GROWING UP GOOMBA (Vito's Death Bed)

                                                The Death Bed

  Don Vito opens his eyes seeing his son, Michael, by his side as he motions with his hand for him to come closer.  Michael walks over and grabs Don Vito’s hand and asks if there is anything he can get for him.  Don Vito looks up at his son and says, “My son, my good kind son, I have many things to tell you on this which may be my final night on earth.  I need only one thing and that is for you to listen to my every word”. Michael shakes his head and is ready to focus on Don Vito’s every word obviously forgetting about his severe attention deficit disorder.  “Listen son, you must listen to everything I am about to tell you and no matter what, you must never let me down.  I mean what ever comes across your path you must remember what I am about to tell you and fulfill my last dying wishes.  Never let me down, is that a deal my only son? Promise me that you will never let me down” Don Vito looking frail and very weak is waiting for the answer he hopes to hear.  Michael pauses for a moment and says “Yes father I promise I will never let you down.  Don Vito struggles to get up but Michael stops him and tells him to save his strength.  Don Vito asks Michael to let him down. Michael, not being the brightest bulb in the rack says “But Papa, You made me promise never to let you down.  Don Vito gives him a friendly slap across the face a few dozen times, smiles and says “You have got to let me down, down off this bed so I can take a dump”.  Michael looks at his father as if he doesn’t understand what he is trying to tell him.  Vito tries to explain himself to his son one more time “you know recycle my breakfast, a dookey, a number two, open the Bombay doors and let one loose, drop a log, release a floating stinky.”  Michael lets him up and by the look on his face and the smell in the air finally got the point.  “Oh, you have to take a crap, huh pop?”  Don Vito slaps him across the face and tells him not to be so offensive.

    When the frail Mr. Goomba came back from the bathroom he climbs back into the bed and begins to tell his tale.  “Now son it all began in a small humble town.  Get me my brandy from the closet.  It’s hidden behind the suits in the corner.”  Mike walks over to the closet and opens the door.  He pushes back the suits and sees a half naked girl hiding in there.  “Pop what the hell is this woman doing in here?” Mike asks taken aback.  Don Vito answers with a smile “Son meet Brandy”  Mike escorts Brandy to the front door and tells her to have a great day as he pushes her out the door.  He walks back to his father’s room and starts to ask him again about the woman but figures it was a lost cause.  There was a knock at the door and when Mike opened it he sees Brandy standing their.  “What is it now?”  Brandy says, “I need my clothes.”  Mike throws her clothes to her blushes and slams the door once again.  Now he sits at his father’s bedside and listens to his father start his tale.  Don Vito speaks “My mother was a stay at home mom, and I was the youngest of thirteen children.  Momma was warn out keeping us all fed, clothed and on the right path, but thinking back I figured that that wasn’t why she was so warn out. It was from all the years she spent laying on her back but that my son is another story. 

  Now Papa was a hard working man.  He worked two jobs trying to keep us fed.  He always came home warn out and had the look of exhaustion permanently embedded on his face and again it wasn’t the jobs doing that to him either.  It always saddened me to see Papa in this way and what hurt the most was Mamma and Papa crying in there room every night, whimpering and sometimes Mamma would even shout to God.  I knew all that noise from the bedroom was just frustration from having so many children to take care of and I vowed that things would change and trust me son when I was four, I didn’t even know what vowed meant so you knew I meant business.

    I was the youngest of the thirteen children.  My brothers and sisters were in school most of the day, and I being only four was out in the town trying to make a few pennies for a loaf of bread or a cookie or two.  This, the streets is where I learned at an early age to hustle a buck.  I had that town in the palm of my hand and there was no stopping me.  I soon after learned that handing over the whole pie was a suckers bet.  I would hoard half of the money and hand over the other half to Papa.  Things were looking up due to my shrewdness and understanding of the deal.  I soon had enough money socked away.

  One day, Mr. Gondola was sitting on the curb, and he looked very sad.  I sat dawn next to him and asked what was wrong.  Mr. Gondola told me he couldn’t make his rent payment and soon his family was to be thrown out into the streets.  He started crying. I asked him how much he needed to make rent, and he told me it was not anything a four year old child needed to fuss with.  I then asked again, and he said a hundred dollars would hold him over until payday.  I then offered him the money and told him he would have to pay it back within four months at fifty dollars a month.  He agreed and I thought maybe others would be in need of my services.  I soon was making enough money off these suckers to keep our own family in the black.  I had a soft heart for Mr. Gondola being he was my first sucker, I mean client so I set him up in business for himself.  He moved back to Italy where his business thrives today.  He runs small boats up and down the canals of Venice.  Of course he sends me my cut every month but getting back to the story I struggled to get where I am today.

    Now my son, the fifteen of us were getting the nick name “The Family.”  We were close and others envied us.

    Momma and Papa were never told of my dealings nor did they ask.  I was now twelve years old and had all of my brothers and sisters involved in my business. I decided it was time to move on to bigger and better things.  I left the business to my siblings, and I bought a bus ticket to Chicago.  I got on the bus and never imagined that a town could be so big.  It was a hell of a town.  My kind of town Chicago is.

    I stopped into a diner for something to eat and while sitting there I noticed a man sitting at the counter arguing with the waitress about the bill.  I walked over to the man and asked if he needed any help.  The man explained to me that he had only three dollars to his name and the bill came to four.  I tossed a buck on the counter along with a five dollar tip.  The man looked at me and couldn’t believe that a twelve year old child could have this kind of money.  I smiled at him and asked if he would like a good job that paid more then he could ever imagine. He smiled back at me and said “sure kid” obviously humoring a twelve year old child.  I held out my hand and told him my name was Vito Goomba and he in return told me his name.  I started telling him about the things I learned and told him I was traveling around the east coast looking to place my business around.  He was in and we started right away.  The two of us had that town eating out of our hands.  It was not the best times for Americans and we knew that would make it the best time for us.  We preyed on people’s misfortune but in return gave then a better quality of life.  We had a great thing going for us in that town but I knew Al would be able to handle things so I knew it was time to move on.  About three years later I, now being fifteen, left Chicago in the hands of my partner, Al Capone, and headed out for new ventures. 

  I headed out to a place in a god forsaken desert in Nevada.  I was scoping out my new headquarters.  I met a Mexican named Vega Flamingo and he was lost.  I felt sorry for him and took him under my wing.  I built a great place for the boys and me to meet but about half way through I got a visit from Immigration.  The Immigration officers were giving my new friend and associate Vega Flamingo the third degree.  I couldn’t let them take him from me so I talked to them.  I told then his name was Ben and he was from the east coast.  They seemed to buy that story and left us alone.  I got Vega fake ID’s and his new name was now Ben Siegel and the town of Lost Vega. 

  One day Ben came to me with an idea to turn the desert into a great market place where gamblers and prostitutes could live on the edge.  I took a look around me.  I saw only desert and nothing more.  I knew then that my friend was delirious and quite frankly insane.  We parted ways and I headed out for the east coast where I really belonged. I left the half built building with him as payment for all he had done for me. 

  I met your mom in New York City, “Little Italy” to be exact.  She was a good woman but son things changed.  She was a Bloomer Girl at Cappuccino’s Dinner Theatre in 1956. When I married your mother she stood six feet tall, was a 36D 22 34 with legs that never quit.  She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my entire life.  After we were married for a few years things started to change but to me she was Marilyn Monroe’s double, twice as old and twice her size.  She started shrinking, always wore black and gained a lot of weight.  Now she stood three feet three, weighed two hundred and fifty pounds and always wore black.  She walked with a waddle and was way too busy cooking to pay any mind to anything else. She even forgot English after a while and she was born here in America. I was lonely my son and needed comfort elsewhere.  This is also another story I can’t get into now.  I talked to a few doctor friends of mine about your mothers change and they told me it was common among Italian women.  It was called “W.E.I.G.H.T.” syndrome.  “Women engaging in gluttony getting tiny.”

  I was making more money then anyone could ever imagine.  My brothers and sisters were draining their town dry, so I knew I would have to move then to New Jersey where I had already set up shop.  It was a small tavern I named “Goomba’s” Mom and Pop stayed behind where they ran the very first mom and pop store which I invented.  I set them up with a beautiful cottage where the two retired and lived out the remainder of there sexual deviant lives together.

  I now, at the age of twenty five, held control of Chicago, New York and parts of Jersey.  ‘Goomba’s” was a hit.  I decided to make that bar my meeting place.  I now had lots of people working for me.  This place is where we met once a month so I can explain new things to them.  I liked “Goomba’s” but it was lacking something.  My siblings had run the place into the ground so I sent three of them to Cleveland as punishment and the others just felt like it was time for them to move on with there lives.  I let them go, and we went our separate ways.

  I closed “Goomba’s” and remodeled the place.  Within one month we reopened it, and it was once again the place to be.  I owned many businesses now but I always loved ‘Goomba’s” It was my first.  I opened “Goomba’s Too” in New York City.  It was bigger and better then “Goomba’s” and I now moved the meetings there.  The transition was a minor glitch.  While rebuilding and building was going on we had to hold our meetings at a mattress factory for a month or two.  When the boys asked I simply told then we had to go to the mattresses, they knew what I meant.

  Things grew over the years for me, and I was the man everyone came to for assistance.  They all needed money from me and you my son was now my business.  When I hit my fiftieth birthday, I felt I no longer needed to work as hard so I left the New York sector to my right hand man John G. Let us just say I loved the way he dressed.  He was so dapper but just needed to tone down his image.  He loved to be in the limelight but I knew he was the best person for the job.

  I retired to New Jersey where I started running “Goomba’s” myself, and this my son is where you come in.”  Michael then tells Vito that he new nothing about running a Tavern.  Vito reached up to him and grabs him by the collar and begins slapping him.  As Vito’s hand runs across Michaels face several times, Vito yells out “Haven’t you heard a word I was saying?  And you need a shave.”  Michael replies “Sure pop, you grew up poor.”  Vito seemed to have given up then and there.  He stops slapping him, fixes Michael’s shirt and says “No, son I didn’t grow up poor, I grew up Goomba.”