A Mafia Message

     

   

           When I started working, I was still living in East Harlem and things hadn't changed much there. After dinner I'd meet my friend Ruby and we’d walk over a couple of blocks to the Colonial Tea Room for a coffee or maybe a soda. Ruby had a girlfriend in school and she and her brother Teddy would with sit with us sometimes. Teddy was a nice looking boy, with a big smile and curly dark hair. One night he told us that he was making a lot of money and had bought a brand new car. “How many seventeen-year-olds do you know with a brand new car?” he bragged. He told us all he had to do was pick up a package from the west side and deliver it. As innocent as we were, Ruby and I knew the package was probably drugs. We begged him not to do it anymore…it wasn't worth it, no matter how much he was paid. Of course he ignored us and we later heard he was picked up and arrested.

          Teddy told us how the police had showed him photos of children hooked on drugs. It really shook him up and eventually he gave the police the names of the people he worked for. Of course these people found out what he did and soon after Teddy was killed in a candy store. We heard rumors that they dumped his body somewhere in the Bronx. “Remember that curly hair he had,” one of the “old-timers” told us. “Well, it’s all gone now…the rats ate it!”

          Unfortunately young men will always be tempted by the idea of making lots of money the easy way.  Across the street from us lived a young man nicknamed Blondie because his hair was so light. He loved to go to the Boys Club to play handball, as did a lot of the guys in the neighborhood.  I remember him once telling me enthusiastically how great my Uncle Eddie was at the game. I guess it was hard for him to take care of his large family in a small East Harlem apartment. Blondie also got involved with the drug runners. I don’t remember exactly what his job was, but I know he was responsible for handling the money. It was a pretty high-level position.

          I really don‘t know what happened after that.  He moved his family out of the small apartment and stopped going to the Boys Club.  

          Not too much later a body was found floating in the East River with both hands cut off—a mafia message that the person was taking more than he should from whoever was running the operation.  We all knew it was Blondie because of his almost white, light hair.