Ex-Bulger Henchman Is One Kinky Dude

Eddie Mackenzie – AKA “Eddie Mac” – was born of what he calls “shit stock” in South Boston in 1958, and worked for Whitey Bulger as a heavy during the 1970’s and 1990’s. He appears to have published a book (of sorts) entitled Street Soldier: My Life As an Enforcer for Whitey Bulger and the Boston Irish Mob, and the link below is from a Boston Phoenix interview of the guy, circa 2003.

(Please note – this guy is not the same guy as Kevin Weeks, another Bulger heavy, who wrote the memoir whose short title is Brutal. Both are burly dark-haired, thick-featured, not terribly tall golem types gifted with much native wit – and a violent disposition. I wonder if they've ever attempted to pound each other out over whose book is better.)

I dare you to read this interview without coming away with the impression that a neon sign spelling “PSYCHOSEXUAL TRAIN WRECK” hovers perpetually above this guy’s head. Consider the following excerpts:

1) In regards to starting his life of violence: "At the age of nine, when I was bent over and sodomized, that started my life, that planted the predatory seed."

2) Consider one of his, ahem, funny stories: "Once I smashed a guy’s leg in half, beating his fucking brains out… I got this raging hard-on, man, I’m about to ejaculate. I grab my friend who was with me and say, ‘Dude, I’m hard as a rock!’ We were both laughing."

3) His apparent response to being in a police interrogation room: “If he wants to tell you about the time he shot his wad all over a two-way mirror, he will — unapologetically, maybe even gleefully.”

4) Not surprisingly, he admits to the following: “There are a couple of politically sensitive moments in the book — one a gay-bashing incident, the other an instance of violent racism — that are recounted with something approaching embarrassment…”

Of course, he boasts about his innumerable female conquests, about the wealth he acquired as a top hoodlum, how he may have, uh, bumped off the guy who raped him when he was a kid... However, he does admit that he has made a great effort to go straight (so to speak) from his violent instincts, which are always there: “This goes with me my whole life,” he says. “This is almost like AA — there should be a Predators Anonymous."

By 2003, he has become a U. Mass. Boston grad, a proud father of young girls, a published author and a man gainfully employed in the construction industry. He also likes to lecture at schools and colleges, so he can warn the young against falling into a life of crime. I say that’s fine – so long as he stays out of their locker rooms. And I’d be very curious to know how he’s faring eight years later.

Divorced from the mob (Boston Phoenix)