A buddy in college — let’s call him Junior Gotti — envisioned himself being a mobster one day.
His inclination to big-time crime arose sometime in high school when he read about the Mafia, Lucky Luciano’s gift to American law enforcement at the highest level.
In idle time when several of us frequented Drenick’s Friendly Tavern to sip a brew or two — all we could afford — he would go on about how someday he would be rich beyond our wildest dreams. I suspect he didn’t make it, but I don’t know.
Someplace on the outskirts of town he found an old Hudson, dark gray and with suicide doors on the rear passenger compartment — those with hinges on the back sides. We’d ride around in the boat, pitching about as if we were at sea because the shock absorbers were shot like most of the rest of the car.
After quitting the tavern along toward dark we’d pile into the Hudson, hunkered down so we just could see out, and drive slowly around Pittsburg.
We’d pass a patrol car, Junior imagining we were being watched. Instead, the cops probably were having a good laugh, watching the bluish-gray smoke stream from the exhaust, a sure sign the car was burning about as much oil as gasoline.
I never was taken by the Mafia bit, but indulged my friend as he talked of schemes to rip off folks. None ever went beyond the talking stage, as far as I know.
However, there was a night.
A red light came on behind the car, and my friend suddenly became very contrite. “I’m caught with nowhere to go,” was the look on his face.
The young cop swaggered up to the driver’s side window, smirked a little and announced: “Do you know your right front headlight is burned out?”
“Why, no officer,” my favorite wanna-be replied in a smaller voice than usual. “Drive home slowly and get it fixed,” the officer admonished.
As luck would have it, we knew where another Hudson of about the same vintage was parked near the college. On the way back to our dorm we swung by. It was parked in front of a bungalow, lights out.
Our young hoodlum stopped half a block away, hopped out and in short order was back with a headlight.
Back at the dorm he made the switch and we were good to go.
A far cry from smuggling drugs or fixing contracts, but it was a notch in my buddy’s life of crime.
At Week’s End: Beginning a life of crime
