“I don’t believe it,’’ said Dan Rull, 36, a South Boston native as he shook his head and quickly read that the legendary flight of James “Whitey’’ Bulger had come to an end Wednesday night in California.
“He was gone for so long,’’ said Rull who, like many on these streets where Bulger rose to power, never believed he would be caught. “I thought the feds dumped him themselves.’’
Indeed, the two dominant schools of thought in the neighborhood were that Bulger was either dead or that authorities did not actually want to find him for fear that he would reveal damaging details about his years as an FBI informant.
Now that Bulger and longtime companion Catherine Greig are in federal custody, the talk in Southie turned quickly to an equally enigmatic question: What does this mean?
In the saga of Whitey Bulger, the line between reality and mythology has long been blurred. “He was kind of like Robin Hood back then,’’ said Rull, who remembers growing up when Bulger had a mystique bordering on celebrity.
“But that was before you knew about all the [expletive],’’ he added.
Many bought into the idea of Bulger as protector of the neighborhood, and the aura has held, even after the sordid details of his alleged role in 19 slayings have come to light in his absence.
“He protected the town,’’ Jackie O’Brien, who owns one of the funeral homes in the neighborhood, said as he sat in front of the Murphy Memorial Rink along Pleasure Bay. “He kept the drugs out of the neighborhood,’’ he added, echoing a common belief about Bulger, despite evidence that he profited by shaking down drug dealers.
In a market on Dorchester Street, one resident, who declined to give her name, said it was hard to fault a man who was willing to hustle to make a buck.
“He was a mobster, but so what?’’ she said. “Everybody’s got an occupation.’’
In the Mary Ellen McCormack housing development, where Bulger and his brother, former Massachusetts Senate president William Bulger, grew up, one resident remembers Whitey Bulger being a “wonderful neighbor.’’
