-Adult Language Warning-
Old Sonny Carbone—may he rest in peace—used to say that sandwich making was the most underappreciated of the art forms. At the time I thought he was just some old bastard who’d been slicing beef for too many years and wanted to seem important, but he really should have been up there with Da Vinci and Raphael. The man was a genius—give him two pieces of bread and he’d give you back a masterpiece. I was just a dumb mook back then, so I didn’t know any of the tricks that go into making something worthwhile; a real Mona Lisa of sandwiches.
For one thing, everything has to be thin. When I first started working at Cicero’s I’d hack off these big hunks of meat and just throw them on any which way. It was almost blasphemy. I’m amazed the guys gave me a second chance. If I saw some punk kid pulling that shit in
my Deli I’d smack him down and throw his ass out the back door. No, everything has to be as thin as possible. Meat that you can see through and vegetables sliced with a damn razor. Maximum surface area. You put it on in layers, making sure to overlap everything so it fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. That way the whole thing doesn’t fall apart as soon as you take a bite.
Of course, it takes longer that way, but there really isn’t any other option. That’s why you should never go to one of those fast food sandwich joints. They’re only interested in getting you out the door as soon as possible so there’ll be room for more customers. They don’t have enough time to really
craft something. Speed is all well and good for burgers and fries—cook anything in enough grease and it’s going to come out tasting all right—but not for sandwiches.
Besides which, those fast food places have everything already cut up and piled in bins waiting for you. If it’s not fresh, then it’s not right (that was another one of Sonny’s sayings). As soon as a tomato or a side of lamb gets its first breath of air, it starts going down hill. That’s how I spend most of my day, actually—slicing stuff. Slicing meat, slicing vegetables, slicing bread.
Oh man the bread! Tommy Cicero, the guy who ran the place, really had the bread figured out. It’s what really makes the sandwich, after all. The one shared trait that’s common to all of sandwichkind. It has to be light and moist but still with some heft to it, so it doesn’t just get squashed down. And the crust has to be firm, but not
hard, if you know what I mean. It should resist you for a second and then tear, not splinter.
There’s no such thing as sliced bread, by the way. You know how they say “it’s the greatest invention since sliced bread”? Yeah, no, it hasn’t happened yet. That Wonder shit that you buy in plastic bags isn’t bread, it’s dough that’s been left out too long. At Cicero’s we baked all our bread right there on the premises and it was usually still warm when you bit into it. Tommy was constantly mixing dough and sliding more loaves into the great big oven because we were a popular joint and we’d honestly go through something like a hundred loaves a day.
It’s a great job, honestly, working for the Ciceros. Good pay, decent hours, all the sandwiches I can eat, and, naturally, there are other perks as well. Hanging out with the boys, for example. I know guys who work in offices and all they do is bitch and moan about their coworkers. At Cicero’s we’re all part of the same crew and it’s like working with family. There’s Tommy, who I mentioned before, and then there’s Bill Marino and Vinnie Sivero and the Gaggi twins, John and Paul. There’s also Louie Borellie and Kevin Santoro and, of course, Mickey Mastrogiacomo (who’s doomed to be called Mickey Mouse thanks to his long last name). And that’s just the guys who work there; there are a dozen others who are in there pretty much twenty-four/seven. We just hang out all day, basically getting paid to joke around and eat sandwiches.
Of course, that’s only half the job.
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I remember one time when things got pretty messy. It was around midnight and we were all just hanging out at Cicero’s, as usual, drinking and laughing, when Louie Borellie and a few of the boys came in dragging this Irishman who they’d beat all to hell. It took a minute for the full story to come out, but when it did we didn’t waste any time.
Turns out the poor bastard and a few of his idiot friends had held up a bookie for about twenty grand. What they hadn’t known was that the bookie worked for Uncle Mac and that they’d all signed their death warrants as soon as they walked in the door. Mac Cicero was the boss of the whole neighbourhood. He owned pretty much everything and, one way or another, everyone was either working for him or paying him for something. He was a real nice guy if you knew him, but Lord almighty was he one ruthless son of a bitch to the people who got on his bad side.
I remember this one guy, Joey Fontaine, who was a real tough guy. He was cocky and stupid and he started mouthing off about Uncle Mac to some of his friends. He actually started calling him “Big Mac” like that’s supposed to be some kind of really clever insult. Sixty years of good Italian food, of course Mac has a gut. Anyway, eventually Mac found out about what Joey was saying about him and he decided it would be good business to make an example. The cops had to go on a goddam scavenger hunt to find the body. I hear they’re
still looking for the right arm. Joey’s family had to settle with four fifths of the corpse at the burial. Nasty stuff.
But anyway, back to this fucking Irish bastard. There were about ten of us there that night so there’s no way he could have tried anything. As soon as Louie told us who he was and how he’d screwed over Uncle Mac we got right to business. I locked the door and drew the shades and we hauled his ass into the back room. Whenever this kind of thing happened we’d use the freezer because it was private and it really freaked the poor bastards out. Something about the cold and the shanks of meat hanging from the ceiling and that big metal door swinging shut just really got to them.
We tied the Irishman to a chair and Tommy took over the “interrogation”. This kind of thing wasn’t exactly a new experience for any of us but Tommy was the best at it, and he was the boss, and he was Uncle Mac’s brother, so naturally he got to do the honours. Personally, I’m glad that I just had to stand around and watch. I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty if I have to, but that torture crap isn’t really in me. I can’t help but think about myself tied to chair going through the same thing. I guess I just don’t have the gift or something.
Tommy, on the other, definitely had it. In that man’s life baking bread came first and ruining the fuck out of someone else’s day was a close second. He worked this guy over something awful—just wailing on him for about a half hour at least. I have to give the dumb Mick a hand, though, because he held out pretty good through most of it. You see, we weren’t just teaching him a lesson; we actually wanted something. Tommy was trying to get him to tell us where his friends—the ones who had held up the bookie with him—were hiding out. They were the ones who had the twenty grand and, besides, we couldn’t just let them walk away.
Even with this Irishman’s face so pulped up that his own mother wouldn’t recognize him anymore, he still refused to give up where his friends were hiding. So finally Tommy had had enough and he decided to take things up a level.
“Oh I get it now. You’re some kind of tough guy” Tommy was pretty much spitting in his face. “Is that it? Are you some kind of tough guy? All right then Mr. Tough Guy, which hand do you jerk off with? Huh? Is it your right hand Mr. Tough Guy?” Two guys laid the Irishman’s hand out flat on the table and Tommy picked up a real monster of a meat cleaver. This Irishman’s one eye that wasn’t swollen shut bugged open like the fucking gates of Hell on judgment day. “I’m gonna guess that it’s your right hand. Please correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t want to make a mistake. And while you’re at it, why don’t you tell me where your dumbass friends are? Last chance Mr. Tough Guy.” Tommy got down low and looked this poor bastard right in the eye. I still have to give him credit, though, because he didn’t say a word.
“You’re really not going to tell me? All right. I gave you every chance in the world, Mr. Tough Guy. Don’t say I didn’t.” And just like that Tommy brought the meat cleaver down and took off four fingers at once. It’s a good thing we were in the freezer with the door closed because that boy could scream like no one else I’ve ever met. You really had to be there. Even Tommy noticed it.
“Jesus Christ, son, you’ve got a pair of lungs don’t you? I think you almost burst my eardrums! I really don’t want to have to hear that again, which is what makes this next part so damn hard.” The two guys grabbed the Irishman’s other hand and laid it down on the table.
That was it, he broke like a glass vase—told us everything. We all had a good laugh because it turned out his friends were only about a ten-minute drive away. We probably could have found them on our own if we’d bothered to look. I still can’t figure out why that guy would have let us take one of his hands when the friends he was protecting were practically in our laps anyway. Crazy Irishmen, right?
Tommy didn’t waste any time after that. He sent Louie, Mickey and yours truly out to get the soon-to-be very unlucky stick-up men. Mickey and I each grabbed a piece from the big crate in the back labeled “olives”. Louie already his from earlier—he used to carry this magnum revolver because he said it made him feel like Al Capone. He didn’t even have a quick loader for it, just a bunch of loose rounds in his pocket! Personally I think that’s taking sentimentality a little too far. Give me something with a magazine so I’m not fumbling for reloads after six shots in the middle of a shoot-out.
We took Louie’s Cadillac and pulled up out front in, like I said, about ten minutes (Christ, the nerve of these guys). It was some little apartment over a shoe repair shop. We were still well inside Cicero territory so we knew that, even if the neighbours did hear something and call 911, we’d be able to talk our way free from any cops that showed up.
We were all pretty relaxed going up the stairs (Mickey was a whiz with a lock pick). They were just dumb Irish stick-up men, after all. It’s not like they were real gangsters like us, right? We got to the top of the stairs and all gathered around the door, pulling out our guns. Me with the Glock, Mickey with a sawed-off shotgun and Louie with his shitty old Colt revolver.
It should have been an easy in and out job. We kicked down the door, swept in like proper badasses, caught the little shits still snoring in bed, blew them away before they knew what was happening, and found the cash right out in the open in a bowling bag. Like fucking clockwork.
Mickey and Louie were taking a last look around to make sure we hadn’t missed anything (you never know what you’ll find in an apartment that belongs to a bunch of thieves. The fucking Maltese Falcon could be stuffed under a pillow and you’d never know) and I was keeping watch at the top of the stairs. You usually assume that that’s the safe and easy job—keeping watch—but it meant that all my attention was focused down the stairs and not at the ballsy Irish prick who’d gotten up for a glass of milk before we arrived and had therefore escaped our notice. Something told me he was standing there at the last second so I was full-on facing him when he pointed a goddam hand cannon at my chest and pulled the trigger.
I remember the muzzle flash seemed really bright. It was like someone had stuck a camera bulb in front of both my eyes. The world went white for a second and I got to put that "life flashing before your eyes" thing to the test. It’s not your whole life, if you’re wondering, just the good bits. And they don’t so much flash as blur together. There was no sound, either, for some reason the whole thing was dubbed over with “That’s Amore”. I saw girls I’d kissed, friends I’d lost, and a whole lot of excellent meals. And sandwiches, of course. A lot of the best moments in my life seemed to involve sandwiches in some way.
It didn’t last long, which was kind of a shame because it was actually really relaxing and it took my mind off the big bleeding hole in my chest that quickly became my chief concern. I was lying splayed out on my back at the bottom of the stairs—the fucking bullet had taken me off my feet and down a whole flight of stairs! Mickey was on his way down the stairs and the barrel of his gun was still smoking, which I took to mean that the guy who’d shot me was no longer a problem. He got down on his knees next to me and smacked my face a few time to bring me around.
“Mark! Mark my boy. Hold on for a minute we’re going to get you out of here. We’re going to get you to Uncle Mac’s place and you’ll be all right.”
I groaned. “Mouse, you dumb fuck, get me to a doctor. Mac couldn’t sew up a shirt, let alone a bullet hole.”
Mickey laughed at that. “No, we have to get you somewhere safe. Mac will get someone to come fix you up. You’ll see.” He turned at the sound of Louie coming down the stairs with the bag of cash. They both grabbed me under one arm and helped me over into Louie’s car. To give them credit, they both kept their heads through all of it, which helped me stay calm as well. I just wish Louie hadn’t complained about me bleeding on his leather seats quite as much.
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Mickey had been right, Uncle Mac knew some great doctors who made house calls and didn’t mind treating strange bullet holes. I wouldn’t want to repeat the experience but I’d lived through it and I had a new story to tell so that was something. I was back at Uncle Mac’s house a few weeks later for one of his grandson’s birthdays. His wife Marie was a great cook even by Italian standards so there’s no way I would have missed it.
My arm was still up in a sling to keep me from tearing my stitches open so everyone kept asking me how I was doing. I’m just glad that they were all “in the know” so I didn’t have to invent some bullshit story about how it happened. They all busted my balls a bit about how I’d let the prick sneak up on me but it was in good fun so I didn’t mind. Even Uncle Mac took me aside for a minute to ask if I was okay and to tell me I’d done a good job that night with the Irishmen, so that felt pretty good.
The two of us took a walk out in the backyard after lunch and he told me about another job that he needed doing. Some nig
ger coke dealers were muscling in on Mac’s turf and he needed them dead, soon. I guess I’d impressed him with how I’d dealt with being shot because he wanted me to go along. I was still in no shape for fighting but there’d be plenty of other guys there to back me up. Mac wanted me leading the whole operation. I said yes, of course, because this looked like it could be my big break. When we were heading back inside I made some dumb joke about nig
gers that got a big laugh out of him so that felt pretty good too.
I was walking by the kitchen when I saw this kid, one of Mac’s nephews, I think, making himself a sandwich. Typical teenager, he was still hungry even after the massive meal we’d just finished. He was making a fucking mess of everything, too. Thick slices, Wonder bread, stacking order all wrong, butter instead of mayo, it was a train wreck.
“Whoa there junior,” I said, unable to sit by and do nothing. “Let me show you how it’s done.”
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