes, you were then considered to be ‘out of place’ and would be written up with a ‘D’ report (a disciplinary infraction). If the infraction was serious enough, you’d go the ‘hole’ and do ‘ice’ time. If it was really bad you’d be reclassed to another facility and you could pretty much kiss your property good-bye during the transfer.
When the count cleared, I’d hit the yard, run a fast five miles around the dirt track, then I’d head to the gym. I’d train there 2-3 hours daily using weights, doing rounds on the heavy and speed bags, pull-ups, dips etc. Every day it was a different routine.
After the gym, around 11:00, I’d return to my cell, work on my homework assignments from the college courses that I was enrolled in. Lunch was at 12:15 pm.
The afternoons were generally taken up with classes until about 3:00. At 3:30 I’d walk the east yard with my pal, Frank, who was a real old-time wiseguy. Frank had almost twenty years behind the walls when I met him. We’d walk the yard daily: sun, rain, or snow, and I learned about a lot of things, criminal things, during those walks. Prison is often referred to as being a ‘crime college’ and it is. A man can learn how to do just about anything by ‘networking’, with other ‘good guys’, while behind the walls.
You’d meet your associates and friends in the yard or at the gym because, in those places, you’d be able to congregate and talk without much hassle from the screws. Periodically though the screws would make a ‘sweep’ and just grab a bunch of us. They’d take you into the nearest block and strip search us looking for contraband, drugs or weapons. Strip searches are a way of life in prison. In the Massachusetts state prison system someone is looking over your shoulder 24/7. If they’re not watching you, they’re listening to you with their parabolic microphone (shotgun mikes) or gathering information on you from their huge collection of ‘rats’ (human).
After the 5:00 pm chow I’d work on my homework. I would work on it during the day too, depending on my schedule and averaged 3-4 hours a day on it. I was enrolled in the Boston University Prison Education Program for a period of six years.
I am obviously leaving out a lot of what the daily routine of a prisoner’s life is. The main thing you have to remember about prison is that it’s boring; the boredom only being broken occasionally by fights, someone getting shanked, or piped, or busted with drugs, raped, whatever. I spent my days projecting, always looking ahead, trying to stay two steps ahead of any potential violent situation that might: 1. If I were involved in, potentially add more time on to my bid. 2. Get me ‘reclassed’ to another institution which, by doing so, would mean the end of my education. I believed that getting that education was paramount to me changing and, hence, saving my life.
In prison you’re dealing with violent emotions, yours and everyone’s around you. I was angry all the time and, because of the kind of rabble you’re forced to co-exist with, whether they be guards or inmates, often entertained homicidal thoughts…but I couldn’t act on those thoughts. You had to hold everything inside. It takes its toll.
Prison is a hellish experience. You’re forced to co-habitate, at gunpoint, with some of the scum of the earth: skinners, diddlers, old lady killers, stool pigeons. With few exceptions, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
At 8:00 pm., if my work was complete, I’d watch some t.v. or read. It was always lights out at 10:00. It was a routine that worked for me for years.
CS: You’re doing time and the best you can to survive inside a prison. At what point, while you’re inside, do you decide you’re going to put some of your life to paper and attempt a novel.
RM: I did not seriously consider writing a novel until after I had taken a screenplay writing course at a local college. See, I had this idea in my head that was keeping me awake at nights and I had a title, Boyos, and thought it would make a great screenplay.
I went to school nights, after work, to this class, but a funny thing happened.
The very first night the professor comes in—now you’ve got to remember there are no kids in this class, we’re all adults, working stiffs mostly, trying to learn how to write a damn screenplay. The professor introduces himself then proceeds to, from what I perceived, threaten the class. He says, ‘If you’re late for class, don’t bother to show up.’ Then he says, ‘I understand that most of you work hard during the day, but if you fall asleep in my class, I’ll tap you on the shoulder, ask you to leave—there are no excuses.’ And then he says that committing those infractions could affect our grades.
Now, I’m sitting in my seat, burning. I’m thinking, who the hell does he think he is? I don’t take to being threatened. But I don’t say anything…until the end of class.
I wait until the class is nearly empty, there may have been one or two students left in the room, then I approached him and said, "The way you introduced yourself, the way you threatened the class, I don’t like it."
His eyes started to bug a little. Then I say, "And I don’t giving a flying fuck about your ‘grade’, I got enough of ‘em, I’m here to learn to write screenplays."
Maybe his mouth dropped, I don’t really remember, but I gave him my back and walked out of the room.
I attended just about every class after that and took notes. I never once submitted so much as a sheet of paper on the assigned homework projects.
One night, a week before the end of the term, as I was entering the building, the professor’s coming up the stairs behind me. He clears his throat and says, kind of timidly, ‘You know, Mr. Marinick, you’re going to get an incomplete for the course.’ I turned around, faced him, and said, "I told you before what I thought about grades."
And I got an incomplete.
But what I did take out of that class was the notion that, now, I didn’t want to write a screenplay, I wanted to write a novel…and then hopefully, someday, adapt a screenplay from it. God is good, we’ll see what happens.
CS: In a few conversations up in Boston you mentioned some of your family, including your mother (who goes to check at local bookstores and libraries to make sure they have a copy of Boyos, (God bless her). Tell us something about your family background, including your youth. Was there ever a point prior to you decision to write Boyos that you wanted to write?
RM: I was born in a hospital in Boston, so I am proud to say that Boston is the place of my birth. However, I was raised in a metropolitan (right next door) suburb of Boston called Quincy. I have three brothers, whom I’m very close to. My Dad has passed away but, thank God, my Mum’s healthy. I call her my ‘South Shore emissary’ because, like you said, she goes around to all the local bookstores and makes certain they’re not running out of Boyos. She attends most of my readings too. I don’t know how she stands the repetition but she does…and always smiles.
Growing up I wasn’t a bad kid, but I was an adrenalin junkie. Anything dangerous we could find to do we did. As kids sledding down the steepest streets, sometimes into traffic, or climbing the highest, highest trees to the very top.
In my adolescent and teenage years I got involved with the local gangs. We participated, when we could, in gangfights with other gangs in the city of Quincy and when we ran out of those we’d cross over the bridge into Boston, jam with gangs of kids from there. It was crazy stuff but it was really exciting.
Every summer, from junior high right through high school, we’d head up to the quarries in Quincy and jump from its ledges into the water. I’m talking, for us, jumping off a seventy-foot ledge just to get wet. My highest jump was at least one hundred and fifty feet, fact, and witnessed by many people, my ex brother-in-law included, whom I remain close to this day. He’s told me when I stepped off that ledge that day he thought I was dead.
After high school most of my friends ‘grew up’. I didn’t, and continued to seek adrenalin highs, so I started, at age 19, working as a bouncer in a strip joint located in an area then known as Boston’s notorious Combat Zone. It was while working there I had my first contacts with real-life gangsters, ‘made’ men of the Mafia. I was impressed.
I think I was born to write. I’ve always had a knack with words, a good understanding of vocabulary and how to use it. I loved to read, and did voraciously up until I was in my early twenties.
My zodiac sign is Pisces, we’re dreamers. I dreamt about becoming a writer. I was 22, working painting cars in an auto body repair shop up in Concord MA., when I chose the pseudonym that I planned to use someday.
Pisces are also symbolized by two fish swimming in opposite directions. That’s me, pulled in two directions for most of my life, but now I’m finally on track.
CS: Your wife Elaine is a very special lady. Jack "Wacko" Curran has an Elaine. While I know some of this answer from our conversations in Boston, I’d rather you tell it in your words. Is this the same Elaine?
RM: The character, Elaine, is pretty much based on the woman who is now my wife.
I was introduced to the real Elaine by my first wife 27 years ago and she’s a strawberry blond, redhead just like in the book.
In those days I didn’t like redheads, they did nothing for me. I had this thing, sounds crazy, but I had this thing in my head that if I kissed a redhead she’d taste like rust. Weird, I know, but that’s what I thought (before, thankfully, I grew out of it).
After my first wife and I divorced, I’d periodically stop by and see Elaine at her little apartment on 5th Street. My life was insane then. I was a predator, ran with a wolf pack. I’d fluctuate between having huge amounts of money and then I’d have none. My life was a mess. I’d stopped working out, lost weight, was using a lot of cocaine, drinking too much.
I wouldn’t see Elaine for months at a time then suddenly decide to swing by her house, see if the shades were up, take a shot and knock on her door.
South Boston isn’t a huge place. At that time there were perhaps only 28,000 people living there. But the criminal element in Southie, in particular James ‘Whitey’ Bulger and his crew, had a tremendous effect on not only New England but other parts of the country as well.
Elaine knew that I was up to my hairline in bad (full head of hair back then) but she always treated me kindly, always with love and perhaps with some degree of benign pity. But no matter what my business was on the streets she saw there was something good in me, something that I was clueless about. She never doubted that I could change. Elaine Ramsey, the character, is a reflection of the real-life Elaine.
There was never anything physical between us, we were just friends, but I felt, at times, that she would have liked to have had a deeper relation had I not been so crazy. But I was and I didn’t have time for relationships. I was too busy planning the next score, trying to keep two steps ahead of the cops, and three steps ahead of my enemies.
It wasn’t until years after my initial incarceration that I realized how important Elaine was to me, though she was married by that time.
During the last few years of my incarceration she’d tell me, in letters and sometimes on her bi-annual visits, that her marriage wasn’t working, that there were problems between her and her husband.
Six months after I was released from prison Elaine had finally had enough and gathered the courage to leave her husband. She was a mess during those days and where before, during my dark days, she was a rock for me, I was there for her. We began meeting for lunch and talking, then finally we began dating. I never dated another woman and never looked back. I married Elaine the Good in Key West, Florida, about a year and a half ago.
CS: Per our conversation in Boston, I know you’re a stickler for getting it right and getting it real. I distinctly remember a scene in Boyos when they’re in the process of robbing an armored car and one of the things that goes down involves taping a grenade to the windshield of the armored car to get the driver out (a great, great scene that was so vivid it gave me the chills). Was this creative license or a page from a how to?
RM: Creative license and a page from ‘how to’. I spent a few days in the North End watching things. I found a bank on Hanover Street and said to myself, if I were going to hit this thing how would I do it? I got a map, walked around, found the best routes in and out of there and wrote it like I was really going to hit it.
Funny thing, I was talking to a guy last year, and he had read the book. He said, "Ya know, they actually did hit that bank (armored car) awhile back and the way you got out (of the North End, which, believe me, isn’t easy) they took the same route. And yes, they got away.
CS: Your writing voice is as pure as it gets. Is that something you developed over time or something (what I sense) that just came natural?
RM: I try to write dialogue like the way people actually speak. Most people want to get their thoughts out as quickly as possible, with little or no consideration for the rules of grammar. I also feel good dialogue has a certain rhythm to it. I write a lot by sound. By this I mean I write the dialogue then read it aloud. If the vibration of the words and the rhythm isn’t there then (most of the time) something’s probably wrong.
CS: Was Boyos ever a first person consideration? How do you feel about writing first person?
RM: I never considered writing Boyos in first person. I prefer third person because of the multiple perspective that I can work into the plot. I was writing my next story in first person, planning to write a P.I. tale based in Southie. I wrote 200 pages but didn’t like it. I mean some of the chapters were great but others? It was like some doppelganger was jumping on my keyboard in the middle of the night.
I talked to Dennis Lehane about it, told him what was happening and he said, "What’s your strong voice?" I answered, third person. He said, "Then why are you writing in first, because everyone else does? My advice, go with your strength." And I have. Dennis gave me good advice.
I’ve since canned the P.I. storyline too, and am moving along with something else.
CS: We talked a bit about what’s next while in Boston, and I’ll ask again now what I’m sure most of your readers want to know is coming—an eventual sequel to Boyos?
RM: My publisher, Steve Hull, requested a sequel but, at the time, I said no. Instead I pitched him an idea I had for the next story, and he liked and optioned it. I do have however another hardcore gangster tale involving a crew that specializes in armored car heists but it has, I believe, a good twist. I’ve got a good working title, have jotted down notes etc.
As far as an actual sequel to Boyos? I’ll answer that by saying there’s a lot of material about South Boston that has yet to be mined. Readers of my next book will see some of the survivors from Boyos popping in and out of it since that book will be also Southie based. I’m trying to write about South Boston, this very unusual place, and its characters from a variety of perspectives so there could be something along the lines of a sequel somewhere down the line.
CS: While I have a hint of what’s down the road, that was more than a month ago and I know I’ve changed my mind about projects within hours of finishing some of them. Do you care to discuss what you’re working on now or prefer to keep us guessing?
RM: I’d like to give you some idea but I don’t want to mislead anyone. This next book will only be my second so I’m spending (probably too much) time attacking the plot from a variety of angles, in an attempt to find the ‘right’ one. It’s making me crazy.
The good news is that I’m getting close to where I think I want to be. Still, I don’t want to tell you the story is going to be about this or that and then have it turn out to be about something completely unrelated.
CS: I’ve read in some other interviews (the more professional ones, I’m sure) that you hope that your personal success story (writing a book) gives some hope to others facing eventually parole or a life back on the streets; that it’s better those incarcerated have some hope for their own futures (for the sake of those they’ll have to interact with again [i.e., society], if not themselves). Can prison programs affect those kinds of changes or does it have more to do with an individual’s determination?
RM: I believe that the basis of any change is a strong desire. I knew I wanted to, needed to change my life. At the time of my apprehension, at the roadblock in North Adams, it was clear, and not just because some cop put a gun to my head, my criminal career was over.
Earlier I had gone through the re-hab, cleaned up my act, was training in the gym six days a week, getting my spirituality slowly back, but remnants of the adrenaline junkie lingered. It was also a matter of economics—one more big score and I was through. Or so I thought.
A Berkshire County Superior judge insured that my partners and I would have plenty of time to change if we wanted to.
Early on in my bid I learned about the Boston University Prison Education Program. I believed I needed to expand my mind, break from the static thinking that enslaved me, if I was going to change.
I sought out psychological counseling. In prison they give you nothing unless you are persistent and unrelenting in your pursuit to get what it is you need. I fought for and received weekly psychological counseling sessions for almost five years. Every week I’d try to learn something new about myself, the part of me that was negatively hard wired, then I’d work to change it.
There were (are) great people working in prison ministries. I was fortunate to have two wonderful ladies, Catholic nuns who belonged to The Sisters of Bethaney, who worked with me, counseled me. I went to Mass every week, regained my connection with God, which I’m careful to maintain today.
Once a transformation has occurred it requires maintenance. I pretty much had to change my lifestyle. I couldn’t ‘hang out’ with my friends anymore.
That doesn’t mean I cut all my friends loose, it just means that I couldn’t be around them on a regular basis any longer. It’s similar situation to that of the reformed drunk who, even though he’s sober, wants to hang out in the barroom and do all the same things he used to do with his friends…except drink. The thing is, if he continues to hang out in that barroom, he’s going to eventually drink. If I ‘drank’ again and got caught, I’d die in a federal or state prison. I had come too far to go back. An ex-con doesn’t have to go back; it’s all in the choices he makes when he finally hits the streets.
CS: Speaking of determination. I remember you saying there’s nothing more satisfying than when someone tells you something can’t be done; that the street attitude kicks in and you say, "Watch me." Well, you might say, "Watch me—fact." That has certainly worked for me—fucking the doubting Thomases at every opportunity. How much of that got you through what had to be the toughest time in your life (prison) and how much of it was behind writing a classic crime novel?
RM: Prison is about survival, how much you’re willing to fight to survive, while living up to your personal code of ethics, and what you’re willing to risk to insure that those standards are met. When you are sentenced to prison, they shackle your legs, put a chain around your waist, and handcuff you in front to the chain. You waddle over to the transportation van, step up inside and, like that, you’re history, gone for three, ten, fifteen years.
People out on the street forget you real quick. The longer your sentence the more they forget. You become nothing more than a quickly fading memory.
All of my life, no matter what I became involved in, I always tried to do the best that I could. Now I was forced to ‘do time’, wasn’t my choice but it had to be done. Naturally, I wanted to do it as productively as possible, I wanted to learn as much as I could, from the Boston University perspective as well as from the perspective that prison is actually a ‘crime college’. See, even though I wanted to change the direction of my life, in the early days, in my heart I wondered if I really could. I wasn’t going to gamble.
I remember telling my two partners, who were sentenced with me from the armored car heist, that after we completed our sentences, if over the course of our ‘bid’, we hooked up with ten good guys who’d be on the streets when we got out, we’d be millionaires in no time flat. I was determined that the ‘time’ would not destroy my life.
What eventually happened though, over the course of my education, my university education, I realized, perhaps like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, that I did have a brain, and had one all along. I just didn’t know how to use it correctly. Boston University showed me how, hence, I no longer had a need for the other ‘degree’.
A few months after our arrest at a roadblock in 1986 I’m sitting in this crummy little one hundred and twenty year old jail up in Pittsfield, MA. I’m in this 7x5 cell working on a short story. I think that I always thought that someday I’d become a writer, I just didn’t know how this transformation was to occur. Now I’m sitting there thinking I finally have the time now to really learn how to write.
A girlfriend of mine had sent me this little Saint Jude prayer card. She told me that Jude was the saint of lost hopes and causes. Right up my alley. I started praying to Saint Jude every day that I never would lose my desire to become a writer and the guy came through for me in spades. I pray to my friend Saint Jude to this day. When people ask me who my agent is, I tell ‘em St. Jude.
When I started writing Boyos, in September of 2000, I was only sure of one thing—I had a good title. I had only a vague idea of where I wanted the story to go, the kind of characters I wanted to include. They say you should ‘write about what you know’. Well, I knew about Southie and its characters, the Irish mob, what ‘street life’ was like, and how to plan and pull down ‘scores’ and wondered if that would be enough? Up until that point the longest thing I’d ever written was my master’s thesis. How do you write a novel?
How about a chapter at a time?
I worked on this thing for a long time. Took the manuscript to work with me almost every day, and wrote whenever I could. Sure, there were guys on the job who, when they found out what I was doing, gave me polite, but negative feedback. And my standard response to their doubts was "I got a lot better chance at getting this published than you’ve got of hitting that Scratch (lottery) ticket."
There were days I made progress and lots of days I didn’t, but the further I got into the story the more I believed that I could pull this thing off. I figured I’d done harder things in my life and besides it was fun, and I really enjoyed the writing. It’s not hard to be determined when you love what you’re doing.
CS: Thanks, Rick, for sharing your thoughts on everything we’ve covered … best of luck, buddy, and bravo for writing one of the best crime novels I’ve ever read—Boyos.
Copyright© 200
5 Noir Originals***
CHARLIE STELLA writes most of his novels extremely fast. He is an opera fanatic and a theatre lover at heart. He relies on dialogue to tell his stories and is currently working on screenplays as well as new novels. After enthusiastic reviews for EDDIE’S WORLD, Carroll & Graf bought JIMMY BENCH-PRESS (Carroll & Graf, December 2002) and CHARLIE OPERA (Carroll & Graf, December 2003). CHEAPSKATES was published by Carroll & Graf in March, 2005. Charlie looks forward to a day when writing and teaching are all he might do to earn a living.