Ok, I'm trying to keep Grampster from getting too depressed by my posts. But I have a lot of stuff to say.
Back in 1970, my two buddies--Homer and Guy-- and I moved into an apartment on the very lower side of the East Side of Milwaukee.
It was, to put it politely, a slum. Having grown up in one the nicer suburbs of Milwaukee, I thought--in some Hemingway state of mind--that this was somehow romantic.
When we moved in, the bar below our apartment was a gay bar. I forget the name now, but it was something related to "aquatic" or "water" or whatever.
Whatever. Apparently, somebody decided that certain people wanted to get wet.
Our landlord, Tommy "The Fish" Piscetello, didn't fare well with that venture.
Maybe because he was a small-time member of the Balistrieri family, and gays just didn't figure into that mix. Too bad, because "Fish" missed out on one of the biggest money-making nightclubs in the city: The Factory. Everybody who had a few fazone's knew how to get a piece of that action.
Tommy was old-school. He didn't deal in drugs, and he kept a low profile.
So low, in fact, that I was sometimes embarrassed for him.
For example, one Saturday afternoon he asked me to keep watch for a friend of his, who was going to be stopping by.
So, I watched. And Fish and his friend unloaded a case of stolen Stacey-Adams shoes from the trunk.
That's it? A dozen or so cheap shoes?
Fish tried everything with that bar: he tried to turn it into a nighclub; he tried to make it a hangout for whores (hey, when you're 21, that's interesting); he tried to make it a music club.
Mostly, though, it was a place for other small-time hoods to stop in and flash some cash.
He even tried to teach me how to be a bartender. I know I've told this story before, so I'll be brief: two wiseguys came into the bar on a Sunday afternoon, bought a drink each, and left $5 on the bar. I went running after them, thinking they'd forgotten.
"Hey, Rich!" Fish bellowed. "That was a tip. Don't ever insult my friends again!"
OK, Fish.
Anybody who's seen the movie "Donnie Brasco" knows the kind of guy I'm talking about. Bottom of the rung, no future...but I really loved the guy.
When my buddies and I moved into the "apartment" (I use the term loosely), Fish had to be going on 60. He was definitely old-school, out of the picture, but also something of a La Cosa Nostra historian.
Fish knew many of the big name gangsters from the 30's and 40's. He and I would sit and watch "The Untouchables" on Sunday afternoons. And he knew pretty much any gangster who was mentioned.
Fish also knew that I didn't have any money. So, from time to time, he'd give me an errand to run: deliver this package to this person, and I got $5. Deliver this package to that person, $10.
I'm quite certain that none of those packages contained body parts. I don't think Fish was far up enough on the ladder for that activity.
Fish was also a real a*****e, although he couldn't even bluff me, skinny kid that I was. When Fish told me he was going to double the rent on the slum apartment, I dared him to do so. In fact, I used some pretty salty language.
My two buddies were scared that I'd talk to him that way. But I'd gotten to know Fish better than they ever did.
Fish caved in. I won.
In the mid-1970's, there were two bars where the Mafia types hung out. There was Frankie's Joint, a little bar on the lower East Side. And then there was Snugs, a classy club on Prospect Avenue.
Debbie and I would go out for dinner, then hit Frankie's, and then finish off the night at Snugs.
By the mid-1970's, the FBI had infiltrated the Balistrieri family thoroughly.
I remember one night in particuar, when the owner of a popular East Side restaurant came into Frankie's Joint, with a whore on each arm.
"G*****n FBI won't leave me alone," he shouted, to the applause of all in the bar.
When I asked about Fish, everybody went silent. Can't blame them, as an English/Irish/German/Finnish descendant, I didn't fit. I only knew Fish. I wasn't one of them.
Fish wasn't going to get "whacked." But he wasn't going anywhere, either.
In everyones' lives, there are people who are memorable, people who make a difference, and people who have done both.
Tommy "The Fish" didn't make a signifcant difference in my life. But he sure made it entertaining.
Fish, wherever you are, tell the waiter that the peppers and sausage are on me.