by Lady Arwen » Jun 23, 2019 12:05 am
Pop's Bedtime Story
Author's note: This story is meant to be an aural story. Apologies in advance for any trouble that may cause for those reading.
Alright, alright, you just sit tight under those covers, kid, I’ll tell ya a story. Ya ever wonder how ya old Pops decided a beanpole like ya Dad was good ‘nough for ya Ma? You just sit tight an’ listen, okay?
Now this was back when everyone would go to Ratner’s for a nice sandwich and mebbe some ice cream, an’ a few of us would hang out in the back in the tea room. Me, I just did my business there, keepin’ an eye on the whole thing, but that ain’t important now.
So one afternoon I’m sittin’ there with Jack and Toni and we’s’a playin’ a friendly game of cards, when ya ma walks up to me and says to me, she says, “Say, there’s a kid here, wants to see you.” Now I look up from my cards, cause ya ma, well, she’s a good kid, and when she got somethin’ to say, she means it, and ya listen to her. So she’s standin’ there, tray of teacups in her hand, on her way to another table, an’ that’s all she says. Now I don’t like my game interrupted, even if it’s a friendly game, so me, I’m a bit annoyed, so I says to her “he’s got two feet, he knows where I
am, why you tellin’ me ‘bout it? He spifflicated?” and she jus’ says he’s all nervous ‘bout talkin’ to me, says he needs a deal, but he’s scared if he talks he’s gonna get bumped off, like.
So I says to her, “This ain’t a confession booth, it’s a speak-easy. What’d’ya expect? Ya think I’m gonna give him absolution?” Cause I’m thinkin’ if he wants forgiveness he better go talk ta Father Amatuna, cause that ain’t my business. My business is makin’ deals, not takin’ confession. But ya ma, she puts her hand on my arm, an’ bats those long eyelashes of hers.
So I says to her, I says, “Alright, doll, tell him to come on back. I’ve got a bum hand, anyway, might as well fold.” An' Toni an' Jack fold, too, cause they know business.
“Say, ya want us to clear the table for ya?” Toni says. “Give ya some talkin’ space, see.”
By the time that punk came in, Toni had the table all nice’n set with a flower an’ a nice tea cup an’ she even got a tray for me to tamp my cigar in. So this boy comes in all dandified, with his hat in his hand and says to me, he says, “You Mister Polizzi, sir?” and I says, “yeah, who’s askin’?” cause back then, I was Mister Girolamo Polizzi to most everybody, and they didn’t forget it, cause Mister Polizzi was the man who cut all the deals. If ya wanted somethin’, you came an’ saw me, and I got ya what ya needed. Might not be what everybody thought they wanted, but I got them what they needed, an’ I was never wrong ‘bout that either.
So he says to me, he says, “I’m Tom Rastelli, sir. I got myself in a fix an’ Daisy said you’re the man to see about cuttin’ deals and makin’ things go the way they ought.”
I look this kid up an’ down, an’ he’s a real skinny kid, real young, but he’s tryin his best, see, so I have him sit down across from me, an’ I get him a cup, an’ he gets himself settled, an’ jus’ keeps lookin’ round the room, at Toni in particular. Now everyone knows Toni, cause Toni, she’s the Boss’s right hand, ya know. Nobody sees the Boss givin’ orders—Boss’s orders go through Toni, or Jack if she’s busy. But Toni, she knows her place, so she moves off to talk to Louis Sidone’s widow, and Rastelli, he settles down a bit.
“I got in a bit of a jam,” he says, “an’ I gotta fix it before I get taken for a ride, an’ Daisy said you’d be the one to talk to.”
I says to him that he’s gotta be straight with me, ‘cause I can’t solve a problem until I hear it.
“Say, I didn’t mean to,” he says, “but I’m in love with Daisy, see?”
Now, when some punk says he thinks he’s gonna get Roscoe sent after him, I expect he’s got some bad deal goin’ on, where he went against the family or lost a shipment or somethin’, but no, Tom Rastelli’s scared because he fell in love with the Boss’s daughter. So I laugh a little, an’ tell him that he best be talkin’ with Daisy and her pa, not with me.
Don’t interrupt me, child, I’m tellin’ a story. Lay back down an’ get comfy with Mr. Schnoodles, ‘cause you only get one story tonight so ya best listen close.
Now, where was I? Ah, yes.
So I think that’s it, because I got other things to do, an’ if he thinks he’s gonna marry Daisy, well, he can fuhggeddaboudit. But he goes on and he says that he came in to the family for a little extra cash, that he planned to do his job an’ get home, but then he met Daisy. He stops and looks over at Toni again, then he says to me, he says,
“Even Daisy’s in the dark about this, though I think she knows something is up. I didn’t come in here clean. Mister Fischetti”—that’s the head of our old rival family, see—“Mister Fischetti sent me an’ in exchange he paid for my ma to get her treatments, an’ I figgured it didn’t matter what happened to me, ‘cause I got six little brothers an’ sisters, so I’d take a risky job. But now I met Daisy, an’ I don’t want nothin’ to hurt her. So I can’t keep workin’ for Mister Fischetti, but I can’t quit him, either. Ya follow?”
An’ he’s right, cause if he quit workin’ for Mister Fischetti, Mister Fischetti would be sendin’ his mother some flowers, an if he kept workin’ for Mister Fischetti, well, Toni’d be sendin’ his mother some flowers. Either way, she’d be cryin’ an awful lot.
So I says to him, I says, “well, what d’ya want?” and he says to me he wants to marry Daisy an’ blow town, but Daisy won’t go, so can I convince Daisy to go? and I says that’s not possible. His face wrinkles up a bit, then he says, “well, I ain’t leavin’ til we figure out what is, cause I ain’t leavin’ Daisy.”
So I sit and think, and this is where ya old Pops is mighty smart, but he’s also a bit of a sap, too. Ya see, up until then, I always cut deals for everyone, good, bad, rich, poor, family, or gumshoe. That was what Girolamo Polizzi did, but at the end of the day I went home, an’ no more Girolamo Polizzi--just your Pops. But if I cut this deal, nobody’d come see Mister Polizzi again, and I'd always have to be the Boss man. But ya ma, she’s special.
So I call Toni over, and I says to her that we're gonna have a meetin’ with Mister Fischetti, and I tell Rastelli that he’s gonna tell Mister Fischetti that he’s gonna have a meetin’ with me and the Boss, because back then, Fischetti would come by every now and then when he was in a bad spot, an’ Girolamo Polizzi’d work a deal out for him. Course I always knew what he needed, an’ what the family needed him to need, so I was pretty sure he’d come, but I knew it would only work once. We set up for them to meet at the old garage off of 8th, an’ Rastelli went off to do his job, Toni went off to do hers, and I went to have a good sit down with Daisy, because if she didn’t want ta marry Tom Rastelli, I’d put his head on a plate. But she says she loved him through and through, and if ya ma says she wants somethin’, well, that’s what she’s gonna get.
So I get there and there’s Fischetti, with Rastelli standin’ right behind him, lookin’ like he’s seen his grandmother’s ghost.
“Say,” Fischetti says to me, he says, “what’s all this about?”
So I tell him Rastelli’s in love with Daisy, and Daisy’s in love with Rastelli, an’ the families need to make nice. An’ Fischetti, he says to me that he’s not gonna deal with Toni, he’s only gonna deal with the Boss, so I says to him that I am the Boss, so he can deal with me, but my daughter won’t be marryin’ a snitch, she’ll be marryin’ a family man. Fishetti, he pulls out to shoot, and so do Toni an’ the gang, but then all of a sudden, Fischetti he says “huh!” and gets all gray in the face, cause Rastelli wasn’t gonna waste his chance with ya ma, and he stuck a shiv in him, just like that. Course we filled the rest of ‘em with lead, an’ a few weeks later, ya ma and ya dad got married, an’ now we have you!
Now, ya sleep tight, little rascal, and jus’ remember, ya family always got ya back. Goodnight.