The little people in Boston--the garage attendants, janitors, longshoremen and city employees--like the Dap's style and feed him information as well as votes. He knew a teacher had been attacked in Hyde Park High School before School Superintendent Marion Fahey did. The workers at Dorchester District Court sent him an anonymous letter alleging improprieties that made the presiding judge call O'Neil nervously to explain. He claims to know every Boston cop by his first or last name, which is how he discovered that 14 city tow trucks bought, insured and registered over two years ago have never been used. He brags, "I got a dossier on every son of a bitch in this city."

Like many publicity hungry Boston politicians, he was a leader of the anti-busing movement. Blaming all of the city's problems on busing, whether the issue is economic, political or educational, O'Neil was always at the head of the protest rallies and marches, stirring up the crowd and gaining votes.

WHILE HE RILES against the Boston press as "maggots," he likes reporters and blames only editors for his troubles. "Nobody wants to print the fuckin' truth," he says. Although they had never met, Dapper had an ongoing feud with the elegant Boston Globe columnist, the late George Frazier '32. "He's where he belongs," O'Neil says. "I pissed on his grave one night...sure, I was sober.... He was a fag with that fuckin' flower."

A bachelor, Dapper humorously flirts with most of the white women he meets, including Wallace's sister-in-law. He seems preoccupied with homosexuals and black women, often commenting on their looks or just impolitely staring, saying "that black cunt" or "There goes a big red mama."

Dapper's mentality is like that of any good Roxbury Memorial High football lineman: he sees himself pitted against the world, fighting hard. "When I get someone by the fuckin' throat, I never let go." But to whites with a Boston accent and preferably a blue-collar background, he can be crudely pleasant, almost charismatic. Extremely friendly and accessible. O'Neil is as close to a Ralph Cramden as he is to an Archie Bunker.

This elected prankster is not unique in the city. School Committeewoman Elvira "Pixie" Palladino ("She's got balls," Dapper says) achieved her notoriety by slugging Ted Kennedy at an anti-busing protest rally. There are plenty of clowns at places like Whitey McGrail's and Kelly's Tavern who help make the beers go down more pleasantly. By a series of accidents, the media and voters have launched O'Neil into perpetual orbit. A politician who cannot mobilize support, cultivate influence or avoid social solecisms, he was spawned by the social, political and economic problems that trouble the frightened white urban working class. As Barney Frank explained. "He's one of the prices we have to pay for busing."