Smokin cigarettes and watching captain Kangeroo

March 1965

'Salud Louie' Pasquale said raising his glass to commemorate the moment. They all drank in unison as he drank as if all sharing in the same sorrow. Louie had gotten pinched in an extortion scheme, but he had done the right thing he didn't rat he didn't give them shit and so he was going away for a few. 'You did the right thing Louie.' Pasquale said as the toast was over. All of Louie's friends and family were there including all of Pasquales crew. Louie sat in the corner after it was all over, aloof withdrawn. Pasquale contemplated going over to him but than thought better of it. Louie was in one of his moods. He was just like that sometimes, woulden't talk much seemed to shy away. There was something off about Louie that Pasquale had noticed from the start. Something about him that just didn't seem to fit in. He would be there at the cardgames and he wouldent say a word just sitting there was an impassive face. Admist all the others bawdy talk and boasting Louie would just sit there and stare. Some of the others in his crew called him 'the rock' because of his impassive face. Still Pasquale understood somehow. There eyes would meet sometimes and they would share a quick moment of understanding. Louie was not cut out for the life. He was born in the wrong time, the wrong age. Pasquale walked through the smoke filled bar to where Louie sat at the end of the bar. 'You alright louie?' He asked. 'Yeah. Just depressed worried about how Dianne and the kids are going to do.' Louie slouched taking a large gulp from the drink in front of him. 'Don't worry Louie all take care of it.' Pasquale said. Take care of it he he had already. Louie's wife had come to him a few months ago wondering what to do about him. She had told him about Louie's depression and how he had told her about contemplating suicide. Pasquale had listened to her concerns but he had also taken advantage of her in her time of weakness. He had slept with a member of his crew's wife. It was an offence which was punishable by death in their life. Pasquale had been destroyed by guilt because of it. It was something he knew he could never live down. 'I am a bad man.' It was the first thing he had told his wife when they got married. She had taken it as a joke but he had been in earnest. Pasquale had told her that so she would know what she was getting into, but now he pondered those words. 'Another round for Louie!' He said to the bartender raising his glass.

I don't give a fuck about jail. This is my business. This is what I do

Pasquale DeCarlo stared into space as the district attorney gave his closing arguments. His face was impassive betraying nothing of concern or sadness or anger or any inkling of his possible feeling. It was a zen like state which he had perfected over the years from dealing with policemen. When they would ask you questions and in the old days beat the shit out of you if you didn't answer. Still Pasquale knew the gist of what the District Attorney was saying. Knew that basically it entaile that he was fucked and bound to go to prison for a very long amount of time. He knew the District Attorney for a long time. As a kid he had been raised in the same neighborhood that Pasquale had run. The District Attorney's father had steered the boy away from Pasquale and his haunts and Pasquale had understood. The father had wanted something better for his son than a life of crime and deceit. Pasquale had even respected this. But for him a life of crime and deceit was the only life imaginable. The state had a good case, well founded, with alot of evidence he had already started to realize this. Just a few years ago it seemed, this whole matter could have been cleared off by paying off the local police department, but times had changed. It was no longer a matter of local police departments but large governmental bodies which had turned they're collective eye towards organized crime. Pasquale pondered to himself wether he thought he had done wrong. In his mind he had done only the things nessacary to mantain and hold unto his power. All of the casualties had had caused as a result of this had been inflicted upon men who knew the rules of the road. Who were a part of the system. He had given the arrested officer nothing but his full name and his mother's adress and that was it. If they were looking for a snitch they had come to the wrong place. He would rather face the longest sentence possible than snitch on his worst enemy. In his mind it was the worst thing a man could possibly be. Pasquale watched as the District Attorney finished his closing arguments. His lawyer stood up and prepared to offer the defense. He knew the effort was most likely fruitless but he had not said this yet to his lawyer. He had wondered sometimes what would happen if someone just came into court on a serious crime and just said 'I am guilty I am a bad man and I deserve this.' Perhaps the honesty itself would floor the jury. It would likely be a long trial Pasquale thought to himself, spanning a long career. He wondered how long it would take and how he had gotten to arrive here..

System's normal all FOULED up!

I remember being a young lad maybe 6 or 8 and I was talking to my mother about Columbus day. I think it was something to the effect of being glad for having the day off from school, which I despised. I remember she replied by telling me about the horrible things the Columbus had actually done to the native's of hispanola the island that he first landed upon. On his second voyage he had brought with him a breed of dogs known as the mastiff to subdue them. The dogs were feared more than the cannons, because they could outrun the cannons, but the dogs were worse. They starved them to make them more bloodthristy. Still it changed my opinion forevermore about Christopher Columbus and what his signifigance is. How history is manipulated by those who interpert it. How this dude who was actually kind of a thug, an asshole, and otherwise sadistic individual came to be venerated enough to have his own day.

Just because your nametag says manager doesn't make you better than me

'I don't know about you, but I am so fuckin sick of this cloak and dagger shit.' Frank said taking a bite of his muffin. 'Its just the way things are nowadays, it ain't like the old days when you could just pay off just pay off officer mick with a few bucks of your take and a fifth of whiskey.' Jimmy looked around their surrounding and could not help himself wishing he had made his way up in the old days. 'Times are not good, I will give you that, but we're still earning.' He took a sip of his coffe. 'I'm earning but I got to look behind my fuckin back every two second to make sure its safe. I'm paranoid I mean whats the use?' They both felt uncomfortable in the booth in the back of the Friendly's. It wasn't their usual type of place, and they stood out like sore thumbs. Two swarthy Italian's with a penchant for using the f-bomb. Already they had raised the eyebrows of severl customer, eyeing them uneasily. 'I just can't tell who's really running the show, we get these random message's from the bogeyman now and again but who really knows, who actually seen the guy?' Jimmy's eyebrowing raised. 'Don't call him that.' He said annoyed. It was the moniker Frank and several other guys in the family called Vito behind his back. He had gone on the lam over two years ago after he had heard about the RICO indictment against and no one had seen him since. Already he had been known for his reclusive ways, he never spoke on the phone and only had one on one meetings with a handful of people. 'What is he going to get me?' Frank said mockingly. Jimmy stared straight ahead attempting to calm his nerves. A few years back he would have gotten up over that booth and proceed to knock Frank teeth in. However the years had tempered him and he kept his cool. Vito had brought him up in the life and had vouched for him. 'Anyhow he wants you to kick up his share to Tommy now.' Frank took a sip of his coffe looking around. 'Sure, I just want to get out of here this place gives me the creeps.'
'

And i'll be over you.

Hal had always hated family gatherings. And the one to come was sure to be a doozy, all manner of aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparent and assorted siblings were due to be there all full of questions. 'Cross-interrogation' he had called it in his mind. The feeling that he needed to explain himself, to justify his existence, as if living on its own were not enough. He stood now in his apartment drinking a beer pondering what it would be like if he were to actually answer honestly to the question of 'what are you up to?' If he were to say 'Yeah actually i'm doing really horribly every day and I wake up every morning really depressed yet I force myself to work. I work a horrible job and on the side I sell weed which manages to compensate for the amount I smoke.' Something to just rock they're world to get them to think twice before they tried that again. Hal knew he was a contenious subject amongest most of his family, the subject of much speculation and myth. Part of it was because he seldom interacted with the vast majority of his extended family and part of it was his introverted nature. He only showed most people a certain portion of his nature until he could feel comfortable with them.