The Boathouse Row Murder

Chapter 5 

“Forty acres and a mule? Forty acres and a fool.”

Tupac Shakur

“I got it! Got’damn, Latrice. I got it.”

     Dancing around the room holding above his head a letter in one hand, an envelope in the other, Treyvon Williams couldn’t have been more excited. At twenty-two, he was as ambitious as anyone could be in looking to build a career and pull himself out of the urban blight that had trapped his family in a rundown section of west Philadelphia. Most people he knew had abandoned any hope of rising any higher than their parents or grandparents, that is if they ever had hope to begin with. Horatio Alger be damned. George Jefferson too. “Ain’t no ‘movin’ on up’ in this hood,” Trey’s grandfather once said. “Sheeit. Don’ matter how hard you work, boy. Ya cain’t ne’r get ahead.”

     If everything around him supported that notion, Treyvon had different ideas. Maybe he was naïve—stupid, some said—but he had harbored a fantasy since childhood of growing up to be somebody. Exactly what, he didn’t know: doctor, lawyer, architect… didn’t matter, just so long as he didn’t piss away his life in some broken down, God-forsaken hood.

     “You hear me, girl?” he repeated. “I got it. I fuckin’ got in.” He threw his arms around her, picked her up and swung her around in a full circle.

     Latrice pushed away and yanked the paper from his hand. It was from the University of Pennsylvania. She held the letter out in front of her, and as she read, her mouth opened in a blend of awe, surprise, admiration and everything in between.

     “Read it to me, boo. Out loud.” Treyvon commanded with a grin. Anyone might have thought him on drugs, he felt so high.

     Latrice looked from the outstretched paper over to Trey and then back again. She had been with Treyvon through thick and thin and had seen his face change in so many ways as he addressed a variety of situations—exams, job stress, financial challenges, street violence, even the death of his father. She reflected on happy moments that etched those vibrant smile lines into the sides of his eye sockets. And if she allowed her mind to wander, Latrice might blush in recalling Trey’s facial contortions at the apex of their lovemaking. The many faces of Trey. But nothing she had witnessed to date reflected the fulfillment splayed all over his face in this one exalted moment.

     “I want to hear it. Out of your mouth.”

     So Latrice began reading. She paused after almost every sentence to look at him, to capture the radiance on his face.

Dear Mr. Williams,

On behalf of the admissions committee of the Wharton MBA program for executives, it gives me great pleasure to inform you that you have been admitted to the class beginning on June 2, 2018. In addition, we are delighted to offer you a Howard E.Wainwright Fellowship which will provide full-tuition, leadership programming, and the facility to join a large network of other Wainwright fellows and alumni. You were selected because of your outstanding accomplishments and demonstrated potential for continued success. Congratulations.

We look forward to welcoming you into the Wharton School, a collaborative community and Powerful Global Network that will impact you professionally and personally throughout your life. We're certain that you will find the next two years of enrollment in the program to be both exhilarating and extremely rewarding.

     By the time she finished, Latrice’s eyes were full of tears. She knew how much this meant to Trey, how hard he had worked throughout his young life to reach this pinnacle. She put her arms around him, took a moment to stare into his eyes, then kissed him. “Congratulations, brother. You fucking got it,” she said, parroting his original statement.

     They gazed into one another’s eyes. “I ain’t your brother,” Treyvon said. He grasped the sides of her head with both hands, pulled her close and kissed her. Then, as if to accentuate the point, he clamped onto her butt, giving it a firm squeeze. She squealed, and they both laughed.

     Latrice Robinson had been his girlfriend since they first met in their sophomore year at Eastern, a small Christian college out on Philadelphia’s suburbs. Both were from the inner city making it only natural that they might have connected on a campus that was ninety percent white. Both went on to graduate: she with a bachelor’s in nursing, him a degree in business management. Their schooling hadn’t been easy. Money was tight and the commute in and out of the city, especially with part-time jobs, complicated things in ways that the majority of their classmates could never imagine. That never dampened Treyvon’s motivation. If anything, it simply added to it. All throughout his undergrad years, there had never been any question about his desire to pursue an advanced degree. But UPenn? Well, that felt like reaching for the stars.

     He and Latrice were more than college sweethearts. They had often talked of marriage but had decided to postpone any commitment until they felt settled in their respective careers. For Latrice, that came quickly. With a newly minted nursing certificate, she had no difficulty in securing a full-time position at Lankenau Hospital. It was only a ten-minute drive from their one room apartment near West Thompson and 50th Street. There the rent was affordable—barely— but the tradeoff was crime, drug-slinging, and the usual in urban neglect. Treyvon had been employed part-time at the McDonalds over on North Broad since mid-way through his junior year and following graduation had been promoted to assistant manager. He knew he wasn’t going to stay there, but it was a solid introduction, a springboard he felt, to the world of business. For him and Latrice, this was a start, another step in the long path leading to their aspirations—meaningful because it was one taken not only by so few of their peers, but one virtually unknown to past generations in

their respective families.

     Treyvon’s parents, for example, had been married for almost twenty-five years, which was a virtual record in a culture where so many of Trey’s friends had grown up without a father. Fatherless families were by and large products of divorce, incarceration, or death, which often came in the form of a drug overdose or being killed, be it by rival gangs or police. Without a father’s income, living standards went from bad to worse. Trey was fortunate to have an intact family, but even there, work opportunities for his parents were lackluster and unpredictable.

     All throughout his upbringing, his mother, Tammy, traveled four days a week to Philadelphia’s affluent Main Line where she split her time between two well-to-do families. Whatever she brought in was marginal and offset by commuting costs and travel time. Much of the time she could have been working (and making money) was instead taken up by riding the train. And then there were the indignities too numerous to mention that African American women like her have long endured when journeying through aristocratic white communities.   

     Trey’s father, Marcus, told a similar story. Following years of erratic employment, he secured a janitorial position at the prestigious William Penn Charter School, an elite feeder to coveted colleges and universities where the overwhelming majority of kids were from well-connected white families. The job didn’t pay much and, with limited benefits, it offered no advancement potential. The faculty and students tended to be aloof leaving no doubt that he was on the bottom rung of the social ladder. The job itself was stable, which put food on the table, yet there was always the looming possibility that he could be let go at a moment’s notice. That’s just the way it was.

     For Tammy and Marcus, working in Philadelphia’s posh suburbs was a daily reminder of the profound disparities between white privilege and urban blight. Finely manicured lawns, quiet tree-lined streets, well-appointed colonials, circular driveways edged in colorful rhododendrons and azaleas, and all within spitting distance of ice rinks, parks, and an assortment of boutique hair salons, fitness centers and upscale grocery stores. These were the gentrified standards of the outlying establishment.

     The inner-city, in contrast, involved concentric zones ranging from well-kept neighborhoods  to areas faring little better than the walled-off ghettos of Nazi-occupied Warsaw or Krakow. One need look no farther than Kensington to illustrate the worst of Philly’s slums. Vacant lots interrupt a monotonous landscape of cracked and faded brick, telling tales of gas explosions or fires or the city’s dispassionate wrecking ball. Throngs of zombies shuffle aimlessly along sidewalks, bumping into anything and everything in their path. More than a few stand like statues, motionless and without cognizance of where they are or where they’re going. Many are bent over at the waist, catatonic, unable to walk at all, while others sprawl wherever they drop: the curb, a doorway, even the middle of the sidewalk where people simply walk around them as if avoiding a pile of dog shit. Drugs like heroin, meth, fentanyl, and xylazine are openly consumed: smoked, snorted and injected with utter impunity.  Street upon street of run-down row houses marked by peeling paint, broken balusters, doors boarded in plywood, and dazed inhabitants huddled three and four-deep on narrow door stoops. Abandoned buildings host rats so numerous and so big as to scare the piss out of any squatter or needle-freak ambling in close proximity. Most are too stoned to pay attention.

     Folks like the Williams were as desensitized as anyone to the sights and smells around them, enabling them to ignore the bars and liquor stores that attached to the streets like plaque deposits sticking to a blood vessel. They took a blind eye to the discarded rubbish swirling in dirt devils on the sidewalks. And there was graffiti, bold and ubiquitous, announcing the dominant gangs, erstwhile love affairs, or just the call name of the itinerant Michelangelo. Few buildings went unmolested. Even the buses, the trucks and el trains regaled in the same tasteless artistry. To most, it was eyesore, haphazard scribble devoid of hope or inspiration, and certainly none of it was political. Politics would suggest possibility; here there was none. Even the air, acrid with exhaust and effluent, had a heaviness pierced by the occasional shrill of sirens or intermittent gunshots ringing out at all hours of the day and night. Nothing ever changes, really. That’s just the way it is.

     Marcus and Tammy may have struggled with the adversities that cut across generations of black inner city families, but they aspired to more, if not for themselves, then unquestionably for their son. Religion was central to that dream. Philadelphia was home to churches of every faith and denomination. If nowhere else, it was through one’s place of worship that the faithful found a raison d'être to navigate the murky waters of deprivation and suffering. For the Williams, their beacon came courtesy of Calvary Hill, the local Baptist church where they had worshipped long before their son was born.

     Their pastor, Reverend Lewis Cantwell—a fit, educated man in his mid-forties—had taken a special interest in Treyvon from the outset, baptizing the youngster when he turned eight. Trey attended Sunday school, sang with the choir, and became an acolyte at age eleven. In early adolescence he would often begin the service with a consensual prayer, occasionally leading a responsive reading. He saw his life being directed by God and believed it was through Him that he would eventually represent the black community with intelligence, courage, and integrity.

     The church, as important as it was, had not been Treyvon’s only motivation. His father, Marcus, had attended Overbrook High School back in the late fifties. One of his classmates, someone Marcus only knew from a distance, was Guion Bluford whose storied career included, among a host of laudable accomplishments, becoming a NASA astronaut. He was but one of only two African Americans to ever achieve that distinction. Marcus himself never graduated, figuring at the time his best opportunities lay with the Army. Vietnam, especially the Tet offensive, was to prove that theory wrong, yet Marcus survived and was forever in awe of Bluford’s stellar career. He made it clear to Trey from day one that with commitment and dedication, he could accomplish whatever he set his mind to. Just like Bluford.

      Trey believed him. He too was going to become a legacy at Overbrook. Intelligence alone, though, wouldn’t be sufficient. Growing up in one of Philly’s tougher neighborhoods, Trey would need to learn how to take care of himself. Marcus knew that from his own childhood. His father had been in federal prison from the time Marcus was around four, and with his mother struggling to care for him, he was sent to live with his grandmother for several of his formative years. She resided in the slums of North Philly where gang-bangin’ and street fights made it nothing less than a combat zone. School was a joke. Fistfights, knifings, and shootings were as much a part of the school experience as any book or class lecture. In his district, even the teachers were victimized. Which meant that after a few beatings, the young Marcus had to learn how to use his fists. “Survival of the fittest,” he’d say. That’s the way it was. His mother eventually remarried, which enabled Marcus to return to Overbrook. The school system there, while still tough, was better, but not enough to purge him of the warrior mentality.

     “Looking back,” he once told Trey, “…what I had to deal with maybe weren’t a bad thing. Probably helped me make it thu ‘Nam, know what I’m sayin’. Sheeit. Not like them muthafuckin’ white boys I humped thu’da jungle with. Man, the only shit they ever seen go down was what, the Lone Ranger tiein’ up some fat ass bank robber?”  

     Point was, Trey’s father never questioned the importance of physical fitness, and he was damn sure determined to pass his skills on to his son.

     Reverend Cantwell, for all his hoopla about walking with Jesus, was nevertheless of the same mind. A native Philadelphian and no stranger to street violence, Cantwell touted what he called “a trinity of physical, mental and spiritual conditioning.” And those weren’t empty words. Cantwell had his first calling not in church, but in the boxing ring, even competing for Golden Gloves in Madison Square Garden. He won eleven of his twelve amateur fights, including seven by knockout. His path to the ministry came later, yet he never repudiated his pugilistic background much less his involvement with Joe Frazier over at the old gym on North Broad.

     “Joe had so many groupies, he probably wouldn’t remember me,” Cantwell said. “But man, I learned a lot bein’ around him and gettin’ a chance to spar with a couple of his trainers.”

     Pastor Cantwell had found it gratifying to see how involved Marcus was with his son. He was equally honored to function as a co-participant. The pastor had a small gym in the basement of the church, which was open to the congregation in exchange for a couple hours of work per month to keep the place clean and orderly. It gave kids an alternative to hanging out on the streets and, according to Cantwell, was the perfect complement to his blessed trinity. Trey became a regular, his life a merry-go-round of school, family, church, and gym. He jogged, lifted weights, and worked the heavy bag. On top of that, Cantwell provided headgear and gloves for any kid interested in boxing, which the young Treyvon was.

     And he was a quick study. Where his father had more of a brawling style highlighted by strong punches but with little finesse and slow mobility, Cantwell was fast on his feet, uncommonly focused, and patient like a cat waiting to spring. When an opening presented itself, he’d pounce with a devastating blur of combinations. Both men had something to offer their impressionable student, and through them Trey developed speed, coordination, and confidence. Clad in boxing mitts, Marcus would rotate his hands out front, up high, to the side, while Trey would attack them with jabs, hooks, and upper cuts. He developed the markings of a true fighter, yet he seemed to have one feature that distinguished him from so many others learning the trade: humility. His identity wasn’t wrapped up in being the local bad-ass. And going along with this, he downplayed the “warrior mentality” of street fighters looking to boost their rep. Boxing for him was all about cultivating confidence, meaning that despite his skills, he would rather walk away from a confrontation than provoke one.

     The self-discipline integral to his training carried over to his education. And as he got into his teens, he watched from the sidelines as classmates joined gangs and brothers made their coin moving drugs. Sure, he put in work, but it was legit work: bagging groceries, stocking shelves, and summer jobs at the local car wash.

     Even with all he was doing, Treyvon always made time for studying. “Knowledge is power,” Reverend Cantwell told him, and if he aspired to make something of himself, he needed education: the more, the better. Where other kids played or watched TV, Treyvon read—copiously. Not just the assigned textbooks, but celebrated works as well: Hemingway, Salinger, Steinbeck and Melville. He needed to know what the white kids were reading, as if their books bestowed a certain magic, a springboard to success. If he was to make it in white society, he had to be conversant with what they read. Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird was particularly powerful and prompted a journey into the worlds of Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Alex Haley, Malcolm X, and a host of others. Learning about white history was one thing; understanding it from a black perspective was crucial.

     Somewhere along the line, the word “professional” entered his vernacular. It had a ring to it and soon became a mantra. “I’m gonna be a professional,” he’d say to himself, coupled with visions of him in a snappy dark suit, briefcase at his side, making his way to some center-city, corporate office. Too early to speculate on a specific career; that would come in time. Mentally, the most important thing was to override any adversity —a less-than-stellar grade, an embarrassing performance on the ball court, a rejection from a cute girl—with the self-styled mantra that would ultimately get him out of the slums.

     He became a top student at Overbrook, making National Honor Society, being selected for Who's Who Among American High School Students, and eventually accepting a scholarship at a small liberal arts school out on Philly’s Main Line. There he starred in basketball, majored in business, and, despite the school being mostly white, made friends easily. If nothing else, it reinforced his fantasy of life in the suburbs: a good job, a house, a family, two cars, maybe even a club membership; yeah, the whole nine yards.

     But it wouldn’t be easy; he knew that. Wouldn’t be like the white boys he knew who could sleep their way through school, party their way through adolescence, flout with the law, and still come out on top. Meaning college degrees and good jobs. Black may be beautiful, Treyvon thought, conjuring Stokely Carmichael from back in the sixties, but it sure ain’t no ticket to genteel society. No, he’d have to work, and work hard. He knew that. Become even better than the white gentry he’d be competing with, or he’d never be recognized. That was his mantra. That was what kept him And he did. become a long way from those challenging days at West Philadelphia high school where he walked a tightrope between academic study and avoiding recruitment in the 61st and Jefferson gang. He grew up in what some would call a combat zone, where he, like all local residents, was accustomed to gunshots at all hours of the day. Were it not for a math teacher who recognized Treyvon’s high intellect, he most likely would be on the street corner, gang bangin’, selling drugs or, worse, locked up with so many of the brothers in his hood.

Chapter 6

It was 2:10. Johnnie was fifteen minutes late. Adrian picked up the phone to call him, which went straight to voice-mail. Just as he began to record a message, Adrian heard the door to the waiting room squeak open. He walked over to his door, still speaking into the phone, and saw his patient. He clicked off the phone.

     “Johnnie. Come on in.”

     Johnnie was entirely nonchalant as he entered the office. No apologies, no excuses, just very matter of fact. He dropped a bag from McDonalds on the couch as he sat down next to it.

     “You’re late, man” Adrian began. “I was just calling you.”

     “Oh yeah? What can I say? Fuckin’ traffic. Lucky I made it at all.”

     “Yeah, well. Call me if you’re going to be late. Have a seat.” The two of them got settled; Johnnie on the couch, Adrian in the swivel chair.

     “You mind if I eat?” Johnnie asked, pulling a burger from the bag.

     “No, go ahead,” Adrian said. He didn’t appear too enthusiastic about it but decided not to make it an issue. Instead, he took a quick glance at the notes in his lap and, still looking down, said, “You told me about your mother last time. I’m wondering what happened to you following her death.”

     Johnnie smirked. “Hard to say. Kinda went from bad to worse. My father… if you want to call him that; I prefer to think of him as a low-life sperm donor… anyways, my father was contacted. I don’t know how, but somebody got ahold of him. It was like a week later.”

     Johnnie took a humongous bite of the hamburger, then munched for several seconds. When he resumed talking, his mouth was still partially full.

     “Yeah, so the old man was living in a rundown tenement down by the docks. It was right next to I-95. All we heard, day and night, was traffic. Took me a long time before I could sleep through that.” He took another bite. “Fuckin’ rat city, too. I remember seeing my first rat there. Scared the shit outta me. You couldn’t walk down to the basement without seeing them. When my father found out I was scared, he made me go down there all the time to get things.”

     “Like what?”

     Johnnie wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “This’ll probably freak you out, but it was stuff he stole. Radios, turntables, TV’s, heaters… all sortsa shit. Anything he could fence. He even stole a dog once, some fancy-ass poodle. I saw him do it. Yanked it away from rich-bitch woman. Thought it would bring a lot of cash. It didn’t. He shoulda gone for her pocketbook instead.”

     “So what happened to the dog?”

     “He couldn’t get rid of it, so we had to let it go. Fuckin’ mutt weren’t even housebroke… shittin’ all over the apartment. And he made me clean it up.”

     Adrian dropped a paper on the floor. As he bent down to retrieve it, he said, “Sounds… pretty stressful.” He replaced the paper on top of his file and sat back in his chair, which emitted an irritating squeak. “So shifting gears, John, I had read in the referral information that you spent a lot of time at…” Adrian shuffled the papers in his lap. “… at Saint Ignatius. A Catholic school, right?”

     “Yeah, don’t remind me. It weren’t no picnic.”

     “How’d you end up there?”

     “You want the short version, or the long one?”

     “Whatever version you want to give me,” Adrian replied.

     Johnnie settled back in the couch, looked at his fingernails as if they held some guarded secret. He put thumb to his mouth and chewed at the cuticle before looking back at Adrian.  

     “Alright, man. First let me tell you what it was like living with Sal.”    

     “Sal?” Adrian asked.

     “Yeah, Salvatore Valentino. He told me to call him Sal, never “Dad.” And he didn’t act like no dad. At one time, he may have been Theresa’s boyfriend, but he damn sure weren’t no valentine. More like a fuck-buddy. Theresa had once told me that in learning of her pregnancy, Sal told her to take care of it. But, he never came up with any scratch for an abortion. Her problem, not his, which pretty much explains how I came to be. She saw him only rarely after that which may have been a blessing.”

     “How’s that?”

     Johnnie sucked a long sip from his coke until the straw made gurgling sounds at the bottom. He went on to tell me that in addition to stealing, Sal had been loosely connected with the Philly mob… “at least for a while. Never amounted to much more than running numbers and shit. He was a wannabee, always sucking up, trying to become one of them. Years later, I heard from Giuseppe, a wiseguy who knew my father, that Angelo Bruno—you know, the head of mob at the time…” Adrian nodded. “… he called my father ‘dumber’n a shit-house rat.’ Those exact words. You believe that? Said it to his face. Which of course meant that Sal would never go anywhere in the syndicate.” As if to accentuate the story, Johnnie let out an unrestrained belch. “Scuse me,” he said, showing no indication he really gave a shit.

     Johnnie also learned that his father had a reputation for screwing things up. Which included saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. One event stood out clearly in his memory even though he was only about ten at the time. His father had driven to a bar in South Philly, apparently a favorite mob haunt, and told Johnnie to wait in the car. That wasn’t unusual. Oftentimes he’d wait so long outside a bar that he’d fall asleep in the car. Not on this night, which he remembers vividly. What went down was Sal getting into a beef with Nicky Scarfo, the mob’s rising star back in the seventies.

     “He should’a known better,” Johnnie said. “Scarfo was one tough little dago…” Stroking his chin, Johnnie described Scarfo as a made man who, aside from being a shot-caller for Bruno’s crews, had a brief, though storied, career as an amateur boxer. “Guy who didn’t take shit from nobody, and if you didn’t believe that, well, let’s just say people who challenged him were likely to find themselves looking up from the other side of the grass.”

     “So the way I remember it, the old man was shitfaced at the time—no surprise there. Apparently, he’d been yukkin’ it up inside with a couple of wiseguys when he made a stupid comment, something like ‘Scarfo can be a little prick.’ One of Scarfo’s buddies at a nearby table heard it, which of course got to Nicky, who was in the tavern at the time. When my father stumbled outtta the bar, there was Nicky and two of his goombahs. I watched the whole thing. Scarfo said, ‘You got sumpn’ to say to me, fat man?’ I remember seeing his cigarette dangling from his mouth, like bouncing up and down with each word he said. The old man may have been plastered, but you get face-to-face with the boss, you sober up quick.  My father tried to sound all calm and shit, like they were best buddies. Said something like, ‘Hey Nicky. Paisan! How you doin’?’ and walked forward, holding out his hand like he wanted to shake. Scarfo weren’t buyin’. He hocked up a loogie and spit on Sal’s hand. ‘You call me a prick, Sal?’ The ol’ man must’a known the jig was up. He stopped dead in his tracks, glanced at his hand, shook it, then wiped it on his pants. ‘Fuck you tawkin’ ‘bout, Nicky?’ Scarfo walked up to within an inch or two of Sal’s face. ‘Fuck I’m tawkin’ about? I heard you called me a prick. That right, motherfucker?’”

     Adrian didn’t know whether to laugh or roll his eyes. “You can actually remember those words? This is starting to sound like a sequel to Scarface.” Adrian was trying to sort out how much of Johnnie’s story he could take at face value. If the story had kernals of truth, it was probably embellished. 

     “I can’t say that everything I tell you is exactly the way it went down. I mean, shit, I was only ten and, I mean think about it, I’ve replayed the scene hundreds of times in my mind. So yeah, I’m sure some of what comes to mind may not be a hundred percent, but dude, I’m telling you how I think it happened. You don’t believe me, that’s on you.” Johnnie had an edge to his voice, like he was being challenged. He sat back and cocked his chin up, signaling that the ball was in Adrian’s court.

     Adrian put his hands up. “Hey, I’m not doubting you. I’m just amazed at how much you remember.”

     “Yeah well, you gotta realize, Doc, that incident was a major happening for a kid… changed my whole fucking life. Not the type of stuff you forget, not easily anyway.”

     “I’m getting that, Johnnie. Go on.”

     Score one for Johnnie. He settled back. “Okay. So my father had to know he was in for an ass-whupping if he didn’t say the right thing. So he says somethin’ like,’ Whoa, Nicky. You got it wrong, man. I don’t know what you were told, but…’

     “Scarfo cuts him off. Says, ‘Oh, I got it wrong?’ Then he looks at the two goons on each side of him. ‘This pompinara says I got it wrong, fellas. You believe that?’ His guys don’t say nothing. Just smirked.”

     Johnnie looks at me. “You know Italian?”

     I shook my head.

     “He was calling my ol’ man a cocksucker. Then he takes a quick drag from his cigarette, flicks it to the sidewalk, and says, ‘So now you callin’ me stupid, Sal? First, I’m a prick, now I’m stupid; is that it?’ That’s when the shit hit the fan. He slammed the palm of his right hand against Sal’s left shoulder, which with him being polluted, knocks him off balance. Then says, ‘What the fuck I do to earn your disrespect? Huh, coglione?’ My father was like, ‘Nicky, c’mon man. That wasn’t what I meant. I was telling the guys …’ ‘You was tellin’ ‘em what? Huh, cocksucker? You’re so fulla shit, your eyes are brown.’

     “That was Sal’s last chance. No one called Nicky Scarfo a prick, even in jest, and got away with it. The old man attempted to put his hand on Scarfo’s shoulder, you know, like in camaraderie. Started whining, like ‘Nicky, c’mon. I got no beef with you. Let’s talk, man. Buy you a beer.’ Scarfo’s like,’Bafangu chooch!’ and with that knocks Sal’s arm away.

     “The whole thing was pretty much over before it started. Scarfo put my father on his ass in a matter of seconds. All I could do was watch. He followed up with a barrage of kicks… to Sal’s face, his legs, torso- anywhere Scarfo saw an opening. Sal put up no defense, and good thing he didn’t. Would’ve taken a dirt nap, for sure. As it was, he wound up in Jefferson with a bunch of shit. Cracked ribs, ruptured spleen, broken nose, fractured jaw…God knows what else. He was a hurtin’ unit.”

     Evidently, a small amount of coke was found on Sal at the hospital, which, being reportable, got the cops involved. They got a search warrant for his apartment and turned up stolen merchandise as well as stashes of drugs.

     “So basically, he was arrested and I went into state custody. That’s all she wrote.” He unwrapped two sticks of gum which he stuffed in his mouth. “You want one?”

     Adrian shook his head, as he jotted some notes into the file on his lap. He looked up and asked, “So what happened to you?”

     “Ah, the million dollar question. What happened to me was I got placed at Saint Ignatius. Under the blessed care of God-fearing nuns and priests. A true fucking sanctuary. You got time? It’s kind of a long story.” Johnnie chomped away on his gum.

     Adrian looked at his watch. “Actually, we got off to a late start. Why don’t we hold it here ‘til next time.”

     “Suit yourself,” Johnnie said as he blew a generous bubble with his gum. It popped with a loud snap, leaving Adrian wondering if the mist left in its wake was somehow symbolic. Of what would remain to be seen.