Back in the day, when I was growing up in Little Italy, you had to be street wise, even if your family wasn’t Mafia. Now, back in the day, “street wise” in Little Italy, whether it was the one in Manhattan, where I come from, or Boston, Chicago or anywhere else that has a Little Italy, was not the same thing as “street wise” is today in say, Compton, Brooklyn or Northeast DC. Because, you see, dear reader, no matter what city it was in, back in the day, Little Italy had no street crime. Okay, maybe, once in a blue moon, some melanzana comes into the neighborhood and robs an old lady – but he didn’t get three blocks before the local capo’s soldiers intercepted him, and the Mafia penalty for robbing an old lady in the street wasn’t no deal with the DA for six months, either. Let’s just say that particular melanzana didn’t rob nobody ever again.
No, back in the day, “street wise” meant you had the stuff to do up the rest of the city and not get killed. For that, you needed a crew, some troops, that nuclear primate troupe people like Jane Goodall study in other, more established and venerable jungles. And so, when, as an adolescent, I ventured outside the safety of Little Italy, I did so in a mutually supportive social group, and the unquestioned leader of that group was a big kid named Vinnie.
Any anthropologist will tell you who Vinnie was – he was the Alpha Male. That was fine with me. It was also fine with the other five to eight adolescent males who belonged, more or less, to Vinnie’s primate troupe. Wherever we went, no matter what the spoils of our ventures, Vinnie not only saw to it that everybody got a taste, he made sure everybody got that taste to the point of their satisfaction, if not beyond. Call that what you want, dear reader, but I call it an outstanding leadership style.
When we finally put away the simple pleasures of urban teenage youth and got serious about our lives, Vinnie joined the FDNY, where he again exhibited outstanding leadership. It seems to me that would have been enough for most men. But, tragically, the Alpha Male psyche sometimes has an insatiable appetite for it’s own heroic nature, and, in 1996, Vinnie went and gilded the Alpha Male lily – he joined the Army Reserves.
Vinnie had mighty good fun for about five years. He enjoyed being a Weekend Warrior so much, he’d write to me about it in his Christmas cards. In 1999, he even made a digital CD with highlights of his incredibly manly doings, which he sent out to everybody on Columbus Day. Well, Vinnie’s just an average guy in the brain department, and I’ve never detected any trace of creativity in him, but when it comes to pure, noble human character and simple, undiluted courage, that big, lovable lug is in the ninety-ninth percentile. Running into a burning building and jumping out of a helicopter on a rope were second nature to him, and I thank God America has guys like Vinnie. He did for the city of New York and the United States just what he did for me and my buddies back in the day – he not only kept us safe, he set the best example possible while doing so.
So my heart of white flint almost cracked; yea, the temperature of the iced, purple French mineral water in my veins nearly rose to 98.6 degrees, when, as I quaffed a Glenfiddich 18 on the rocks at bar in Georgetown last November, who should sit down next to me but Vinnie himself, drunk as a skunk, a macabre fugue of conflicted emotions playing across his face.
The initial minuet we performed betrayed none of that, of course. Expressions of jovial surprise, comments on how small, indeed, our world really is, a firm and enthusiastic handshake followed by the traditional Italian male bear hug – that went down because it had to. He insisted on buying me a drink and I did likewise, finally winning that contest by convincing Vinnie I owed him for something that happened twenty years ago, which, in fact, I made up – “Two Irish Coffees with Old Bushmills Black and Kahlua,” I told Ed the bartender, slipping him a fiver with a whispered “quad espresso coffee and half shots of booze for my friend Vinnie, here.”
As I figured would happen, Vinnie pounded that Irish Coffee like it was a frosty Mountain Dew on the Fourth of July, pronounced it excellent and told Ed to make him another.
“Still my treat!” I interjected, winking at Ed, before Vinnie could say anything else.
Another went down just a well – now Ed and I had put one shot of Irish, one shot of Kahlua and eight shots of espresso in Vinnie. No, Vinnie was not sober, we all know that caffeine cannot make alcohol go away, and Vinnie would, for sure, blow way over the 0.08 milligram percent that defines “drunk” in Washington; based on my biochemistry degree, I’d say Vinnie was more in the range of 0.20 or thereabouts. But eight shots of espresso has an undeniable power – brew them up and drink them if you doubt me.
“Where you staying?” I enquired as his empty glass hit the bar.
“Walter Reed. Outpatient facilities.”
“Not anymore, Vinnie,” I told my old friend and protector, “from now on, until you leave Washington, you are lodging at the Hilton.”
“But… but how…” Vinnie asked, bleary and slowly, “do I get to my appointments with the doctors?”
“In a limousine, Vinnie,” I said, slapping him on the back, “like you deserve.”
“No way I can show up in a limo, Tom,” Vinnie protested, “what would the other guys think?”
“Okay, in a cab, then – save me a wad of money!” I laughed, “how’d you get here?”
“I took the Metro to Foggy Bottom and walked,” Vinnie replied, a bit sheepish, “I donno, maybe I’m AWOL or something, but I just had to get outta that place. It’s like a crack house in the Bronx, Tom – moldy walls, cockroaches, rats, the ceiling falling in…”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “I’ve heard some scuttlebutt along those lines. It’s disgraceful. No more of that for you. Come on, I’ll drive you up to the Hilton.”
“What about my stuff over at Walter Reed?” Vinnie was obviously concerned, although I could imagine it – a duffle bag full of clothes, memories and miscellaneous keepsakes, worth either next to nothing or everything, depending on how you look at it. He was drunk after all – it was easy. “When’s your next appointment with the doctors?”
“Tomorrow at fifteen thirty,” Vinnie said, using the military expression for what we civilians call half past three in the afternoon.
I threw a fifty on the bar and waved at Ed, who smiled back like the Cheshire Cat as I guided Vinnie out the door, “So when you go to that appointment, just drop by your old room there at Walter Reed and pick it up. I can’t imagine that they will be angry at you for making another outpatient housing billet available for its next lucky occupant.”
As we started down M street toward the parking garage I always use when I visit Georgetown, I noticed that Vinnie walked like an old man. He shuffled his feet, he hunched his back, and, as we approached the garage, I noticed that his left hand trembled.
Now, I’ve mentioned before that I drive an imported sports car, and with any of those low-slung beasts, it’s more like you put them on than get into them. Imagine how I felt, as he struggled to climb in the shotgun seat, when I realized that I had to help him. This was Big Vinnie, the guy who pulled three Latin gangsters off my back down on Avenue A, who saved my brother Rob Roy from a redneck with a pistol on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, who got all of our crew out of innumerable potentially fatal adolescent male situations. But at the age of 37, poor Vinnie was, it came to me in an avalanche of pathos, an Alpha Male no more.
On the way to the Hilton, Vinnie spilled – inhaling poison dust at the Twin Towers on 9/11; mindless rage at Giuliani when he had the fire fighters arrested; two tours in Iraq, his wife struggling to support their kids in New York on the short money; no way out of the Army even though his hitch was up; the “dear Vinnie” letter she sent him in the middle of his third tour while he was stuck in the middle of Anbar Province, right after his best buddy bought it, blown to bits by a haji RPG direct hit, nothing left but little pieces that the birds came for while Vinnie, pinned down for eighteen hours, had to watch; the divorce he couldn’t even attend court to contest; then thrown sixty feet in the air from an under-armored Humvee when a ten year old child he had given chocolate bars and chewing gum to the day before decided to martyr himself for Allah with high explosives the next; shooting pain in his back, stabbing pain in his left arm, migraine headaches that last for days.
“But it’s even more FUBAR than that, Tom,” he chuckled darkly as we rode the elevator to the lobby, “with all that stuff that I got, the medical board still says I’m only ten percent.”
“Ten percent?” Like the squalid hell holes at Walter Reed, I had heard about that kind of thing, too. “Thirty percent is the magic number, right?”
“Thirty percent or more disabled, Tom, the Army takes care of you. Twenty percent, they shove you off to the Veteran’s Administration. But ten percent…”
Then it hit me. “Ten percent, you’re technically still viable.”
“Yeah,” Vinnie shook his head as we approached the hotel desk, “ten percent and they send you back to Iraq.”
Our conversation subsided as I booked Vinnie a room with one of my credit cards. Once he saw the room, which just happened to have a stunning view of the city, he brightened up a bit – I know that money can’t buy happiness, but I’ve also seen plenty of evidence that it makes misery much more bearable.
“Hey, pumped up!” Vinnie exclaimed, stretching out on the king-sized bed, turning the vibrator on high, “just like the old days when we got lucky.”
The first thing I did was pick up the phone and order Vinnie a steamed, three pound Maine lobster. By the time I was done with that, he was fast asleep. I waited until the bell boy arrived and told him to just park the cart next to the bed. I knew Vinnie would be hungry when he woke up, and steamed lobster is his favorite food. It doesn’t have to be hot, either – Vinnie will devour a steamed lobster right out of a refrigerator.
I stopped by the concierge desk to make some arrangements for Vinnie, then drove home and went to bed myself, setting the alarm for 4:30 a.m. Since Vinnie’s accustomed to military time, I figured he’d be up – and he was.
“Vinnie,” I told him, “have them send up anything else you like. Go down to the dining room and the bar and charge whatever you want to the room. Same thing with the cab fees – I arranged it with the concierge before I left – just tell them you need a cab. When you take cab back to the Hilton from anywhere, tell them to see the concierge for payment. After their offices open today, I’m going to contact some medical specialists and some lawyers, so expect them to call.”
“Thanks, Tom,” Vinnie replied, “you’re a true friend.”
“So are you, Vinnie, and more than that, you’re my friend. And on that note, don’t forget the hot tub, sauna and pool. Plus, I want you to book a massage therapist every day – they have some very good ones at the health club.”
I sent Vinnie to a bunch of medical specialists, hired an acupuncturist and a chiropractor to visit him at the hotel twice a week, and got some lawyers to deal with the Army. They filed for, and received, a complete review of Vinnie’s medical and service records. Then followed a series of hearings, during which the Army discovered that Uncle Sam owed Vinnie two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star. Getting those did a lot for Vinnie’s morale, but no amount of medical evidence, argument or jawboning could get the Army medics to budge on Vinnie’s ten percent rating. Not that the Army doctors or the ones I hired to check out Vinnie could discuss his medical condition with me in any detail – or that I would expect them to, either – but a couple of the ones I was paying did allude to the Army’s theory that his situation was largely, if not entirely, psychosomatic.
So I decided to address that issue with some direct action. Early this month, I invited Vinnie over to my home for breakfast. Now, myriad volumes have been written by various sages throughout history, remarking upon and documenting the vast spectrum of psychological effects proceeding from a panoply of flowers, cacti, roots, bark, leaves, shrubs, berries, toad skins and fungi, not to mention the considerable fruits of the organic chemistry laboratory. Being a man of the world, if I do say so myself, I can attest to the reputed mind-bending effects caused by the majority of those things, but I can go even farther. I can also offer, on the basis of that considerable experience, a very well informed assessment, to wit – nothing beats the Appalachian Laughing Jack mushroom.
Some mycologists believe that the Appalachian Laughing Jack is a member of the same genus as the New England Laughing Jack (Gymnopilus spectabilis), while others would place the ALJ in its own, unique genus. Certainly, the ALJ does share some of the bizarre traits that make the NELJ remarkable. The NELJ turns green when cooked; while the ALJ starts out bright orange when fresh and cooks up looking brown like a cremini mushroom. Fresh or cooked, the ALJ also glows in the dark, something never attributed to the NELJ. As to relative potency, having tried both, I estimate that the ALJ is approximately twenty times as potent and also offers a much wider range of visual and tactile effects.
So breakfast at my place included a lobster meat and mushroom omelette for Vinnie. Afterwards, I had a limo drive us downtown to the Mall, where I took Vinnie on a tour of the art museums and the botanical gardens. After that, we visited Dumbarton Oaks and ended the afternoon attending the vespers performance at the National Cathedral. Then back to my place, where I introduced Vinnie to three very special ladies whom I had invited to spend the evening with him. One was a 43 year old psychiatrist with a figure like a fashion model; another was a petite, thirtysomething bohemian artiste and the third was a pretty and cheerful nineteen-year old college student who just loves men in uniform. I didn’t stay long, having arranged to meet a date for the theater, and I spent the night at her house so as to allow Vinnie plenty of space. And, oh yes, sitting in the center of the dining room table at my place was a crystal bowl of big, plump, fresh Appalachian Laughing Jacks.
When I returned to my home the next day, the house was unoccupied and all the Laughing Jacks were gone. As I inspected the place, I discovered that the psychiatrist had baked a scrumptious black forest cake, about half of which remained. The artist had put fresh linens on all the beds, and the teenager had done my laundry. Vinnie left a thank-you note on the coffee table in the living room, which read, in its entirety – “Thanks, Tom, I needed that. Vinnie.” He never was one for extensive literary expression. If Vinnie had a blog, it would be pictures.
I called the Hilton, but they told me Vinnie had checked out. No sign of him at Walter Reed, either, so I figured maybe the Army had made good on its promise to ship him back to Iraq. About three weeks passed – then yesterday, Vinnie called and left a message – “Come on down and meet me at the Aldephi Atrium Plaza at thirteen hundred, Tom.”
As I drove over across the river and into one of the decidedly less affluent places in the Metro area, I couldn’t help but wonder what Vinnie was up to. Was he hatching some harebrained scheme to get out of the Army? Did he want me to assist him in sneaking out of the country? Had he managed to injure himself even more, so he could finally at least escape being sent back to Iraq? Or did he just want to say goodbye to me before he went – but if so, why in some down-at-the-heels shopping center in a poor part of town?
It all made sense as soon as I walked into the shopping plaza, dominated by its namesake central atrium. There stood Vinnie in an immaculate Army dress uniform, wearing all his battle ribbons – including the new ones for his Purple Hearts and the Silver Star – decked out in sergeant major’s stripes. He was manning a recruiting booth.
“Yo, Tom!” Vinnie smiled and waved at me as I strode over to the booth.
My curiosity was proving hard to contain. “What happened with your re-deployment?”
“After that, uh, treatment I got at your place, I felt much better,” Vinnie explained. “I spent a couple of days doing some serious thinking, ya know. Then I talked to the shrinks and the brass about stuff and convinced them that I’d done enough time in Iraq. So I cut a deal – I enlist in the regular Army. They promote me to three up and three down – then I work recruitment.”
I am not often at a loss for words, but the best I could come up with was “That’s great, Vinnie. You’re looking ace, too.”
Vinnie allowed as it was great and he was looking ace. Not only that, he was proving to be a very effective recruiter. And why not? He was the old Vinnie I used to know – massive, handsome, upbeat and charismatic. I swear he seem to stand at least two inches taller than I remember he did way back when, and every inch exuded power, confidence and strength. I could see the kids – kids from poor families, kids with nothing to lose and nothing to look forward to – I could see them stopping in their shambling, diffident tracks when they caught sight of Vinnie. I could see them turning the proposition of joining Vinnie in a great military adventure over in their minds. Then I saw one of them straighten up out of his slouch, set his jaw, fix his eyes on Vinnie and walk straight over to the recruiting booth. As he approached, I knew it was time for me to shut up – Vinnie had important work to do.
“You been to Iraq?”
Vinnie shot me a quick confident glance that said it all – that’s the question Vinnie gets asked about two hundred times a day.
“Yes, I have,” Vinnie replied smoothly, going no farther than that, clearly waiting for his interlocutor to explore at his own pace.
“What’s it like?”
“Dangerous,” Vinnie let the word soak in, then, carefully, “also exciting. And unforgettable. Definitely unforgettable.”
It was like magic – I could see the kid was hooked. Tomorrow, he’d be enlisted in the all-volunteer United States Army and busy squandering that bonus check on his last few weeks of civilian life. It was inevitable, inescapable – he’d met Vinnie, after all. I moved off to a discrete distance and watched Vinnie work for about an hour. It was clear that the Army had made the right choice – Vinnie is worth a hundred times more to them dressed in that splendid uniform, radiating that exhilarating charm of his, getting names on the bottom line at places like this, than he would ever be humping patrols in the desert or fighting hajis house-to-house in their mud brick rabbit warrens.
Vinnie knocked off about two-thirty for a quick lunch with me at a burger joint. Even there, a couple of kids stopped at our table to talk to him. One of them wanted to know if he had been in Iraq, of course. The other one wanted to know if Vinnie had been in Afghanistan – the kid’s older brother was over there, it seems. Vinnie gave each of them his card and made appointments to meet them at the recruitment booth in a half hour and forty-five minutes, respectively. That’s apparently all the time it takes for Vinnie to close – fifteen minutes with Vinnie and your child is in the Army, mom. After the kids took off, I caught up with Vinnie some more, then took my leave, inviting him, of course, to keep in touch and drop by anytime. He probably will, too.
I had no idea that trying to help my old buddy Vinnie would bring about a transformation rendering him an expert at luring other working class heros into toting rifles around Haji’s Land-O-Sand Mass Murder Theme Park. I was just trying to get him a fair deal, that’s all – if anybody deserves a fair deal in life, it’s Vinnie and people like him. But even if this unexpected outcome isn’t exactly the best karma, for Vinnie or for me, I’m absolutely positive that Vinnie, wearing that uniform, talking war stories and playing the shopping plaza Audie Murphy, is as happy as he has ever been.