Hoffa

William Heath

Hoffa!—a name like a shout.

A working stiff, he’d rather settle matters with his fists. “Do unto others— first” was his motto. He had a surly, truculent grandeur—shoving a grapefruit into a dame’s face ala James Cagney his opening gambit. A tough guy straight off the loading docks, he took on the Kennedys like

John Henry vs. the steam hammer. Before his birth an Indiana doctor thought his mother had a tumor, hence his ugly nickname as a kid.

When the family moved to Detroit, at Fisher Body he polished radiator caps.

For his first strike as a Teamster the men refused to load strawberries: negotiate, they said, or watch them rot. Back in those days 31

cops smacked you upside the head

just for talking union. He told his local his job was to get working men top dollar, not to throw no picnics.

He wore white socks, snored at the opera, but didn’t run around on his wife Josephine; the one time he danced, his daughter’s wedding.

No cussing at home, the union hall something else, his lips twitched saying “sonofabitch,”—he made no

idle threats. A stand-up guy, he beat rap after rap but never shoulda bad-mouthed Bobby or gone to that restaurant to meet Tony Jack and Tony Pro. Everybody kept asking where Jimmy was buried, no one assumed he’d ascended into heaven. Yet “Hoffa” shouted loud enough is not an empty sound.