Mr. Mafia Part One

I still don’t know if I was a part of the mafia for one brief moment in time, or if I was a part of another man’s vivid fantasy world, created especially for us. I try to look him up on Facebook twenty years on, sure that I still have his name spelled correctly, remembered correctly, burned into my mind. He is never there. Almost as though he only ever existed in my own memory. 

I met him at a homeless shelter. This was at the end of the most incredible road trip along the west coast, the part where the magic began to fade and reality was setting in quickly. He wants to be called Al. He and Patrick become instant friends over their mutual dislike of the authoritarian establishment that was the homeless shelter, with me along for the ride, a silent passenger in the backseat of my own car, because Al has errands. 

Al isn't supposed to be there, doesn't have to be there, he’s informed us. He is only there to learn “humility”, ordered there by a rich mysterious father. Presumably the baby of the family, he’s been too out of control and is now "learning a lesson". Patrick hangs on his every word, enamored. This is a cathartic concept for him, that a man can do this, live this, in the context of simply learning a lesson. In an abstract way, I watch him take himself out of the responsibility of our situation and begin to look at it like he is only an observer. 

The homeless shelter is run by an executive committee of some of the other homeless people who live at the Hawaiian House, who are further along in the program. The program is simple. Residents are required to work security and front desk shifts in three hour segments totalling 12 hours per week in return for a free room. There are two rules: no drinking, and hold a job. We manage to violate both inside of a week. 

Perhaps it is because we cannot immediately find jobs that we find ourselves at the bar. Maybe I prefer to remember it wrong and it was the other way around. But like every night after desk shift, there we are, the three of us. Al and Patrick are scheduled to pull security shifts promptly at midnight so I am promised we will leave in time. But like most promises made on this trip, this one too is broken. And so at half past one in the morning, I find myself silent in the backseat of my own car, listening once again to Al rant and rave about how, if we are about to get kicked out, it won’t matter anyway because he is important, his family is important, and he doesn’t have to be there. “If one falls we all fall” he and Patrick shout from the front seat, Patrick forgetting in the passion of their rebellion that he did in fact have to be there. 

By the time we arrive back to the shelter, Al has changed his name back to his family name (I'm going to refer to him as Mr. Mafia because I can’t think of any other mafia names that would suit him.) and he and Patrick have worked themselves into such a frenzy they have convinced themselves they are walking into a war, fighting the injustice of rules like “Don’t get shitfaced”, and “Don’t be a homeless person”, because how dare the establishment try to help you off the streets. I however, still have a naive glimmer of hope and so when we drive up to the shelter, I order Mr. Mafia to stay inside the car until we come out to get him. 

“I’ll pull your shift for you, just stay out here in the car,” I explain to him reasonably. “We’ll tell them you had an emergency with family earlier and we just dropped you off at the hospital so you couldn’t call but that you’ll be back in the morning. And then we’ll sneak you in when everyone’s gone to bed”. It would have been the perfect plan. 

The Head of the Committee, who happens to be on shift that night, and whom Patrick and Mr. Mafia are supposed to relieve, is angry with our lateness and seems suspicious of our story. But he agrees to let me work Mr. Mafia’s shift alongside Patrick and heads upstairs to his bedroom. Not even ten minutes have gone by, just enough time to think we may be getting away with it, and he comes thundering back downstairs, raving about having an emergency committee meeting to kick us all out. Apparently Mr. Mafia has climbed out onto the hood of our car and is sitting pretty-as-you-please chugging a six pack he's appropriated from the bar, directly under the glare of the streetlamp. Directly under the window of the Head of the Committee. 

They have breathalyzers! Little portable breathalyzers in a locked cabinet in this room filled with committee members, that I have never been inside of. The committee members sit at the front of the room behind a long table, side by side like an actual legal proceeding; the three of us in metal folding chairs in front of them. Mr. Mafia is the first to be tested. Almost three times the legal limit, but the smallest amount wouldn’t have made a difference here. 

In rare deference to my, by now, extremely fragile state of mind, Patrick informs them that after his test they needn't waste one for me as I will be going wherever he goes. To this, Mr. Mafia again raises his cheer, “If one falls we all fall”! and I wish that I actually did have anywhere else in the world to go in that moment. Instead I stand with a ram-rod straight back and as we walk out the door, I fall with them. 

“Don't worry”, Mr. Mafia tries to soothe me as we were escorted to our separate rooms to pack our belongings, effective immediately. “I have a good friend, he’ll come get us. He has money. We won't have to worry about it.” I want to scratch his face off with my fingernails and am glad when they led him to his room, away from us. 

They stand in the open doorway of our room watching us pack our meager belongings, suspicious now that because we are leaving against our wills we might try to steal from them what few things we could fit into our bag...like the sink faucet perhaps, or a patch of the carpet that was coming up in the corner. A man I've only ever seen in passing has the decency to let me unpack my underwear drawer with his eyes cast to the floor, but the woman standing beside him stares directly at me, nostrils flared in distaste of the lace in my hands as though she’d known it would only be just a matter of time. 

Mr. Mafia has taken no time at all to pack and is waiting for us in the lobby, looking bored and unaffected. I still want to scratch his face off so I stand behind Patrick. “We’re just waiting on my friend to show up,” he informs me nonchalantly. We are not being allowed to take our vehicle off the property for 24 hours because we have been drinking. We are also not being allowed to sleep in the car either. If they see us on the property before 24 hours have passed, and for anything other than picking up our car, they will call the police. 

“Well you all need to leave the building so he better hurry up!” our escort tells Mr. Mafia with a sneer. A girl that they have woken to taken over the front desk shift looks at us through lowered lashes and I wonder if I still looked young like her or if I have aged like the others. I wonder if she will too, or if she'll do the right things and get out the right way. I hope she gets out the right way. 

A shiny red car pulls up in the valet port, unused in this motel’s modern reincarnation as a shelter. “He’s here,” Mr. Mafia smiles and stands up, picks up his single bag like a businessman whose taxi has just arrived to spirit him away into the city. “Follow me!” 

Suddenly the perfect gentlemen, Mr. Mafia informs me that ladies sit up front and holds open the door for me. I slide in next to a tall skinny man who looks at me with kind eyes but who does not smile. Patrick and Mr. Mafia get onto the back seat and we take off into the night, none of us saying a word. It is me who finally breaks the silence. I can’t bear it a second longer. The men in the car all seem to know some secret about our future, or maybe its just that they do not care. Theirs is a comfortable silence. But for me it is screaming. 

“Thank you for picking us up,” I say, glancing quickly at the driver. He looks at me but says nothing. I clear my throat. “You have a very lovely car. What kind is it?” 

“It’s a 2002 Mercedes,” he answers gruffly. I nod and look out the window frowning, as it occurs to me that we are only in the year 2000. I can feel the smugness wafting off Mr. Mafia in the backseat like an odor and sink further into the seat, a little closer to the door as I suddenly begin to entertain thoughts of what it would it mean if Mr. Mafia had in fact been telling us the truth about who he is. 

We ride in silence for what seems like hours. I fight a constant battle with myself not to ask where we are going or what is going to happen to us now, because as scary as not knowing is to me, I have decided that at this point, knowing might be worse. I try to close my eyes, let the flashes of streetlamps darting across my eyelids lull me into a trance, but I can feel Mr. Mafia watching me, his eyes trained on the back of my neck and it rattles me. 

By the time we pull into the casino parking lot I have myself convinced that I am getting kidnapped into the sex trade and that my boyfriend is going to meet a bullet to the back of his head before sunrise, and I fight the urge to bolt from the car. I wouldn’t have succeeded. I have worked myself into such a state of panic that when the driver opens my car door I fall right out onto the pavement. “I'm not drunk,” I grumble miserably as he helps me to my feet. "If one falls we all fall," Mr. Mafia cheers from the backseat. 

“She doesn’t drink much!” Patrick boomed as he came around the car. “She’s just a little overwhelmed”. I let out a harsh bark of a laugh that is half sob and turn away from them both, following Mr. Mafia across the parking lot. We march single file around the building to the back door and crowd up on the steps. Mr. Mafia gives a quick knock and a waitress opens the door. 

"Mr. Mafia!” she crowed happily as she lunges into his arms. She gives him a noisy kiss on his cheek and steps back to look at him. “Well! Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes! Come on in, your uncle’s already waiting for you!”

We are ushered inside and seated at a large table in the back kitchen of the casino, a private table for employees. A large older man with thick black hair and gleaming black eyes sits at the head of the table, working a giant plate of pasta. Mr. Mafia introduces him as Uncle Frankie. “The Wolfman,” he tells me as he shakes my hand. I nod, afraid to break his gaze. What big eyes you have. 

I am scared that if I speak I will begin to laugh maniacally and not be able to stop, like I am perched on the edge of hysteria. I sink into the chair he offers beside him. Almost instantly, plates full of steaming hot spaghetti appear in front of us and I tuck in like I am the wolf, forgetting for the moment to be terrified.