Home for Rachel was always a roller coaster ride. There were times when things were peaceful and almost cheerful for days at a time. Rachel was close to her two younger brothers, Sam and Petey, and very tight with her older sister, Terry. Her mother was sweet and loving, but completely incapable of controlling the chaos her alcoholic husband brought into the household.

Ted McKenna learned how to drink at an early age, and for the first part of his life booze was his friend. It helped him loosen up and chat up the girls, and it gave him the courage he needed when the Polish guys who shared a border with the Irish on the east side of Cleveland would make some slur about how it was too bad all these Micks had moved into town and were stinking up the place.

He loved to tell the story of how this behemoth of a Polack came at him one day in O’Healy’s, and he had the presence of mind to smash the bottom of his beer bottle on the bar and stick it in his fat, round face.

“That big moose was like a giant compared to me,” he would brag, “but he backed down because he seen the look in my eye that I was serious. I musta looked like a crazy guy to him. He ran outta there and never set foot in O’Healy’s again.”

Because Ted was actually a skinny little runt, he usually didn’t fare too well in barroom brawls; when things would erupt, he’d normally hang back. Those stories, though, didn’t often make it home.

Under his roof, however, things were different. Here, Ted was all-powerful, and he could demand strict obedience from his kids and his wife. He saw himself as a benevolent sort of parent, who would give a kid a second chance with the warning “don’t make me take my belt off.” But all too often the kids would push things too far, and Ted would have to take action to keep the little brats in line.