My father's partner in crime around Halloween of 1950 identified in the newspaper as "a diamond gloves boxing champion." That meant he must have been a pretty good boxer, because New Jersey Golden Gloves is a very big thing. 

You can see above that he went pro, or at least semi-pro. He had the kind of shot that my dad probably wished he could have had. But it was dad's own fault. Heck, if he wanted to box, he should have stayed out of trouble. 

I wonder if Tom Wingate and Arnold DeMarzio boxed together. I could see my dad goading him into crime. "C'mon, Arnie. Yeah, you're a hell of a boxer. But don't you want to be a tough guy? Huh? C'mon, Arnie." 

My dad went to jail and DeMarzio didn't, and given how my dad turned out I have little doubt that Tom Wingate was the bad egg, the bad influence. 

But as true as it may be, part of me feels a surge of injustice and gets rankled by this story. The kid from the "good family" gets let out, while the kid from the "bad family" stays in jail. It's a drama that gets played out, usually along race lines, a dozen times a day in every big city in America. 

My dad knew what it was like to be on the other side of that line. Maybe that's why he had a poster of Malcolm X on his writing room wall later in life, when he thought he was getting it all figured out.