A Lifetime Ago WC 511

A Lifetime Ago
WC 511

It all happened a lifetime ago.

I thought I could get away with what I did back then, but I didn’t realize the Italian Mafia was involved. My employer, Carpino Illinois Holdings, Inc., was linked to the Gambino family.

I was from Melrose Park, a haven for Mafia-types back in the late fifties. Being just a kid, I found the idea of crime bosses wielding power, exciting.

I did something stupid. I mean stupid! I took money from my employer’s safe to pay off some bills. I planned to pay it back. That was my plan, honest.

At the time, I was dating a guy that said he had connections with the Gambino family. And he was a Carpino, so it felt right. Gambino, Carpino, Crime Syndicate--what could go wrong?

At the time, I thought nothing could go wrong. I was just a kid, seventeen maybe. Invincible. What did I know about real life?

As it turns out, Louie was abusive and threatening, but I didn’t know how to get out of the relationship without fear of harm to my family.

So I kept dating him.

I was so anxiety-ridden about what I had done (the money thing) that I broke down and told him—I guess to spread the burden around.

“How much did you get?” He was way too excited.

“A little over a thousand dollars.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s gone. I paid my bills.”

“You know the combination to the safe, right?”

I could see the wheels turning in Louie’s head.

“Yes, but the next time I open that safe is to put one thousand dollars back.”

“I got a plan,” he said.

He forced me to give him the combination. How did he force me? He twisted my arm behind my back, almost dislocating my shoulder, that’s how.

He went back to the office to break in. That was the last I heard from Louie.

Fast-forward three days. A tiny package was delivered to the office. It was addressed to me. One of the kids that worked at Carpino Holdings as a runner handed it to me.

I almost fainted; something bad was about to go down; I could feel it.

“Big surprises come in small packages. Isn’t that what they say?” the kid said.

“Something like that,” I said as I took the package and disappeared to the back alley.

My hands were shaking so badly, I could barely get the package open. A severed finger (with a class ring from Proviso East High School still on it) was resting on red velvet inside the tiny box.

Louie had graduated from Proviso East.

After I heaved my lunch, I hid the box next to the dumpster, the ring still attached to his--the--finger.

I went back inside and tried to act normal.


Yes, I paid back the money. No, I never did that again. Yes, Louie disappeared from my life. Yes, I feel responsible, somehow. And, no, I do not even resemble that person now.

As I said, it all happened a lifetime ago.