"A Flip of the Cards''

         

"A Flip of the Cards"

6,454 Words

A long time ago in a neighborhood far, far away....


As a young boy, I was being raised in an Italian ghetto in the Bronx that went by the name of 'Little Italy'. I don't mean 'ghetto' in a bad way, of course. A ghetto's just a place where people of the same background live. They all moved there when they got off the boat at Ellis Island, and they just kept on living there, from one generation to the next, to the next, to the next. 'China Town' was a Chinese ghetto, 'Koreatown' was a Korean ghetto; and 'Little Italy'? 'Little Italy' was a ghetto...our ghetto.
         People stayed in their own little ghettos for generations because they really had no reason to leave. They knew all their neighbors, their neighbors all knew them...it was like everybody in the neighborhood was family. They watched out for each other like family, too.
          You could be sure that if you did something wrong and one of the other people in the neighbor saw you do it, the first thing he'd do was yell at you and tell you to get your ass home; and the next thing he'd do was call your father so that when you got there he'd take off his belt and remind you to never do whatever it was that you did again. That was where we learned the importance of family. Your family wasn't just your blood, your family was your world.
          If you screwed up in school, your daddy didn't go in and yell at your principal and your teacher the way that they do today. He'd yell at you, and he'd warn you to never do it again. If you'd already done the same thing before, he'd 'introduce you to the back of his hand'...and lemme tell ya, it wasn't exactly a 'friendly' introduction, if you know what I mean.
          In a lotta ways, being brought up there by an old-world Sicilian like my father was was a lot like being raised in a 1960's gangster movie. Everybody in the neighborhood knew each other, everybody in the neighborhood loved each other, and everybody in the neighborhood watched out for each other. Most important of all, if something went wrong, everybody in the neighborhood protected each other. It was an 'us against them' thing that'd been going on with the rest of the world forever. At least that's how it seemed to us.
          There were also some very clear cut rules about living in our house. Rule number one, of course, was that my father was 'il Capo grande' around the house...'the Big Boss'...the one who made up all the rules. Rule number two was 'never forget rule number one'. The one, all-encompassing rule of all rules...the one that you understood without even having to be told was 'never go against the family.' It was the unspoken rule that never needed to be spoken...because everybody already knew it.
          My father was also 'la Patrone'...the breadwinner...the guy with all the money... ...and he never let you forget that either. One of his favorite expressions was what he called 'the golden rule'...'He who has all the gold makes all the rules'. That was a fancy way of him telling me that as long as he made all the money, what he said goes. And he certainly had a lot to say, that's for sure! He wasn't exactly afraid to let you know that, either!
          My father was a pretty wealthy man when we were growing up. He was what I guess people would call a 'small-time criminal'...but in 'the Sicilian way'. His particular 'line of work' was running a small time 'gaming establishment', and the 'games' they were playing weren't exactly checkers and backgammon. Beyond all of that, his operation was a small enough that it was pretty much ignored by the rest of the more...ambitious of the local 'businessmen'.
          Since it was a small operation without being tied in to the more...'prominent business organizations', it was actually in the 'enviable' position of being considered 'neutral territory'. Every neighborhood had one, and in this case it was my father's. It was a place to just enjoy yourself and mingle without having to worry about anybody else messing with you...if you know what I mean by 'messing with you.' Anybody and everybody was welcome to drop in and relax. The only 'allegiance' they had was to the gaming tables. (except for their trying to out-do each other when it came to tipping the staff...Hahaha)
          The rules at 'Gabriello's Gaming' were simple enough. 'Leave your guns and your cares outside... just relax and kick back, and leave the back-watching to us!' In reality, it became kind of a popular 'hangout' where people could go to play cards, put some money down on the spin a roulette wheel or shoot some craps without having to worry about anything.
          My father used to tell people 'I'm not involved in any kind of organized crime...I'm involved in disorganized crime'. That may sound like a joke, but it was also quite true. For lack of a better way of putting it, he wasn't a big-time hood, but all of the others considered him an okay guy. It was like he was the 'Cruise Director' on the 'Everybody-Deserves-a-Little-Love' Boat'. As long as everybody there had a good time, he was an 'A-OK' kinda guy; and everybody was watching out to make sure that nobody caused him any problems.
          Like I'd said, his little gaming establishment, or 'Gentleman's Club', as he called it, made us a pretty wealthy family, but it was all supposed to be kept on the down-low. If anybody in 'the outside world' ever asked, my father was just a 'businessman'. There were no explanations as to what kind of business he was in, of course. There was never a need to say anything more than that.
          Naturally, I wasn't allowed to talk about 'business matters' with my friends, the same as they weren't allowed to with me. Everybody knew that everybody's family was in pretty much 'the same line of work', anyway; so we really had no reason to talk about it in the first place. It didn't even really matter. There were always plenty of other things to talk about out in the 'real world'.
          Of course, there was not reason, good, bad or indifferent to even bother talking to strangers about anything...anything at all. I was very clearly taught from an early age to never even think about talking to strangers. In fact, I wasn't allowed to talk about anything with anybody unless we knew them, because, as my dear father reminded me regularly, if they were worth knowing, we knew them already. If we didn't, they weren't members of the family; and you only talk with members of the all-important family.
          So there I was, trudging through my young life thinking that my family life was just like everybody else's. Nobody ever discussed business, nobody ever discussed what their fathers did; they just 'talked'. I'd just assumed that everybody had big dinners on Sundays. Why would I know any differently?
          Anyway, eventually we moved across the river to Rockland County. I don't mean 'we' as in my parents and my sister Dee-Dee and me. That's what everybody else did. When I say 'we' I mean my parents, my sister, my grandparents, my aunt and uncle and their kids, my great-grandmother; and a few of our friends. Italians like we were don't just 'move outta the neighborhood'. When we move, we take the neighborhood with us!
          Time went on, and we had all of those huge Sunday Dinners I've already talked about. We all talked and we laughed and we ate until we couldn't move anymore. After dinner the table was cleared, the women did the dishes and the men always hung out and played cards. The kids got to do whatever it was that good little Italian kids did for fun.
          In my case, by the time I was 15 I wasn't playing games with the kids anymore, I was more interested in the games my father and the rest of my family playing. One of those games was called 'poker'...but it wasn't just a game...it was a whole family of games. There were all kinds of poker...5-card, 7-card, high/low and a whole variety of others. There was pinochle, which I never understood or bothered to...and then there was black-jack. Black-jack was the one that caught my eye. My father loved to play black-jack, and I loved watching him play it! He was a black-jack player extraordinaire, and I was his son...so it was a match made in Heaven. Well...a match made in a 'heaven' where they played black-jack all the time, anyways.
          As time went by, and after hours and hours and hours of watching the game played at home, I finally started playing, and turned out to be an outstanding dealer! According to my father and his little 'inner circle' of friends, I was one of the best they'd ever seen...and so it came to pass that I naturally started working in 'the family business'. As soon as I turned 18, I started working for my father at one of his little 'Gentleman's Clubs' in the next town over.
          It wasn't like there were any kind of 'secret knocks' or 'passwords' or anything, like you see in bad gangster movies. That was just a bunch of stuff that the big-wigs in Hollywood made up to sell more movie tickets. It was just the top floor of a two-story building over an Italian Barber Shop and a deli. (Okay, that part sounds like it's out of a bad gangster movie! Hahaha!)
          Within a couple of months of 'proving myself', I found myself 'ungainfully employed' as the lead dealer at the high-stakes black-jack table. I'm not any kind of an egotist, but even I'll admit that I was good. I was 'the boss's son', I had great 'people skills', and I was very, very good. It was like hitting the trifecta in the final race for the Triple Crown!
          I was a high-stakes dealer at one of my father's 'itty-bitty casinos' at night, I went to college during the day, and I was dating some of the beautiful girls who went there whenever I could. How much better than that could it get? Well, how much better, indeed?
          Okay, so I wasn't really 'one of the bad guys'. I was just an innocent dealer who didn't know any better who was helping out his dad. Alright, alright, alright...his Father. He liked to be called 'Father'...remember? He may've insisted on being called 'Father', but it certainly wasn't because he was any kind of priest. That much was more than obvious. At least he didn't go around having everybody call him 'Godfather'! Hahaha!
          Okay, anyway, I was a dealer who didn't know any better. Perfectly safe and sound, no worries, no nothin'...or so I'd convinced myself, anyway. Yep, safe and sound and bringing home a lot of money. All in cash, and all the time. I was definitely living 'the Gabriello life', alright. That was until that one night when my world was turned completely upside down...and once it was...once it was, it'd never be 'right-side up' again.
          Even though I stopped remembering that night before it was over, it was a night that I'll still never forget. There are things that your mind hides, and there are things that your mind blocks. The rest is fair game. I don't remember everything that happened that night, but what I did remember, I remembered in infinite detail.
          It was like I was was watching one of those really intense detective shows on TV and I'd already figured out who the killer was. Then, out of nowhere, the breaker blew right before they revealed it at the end. I still knew who the killer was without them having to say it. I had no doubt who it was...all I needed was to hear the detective say it. That's exactly what it was like.
          It was cold, it was raining and the clouds filling the sky made it darker than any night I could remember. It was almost symbolic of what waiting for me when I got inside, but I'd had no way of knowing that at the time. I just didn't know that 'the breaker was going to blow' and I wouldn't get to see the ending until the next time it was rebroadcast later in the season. Before it was over, I still knew it. I just didn't know that tonight that breaker was going to blow, big time, and it was going to turn out to be the darkest night of my life.
          Anyway, it was Monday night on another 'Labor Day Weekend'. The kids had off from school, the banks were closed...blah, blah, blah, blah. Well...I wasn't a kid, I didn't go to school and I didn't work at a bank, so I really could've cared less. It wasn't exactly like I had the night off, anyway. For me it was one of the busiest nights of the year. Nobody did as much business on 'holidays' as my Father's club did...so I was there mentally prepared for a more than busy night.
          Either way, it was a crappy night, so it didn't make a difference to me. Work or no, I wasn't exactly missing out on anything; and it was money in my pocket, right? Besides, when you think about it, as far as all good guineas were concerned every time that they get to gamble was a holiday! I mean, 'The Temptations' might've been headlining at Harrah's tonight in Vegas, but 'Gabriello's Gaming' right here in New York had something a helluva lot better going for it.
          At 'Gabriello's' there was no noise, no celebrities, no cigarette-girls in short little skirts wandering around trying to distract you...none of that bullshit. It was just a bunch of goombas who were more interested in playing cards than they were in seeing sexy eye-candy walking around selling smokes or listening to 'The Temptations' singing songs. The only 'Temptations' they cared about were the ones that'd led them to trying to win piles of cash going head-to-head with the other Guidos at my Father's tables.
          I'd been dealing black-jack for most of that drab, rainy, miserable night. I was tired without being tired, if you know what I mean. My mind was wide awake, but my body felt like it'd been dragged by a freight train. At least I knew that I was going to get a break at midnight, so I'd be able to just be myself for a little while. If that 'little while' had gotten here about five minutes earlier, this little chapter of my life would've had a much happier ending to it...although end it certainly did.
          Anyway, like I said, I was dealing black-jack. And dealing it. And dealing it. I was dealing it like a black-jack dealing machine. A well-oiled black-jack dealing machine.
          My body may've been half asleep, but my mind was working double overtime. I may've been a regular guy in the 'real world', but when I was dealing black-jack it was like I was on stage. I was playing the part of 'the perfect dealer', and it was a part I played well. I looked the part...I acted the part...I was the part. It was like I was going for my own private 'Academy Award'...'Best Supporting Greaseball in a Black-Jack Dealing Role'.
          As I ran that little jewel through my head, I smiled to myself. 'Ha!' I thought, 'Like anybody even notices!' The mistakes they pick up on immediately. If you drop more than one card on a hit or count their hand wrong when you deal them a card, they'd be all over you like Muhammad Ali on Joe Frazier. One well-aimed punch and you'd be down for the count.
          On the flip-side, if you do what you're supposed to do, you just kinda fade into the background. But, hey, what did I care? It's not like I was hankering for any kind of 'recognition' or anything. What was I shootin' for, anyway? The 'Most Outstanding Illegal Blackjack Dealer of the Month' award? No, 'staying in the background' suited me just fine, thank you very much.
          It didn't matter to me one way or the other. I mean, every night was pretty much the same anyway. Show up, pick up the cards, deal until you're ready to pass out, and go home with a pocket full of money. Yep, the exact same night every night. At least until that one night. After that night, I'd never want to pick up another deck of cards for the rest of my life. As it happened, I never had to again.
          It was 11:55. I knew that when I got 'the nod' from my father. 'The nod' was like an unspoken way of his telling me 'keep it up, your relief will be there in five minutes'. Just five more minutes. It was only gonna be five minutes until I was going to be able to finally take a break, suck back a cigarette or three and finally, finally sit down for a few minutes.
          "This'll be my last hand with you, Gentlemen!" I said with a cheery, dealer-like voice, "but don't worry, my relief, Vinnie will be taking over, so there won't even be a break in the action for you!"
          'The action.' That was what we were supposed to call it. There's nothing illegal about going out and getting yourself a little action, right? Nope, it was just a friendly little game of cards. In a room full of other men playing a friendly little games of cards. Who were just 'donating' a little bit of money to help pay my father's rent. Everything was above board. Ask anyone.
          So I began dealing that last hand. There were only two men at the table. At a $100 minimum-bet table, there were always a lot of empty seats. At that table, two men was normal, three was a lot, and four was a crowd.
          The players, Giuseppe 'Big Joey' Catore and Samuele 'Sammy the Shooter' Senzamici had been there for a couple of hours. They'd been there since we'd opened, actually; and I was the one who'd been dealing to them. Mr. Catore liked everybody to call him Big Joey. He was one of the nicest guys who I'd ever met, and he always gave me a nice tip at the end of my shifts. Mr. Senzamici, not so much.
          He was always addressed as 'Mr. Senzamici' to his face, but pretty much everybody called him 'Sammy the Shooter' behind his back. My father was the only one who called him 'Sammy'. If my father hadn't been 'Il Capo Grande' of the place, he would've never gotten away with it, but at my father's little 'Gentleman's Club' everybody was his friend...or wanted to be. They also knew that the last thing you wanted to be was his enemy.
          Now, don't get the idea that 'Sammy the Shooter' was a hit man or anything. He was anything but. He was really just a glorified bookkeeper. They called him 'Sammy the Shooter' because he did way too many shots. Boilermakers and shots. He'd slam back the shot of whiskey and gulp down the beer. After he'd had enough beer to get an elephant drunk, he'd switch to straight shots...and he was really good at 'shootin' 'em back'...which was how he earned his nickname, in the first place.
          Big Joey and 'Mr. Senzamici' were definitely having quite the 'lucky streak'. Unfortunately, only one of them was blessed with good luck; and it definitely wasn't 'Sammy the Shooter'. Then again, he always had so much bad luck that he couldn't've won the lottery if he'd bought every ticket in it.
          You'd think that after being unluckier than a turkey on Thanksgiving for so long, he'd've either given up playing cards a long time ago; or he'd at least gotten used to it, but he'd obviously done neither. Quite the opposite, in fact. He almost always played two hands at a time, and sometimes more than that. Yes, Sammy the Shooter could teach other gamblers how to lose; and never seemed to catch on to that fact. That still didn't stop him from giving it the old college try, though! Even though the other players always had the good sense to ignore him, it certainly didn't stop him from trying to play their cards for them.
          Everybody already knew that he always had something to say about every play they were going to make. And I do mean every play of every card. They just tuned him out and played however they wanted to, anyway. That still never stopped him from giving them advice though...loud advice.
          As his luck got worse and worse, he would drink more and more; and his 'friendly advice' started getting louder and louder. He would start out by just raising his voice. Then he'd start yelling at them. He'd eventually just get downright mean...and mean was just a stone's throw away from hateful.
          Yes, as bad as things already seemed, everybody knew that once the Shooter started drinking hard, things started to get a lot worse...and Mr. Senzamici had started drinking hard over an hour ago. In fact, at this point he was drinking like a fish. He was well past drinking the beers, and he was just slamming back the shots. A lot of them.
          Now don't get me wrong...drinking was certainly allowed at the Club. Selling drinks was actually one of the ways that brought in a lot of money, so my Father actually encouraged it. One of the ways it brought in so much money was the fact that the players became a little less...well... 'focused' on their gaming for the evening. That didn't change the fact that they were also expected to be able to control themselves. As of that moment, Sammy the Shooter was out of control.
          It was obviously time to cut him off, but I'd leave that up to Vinnie to do after he relieved me. The last thing that I wanted to do before my break was cause any trouble. The Shooter usually drank more alcohol than humans should be allowed to drink, but stopping him certainly wasn't up to me. That night, he'd gotten drunker than I'd ever seen another person get...and believe me, I'd seen a lot of drunken people in my day.
          Yeah, let Vinnie deal with it. If there was gonna be a fight, I'd be a lot happier watching it from the sidelines. I'd just let my father know that it was time to stop letting Mr. Senzamici drink anymore. Let him make the call after Vinnie took over. That way nobody would have to worry. Even angry drunk Sammy the Shooter wouldn't be stupid enough to take on my father. Hell, nobody was...at least not more than once...and the Shooter'd had to be dealt with more than once, already.
          I started to deal that last hand of black-jack. As I did, I had a broad smile on my face. I felt that calm sense of relief any man would have after spending almost four hours on his feet in a smoke filled room full of men waiting to throw their money away.
          I dealt a six and a jack to Big Joey and a deuce and a nine to Mr. Senzamici. My own top card was a ten, so Big Joey assumed, as most good black-jack players would, that my hole card was a ten, too; so he decided to take a hit. The Shooter obviously didn't agree with his decision.
          "What the hell is wrong with you!!" the Shooter yelled at him, draining his shot glass in one angry gulp, "You've got a friggin' sixteen!! Who the hell pulls on a sixteen!!"
          "Look, Senzamici, I don't tell you how'ta play, do I?", Big Joey said, raising his voice, "I never tell you what to do...and believe you me I could! Dealer! Hit me!!" I dealt him another jack and he busted.
          "I'm sorry, Big Joey," I said, "That's two jacks for 26." As I started pulling his chips toward me, Sammy the Shooter exploded.
          "Why the hell did you take my friggin' jack?!" he yelled at him, "You friggin' busted, just like I said you would, and you took my friggin' jack!! I woulda had 21, you asshole!" He banged the table in disgust and turned to me. "Hit me!!" I dealt the next card, and it was another deuce.
          "That's two more for a total of thirteen, Mr. Senzamici," I told him very calmly and politely, "Would you like another card?"
          "Un-friggin'-believable" He said, looking down at his cards, shaking his head in disgust. "un...friggin'...believable!" He sat there looking at them and he then looked over at Big Joey with venom in his eyes." His eyes never left them as he growled, "Hit me!" I dealt him the next card, and it was a king.
          "I'm sorry, Mr. Senzamici," I said with only the tiniest hint of nervousness in my voice, "That's ten more for 23."
          As I picked up his cards and used them to start pulling his chips toward me, Samuele 'Sammy the Shooter' Senzamici stood up, knocking his chair over as he did. He banged the table with both of his hands in a blind rage and threw his empty shot glass across the room; just missing somebody standing over at the roulette table. All the 'action' in the room had suddenly stopped right then and there. The only 'action' anybody was interested in was happening right there at my table.
          Big Joey stood up with a look on his face that said that he was on the verge of exploding, himself, his own eyes never leaving Senzamici's. They started cursing back and forth in Sicilian, getting louder and louder...more and more violent; and then it happened. Mr. Senzamici pushed Big Joey back against the table.
          Big mistake. Very big mistake. Big Joey Catore was the calmest man I knew...and I knew a lot...but the Shooter had pushed him. One thing that you never did was push Big Joey Catore. Nobody pushed him around, and in that moment, Senzamici was less than nobody.
          'The Shooter' was already a well-know 'loser' to begin with, but at that moment, he was about to chock up another loss to his extensive collection. In fact, he'd managed to lose his own private little trifecta. A 'trifecta' of his own making. He'd lost his money, he'd lost his self-control, and he'd apparently lost his senses. If he hadn't, he certainly wouldn't've even thought of pushing the one man in this or any universe who should never, ever be pushed. Everyone in their right mind knew not to push Giuseppe 'Big Joey' Catore around, and Samuele 'Sammy the Shooter' Senzamici was about to find out why...the hard way.
          Not only had he been stupid enough to push Big Joey into the table, which was against club rules to begin with, he'd also managed to push one of the few 'buttons' that Big Joey had. Yes, with that one little shove, he'd also push him to his limit. That was the kind of 'trifecta' that nobody ever wanted to play let alone lose...but betting on what was going to happen next was hardly a long-shot at all. In fact, it was better than even money.
          Big Joey's eyes narrowed, and his hands began to tremble. He was well-known...almost 'famous' for being able to control his almost legendary temper. Still, try as he might, at that point there was no way that he could control a temper that he'd fought harder than any other man could, anymore. He took a deep breath, as if it would calm him down, breathed it out, and I could see that it didn't work. Then he yelled and pushed Sammy the Shooter backwards into one of the empty chairs at the table. The rest of that night became a blur for me, at that point.
          I remembered Mr. Senzamici screaming out something at Big Joey in Sicilian and grabbing the chair that Big Joey'd just pushed him into. I saw him picking it up and starting to swing it in the air towards him. Time began to slow down in that moment.
          "Mr. Senzamici...NOOOOOO!!" screamed it's way out of my lips, seemingly in slow motion, as I rushed over and tried to stand in between them. It was the last sound I'd remember making for a very long time.
          The chair spun through the air, also in slow motion, as Mr. Senzamici's hands tried to guide it towards Big Joey's head...but my own got in the way. The full weight of every ounce of strength in Sammy the Shooter's drunken, 'beer-and-a-shot-muscled' body knocked me clear over the black-jack table as the chair gripped firmly in his hands shattered my skull, sending me on an unplanned vacation in the world of dreams...or in this case...nightmares.
         

* * *

          I woke up in a hospital in New York City with no idea how I'd gotten there. I looked around through my dry, sticky eyes and saw the IV drip and the sign that said who my nurse was, and kinda figured it out, all the same. After I realized where I was, I pushed the little buzzer that called for the Duty Nurse. When she came in I asked her what'd happened, she told me that my friend Samuele Senzamici and I had been in a car accident.
          That brought back some frightening memories from the night before, but I didn't remember being in any kind of car accident...and that drunk asshole Senzamici certainly wasn't any kind of 'friend' of mine. Not by a long shot. At that point, I was more confused than I was when I first woke up. As I lay there trying to remember something...anything about happened last night, another woman came in from the hallway.
          "Oh, look who's up!" Whoever she was said with an annoyingly cheerful smile.
          "Yep," the nurse replied to her, "Mr. Gabriello woke up a couple of minutes ago...and he's probably starving!"
          She was right, actually. I was definitely hungry. I was very hungry, in fact. I had no idea how I could be that hungry, but I was still more than surprised by what the other girl said next.
          "I'll bet he is...will you be having the turkey today, Mr. Gabriello?" She asked. (She was obviously one of the girls who served the meals there.) "It is Thanksgiving after all!"
          "Wait a minute..." I asked them both in frustrated confusion "how the hell can it be Thanksgiving? It's Labor Day weekend!" I said, raising my voice, "You mean Labor Day dinner, right?"
          "I'm sorry, Mr. Gabriello..." the nurse began. Then she paused for a moment, and spoke that one sentence that would change my life forever. The one sentence that marked the end of one life and the beginning of another. "You've been in a coma for over three months...let me call your doctor in. He can explain it to you better than I can."
          I waited there in confused silence. A coma. I'd been in a coma. For over three months! How the hell could I've been in a coma for three months? I was dealing cards last night at my father's place. What the hell was going on? 'Screw it', I thought to myself, 'These nurses are absolutely useless. The doctor can explain it to me.'
          Five minutes later the doctor came in. He looked like he was in his 50's and had a clipboard in his hand. He also looked like he'd been there for like 20 years without any sleep.
          "Good afternoon, Mr. Gabriello," he said stifling a yawn that didn't change the fact that he was more than just a little bit relieved. "I'm Doctor Rabinowitz. It's nice to see that you've finally decided to wake up and join the rest of us in the real world." he said, smiling. "You certainly gave us quite a scare there, for a while."
          "Okay, Dr... ...Rabinowitz..." I said, struggling to even remember the name he'd told me only a few moments before, "Where the hell am I?"
          "You're at Our Lady of Mercy General Hospital in the Bronx..." he answered me, "Do you remember how you got here?"
          "How the hell am I supposed to remember how I got here?" I said, again raising my voice, just wanting to get a straight answer from somebody who knew what the hell was going on, "In a friggin' ambulance??"
          "Well, yes, obviously." He said, laughing a polite, fake-sounding laugh, "But do you remember why that ambulance brought you here?"
          "They told me that I was in a car accident...", I started, "but I don't even remember getting in a car."
          "Well...partial amnesia usually follows the kind of accident that you were in, so I'm not surprised that you can't remember any of the details", he told me. "Can you tell me what year this is?"
          "Yes, of course", I answered him in frustration, "It's 1983...."
          "And can you tell me who the President is?"
          "Yes, dammit, it's Ronald friggin' Reagan!" I almost yelled back, "What the hell is going on? Why the hell am I here??"
          "Well...as the nurse told you, you were in a car accident." and repeated, "You and your friend Mr. Senzamici were driving into the city, and he crashed his car into a wall on the lower level of the George Washington Bridge."
          Again with the car accident. And again with calling that drunken lunatic my 'friend'. My frustration was rapidly turning into anger. I tried to remain calm. I really tried to, but everybody I'd spoken to so far musta been some kinda politician or something because every one of them had done a whole lot of talking and said a whole lotta nothing.
          I was getting so irritated that I felt like my head was going to explode. It would have, too, but I'm sure that that would've been going against 'doctor's orders'...and Doctor Shit-for-brains here was probably the horse's ass who'd given them. I was going to give this guy one last chance...one final opportunity to justify his existence and tell me what I wanted to hear. If he didn't then my head was going to explode and Doctor Dingle here was gonna find himself in the middle of the blast radius!
          'Okay...okay...' I told myself, 'let's be calm here, Sal.', catching my breath, 'Let's be cool, calm and collected.' I thought, breathing heavily. 'letting this waste of flesh get you angry over this wasn't worth the effort.' I very calmly looked into his eyes and asked him the question in a very calm voice. A voice that said 'cut the crap and tell me what's going on. Now'....
          "Okay, Dr. Rabinowitz of Our Lady of Mercy General Hospital in the Bronx...", I began in what I hoped sounded like a nice voice, but with a decidedly impatient tone to it, "and how exactly did this little 'unplanned visit' to a wall on the lower level of the GWB in a car I don't remember getting into happen?"
          "Apparently your friend was driving while intoxicated," he replied with a serious tone to his voice. "very intoxicated. It seems as though he lost control of the car." He continued, "They brought you both right in here after it happened...", taking a deep breath, he went on, "you're going to be fine, now that you're awake...but I'm afraid that your friend was DOA when you both got here." He politely tagged what he was saying with a very somber tone. "I'm sorry."
          "Okay..." I said, partly lost in thought, and partly confused, "So you're saying that my 'dear friend', Mr. Senzamici is dead now?" I asked, "As in no longer among the living?"
          "I'm afraid so," and again he said that he was sorry. I didn't have a clue why the hell I would've been in a car with that drunken stronzo headed into the Bronx in the middle of the night. Especially after what happened what I'd thought was last night, from what little I could remember of it. Then he added a sentence that suddenly cleared up everything for me. "It's a good thing that your father and his friend were in the car behind you, or you'd probably be dead now, too."
          "Uuuh, thank you, Doctor." was the only reply that I could give him. My head was still a little bit cloudy, right now; considering what he'd just told me, but every trace of confusion was gone. I suddenly understood what'd happened. Well, I understood the important parts, anyway. I just needed to talk to my father about some of the details to find out exactly what happened and when.          
          "I'd like to be alone right now..." I said, obviously letting the good doctor know that his services were no longer required at the moment, beyond one last task. "Oh, and before you go, could you please give me my cellphone?" I'd said to him in what I'd hoped sounded like a decidedly bored, but authoritative tone of voice, "I'd like to let my father know that I'm awake."
          The nurse handed me my cellphone and they both left the room, as I pressed the speed- dial number on it that rang my father's number. I needed to call him and let him know that his son was finally awake. His son was awake, and wanted to see him...and thank him.
          Hearing that Mr. Senzamici had died a horrible death had caused me to suddenly remember everything about the fight at the Club last night. A 'last night' that'd happened three months earlier. It may've been a terrible, horrible night that changed my life forever, but at least I was still alive, and the man who'd done this to me wasn't. He was dead, and my father had been there to see to it that he was.
          As life-altering as this whole nightmare may've been, it'd taught me the kind of lesson that they couldn't teach you in any school. For the first time in my life, I truly understood what my father meant when he always said 'never go against the family.'...and it was a lesson that I'd never forget.