The Strongest Soul

I think Ma deserves a post dedicated solely to her. She is the glue that keeps the family together, and while she's less than perfect (actually pretty far from it), her strength is undeniable. This woman has dealt with it all; abusive husbands, living in poverty in the projects, losing four children to tragic causes. The list could go on. But throughout the story, Michael paints his mother as the most colorful and feisty character of the book.

She's always doing everything in her power to support her ten children, even if that requires a little bit of scheming. She works hard singing and playing her accordion in bars to make money, but is known to 'trick the system' for her children. Early on in the book, Michael tells of how a government official used to have to come visit their home to make sure they were really eligible for food stamps. While they were no doubt living in poverty, they did have things like old furniture they found and a TV. When the government official would come they'd have to hide all the things that made them look like they had "too much" money. They would put a cloth over the television to make it look like a small end table.

It's very clear how dedicated she is to her children. When Frankie is killed she stops at nothing to find out the truth behind his murder. The things she does and the people she harasses for answers show she nothing if not brave. And every time one of her children dies, you feel your heart breaking along with hers.

Although she's been through the most horrific of things, she never loses her humor. That's what she's certainly the most interesting character of the book. She's such a complex character but you find yourself rooting for her in all situations. The woman has got guts and she's willing to do just about anything for her children. It's amazing to read about.

Chapter 11: Where it All Ends

Turns out, the last sentence of my previous blog post was false. MacDonald moved back to Southie. Since moving back, people around Southie think that MacDonald is just a ‘yuppy’ until he recognizes them and reminds them that he is a MacDonald. MacDonald is also organizing a group of mother’s (mostly those who have lost children) who are against violence in Southie. This group of mother’s that Michael organized made strides towards reducing violence in Southie by supporting a gun buyback project. In the final part of this chapter, All Souls brings the reader back to where it began, All Souls Night.  This time, instead of saying ‘the kids’ Michael says their names (Davey, Frankie, Kevin, and Patrick). 

Chapter 10: Tommy's Suicide

After Ma moves to Colorado, she let’s Michael have the apartment. Although he now has his own apartment, he continues to stay at his friends houses. Michael’s brother, Johnnie also returns from the Navy and stays with Michael. Since Johnnie just got back from the Navy, he was in possession of guns (remember that for later in the post).

            Meanwhile, in Colorado, Ma writes, and calls Michael and tells him that she is enjoying Colorado; however his brothers, Seamus and Stevie tell Michael that they hate it. Since they both hated it in Colorado, Michael’s brothers visited Southie.

            During the boys visit to Southie, Steve’s close friend Tommy is shot while with him. This caused a great amount of turmoil, because Steve was then accused of killing Tommy when in reality, Tommy found one of Johnnie’s guns and killed himself. Steve was found guilty of murder, and was then sent to the Department of Youth Services (DYS). Although, it was later revealed that some key information was missing from the trial. For one, in the 911 transcript it says that Steve says that he shot Tommy, however when Michael listens to the actual tape, Steve never says that. There is also ballistic evidence that proves that Steve did not pull the trigger, however the courts ruled that the evidence was not solid enough. Michael recommends that the police wanted to convict Steve so that they had a scapegoat, and would look good for solving a murder. Eventually, after Steve gets out of DYS the case is reviewed by lawyers (with all legitimate evidence considered) and Steve is proven innocent. Having read all of this, it gives me the sense that maybe the residents of Southie weren’t wrong for not trusting the police. This is just further evidence of the level of distrust between Southie and the government. Once all of this happens, Michael decides to move away, vowing to never return to Southie.  

Chapter 9: Life After the Kids

            In an attempt to get over the death of her children, Ma went to hairdressing school. She would travel to homeless shelters to cut hair, and give anyone she knew a makeover. Eventually while doing this, Ma became friends with other mothers who lost their children. Michael also stopped hanging around Southie, doing everything he could to stay away from the violence. This is a stark contrast from earlier in the book, when the MacDonald’s lived in Jamaica Plain and the kids were trying to create chaos in the neighborhood.

            MacDonald still praises Whitey for trying to keep the streets of Southie clean. The way that Michael writes, it hints that Southie is starting to find out some of the things that Whitey has been doing.

            Kathy (who moved to New Hampshire) moves back home in this chapter as well. The reason for this is that she burned her house down and going insane, saying things like “Have you ever heard of North America?”. After moving back, Kathy disappeared for a while, then came back pregnant with a girl, later to be named Fatima Maria.

            Michael also added in a line that was somewhat surprising to me, he said “Jesus, this is a great place to grow up”. I thought it was weird that after everything that happened, MacDonald still thinks that growing up in Southie was great. Although Michael felt this way his mother was not a fan of the Southie way of life after the kid’s death, so she decided to move to Colorado with Maria, Seamus, and Stevie.

            One idea that MacDonald shares several times is before someone dies, someone has a dream about it. In the case of Kevin, Ma had a dream about him dying so she went out and bought a new black dress for his funeral before he even died. In this chapter, Michael has a dream about a boy named Timmy dying, and a few days later he was killed. I don’t know if these are weird coincidences, but I thought it was worth mentioning. 

The Fate of Young Southie

So I've reached the chapter in which yet another tragedy befalls our main guy, Michael Patrick, and his family. Thus far we've heard of the death of his mother's baby, Patrick Michael, who Michael Patrick was named after. We've also read about Michael's older, mentally unstable brother, Davey committing suicide. And just about every other page of the book held other terrible things. In the chapter I just read, entitled 'Holy Water', it appears as if Michael's sister, Kathy, is following in Davey's footsteps. She appears to have "thrown herself" off of a building, but the family has doubts and believes she was really pushed off of the building during a fight over drugs. She survives the fall but is worse for wear.
This chapter was particular memorable for me because Michael talks about all of the people, mostly Kathy's young friends, who visit her in the hospital. However not only does Michael simply say they visited her, he goes on to describe how in the near future each of them met their fate in some sad, tragic way. Timmy Baldwin, who Kathy dated, was shot twice in front of a bar. Julie Meaney, a friend of Kathy's, walked into the waters at a beach and drown. Tommy Dooley was murdered by his own girlfriend's family. This chapter just reinforced the depressing and desolate feelings the beginning of the book incited. It's a reminder (as if you could forget while reading) how dangerous and corrupt certain areas of Boston were. It's crazy reading how all these people visited Kathy, unaware that they'd be following in her footsteps (so to speak) and end up in the hospital as well, or even worse, the morgue.

Chapter 8: Frankie and Kevin

Much to my surprise, chapter 8 was rather depressing (please sense the sarcasm). Michael starts off by with a brief article touting his Frankie’s success as a boxer. Because he was such a good boxer, Frankie became a huge role model in the Southie community. Michael pointed out how serious Frankie was about being someone that the Southie kids could look up to. Frankie was never caught drinking or doing drugs, and made a point to not hang around individuals who did. Although Frankie was coached by many of Whitey’s ‘people’ Michael says he was never owed by Whitey. Although Frankie was such an important figure in the Southie community, he was still a family man, trying to help Kevin get away from his druggy lifestyle, and driving Ma around in his fancy car. So, you can imagine my surprise when Frankie while he was performing a bank robbery. The way Michael made Frankie out, it seemed like nothing bad was going to happen to him. But at some point, a few months before his death, Michael says he got into drugs. Apparently it was all downhill from there.

            Despite all of Frankie’s help, Kevin life was still going downhill. Unlike Frankie, Kevin was involved with Whitey and his gang. Kevin had been to jail for possession of counterfeit money, and had been visited by a few of Whitey’s people (too keep him from telling where he got the money from). Kevin got out of jail, only to end up back in there for robbing a jewelry store. While in jail, Kevin apparently tried to kill himself which resulted in him getting sent to (get this) Bridgewater State Hospital….I’ve heard of that place before! A little while after he arrives, Kevin ends up successfully committing suicide. The way that Michael described Kevin’s death was really intriguing to me. He makes a point of saying that the night of Kevin’s death (around11:30) someone came to visit him, and then about an hour-an hour and a half later, Kevin was found dead. Keep in mind, Kevin was involved with Whitey. I don’t think MacDonald was adding this bit of information in for shits and gigs. I think it’s interesting that, if what Michael is recommending is true, it shows how well Whitey ran his operation. Oh, and did I mention that Whitey was Kevin’s best man at his wedding?

            So yes, this chapter was slightly depressing with two of the kids dying, but I thought it was SO cool that there was a little connection to Bridgewater. When we think of Whitey Bulger, we mostly think Boston, but to think that there were mobsters paying visits in Bridgewater is, like I said before SO COOL. 

Chapter 7: Kathy's Coma

This chapter entitled “Holy Water” is basically a web of everyone the MacDonald family knows, dying. Before MacDonald gets into talking about everyone and their brother dying, he throws in a quick anecdote about his mother getting shot while in the kitchen. Although it was amusing (because she refused to go to the hospital, instead she wanted to go to the pub) it didn’t really relate to the rest of the chapter.

Michael’s sister, Kathy, ends up FALLING off of the roof while she is on drugs. I emphasize falling because Kathy supposedly got in an argument with someone and was pushed, while Davey voluntarily jumped. Kathy does not die from the fall; however she is in a coma for quite some time. While she is in a coma Michael visits her almost every day, and goes through the individuals who visit her. Many of the people that Michael mentions are dead, however MacDonald does mention (in a few cases at least) that although there were witnesses to some of the murders, the cases were never solved because nobody came forward. This emphasized the fact that Southie loyalty was a great virtue. If you were a ‘rat’ then you would most likely end up dead.

At one point, while Kathy was still in a coma, Michael’s grandfather went to visit Kathy. When he did, he brought holy water to throw on her in hopes of it bringing her out of the coma. After yelling at the nurses with…colorful language, he threw holy water on Kathy did the whole “if you can hear me, move your right hand” thing. Turns out she moved her right hand. When I read this, it brought to mind a scene in Friends, when Ross and Monica’s grandma dies then while they’re saying goodbye she comes back to life, and then dies again. Now that I know you guys love Friends, I’m not afraid to make these comparisons. Watch out.

About a year later, Kathy was up and walking (with the help of a walker). To emphasize the violence of Southie, MacDonald mentions that if she’s walking, most of the time it’s to go to a funeral. Given the way that this book was going, I fully expected Kathy to die, however her coming out of the coma was a pleasant surprise. But I’m sure someone will die in the next couple chapters and bring me down again.

Chapter 6: Davey's Demise

There is nothing cheerful about chapter six. Nothing. At all.

The very first line of chapter six begins with one of Michael’s brother, Joe, bragging about how he almost got shot the night before. If that had been me, I probably would have: A) Been crying in the corner and B) Never go outside again. Ever. But apparently in Southie this is just business as usual. Then, MacDonald writes about a situation where one of their neighbors nearly stabs his children to death, leaving them for Ma and the kids to take care of. This highlights SOME of the violence MacDonald had to deal with as he was growing up.

The MacDonald family also experienced a drug raid. When I first read of the men in black breaking into their house, I thought it was just a gang of kids robbing them, but eventually I realized that the men in black were cops. Apparently I was alone when I questioned this, MacDonald writes in this chapter that he wasn’t completely certain if the men were cops or just a group of gang members.

By far the most upsetting part of this chapter was Davey’s death. I would be lying if I said I didn’t see it coming, but it was still very sad. As I’ve said in other posts, Davey had schizophrenia and was put in Mass. Mental. Although he was released, you could definitely tell he was off. Throughout this chapter Davey was clearly not right, sitting on the beach wall with his head down, screaming “Jesus, I love you” down the street, and walking across the rooftop. To say this was completely unexpected would be a lie.

In previous chapters MacDonald wrote about violence against other groups such as the police and blacks, however in this chapter violence within the community is brought to the attention of the reader.  

Chapter 5: The Wonderful World of Whitey

            About a year ago, the hard core criminal we know as Whitey Bulger was caught. Many of us know what Whitey is all about, but few have the personal experience of Michael MacDonald.

            In MacDonald’s neighborhood, Whitey Bulger is an idol, someone that everyone wants to have a connection with. This is far from the way we view Whitey today. At this time, there was a great amount of respect for all of the help that he provided for Southie (along with protection). Little did they know, he was really screwing over anyone connected to him through his relationship with the FBI. Reading what MacDonald had to say about Bulger was interesting because of what we know now.

            MacDonald’s Nana also passes away in this chapter, however when I read it, it felt like it was just thrown in there. Up to this point, I thought MacDonald’s relationship with his grandparents was strong, but when they went to have food and drinks with the other funeral guests, their grandfather shooed. He didn’t want his friends to know that his grandchildren were illegitimate. On one hand, this says a lot about family pride but on the other hand, I feel realy bad for the children because none of them know their father, and their grandparents are ashamed of them for something that is beyond their control.

            I also found that in this chapter, a lot of drugs start popping up, Michael’s siblings begin selling them, and eventually Michael himself begins to sell ‘red pills’ when he goes to the disco.

Although this chapter provided some interesting new information, I found it to be more of an “in-between” chapter

Chapter 7: Holy Water

The beginning of this chapter starts off with MacDonald’s mother getting shot by a stray bullet that flew through a window. Some kid was shooting off rounds across the street because he was high off angel dust and she wasn’t the only one who got shot. This is a true testament to how strong MacDonald’s mother was, almost to a fault. She had been shot, was taken in an ambulance and had managed to get away once they pulled up to the emergency room, she ran to Emerald Isle. Where she played her accordion to make money. The stories about this woman are so far out there that they almost don’t seem real.

The story takes a tragic turn when the older, drug addicted sister Kathy takes a fall off of the roof. She was completely “dusted” out on Angel Dust and the story still isn’t clear on how she fell. Some say there was a dispute between her and her boyfriend, others don’t believe it. Either way Kathy lived and was in a coma for months. Her friends were constantly visiting and Michael (The author) was constantly by her bed side. He started skipping school to go be with his sister and sit with her while she just lay there. His loyalty was unwavering. This was another chapter that made me cry because each friend that came to visit Kathy, later in life ends with them tragically dying. It is almost inconceivable what happens to these kids, and it’s absolutely devastating to hear their stories. 

One nurse who constantly checked up on Kathy ended up being strangled to death by her boyfriend. Timmy Baldwin who visited Kathy all the time was shot twice in the head a few years after Kathy fell while sitting in his car. There were hundreds of witnesses and no one talked. Down the road the shooter died the same way that he had killed Timmy. Julie Meaney visited Kathy, and a few years later drowned herself at Carson Beach. Frankie McGirk, who visted with Julie was stabbed to death over a drug debt. Tommy Dooley visited, and was later beaten to death with a lead pipe. Eddie LeClair was run over and murdered. Okie O’Connor hung himself. Michael Dizzo and his nephew Stephen Dizzo were found by Stephen’s 13 year old sister who found them on the floor. Months later, Kathy woke up.

This chapter was a huge example about Southies loyalty for each person living in it. Between the loyalty that Kathy’s friends had for her, enough to constantly visit, and the fact that many people never ratted anyone out, the examples are overwhelming. Southie’s loyalty, as I’ve said in previous blogs, is a fault of theirs. However in this chapter, Kathy’s friends prove to be a good example of what Southie Pride and loyalty really is. This chapter was tragic, but had an underlying message of chaos and also the healing powers of reliability in friendships.

Chapter 6: August

Chapter 6 was one of the saddest things I’ve ever read. I usually don’t cry reading books but this book had me going at least three different times. The tragedy about this book is that everything in it is true and that it didn’t just happen to one family, this is just one families story.

This chapter focuses mainly on MacDonald’s older brother Davey. Davey was admitted to a mental hospital and was definitely mentally unstable. He eventually was released to come home on weekends and at some point I think left the hospital entirely because he began living with his older brother Frankie (the boxer and pride of Southie) – Davey was really beginning to lose it in this chapter, he wasn’t only a little nutty anymore, he was entirely out there, but things started to look better for him once Frankie got more involved in his life. He took pride in his appearance, began working out, and even proclaimed he wanted to meet a woman.

Earlier in the chapter violence took place but teaches the reader about the bond between Southie folk and not being a rat. This bond was also Southie’s downfall. It stopped families from getting justice and I’m sure was one of the top reasons for suicide as well as drug addictions, holding onto guilt will do that to some people. One of their neighbors stabbed both of his kids with a knife, a thirteen and a sixteen year old. The EMTs were called and witnesses were everywhere. As the kids were loaded onto the ambulance, the father just stood there like they weren’t even his kids and absolutely no one ratted him out. The father got off scot-free, and the boys were both fine and never told a soul about it. This is baffling because I would never even be able to sleep in the same house as someone who stabbed me, even if it were my father, but Southie’s pride was too big and it got the best of them in the end.

Later on in the chapter the MacDonalds apartment got raided because Kevin was still selling drugs and Davey was there to witness the whole thing. Frankie took the fall for Kevin and was sent off to the Marines. Davey was depressed until Frankie came back and eventually everything went back to normal. One night Davey threw himself off the roof of the apartment complex and died later that night in the hospital due to complications.

One of the parts of this story really stuck out to me. It showed me the absolute selfishness of Southie. MacDonald was minding his younger brothers when Davey threw himself off the roof. He could see Davey from the window but couldn’t leave his brothers alone, so a girl came upstairs to watch the boys. However when she realized she couldn’t bring them downstairs as well, she left, leaving MacDonald stuck in the apartment, unable to do anything except call the police for help while she watched “the show.” The selfishness of these people really got brought to the light after this incident. No one “ratted” anyone out, when they could have stood for justice. No one helped anyone, and everyone had to focus on their own wants and needs. This is fine if you’re trying to survive, or eat, or feed your kids, but when it comes down to common human decency, Southie was lacking BIG TIME and it really pisses me off.

Chapter 5: Looking for Whitey

Chapter 5 really introduces the character of Whitey Bulger, but not right away. Chapter 5 talks a lot about the siblings of MacDonald and he starts off first by telling us of his new baby brother Seamus and the love he has for him. He used to take him for walks in the stroller, and even though he was only a few weeks old, Macdonald would get irritated if someone swore around Seamus. 

The MacDonald’s also got a bigger apartment. They were aloud to breakthrough the wall and connect two apartments and his mother would bring home random furniture from the dumpster, which mortified the kids, and made them the envy of all the neighbors.

Eventually Whitey is brought up and one of the first descriptions we have of him is as a protector. Southie was made to believe that Whitey was taking care of them all from “being overrun with the drugs and gangs we’d heard about in the black neighborhoods, as well as stopping the outsiders who wanted to turn the projects into expensive condominiums.” This couldn’t be further from the truth, as we later find out that Whitey was bringing in the most drugs and kicking out all the dealers, along with being an FBI informant. However at the time, Whitey was a celebrity and people bragged about having even seen him. His older brother Frankie the boxer was close with him through being such a great fighter. Frankie was known for working hard and for being a gym rat. His days at the gym turn him into a fantastic fighter and he is known throughout Southie as their pride. His other brother Kevin began working for Whitey as a drug dealer. Kevin began started off working as a paper boy but his criminal ways got the best of him and he lied, saying he was robbed of his money and immediately quitting, when in reality he kept all the money in the end and bought drugs to sell with it. He sold the drugs out of his mother’s house, while his other brother Joe (I know it’s a lot of siblings to remember and  I’m almost confusing myself with this blog) began making friends with some black kids. He nearly got his ass kicked for it because segregation was still occurring and so were the violent protests. The drugs that Whitey was bringing into Southie were turning almost every kid into a drug addict. Especially MacDonalds older sister Kathy. She was addicted to Angel Dust.

The politics in the story are a bit confusing but only because it’s overwhelming. MacDonald talks about how people in Southie wanted George Wallace for president because he was the only one paying attention to Southie but in reality he was a racist pig himself. This didn’t stop MacDonald from branching out and found himself at discos with other nationalities, but when push came to shove the racism was still around and he would run to the nearest mob in Southie for protection when it came down to it. Towards the end of the chapter we see racism begin to slowly decrease, but by slowly I mean a snail crawling slow.

Chapter 4: World War III: Southie Style

‘Twas on a dreary Thursday morn’

As the buses rolled along.

They came up on out peaceful town

With orders from The Law:

Desegregate and integrate

Or you will pay the price

Of loss of pride, humility,

And even your children’s lives.

But Southie’s spirit was so strong,

They made us a barrack town.

They took their horses, dogs, and guns

and set them on the crowd.

The TPF, their sticks did crack

On the youth and old alike.

But we united still, our spirits high,

We’ll fight for freedom’s right.

                                               -Helen King

            This poem starts off the fourth chapter, and I feel like it definitely geared me up for the chapter. I thought the third chapter was violent…but man; chapter four was like world war three. It was ridiculous.

            In my very first post I talked about Boston at this time, one of the more prominent points being the 1974 bus riots. When I read about it online it seemed like there was some resistance to it, but nothing too major. The way MacDonald described the riots made it seem like a much bigger deal than I thought. In MacDonald’s neighborhood, people lined the streets waiting for the busses full of black kids to roll through and just as they began to, all hell broke loose. Actually, that’s exactly how MacDonald described it, “Then all hell broke loose”. The crowd was throwing anything they could possibly find at the busses, while the cops tried to stop the crowds from rioting. In one section MacDonald actually made it seem like a war zone, describing the helicopters flying above their apartment buildings at night.

            In another act of rebellion, a bunch of people from MacDonald’s neighborhood got together, put pig heads on a stick and wrote things such as “KILL THE PIGS”, taunting the police. Although I was slightly disturbed by this, I had to wonder…Where does one get mass amounts of pig heads on such short notice? It’s something to think about.

            As I was reading through this, I thought it was obvious that the cops were trying to protect the blacks who were traveling through this neighborhood; however that began to come into question. A black man was killed while going through MacDonald’s neighborhood (he was picking his wife up at the Laundromat), and when MacDonald went by the scene of the crime, he noticed that no evidence was picked up to try and find out who killed him. Even MacDonald wrote that when this happened, he wasn’t sure whose side the cops were on. I was even more confused when the cops went into a white bar (with their badges covered) and started beating people up).

            Unrelated to the riots happening in this chapter, MacDonald’s mother, Helen, (who is now pregnant) had a slightly humorous encounter. One of her ex-boyfriends, who is thought to be the father of her unborn child yet is denying it, was in the hospital. Helen wasn’t pleased with the fact that he was denying her unborn child, so she went to the hospital, ripped out all of his tubes and wires, then started beating him up. I realize that she was completely wrong for doing that, but it was a little funny…you go girl. 

Chapter 4: Fight the Power

As Rosemary points out in her most recent post, the violence is pretty overwhelming – This is especially true in the 4^th chapter of the book. The chapter starts off right away explaining the boycotting of Southie schools. The reason behind it is that black kids are now being allowed to attend the schools and are coming in on busses, right through the streets of Southie. I hope it’s pretty evident at this point that you know Southie is made up of mostly Irish immigrants and their tolerance for any other nationality is slim if not non-existent.  It is expected that everyone knows their place, just as native Southie kids do, and the shock that someone would allow blacks into Southie schools is appalling at the time to these folks. The racism was so bad that people even stopped reading the Globe, calling it a “liberal piece of trash.”

The boycotting begins, and literally no one is going to school. They are all waiting along the side of the road for the black kids to ride by on the busses.  This is where the chapter gets intense. People are chanting “Here we go Southie, Here we go” like it’s a football game. This little eight year old boy at the time is standing there, chanting these words and the only reason he is doing it is because everyone else is too. It’s unbelievable to actually read about a witness’s story, and how easily this racism could have ceased to exist if only the adults had set the right example. MacDonald proclaims “I belted it out, just as a few other kids I didn’t know joined the chorus. The kids in the crowd all looked at each other as if we were family. This is great, I thought. I’d never had such an easy time as this, making friends in Southie” – These few sentences baffle me. Instead of uniting about love, they are uniting over war. It is truly disgusting but it makes the reader crave more.

People carried signs, yelled hateful things, threw rocks at the busses, and riots broke out. The S.W.A.T.  team was eventually was brought in and Southie began to hate the police too. MacDonald almost got hit by a car at one point. Kids were trying to break mounted policeman horses legs with hockey sticks. One guy even held up a KKK sign. It eventually got to the point that the police were beating kids. Teenagers were bold, being chased by officers and throwing pebbles on their heads from rooftops. A Haitian man was beaten and a day after that in retaliation, a white man was attacked by almost 200 black teenagers. Both of them had been passing by and they paid for other peoples racism. People were beaten in bars by police to send a message.

This chapter also involves MacDonald’s mom, who is one tough broad. She knocks someone out while pregnant, and takes her boyfriend to court, stating that he beat her. She is able to escape from a bar fight and feed her family all in the same night. I don’t want MacDonald’s mom to go unnoticed as she is a true testament to what a Southie mother was at the time.

The chapter closes with MacDonald’s older, mentally unstable brother making what could be seen as a crazy statement but it rings so clear and true after reviewing what has been read so far,  “They don’t want you to know what the enemy looks like, so you can end up killing each other, or yourself, in the frenzy. You become your own worst enemy!”