Growing up in our mobbed-up, New York Italian family there were lots of “uncles.” There were Uncle Joeys, and Uncle Johnnies, and Uncle Frankies, and Uncle Nickies, and Uncle Vinnies. Some uncles — like one of the Uncle Vinnies and this other uncle, Jimmy, especially — were real assholes. Others, like Uncle Carmine, were really cool. He was my favorite uncle. He’d play this game with you every time you saw him: he’d hide a $5 bill in one hand and a $100 bill in the other and tell you to pick a hand, and somehow you always managed to only win the five.
Granted though, he was the kind of guy who, if you did pick the hundred, he’d give it to you. He was shady, but he had integrity.
All these uncles, they’d come and go, and usually when you just started getting attached to them. I’d ask, “Dad, whatever happened to Uncle _______?”
He’d say, “Which one?”
“You know, the fat one,” or “the one with the lazy eye,” or “the one with four fingers,” etc.
And Dad would say, “Oh! Yeah, Uncle [insert name] — he won’t be coming around any more.”
He’d then go on to explain how Uncle Johnny, “moved down to Miami — permanently,” or that Uncle Vinny, “went back to Italy,” or that Uncle Carmine, “just kinda disappeared” — …unexpectedly.
Every once in a while, some real serious, Men In Black-looking guys in matching suits — “Anglos” as my Dad often called them — definitely not Italians, and always in the same kind of blue car, too — they would show up asking questions about one of my uncles. My Dad wouldn’t let them in. He’d yell at them to fuck off and tell them to come back when they got a warrant.
I’d ask, “Dad, who were those guys?”
“Fuckin’ Jehovah’s Witnesses, looking for your Uncle [insert name]. Never talk to them or let them in the house without a warrant — EVER.”
(I had no idea what a “warrant” was. But OK.)
Uncle Carmine
When I was 8, I found, er, stole, a toolbox from the back of a van and brought it home. It had funny looking tools in it and I had no idea what they were for.
Once day, I was playing with them, and my Star Wars guys, on the back porch when “Uncle” Carmine happened to stop by and noticed and told me they were locksmith tools. After that I started playing around with the door locks and any locks I could find. It didn’t take long and I could pick every lock in the house with the tools. I then became a spectacle to my dad and his friends. They’d come over and challenge me to pick a lock and then time me. Some locks I could open in 5 seconds flat. Once in a while, I’d luck out and hit it instantly. They got a huge kick out of it. My brother would lock me out of his room, and I’d pick the lock and catch him with his girlfriend. Another time, my neighbor got locked out of her house and I picked her lock. I even had this one tool that could open a vending machine for free sodas, or a laundromat washer for free quarters. I was a lock ninja by the time I was ten.
One night I was sleeping and there was a tap on my bedroom window. It was Uncle Carmine. I opened the window. “What the fuck?” I asked. “Sshhh, Filly, I don’t want to wake your pop,” he said, “but I got this friend who’s locked out of his house and I need your help. I’ll give you twenty bucks.”
I grabbed my toolbox and hopped out the window. Twenty bucks was like ten Star Wars guys! Carmine had a box truck instead of the usual big black car like all of dad’s other friends. I didn’t think much of it. We drove for awhile and on the way he explained to me that his friend “Bob” was actually on vacation and asked him to take his color TV in for repair but (“Stupid Carmine”) lost the key Bob gave him, and he didn’t want to piss Bob off, so he just needed me to open the door. (And I’m that stupid, right? But again, twenty bucks was like ten Star Wars guys!)
We got to “Bob’s” house, it was dark. I went over to the front door and quickly worked my magic on it. Carmine went in, I followed. He looked around at a bunch of stuff, rummaged through papers, stuffed a few things in his pockets. “I just want to make sure everything is OK.,” he said.
He checked the fridge, filled his pockets with beers. “Don’t want these to go bad while he’s gone,” he said.
He then asked me to help him with the TV. We disconnected the cable box and carried it out to the truck. I then followed him back inside. “Oh, I asked him if I could borrow his VCR while he was gone, too, so grab that,” Carmine said, “and I’ll grab these speakers I’m borrowing.”
I grabbed the VCR, he grabbed the speakers, and we loaded those, too. Then he told me to go sit in the truck. In the mirror I could see him going in and out of the house, loading other stuff — a microwave, some boxes, some clothes, and even a bike.
Finally he closed the door, wiped the doorknob with his shirt, buttoned up the truck and hopped up front. It was about 3AM now. As he drove me back to my house he thanked me for helping him and told me “Bob” really appreciated it, too. Then he gave me $50 and told me not to tell my dad, that my dad would cut his balls off if he knew he’d woken me up like that on a school night. It was to be our secret.
I was glad to help Carmine …and “Bob” …and for several weeks after that, a whole bunch of other people who apparently needed Carmine’s and my help with their TVs and microwaves and stereos and other stuff with obvious street value. Fifty bucks here, fifty bucks there, I didn’t mind. It was our secret!
Then one day Carmine suddenly stopped coming around. He just kind of disappeared. I never saw him again. I asked my dad, “What happened to Uncle Carmine?” and he said, “Oh, he won’t be coming around here no more, he moved back to Italy or something—some place far.“
So far as I knew, Carmine was from Schenectady, but I didn’t say any more.
And so to this day, every time the Jehovah’s Witnesses, or the Mormons, come to the door, before they can even utter a word, I yell at them to fuck off and come back when they got a warrant. I even raised my own children to do the same.
—P.
Featured Image: My cousins Fred, Nick and Sam Manno — “The Policy Kings” circa 1953
Publisher
As a child my mother said to me, ‘If you grow up to be a soldier, you will become a general. If you grow up to be a monk, you will become the Pope.’ Instead, I grew up to be a degenerate, and now I’m publisher of SCREW.
