Six Years Inside the Mafias: how I worked my way through college: a true story

by Yari Stern

  “Why is it you are so well-informed on the subject, Mr. Stern, and so vehement in the defense of other races?”

  “My grandmother has a store on Ridge Ave. Dealing with people of other races is an every day occurrence. I see the hardship these people endue on a regular basis; things White society would never accept and never endure.

  “It’s not philosophy or sociology,” Yari went on. “It’s real and if you don’t treat someone with the respect they are due, then the results may not provoke rhetoric but a brick through your window or even a Molotov cocktail.”

  “You can’t change the law by breaking the law, Mr. Stern.”

  “Martin Luther King, Jr. said, ‘Right isn’t always legal,’ and that ‘Only a dry as dust religion prompts a minister to extol the glories of Heaven while ignoring the social conditions that cause men an Earthly hell.’”

  The entire class applauded just as the bell sounded. Amid the rustling of bodies and books, it was Yari who had the last word.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  West Park, Phila. Pa.

  Yari drove the few short blocks to the family home. Sam was seated in the kitchen at one of the vinyl-covered chairs surrounding an expandable Formica-topped table. His father wore a long-sleeved white shirt, buttoned to the top, and a bow tie, his regular garb, regardless of heat, humidity, or the dress code of others. Sam’s eyes drooped slightly, not due to any medical condition, Yari reflected, but from viewing so much profound sorrow in the world, and being unable to change the inherent conditions of those affected. By age fifty, jowls were already present, a fundamental state for a man who placed family and friends before self and sleep. With Sam’s short-cropped hair and eternal patience, Yari saw his dad as more college professor than police officer.

  Quickly, the smell of traditional food mixed with unconditional love served up by his mother aroused the sense of all he had missed since moving out. Through wandering eyes, Yari reunited with the room. Hand-painted pictures decorated freshly painted plaster walls. Mementos from museums, historical exhibits, and national parks – family trips taken over the years – filled every nook and cranny. Magazines - Time, National Geographic, Life - cluttered the table even at mealtime; knowledge always reigned supreme in the Stern household.

  Powerful conflict arose within Yari, viewing a father so different from himself, yet a man he truly revered. Sam believed in the system, worked within its boundaries as a police inspector, and upheld its principles, while all of Yari’s efforts went to using society for his own gain. He asked why did he have to be on one side of the fence and his dad on the other? He felt like he was bridging a bottomless chasm, with one foot on either edge. And no matter which way he jumped, he was just as dead, crushed by a stultifying uniformity and boredom, or buried under the weight of the structures he was tearing down.

  “Dad, I’ve got a major business opportunity. Do you think you could--.”

  “Those sons of bitches,” Sam blurted out.

  Yari was taken aback. His father cursed about as often as he drank, which was practically never.

  “What is it, dear?” Irene asked, as she halted the basting of lamb chops on the stove and turned toward Sam, rubbing her hands on an apron with far more intensity than necessary to remove a thin film of cooking oil.

  “It’s Mort Solomon and Harry Foxx,” Sam began.

  Irene pointed Yari to a seat at the table and set down a platter for him, while keeping an ear cocked in her spouse’s direction.

  Yari noted his mother. It brought mixed emotions to mind. Thanks for her love, sadness for her sacrificed. He saw, through her diminutive stature, the strongest-willed member of the clan. Irene had given up her own dreams in raising a family in the New World. Yet, through those ordeals her eyes still danced with the talent of a child who once prepared for a life on the stage. With beehive hair, show-business eyes, and a sharp wit evident even when silent, Irene portrayed a woman giving a performance of a housewife.

  “They’re reviewing every piece of paperwork I file.”

  “But you’re reports are the best in the department,” Irene insisted.

  “They want to crucify me.”

  “But they’re Jewish!” Irene said. “They come to all the affairs at the Synagogue.”

  “Solomon thinks I’m going to jump ahead of him and become the first Jewish police commission.”

  “And they would stab you in the back to get that job?” Irene asked.

  “They’re already doing it.”

  “I’ll rig a bomb to Solomon’s car and he’ll go up in flames like there’s a burning enema pie stuck up his ass,” Yari offered.

  “You can’t kill a police captain, even if he is on the take,” Sam argued.

  “He’s dirty,” Yari insisted. “The department will be happy to get ride of him. The whole force will forget about him after the first shovel of dirt is dump on his cheap plastic coffin.”

  Irene pointed to the food on Sam’s plate. He recognized the warning and returned to the meal with a quick fork before going on. “He won’t last long. Right now he’s a lap dog for Frank Rizzo When they’ve used him up, they’ll dump him like a wilted vegetable.” Sam was chewing, but the food wasn’t going down. It remained balled up in his cheeks, making him look even angrier.” He pointed a rude fork at Yari. “You just stay out of it.”

  “Nobody disrespects you and gets to live long enough to talk about it.”

  “We don’t have to do a thing. In time his own arrogance will eat him up.”

  “I can’t wait. I’m going over to his house while he’s eating dinner with his fat wife and fag son and carve his skinny carcass into bait for the next time we go fishing with Uncle Ira in Atlantic City.” Yari never cracked a smile while detailing his strategy for the soon-to-be ex-police captain. “He’s already dead.”

  Sam’s complexion turned gray. “Just relax. Don’t do anything!”

  “I’ll hold off…a little while,” Yari said, respecting his dad even more than he hated anyone who crossed the clan.

  “Your idea of how to take care of things is self-serving. You’ll tear apart our entire family attempting to feed your hunger for power and control. There’s a price to pay for that behavior and you’re not going to like it when it’s your turn to be on the receiving end.” Sam pointed his fork at Yari. “You can’t settle every-thing by violence or for your personal benefit. You need to work within the system to ensure lasting change, not just a temporary reprieve.”

  “Okay, truce. Change of subject. Can you talk to the bank about a loan,” he asked his father.

  “What’s it for this time? More illegal things?”

  “No way,” he lied. “I’m branching out into the home protection industry.”

  “How much,” Sam asked, letting out an expanse of air.

  “Fifteen large.”

  “Fifteen thousand dollars! This house only cost ten thousand?”

  “The only way business is profitable is when you buy in quantity and get the discount.”

  “I’ll see what I can do…but no promises. In the mean time--.”

  Yari got up…having gotten the assurances he needed. “I’ve got to go; business to attend to.” Yari dumped his dishes in the sink, kissed Irene on the cheek, then pulled away from a mother trying desperately to hold on a little while longer.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Upper Darby, Pa.

  Yari did a U-turn, swung his station wagon into the parking lot, and found a space directly in front of the bar. This was his world, the world of the hustle, where he saw himself as an entertainer, a celebrity to be lived through vicariously. He hit the rear tailgate release, stepped out of the Dodge Polara, and sauntered to the entrance.

  The Dude, Yari’s contact into that microcosm, stood facing the front door while customers sat focused on the lone TV and racks of liquor on the shelves surrounding the rear wall of the Irish pub. Everything suggested sticky to Yari, without the need to reach out and confirm it.

  “Hey,
hey, hey, here’s the man,” The Dude called out like a drill sergeant announcing chow to hungry recruits.

  Yari nodded in recognition when the inveterate bartender - with heaps of cottony white hair, perennially rubicund cheeks, fighter’s 360-degree eyes, bobbing mannerism, and invariably offensive hot dog, beer, and cigarette breath - broke into a broad and genuine smile.

  The Dude walked over, grabbed Yari’s arm, and said, “What took you so long? Everyone’s been waiting on you.”

  “They came for the goods; they stay for the story. Everyone needs an entertaining tale to take home or back to the office, something for nothing, or at least the perception.”

  Yari backed outside as two-dozen anaesthetized patrons, normally incapable of being lured off their seats and away from the Phillies’ baseball game on Channel Three, spun their stools around with enough centrifugal force to sail to the door and a preeminent place out in the parking lot.

  He noted that the crowd of men was still wearing their daily blue-collar work garb. The styles and colors might have been different, but for him the message was clear: factories in that time and place demanded uniformity, of thinking, dress, and behavior.

  “Whatsha got, Yari?” several voices called out in unison, discharging enough alcohol to fuel a Korean War flame-thrower.

  “Check it out. Hot as a firecracker.” Yari effortlessly lifted several boxes of heavy stereo equipment from the pile and set them on top of the station wagon so that the TVs, children’s bikes and dress suits could be seen. He then stepped back as the herd pressed forward, encircling him and his wares with the intensity of surgeons surrounding a patient in cardiac arrest.

  “I could use those!” John P. announced, pointing to a set of high- fidelity speakers.

  “Why not save the money so your kids don’t have to eat Bologna sandwiches and hitchhike to school.”

  “How much are the kids’ bicycles?” Murray T. asked.

  Yari stared at the auto mechanic who was already reading the instructions on how to put one together. “Hey, you don’t even have children, you dick.”

  He enjoyed a round of stupefied laughter, followed by momentary silence during which time he declared frustratedly to The Dude, “Damn, I used to think I was satisfying their needs but what I’m really doing is creating them, like a lousy television commercial.”

  The bartender shook his head yes, not really knowing what he was agreeing to.

  “Yo, this TV’s got my name on it,” Peter M. insisted.

  Yari nodded affirmatively while the welder rubbed the solid wood cabinet. “And where the hell are you going to put a twenty-five inch TV in a studio apartment?” he asked.

  Yari was losing his patience faster with each visit. He knew he couldn’t last long at that rate.

  He slipped out of the crowd with The Dude in tow and handed him a Botany 500 suit, size 44 long, as compensation for his role of middleman. It was Yari’s regular payment to a bartender who passed the word to his customers that The Fence and his merchandise were righteous.

  “Are you coming to the race track with us?” The Dude asked.

  “Depends on business,” Yari replied, digging in his pocket for a roll of bills thick enough to turn his knuckles white as he pulled the wad of money from skin-tight jeans.

  “You’re doin’ great,” The Dude reminded him. “You can take one night off. Besides nobody can handicap the horses as good as you.”

  “There’s opportunity costs to consider, Dude. I’ve got to make a major score soon or lose out on the big-time.” Yari knew he had to move fast, before Slim found another partner. “It’s my shot to get away from being a street huckster.” He remained with head tilted down, counting money as he spoke. “This is bullshit, making just enough to keep me spinning my wheels and filling up their houses with needless shit.”

  “But Bay Bomber is running next week. It’ll be his first race since his injury.”

  Yari noted the starry look in the man’s eyes. As part owner of the standardbred pacer, The Dude took more pride in the horse’s efforts than his oldest kid attending college. The cheap claimer, running for eight thousand-dollar purses, was a dream come true for the bartender: a wild ride for both horse and owner, around a finely scraped gravel path.

  “What does your trainer, Denny, say about his chances?” Yari inquired in a detached tone.

  “He says he’s just going to run him around the track, try to get him back in shape slowly; thinks maybe it’ll take a month.”

  “Lyin’ motherfucker. He’s telling you that so you won’t load up on the horse and spoil his odds.” That awareness started the wheels turning in Yari’s mind. He stuffed the dough back in his pocket.

  “You think so?” The Dude leaned over, pulled in by the gravity of curiosity.

  It was clear to Yari that his friend still trusted people even after seeing the worst of humanity from a front row seat.

  “I’m in real tight with one of the clockers,” Yari related. “He told me Bay Bomber paced the mile in 2:03 and a tick just five days ago while wearing the wrong colors to throw everyone off.”

  “Wow, that’s faster than he’s ever gone at night,” the bartender recalled. “But why would Denny lie to me? He’s my friend.”

  “Welcome to the real world, Dude. The man’s into the sharks for thirteen large at six for five vig.”

  “What’s that come to?” The Dude asked with a confused look, indicating that he was better at figuring the number of drinks he could siphon off a bottle of whisky for himself than the rate of interest charged by shylocks.

  “Twenty percent; thirty six hundred per week just in interest,” Yari calculated while standing quietly amidst the commotion, sifting through all the possible scenarios the trainer might be setting up. “If Denny doesn’t come through soon they’ll be feeding him to the guard dogs at the stable.”

  “Shit,” the Dude reflected.

  “No shit,” Yari emphasized. “When he comes in, mention that none of us are going. Tell him we’ll wait tii Bay Bomber rounds into form. Make it believable, Dude. He knows we all stuff it through.”

  “What are you going to do?” the bartender asked.

  “Just keep this between us. Tell your partners that it’s a no-go. I’ll lay down something for you and me. Besides, if you say anything to them, they’ll tell the world, then nobody makes a dime.”

  Yari turned into the wind and let his mind and hopes soar on upward drafts. That horse’s gotta go off at better than ten to one even with Denny’s money on him. He’s been out for months and finished eighth in his last race before the layoff. If I can get some real dough together I can cover Slim and be The Man.

  “Hey, how come you don’t carry any women’s stuff,” Deborah the dyke called out, half smashed on Rolling Rock Beer. Freckles dotted her face, and short, straight blond hair reflected the appearance of a cute, young boy more than a college-educated twenty-four-year-old woman.

  "It’s supply and demand. Money talks and bullshit walks in our society."

  "How can you say that? I work as hard as any man."

  “There are fifty guys in this bar and one of you. I’m supposed to open up a second line for one woman?”

  “So, you not only rationalize stealing but decide who’s worthy of your dispensations.”

  “I’m not a thief,” Yari insisted, “but a protector of liberty, a cog in society’s well-oiled machinery. By liberating goods from businesses I slow down those wheels of progress and balance out the hand of wealth.”

  “I hope you believe that,” Deborah replied as she walked away, “because sure as hell, no one else does.”

  Yari stared at the woman as she swaggered off, not used to the rare display of defiance backed by reason.

  “Hey, Yari, what’s the best you can do on this suit?” Tony S. asked, holding up a pinstriped, three-piece suit from the Diamond’s Store for Yari to see.

  “Eighty bucks. But you’d be better off saving the money for a bottle of nitroglycerin.�
�� Yari held back his laughter as the fat man sucked in his gut with the force of an industrial strength vacuum cleaner in an attempt to button the jacket around a belly protruding beyond the bounds of a forty-four inch waist. “That’s you, Tony!”

  Yari laughed as two buttons popped off the jacket like they were jet propelled.

  The man wrestled with the jacket like it was a fight to the death with a twelve foot python

  “Dude, I’m outa here.” Yari was halfway in the car, his pockets full of cash, driving off with one foot dragging the curb as he hit the button to raise up the rear window on the station wagon. He was through for the night and headed home.

  “Thanks for the--.” The Dude’s last words bounced off the back tailgate as Yari pulled out of the parking space and swung into traffic.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ardmore, Pa.

  It was a little after ten p.m. when Yari turned off of City Line Avenue and entered Lower Merion, leaving the city and its lures far behind. He surveyed a neighborhood ready to be plucked, like a chicken with its head caught in a fence and its neon-painted tail wiggling at a full moon. Knowing that earth-tone stucco walls and asphalt-shingled roofs hid expensive antiques and well-regarded art was a reassuring thought should his other businesses crumble and he needed to prey closer to home.

  Yari coasted into his driveway, scoping out the brightly lit house. Something was up. His roommate, Bruce, had to have company. The cheap bastard wouldn't turn on an extra bulb in the house to welcome him.

  He parked his station wagon, now empty of its contraband, off to the side so Bruce, if necessary, could leave without disturbing him. Yari began walking up the steps of the rented two-story home. After a day of selling himself and his wares, he couldn't even think about being civil to others whose aspirations were as inspiring as linoleum. His patience was gone, along with concern for society, its individuals, and institutions. He accepted that as the price one paid for choosing the easy way out.