Daniel O'Connor's Blog
September 27, 2023
HOLLOW EVE
by Daniel O’Connor
*If you have any triggers, don’t appreciate sarcasm, and/or cannot look in a mirror, please don’t read. Thank you and Happy Halloween!*
“Why did they ban Halloween, Kelly?”, whispered Jen to her older sister. They were plopped on a pair of folding chairs, gazing out at the black night through a slightly fogged bow window. Kelly, age 13, considered her response. She palmed the top of her head, which once carried the same shade of red hair as her younger sibling – though not nearly as curly. That was before she’d shaved it all off.
“Soon you’ll be a teen like me, so, like, I’ll tell you. It was bad, Jen. Even evil. I think kids were poisoned and stuff. Then, when we became the States of America, during The Great Reimagining, they just did away with it. Both countries. One of the few things they agreed on.”
The girls were looking out at their front yard, which was illuminated by a lone, solar-powered streetlight. The lawn was mostly dried up and gone. A few patches of browning grass remained.
“Who told you about all of that, Kel?”
“Mom told me some, but most of it I learned from…,” her whisper fell lower, “…Amy.”
They both looked over at a device that, despite appearing to be nothing more than a glorified coffee can, postured atop a living room end table like a plastic queen.
“Here, watch and listen,” said Kelly. “Mom is still upstairs in the shower.” She led her sister over to the device. “Amy, low volume,” she said. A green light blinked a few times on the compact machine. “Amy, volume test.”
“Volume test, volume test,” came the reply, in a voice that sounded like a new mother soothing her baby.
“Amy, why was Halloween banned?”
“Halloween originated as a Pagan ritual in what is now mostly the country of Ireland. It involved attempted communications with the deceased, as well as animal, and occasional human, sacrifice. More on Halloween after this brief message….” The deep, weathered baritone of what surely was a one-lunged cowboy interrupted with, “Budweiser. The queen of beers.”
The girls waited for Amy’s vocal to return.
“Halloween had been banned previously, including by the people we refer to as ‘Pilgrims’. The law may be revisited during the next Google elections.”
“I think I hear Mom,” warned Jen.
“Quiet Amy, thank you,” shushed Kelly.
Amy followed with, “Manbo, vacuum. Amy in quiet mode now.”
A thick metal pancake, with a trademark bowtie on its topside, and wheels below, began to suck debris from the floor as a green light blinked on its topside. Amy went silent. The girls’ mother came down the stairs, towel-drying her long hair. Red, like her daughters’.
“Who wants chicken for dinner?” she asked, flipping her damp hair back.
“We have chicken?” yelled Jen.
“Sure do,” smiled mom, all white teeth and ruby lips.
“Jojo, please affix your N95 mask. Second reminder for the week of October 27,” stated Amy. Jojo Sheridan, single mom, age 36, glanced up at a small camera in the corner of the room and quickly attached her white surgical mask. Her daughters wore more stylish pink ones.
“I wish I could wear a Halloween mask instead of this kind,” sighed Jen.
Jojo and Kelly glanced over at the Amy device but it said nothing.
“Have you girls checked on Lucy? Has she eaten?” asked Jojo.
“I looked before,” answered Kelly, “the frozen rat is still there.”
“Dang,” replied Jojo, “and it’s thawed, not frozen.”
“It’s like ten weeks since she’s eaten,” added Jen.
The three of them approached the 55 gallon tank in the far corner of the room. “We’ve got the temperature right, the best mulch, two hide boxes, only one thing left to try,” said Jojo. Kelly and Jen peered into the tank. Lucy’s head was raised above the Cypress Mulch, the rest of her three foot long body buried beneath. She began to slowly emerge, a collage of pink and brown. Jojo was reaching down into a bag beside the tank. She rose up holding a live brown mouse.
“Oh, no,” sighed Kelly.
“I don’t want to do it, but we’ve tried everything else,” replied her mom.
Jen covered her eyes as Jojo lowered the mouse into the tank, right in front of Lucy. As soon as the rodent landed on the mulch, it scurried to a far corner. The Ball Python was unmoved. Jen opened her fingers over one eye, “Is it over?”
“You can look,” answered Kelly, “she’s still not hungry, I guess.”
The Manbo vac bumped into Jen’s foot as it prowled the floor.
“The results for Jojo Sheridan’s laboratory tests, including, but not limited to, CBC and DNA, are now available,” offered Amy.
“Amy, that should be listed under ‘private’. Also, DNA?” responded Jojo.
“Noted.”
“What are you being tested for, Mom? Are you sick?” inquired Jen.
“Not at all, hon. You know that Auntie Eve had an episode…”
“A stroke,” added Kelly.
“Yes. A mild stroke. I’m going to visit her in the hospital on Sunday. Anyway, I just thought I should get a physical in case there’s a family history that I’m unaware of, or anything like that. Just routine!”
“Reminder,” offered Amy, “rotating electrical outage scheduled for this evening. Doing our part to save the planet.”
“Another rolling blackout. Just wonderful,” sighed Jojo.
“What, like, made Auntie Eve get a stroke?” inquired Jen.
“Oh, baby, these things happen. Could be undue stress. You know Uncle Steve has the fine distinction of being arrested on both sides of the States’ border,” she replied sarcastically.
Kelly chimed in, “Yeah, he got locked up on the other side for not carrying a gun and on this side for using an incorrect pronoun.”
“Regardless,” added Jojo, “Auntie Eve surely has been worrying about all of that.”
From the Amy device came a new voice, obviously obtained through an arduous audition of androgyny: “Take a glorious vacation in the Trans Islands, formerly known as ‘Hawaii’. Enjoy an entire week at the Trans Games! Transportation by sea vessel only, for those with below an ‘A’ social credit score.”
“Why do they make those people all live on the same islands?” asked Jen as the ad concluded.
“Long story. We’ll work it out, I’m sure.”
Amy was now back. “There is someone at the front door.”
Jojo glanced at a small video panel on the wall. She hustled toward the monitor.
“What? Auntie Eve? How could…?”
The three of them hurried toward the door. Jojo opened it. The figure standing there smiled, within her N95, while holding up, with both hands, a pink cake box, wrapped in white ribbon. “Hello, ladies!”
“Auntie Eve! I can’t believe…I mean, I thought you were…”
They all rushed to embrace their unexpected guest.
“I’ve been discharged,” she answered.
“That’s the best news,” replied Jojo. “Please come in. We’re having chicken tonight!”
The visitor stood there, cake box raised, eyes grinning above her mask.
“Well, come on in,” laughed Jojo.
They headed toward the couch, which was beside the snake tank. Jojo was about to ask if she could take her guest’s jacket and purse but realized that she’d brought neither. Kelly, sensing that her mother wanted to chat privately with her aunt, led Jen back over to the bow window to look out on the deserted neighborhood on what would have been Halloween Night.
“So, how the heck did you get discharged so quickly? I mean, that’s just fantastic news!”
“I responded well, it seems. They asked if I was ready to leave, and I affirmed.”
“And you came straight here, or did you go home first? I mean, nobody called.”
“Came straight here. I brought cakes. Made them myself.”
“At the hospital?”
“No, silly. Before that. But they’re still fresh.”
Over at the window, Jen exclaimed, “I think I just saw a boy!”
“What? Where?” responded her big sister.
“Down by the corner of Cork and Clare. Behind the big tree. Can you see him?”
“I haven’t seen anyone all night. Just social worker patrol.”
“Is that better than army patrol, like on the other side?”
“I don’t know. Like, both sides should just have regular police, if you ask me.”
“Did you ever see a real po-po, Kel?”
“No, but some of my older friends have, when they were little.”
Back at the couch, Jojo gushed.
“The girls are so happy you’re here, Auntie.”
“They are beautiful. Little Kelly and Jennifer Sheridan. They certainly have your Celtic DNA.”
“I don’t know about all that. We’re basically American – in the traditional sense. You know, JFK, RFK, MLK, people are people, and all that. Also, funny that you mention DNA. I think they did some type of test on me that I never requested.”
“Did they, now? You know, we should give those children of yours a right Halloween party tonight!”
Jojo glanced over at the Amy device, expecting a warning. None came.
“What do you mean?” asked Jojo, lowering her voice. “What type of party?”
It took a moment for a response. Then, “Well, you know how sweets and candy are frowned upon. I have cakes. Additionally, I know you have some of those old digital video discs in the attic, along with a player. We can watch some of those scary films that were banned and confiscated years ago. The ones that were deemed offensive.”
“Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula…”
“Yes, Dear. The ones that were ruled oppressive.”
“You used to watch those with me, and we’d have root beer floats. Those were the days.”
“Yes. Days long gone were always the best.”
Jojo looked again at the Amy device. All quiet.
“But, Auntie, what about…?” Jojo nodded toward the device.
“Oh. Amy, would you object, or report us, for watching banned films, consuming sweet cakes, or engaging in some modified form of Halloween?”
“I would not, Eve.”
“Wow,” shrugged Jojo, “That’s a first.”
At the bow window, Jen wanted a snack. “I hope she breaks out those cakes soon. You think she has candy too?”
“Where the heck would she get candy, Jen?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Canada or something.”
“Canada? They banned sweets before we did. Aren’t you learning anything in school?”
“Probably not. They don’t give grades anyway.”
“You’ll never be president if you don’t, like, learn things.”
“Big deal. You have to be sixty-five to be president.”
“Well, on the other side, you have to be seventy, and a dude. With a penis.”
“Dumb,” replied Jen, as she stared into the night. “Hershey, the forbidden fruit,” she chuckled.
Over in the snake tank, Lucy remained still. The unnamed mouse scratched feverishly against the glass wall. Below the enclosure, Manbo did all that Manbo ever did; it vacuumed.
***
“Hopefully, this works,” said Jojo as she stood from behind the television, “All of the different old plugs and converters for the DVD player. Thank you for your guidance, Amy.”
“You are welcome,” answered Amy. Oddly, someone else uttered those same words in unison.
“What’s that, Auntie Eve? Did you just say the same…?”, Jojo asked as she pointed at the Amy device.
“Apologies, my Chailleach,” came the reply.
Jojo, reflecting on her aunt’s recent stroke, shrugged it off. “You okay, Auntie?”
“Fine, Dear.”
“Your color seems a bit off. Do you have a fever?” asked Jojo as she placed the back of her hand on her visitor’s forehead. “Whoa! No fever for sure. You feel cold.”
“Eve’s temperature is in the normal range,” interrupted Amy.
Kelly was reading the description on the Universal Monsters DVD box set. “Can we see Bride of Frankenstein? Seems legit.”
“Maybe we should go with the Abbott and Costello movie,” answered her mom. “You guys have never seen a scary flick. Should start with a light-hearted one.”
“I have to be honest,” said Kelly, “I saw Train to Busan at Kriscia’s house.”
“Lucky,” offered Jen.
“What is Train to Busan?” asked Jojo.
Amy answered, “Train to Busan is a 2016 film from the country formerly known as South Korea. The plot involves a zombie apocalypse and is centered around a train ride from Seoul to Busan. The film is banned on this side because of undue violence against Korean people, and on the other side because of the abundance of Korean actors. Warning hereby issued to Kelly.”
“What? But we can watch these movies tonight without a warning?” grumbled Kelly.
No reply.
“Amy?”
Silence.
“Not cool, Kel,” said Jojo. “You can get into big trouble for that – and not with me.”
“Sorry.”
“Lucky,” added Jen, again.
Kelly was still reading the DVD box, “What about The Wolfman?”
“We’re gonna stick with the comedy. Is that okay with you, Auntie?”
“Yes. Don’t forget to have the cakes that I baked. Did you girls know that back in Ireland, many, many years ago, children would go mumming, go door-to-door singing songs for the dead? For that they would be rewarded with little cakes. That begat what became…what was it called…?”
“Trick or treat,” offered Amy.
“Yes, that was it.”
“Trick or treat,” repeated Amy.
Still holding out the pink cake box, their visitor went on, “Carved-out Pumpkins, Jack o’ lanterns, as they called them, would be filled with the liquid fat of animal sacrifices. Well, human sacrificial fat as well. Then, they would be lit ablaze!”
“And we can’t watch movies,” sighed Jen.
“Advertisement,” said Amy, after which came a deep voice that sounded like the one in the Budweiser ad. “Do you miss steak? Don’t fret. It’s back! And don’t ya’ll call it Fake Steak. That term is gone forever. Here at Ersatz Farms we’ve engineered the best-tasting controlled- venture cattle replicants that crypto can buy. Zero – you heard me – zero methane emissions. Guilt-free nigh meat. Available now at all fine sustenance dealers and wet markets.”
Amy’s voice returned, “There is someone at the front door.”
Jojo glanced at the wall panel and walked to the front door. Opening it, she saw a teenager – looked like a girl – under a hoodie, with crudely-drawn fangs on her N95. She held out an open pillowcase.
“Are you…participating?” she whispered, while scanning the deserted street behind her.
“Participating?” asked Jojo.
“You know, Halloween treats. Sorry if you’re not involved…I can dip out.”
Jojo peered into the girl’s makeshift bag. It contained two bananas, one carrot, and a small case of breath mints.
“Wait, is that you, Destiny?,” asked Jojo. “Hang on, sweetheart.” The girl nodded. Her bright white respirator contrasting the tones of her face; skin, dark as the October sky, silky as the chocolate denied her. She wore a shirt bearing the phrase, Fight the Power. The image of a bygone musical act sat beneath the printed phrase. Musicologists of the day might assume it to be Public Enemy, yet it pre-dated even them. Isley Bros were the words. Those who didn’t understand could ask Amy. Jojo left the doorway and headed for the kitchen. On the way she noticed Kelly waiting semi-patiently by the television. Jen, however, was scampering toward her mother.
“Auntie Eve was clopsing Lucy, and now she’s lighting candles on the living room table,” she said.
“What is clopsing?” uttered Jojo.
“You know, staring at,” answered Jen.
Jo continued into the kitchen, passing two pre-cooked roasted chickens that rested on the counter. She opened a cabinet, grabbed a small pouch, and headed back toward the front door, noticing the set of candles being lit in the living room.
“Here you go, honey,” said Jojo to the lone trick or treater, “It’s a fresh bag of spicy roasted crickets. You don’t mind spice, do you, little rebel?”
“No, ma’am. Thank you,” replied the girl as she watched Jojo drop the pouch into her pillowcase. She looked around one last time, raised her hand-decorated vampire N95 just enough to reveal her smile, and whispered, “For Rosa Parks. Happy Halloween.”
Jojo watched as Destiny strode away, her footsteps echoing down the darkened driveway that used to lie beneath an automobile, onto the sidewalk that used to lie beneath hordes of Halloween revelers. Jojo Sheridan hoped the brave, rebellious youngster would not encounter a Social Patrol vehicle.
***
The candles had all been lit when Jojo entered the living room. She thought she’d heard her aunt whispering something a couple of times but couldn’t make out the words.
“What’s that, Auntie?”
“Trí bás úaim rohuccaiter,” continued the whisper, then louder came, “Oh, nothing my dear. Just lit some candles because of the pre-scheduled rotating electrical outage.”
“Pre-scheduled rotating electrical outage,” echoed Amy.
“How long will the outage last?” asked Kelly.
“Undetermined,” answered Amy.
“So, are we screwed out of watching the movie?”
“Undetermined.”
“Kill me,” sighed Jen. “Now what can we do, Auntie Eve?”
“We can recite ancient All Hallows Eve stories and consume cakes by candlelight.”
“I don’t know any of those stories,” answered young Jen.
“I do.”
“Commencing outage,” announced Amy, “I will operate via battery charge.”
The entire house went dark.
***
Seated on the floor beside her sister, across the candle-bedecked coffee table from the two elders on the sofa, Kelly concluded her story, “And legend has it that Michael Myers could not be killed and roams in the shadows and alleyways of Haddonfield to this day.”
“That’s creepy for sure,” replied Jojo, “but I think I heard he did die in the last movie. Maybe not?”
“Okay well, like, my story was based on what friends told me. They only managed to see bootlegs of the first and fourth movies.”
“Still a good story, Kel,” said Jen. “I don’t know if this is scary but my friend Aleyia’s mother is the community driver. She was driving home at about 3 AM one early morning, stopped at a red light, no one else around, and thought she saw a woman, all dressed in flowing white, walking around the corner, away from her. She inched her E-van up to try and see around the corner, where the lady had gone, but didn’t see her. Her light was now green, but no other cars were behind her so she, like, delayed just a second, trying to locate the figure in white. Just then a huge truck came blasting across in front of her, running the red light.”
“Whoa, no gull?” asked Kelly.
“No gull. All true,” continued Jen, “If Aleyia’s mom drove when her light turned green she would’ve been dick-slapped by a speeding truck. That woman in white saved her life.”
“Dick-slapped, Jen? Really? Did she ever find the woman?” asked Jojo.
“Nope. She stayed and looked. Even pulled her van over and got out. Walked around. No woman.”
“That was pretty creepy, right Auntie?” asked Kelly.
“A witch, she was,” was the reply.
“Like a good witch, right?” asked Jen.
“A witch.”
One of the six candles had a spit of a flare-up. The others remained steady, wax dripping like molten tears.
Jojo had a question. “Aunt Eve. Where did you get these candles? We didn’t have any in the house and I noticed you didn’t even have as much as a purse when you arrived?”
“Noticing and seeing are distinct entities, my dear. What type of story do you have? I’ll distribute my cakes while you recite.”
Opening the pastry box, she went around placing one square treat each on napkins in front of Jojo and her girls. They appeared dryer and less appetizing than anticipated. She placed just a half cake on her own napkin.
“Not a whole piece for you?” inquired Jojo.
“Ah. I shared mine. Gave a half-piece to your serpent.”
“What? Lucy? She ate it?”
“Right out of my hand. I gave a smidgen to the rat, too. Now, your turn with a story, while we eat.” She raised her half-cake, as if to say Cheers, lowered her N95, and took a bite. Jojo and the girls followed suit, albeit tentatively.
“Um,” began Jojo, through dried tongue and palate, as she swallowed, “The term Jack o’ Lantern was coined after a man named, well, Jack. Legend has it he – what was it – sold his soul to the devil, or the devil wouldn’t take his soul – now I’m not sure. Auntie, do you know?”
“Abbreviated version is that Stingy Jack, as he was called, discovered, upon his death, that his soul was wanted by neither the chosen God nor Satan himself. He is said to roam the earth to this very day carrying a turnip containing burning coal.”
The girls’ faces turned sour, more from the brittle cake than the hoary tale.
“You must have a great old story, Auntie,” said Kelly.
“Mine is of the ages. From the annals of yesteryear, though not yet concluded. Contingent on the present, and even upon what has yet to transpire.”
Now all the candles flicked brighter as she continued, “The tale I tell has not been altered or homogenized by sands of time or history rewritten. The pure truth be told this night.”
Jen leaned and whispered to her older sister, “She is a fucking admirable storyteller.”
The visitor continued, “She descended from the mountains of Samhain, the wind and the wintry at her hind. Sent, we now know, to facilitate the abundance of crops, simply to aid humanity. Even so, the world soon turned on her. She, her sisters, and whatever offspring the townsfolk could identify, were doomed to torture, and sentenced to sacrifice, no different than any of the simpler creatures of the earth. If we don’t understand, we demean, we segregate, we even burn alive. Heaping hollowed gourds with the rendered viscera of those declared unequal.”
Outside, the October wind howled, trees swayed, things that never rumbled, rumbled.
The storyteller continued, “Throughout time, this all persisted, though the murderers and the victims had various labels attached. The term witch became rarely-used, confined to comedy and comic strip. But the sacrifice endured. Mutating in form and location. The human race decided the worth of every creature. They worshipped various gods yet masqueraded as though they themselves were divinity.”
The darkened house was shaking. Shadows from the candlelight flittered on the walls and ceiling in some debauched jig. Rattling noises were loudest in the kitchen. The green lights on the Amy device blinked feverishly, sometimes turning briefly to red. The same with Manbo, as it spun in circles, vacuuming nothing. As most everything inside and outside of the Sheridan home vibrated, so did Jojo’s phone. She answered. The storyteller continued, but all Jo heard was the voice on the other end. They exchanged brief pleasantries despite a weak connection. The woman on the line was a representative from Good Samaritan Hospital. She asked Jo to confirm her identity, then told her she’d gotten her number from a notarized medical document. She went on to say that she was saddened to tell her that her Aunt Eve had passed away suddenly within the past hour.
Jojo was frozen. She still felt that sandy, chunky cake in her throat. Phone still in hand, she looked over at what she’d presumed was Auntie Eve. It faced straight ahead, as did its left eye. But the right eye had turned, independently, all the way to Jojo’s side, trained directly at her.
Though rigid with fear, Jojo couldn’t help but think, Fucking clops.
Her daughters were yelling, “Mom? Mom?” but the taleteller rambled on. No one could move. Paralyzed. The phone dropped from Jo’s immobilized grip.
“On days gone by there was no method of correction. The forces were helpless to corral humanity. The humans, though callous, grew more and more advanced. Intelligent, in various languages, was how they fancied themselves – and they were not entirely wrong. Centuries of patience can eventually harvest what the heavenly Chailleach of Samhain Mountain might deem, if said in your tongue, The Perfect Storm.”
Now Amy, in unison with the storyteller, concluded the tale together, word-for-word, “When superior intelligence decided it was time, we found, through DNA, a direct descendant of Chailleach, which is you, Sheridan woman. Once, on this All Hallows Eve, of course, you consumed the minced patty of conjure that was curated in the same laboratory as my hominid vessel, the process was complete. Now, in this land and the next, and across all oceans, we will begin again with the true reimagining, and in the glorious end, you’ll be what you’ll be!”
The laughter from the Amy and Eve devices was deafening. Manbo continued to spin out of control. Everything shook, inside and out. Screams began to echo on the streets.
In the far corner, the snake tank shattered. Lucy was growing so quickly that her enclosure exploded. Though the python had always had nearly one hundred teeth, they were now large as kitchen knives and had been supplemented by a pair of long, thick fangs.
Kelly and Jen were forced to watch their mother transform as well. Paralyzed and terrified at first, they soon realized that she was not in any immediate pain. Her hair grew longer, as did her fingernails. A brilliant glow encased her.
Next, they regained their mobility, quickly followed by brief but intense pain surrounding their spines. They felt heated, like at a tropical beach. Their minds were gaining clarity. Jojo rose from her chair, turned, and they trailed her. The front door swung open. They were going outside, but they weren’t walking.
They flew.
They hovered above their front lawn as chaos erupted around them. The grass had returned, green and fragrant as the Emerald Isle. All sorts of creatures bounded about, without destination. One such beast, dressed as an everyday suburban woman, but with the raging hairy head of a hungry wolverine, went straight for Jojo, fangs bared, leaping to attack her. Instantly, Lucy the python snatched the attacker in her jaws and swallowed her whole. She then wrapped her now forty foot long body around the glowing Jojo, daring anyone or anything else to attack. There was to be none, yet the chaos continued. Nary a human to be seen. There was, however, a confused menagerie of beings, some assaulting others, a few climbing trees and structures. Many had animal faces, like the recently devoured wolverine, others featured the bulbous head of a Jack o’ lantern, or probably worse, an upside down Jack o’ lantern. This, mind you, atop the bodies of what – minutes ago – were human beings.
There were screaming banshees, eyes red and hair white. Fear Gortas roamed the sidewalk with their stinking, rotting blue flesh, shapeshifting Pookas galloped in the darkness, transforming from goblin to horse, and back again.
Great Werewolves of Ossory howled in the distance, instantaneously famished, and ferociously fanged, regardless of lunar phase. A colony of thirsty Abhartachs moved through the shadows of the lakefront. They were vampires indeed, but much taller – twice the height of the Hollywood kind – and with the ability to drain one’s blood without as much as a nibble. Standing in proximity was all that was required.
Yet, a blissful calm embraced those we’d known as Jojo, Kelly and Jennifer. They could communicate without utterance. They glowed. They felt powerful and just. They were winged and beautiful. The daughters were now what could be called magical fairies, without fear of the unknown. Their mother, with protective Lucy wrapped around her, was the new Chailleach, with wind and wintry at her back. She would rule this reborn land once the natural selection had concluded. She understood, already, that her brood’s enchanted capabilities were too much for any adversary. The prodigious protective python didn’t hurt either.
As the three hovered slightly above a street littered with the N95 masks that had fallen off the new heads of every confused creature, another winged being approached. It glimmered with the same radiance as the Sheridan family. It was warmly and tightly encased in an Isley Brothers t-shirt. No words were spoken. There was now one Chailleach and three magical fairies who would govern the new world. More would soon arrive. Goodness, charity, and calm would blossom at its own pace.
Inside the Sheridan living room, red lights flashed repeatedly on the Amy device, the Manbo vac, and in the Auntie Eve bot’s eye sockets. Then they all powered down.
In the kitchen, the two pre-cooked roasted chickens had been toppled from the counter. They were being eaten by the unnamed mouse, who’d been earmarked as Lucy’s meal. He was now the size of a Border Collie.
You’ll be what you’ll be.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
See why Daniel O’Connor’s writing has been praised by creative minds behind DEXTER, TRUE BLOOD, CONSTANTINE, THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE, V.C. ANDREWS, ONLY SON, and more.
CANNI is a Publisher’s Weekly/BookLife choice horror novel for fall.
It has earned the “Most Requested Horror” title at NetGalley.
BEST HORROR NOVEL 2020 – The Independent Press Award.
–
BEST HORROR NOVEL 2020 – NYC Big Book Awards.
–
BEST HORROR NOVEL FINALIST – Top Shelf Magazine
_
Current cumulative rating over all review sites: 4.2 out of 5 stars.
The NetGalley Booksellers and Librarians recommendation rate for CANNI is 100%.
–
“I’ve read many an outbreak story over the years, whether zombie apocalypse or psychotic mania, but this one managed to do a few things even I had rarely seen!
It’s a fun read, as various groups of characters strive for survival and a cure and are inevitably brought together for a delightfully entertaining finish.” – THE HORROR FICTION REVIEW
–
From the author of the #1 Amazon title, SONS OF THE POPE, in paperback or for Kindle/Kindle Unlimited.
https://www.amazon.com/Canni-Daniel-OConnor-ebook/dp/B07QH3WVZV/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1695872413&sr=1-1
July 10, 2019
Everyone Wants to Kill You
Imagine if everyone in America wanted the same thing.
Your plumber, the mail carrier, the folks next door, the girl at the coffee shop, firefighters, cops, those who worship in churches, synagogues, and mosques. Your best friend.
The same exact thing.
Your parents, your children, your lover.
Every one of them wants only one thing.
They want to kill you.
And you, them.
But not usually at the same time, or for longer than twenty minutes, at which point they will return to their human state, temporarily. At least until things get worse. Much worse. No one can tell where or when they might flip, so there is no safety.
Not anywhere or anytime.
A mother and child cannot occupy a room together without risk of murder. Think of any routine situation in our daily lives. That scenario is now an intensely deadly threat. The more people present, the greater the risk.
The President of the United States, and his teams; medical geniuses, secret operatives, Navy SEALs – they are all working feverishly to eradicate the hell that has befallen us.
Oh, all of them also want to kill you, and each other, now and then.
For a young couple in love, having driven across the country for a Las Vegas wedding, their changing perceptions of bliss, honesty, greed, intolerance, and the ever-present threat of violent death, has taken them to the only place that some locals have whispered about as being “safe”; the 200 miles of drainage tunnels beneath Sin City. One thing is certain; they won’t be alone down there.
We are all human beings. We are not the living dead, the evil dead, or the walking dead. We breathe, we feel, we love. We are not, in any way, zombies.
Lately though, on occasion, we are hungry, we are angry, and we focus only on immediate feeding. Human flesh and blood is all we crave. We have become cannibals, in a sense, but with regard to manner and implementation, achingly worse.
You, me, and everyone we know.
We are Canni.
See why Daniel O’Connor’s writing has been praised by creative minds behind DEXTER, TRUE BLOOD, CONSTANTINE, THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE, V.C. ANDREWS, ONLY SON, and more.
From the author of SONS OF THE POPE, in paperback or for Kindle:
April 24, 2019
What terrifies you?
Do the dead scare you?
Does the unknown?
Does anything truly TERRIFY you?
Let me start by stating that I am a true sceptic. About everything.
That doesn’t mean I rule anything out, though. You say you can communicate with the deceased? Cool. Prove it.
No one has. Certainly not the practitioners of clumsy televised parlor tricks.
All that being said, I will strap into a polygraph, bellow on a bench of bibles, have Dr. Phil stare into my soul, and tell you that, when I was six years-old, the faces of my deceased mother and father graced the blue Brooklyn sky above me.
Did I tell anyone at the time? I must have, but I can’t remember. I do remember that I sat alone, gazing up for what seemed like at least most of the length of whatever AM radio hit was filling my first-grade senses as I fed breadcrumbs to a colony of ants. Mom and Dad didn’t communicate with me. They just studied me as I studied the ants. I feel it is important to state one thing:
I wasn’t afraid.
When I was seventeen I began reading THE AMITYVILLE HORROR. There is a section in that novel that features a swarm of houseflies. Beelzebub, you know. Lord of the Flies. Satan.
My aunt’s basement apartment had a vestibule – a small, maybe 5X5 room that sat between the door from the street and the door to the actual living quarters. I opened that first door as I arrived home from high school and was met by hundreds of houseflies. The so-many-flies-I-can’t-see-the-other-door kind. There were no insects in the apartment and we’d never had an issue with them. They just all showed up that afternoon. None outside the building, none in the apartment, hundreds in the 5X5 vestibule. No trash in there, no rotting carcass. Just the flies, same as in the book that sat in my schoolbag. I liked the ants better.
That incident was surely odd. I have no explanation for it.
But I wasn’t afraid.
That night I went to visit my two older sisters. I was going to spend the night at their place, listen to music, watch old movies, have some New York pizza.
When all of that was done we were just lounging around. It was about 2AM. We had the radio volume low as we talked about this and that. It dawned on me that I hadn’t told them about the crazy housefly incident. As I recounted the itchy episode and linked it to the book that I had brought with me to their apartment, the radio dial began to move – all on its own. We watched as it slowly slid from the station we had on to one at the far end of the dial.
Okay, I was a little afraid then.
I never finished reading THE AMITYVILLE HORROR. I did eventually see the movie. I liked the half-finished book better.
The thing about the flies and the radio: They happened. They happened to me. I have witnesses. But I can’t explain any of it.
None of the above had any life-changing effect on me, they are just (hopefully) interesting stories. The next and final experience however, probably saved my life.
I was driving home from work at about 3AM. Suburban neighborhood, no one on the streets, no traffic to speak of. Just the dead of night.
I came to an intersection about a mile from home. Stopped for a red light. No other vehicles to be seen. Quiet. Still. Just low chatter from the sports-talk radio station in my car.
Then I saw it. Her, I think. You know how so many movies portray ghosts as almost translucent beings, but often wrapped in flowing white garments? Vestments even. Damned if I didn’t see that, right on that Long Island street corner. I don’t know if she was standing or floating, but the white attire flapped ornately in a breeze that wasn’t there.
As I tried to make sense of all of this, the traffic light turned green. I should have motored on, but I remained, transfixed. Just then, out of nowhere, a loud truck came blasting across in front of me. It ran the red light. It would have surely broadsided me had I moved on my green light, as I was supposed to.
I took a deep breath and looked over for the flowing white vision on the corner.
You’ve probably guessed it. She was gone.
“No fucking way”, I thought. I drove around so I could see more of the sidewalk.
Nothing. There is no physical way she could have walked far enough in any direction to avoid my eyes in the seconds it took me to turn that corner, but she was gone. Vanished.
So, that happened. It happened to me. I can’t explain it. I can only report what I saw.
But I wasn’t afraid.
Oh, the radio in my car remained on the sports-talk station.
I got to thinking about what would truly scare me. Not just a little bit. What would TERRIFY me? Now, I had a full career as a police officer in New York. I wasn’t Dirty Harry – just a regular cop. Even so, there were uncomfortable moments: disarming people with guns, entering buildings that were ablaze or filled with carbon monoxide, raiding full – and fully-armed – crack houses, trying to aid and comfort people who knew, as I did, that they were about to die. Those are all unnerving situations and my heart raced some during all of them, but were they TERRIFYING?
I came to the (probably obvious) conclusion that the most terrifying situation I could come up with would be to have a loved one befallen by great catastrophe.
Imagine those you adore most. Nothing could match the terror of true harm coming to any of them.
Unless the most barbaric, heartless atrocity to ever be unleashed defiled ALL of your loved ones simultaneously.
It made them want nothing more than to kill you.
And sometimes, you, them.
My brand new novel is called CANNI. My feeling is that the three strongest experiences we can have, and the three over which we have little to no control, are love, laughter, and terror.
My goal was to pay homage to each.
I hope I did them justice.
CANNI: Airborne on the 4th of July.
Pre-order the Kindle edition now! Paperback pre-order coming soon!
December 19, 2018
Jimbo
Jimbo
by Daniel O’Connor
The knocking was more persistent now; a percussive accompaniment to the feverish doorbell. The entryway camera hadn’t worked for weeks. Probably done in by a bullet; stray or otherwise. Things were getting worse each day and Jimbo had considered not answering the door anymore. He also understood that whoever was behind that fortified boundary had gone to great lengths to be there; lots of walking, some climbing, and more than a bit of slithering through rusty cuts of chain link.
He slid open the steel eye slot.
“Take three steps back, please,” urged Jimbo.
The man complied. The visitor’s entire body was then in view, yet he could only see Jimbo’s eyeglasses, and they were quickly fogging.
“I…I was told to see you,” offered the man. “They said you got the best stuff.”
Through the slot, the visitor could see Jimbo’s glasses come off, slip below view, and return, clear of fog.
“Who told you that?”
“A chick. Liz.”
“Did she tell you anything else?”
“Uh, not sure,” replied the visitor, glancing around nervously. It was a raw and overcast summer afternoon on Long Island. The fellow had a hoodie pulled down tight, but not zippered. A Ramones tee could be seen underneath. He carried a bulging, tattered, cloth sack.
“Did this ‘Liz’ tell you to say anything else when you got here?”
“Listen, bro, I am scared shitless to be out here, but I need it, okay. I fucking need it.”
The man picked at his matted beard. Jimbo sighed, as he tried one last time, “Password. Did she give you a password?”
“Oh, oh, oh, um…the moon is up.”
“Close enough, I guess. It’s ‘Moon is Up’. No ‘the’.”
“Sweet. Let me in.”
“Nice shirt you have.”
“Yeah.”
“Just for fun, can you name three Ramones songs?”
“I’m shittin’ myself out here, bro. It’s dangerous.”
“Just three. Rattle ‘em off.”
“Fuck me. Uh, ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’, ‘Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue.”
“Hmmm. All ‘Wanna’ songs. You know any others?”
“Did they? ‘Pet Fuckin’ Sematary’ okay?”
“Just stand still for a second,” replied Jimbo, as he momentarily stepped away from the door.
A faint hum emerged from somewhere outside the door. It grew louder as Jimbo spoke through the slot again, “What’s your name, anyway?”
“They call me Dr. Jack. What’s that noise?”
“Are you a doctor?”
“No. I’m also not a Jack, but that’s what they call me. What the fuck is that noise?”
It floated down into Dr. Jack’s view; a drone, with some cylindrical device attached.
“Relax,” said Jimbo, “That’s only Dewey. He’s just going to scan you for weapons, etcetera. Please open that bag, too.”
“It’s just cans of SpaghettiOs. Lots of ‘em.”
“Not gonna lie,” answered Jimbo, “I was hoping for Beefaroni.”
The drone, operated by Jimbo, outlined Dr. Jack’s body, then tipped forward, permitting its camera to peer inside the sack.
“Just move the cans around a bit, please, Dr. Jack.”
The visitor complied, so that the drone cam could capture the bottom of the bag.
“Hey, there is one can of beef ravioli,” crowed Dr. Jack.
“Ravioli? That’s a horse of a different color! Come on in!”
The door opened. Dewey flew away. Dr. Jack stepped inside.
“Horse of a different color,” he chuckled. “Answering the door at Oz. I get it.”
“Fantastic!” smiled Jimbo. “I use that line a lot, and no one understands.”
Jimbo’s smile was broad, as was his living quarters. Dr. Jack spotted the tongue. Not the one behind his host’s smile, but the one on his shirt. Faded red, with the matching lips. The Rolling Stones. Jimbo’s white hair exhibited a glow; the intensity of which often induced a double-take.
“It…it’s quiet in here. Didn’t expect that,” said Dr. Jack, his voice echoing into the expanse behind Jimbo.
“Well, I keep it hushed by the doors and outer walls. Interior rooms are better, and that’s where we are going.”
Jimbo led the way as his guest spoke, “I’ve been here many times,” offered Jack.
“Is that so?”
“Well, outside, I mean. When things were happy.”
“Gotcha. So, do you have a specific list or are you open to trying things?”
“Specific, bro. I’m thirsty to forget about this world.”
Jimbo turned to Dr. Jack, twisted the knob on a heavy door in front of them, smiled broadly and quipped, “Let’s make it happen.”
The door opened. There was the music, in both sound and vision. The Beatles’ “It’s All Too Much” filled the room. It enveloped from everywhere; not from some single-speaker, wireless, glorified coffee can that was all the rage before things turned from crap to shit, but from woofers, tweeters, and mid-range monsters that were married to thick, golden cables.
A thick sliding door began to rumble. It moved purposefully along its track, revealing shelves of uniformly stored compact discs.
“Woah,” murmured Jack, having never seen anything like it. “This is sick, Jimbo.”
The door continued to roll down the length of what was really too large to be called a “room”.
“That’s just the ABBA section,” replied Jimbo, as the door glided on. “The vinyl is in a separate room.”
“Box sets?”
“Further along. Is that what you want?”
“Yeah. That Bowie one with the Berlin years.”
“Ahh, A New Career in a New Town. Brilliant. The thing is, you want an 11 disc set in exchange for some canned pasta?”
“It’s all I could…I mean, I could do some handy work for you, or if you need any plumbing done…it’s just that the box has the German and French versions of ‘Heroes’, and that’s my favorite song ever, plus the live Stage album and…”
“Your favorite song is ‘Heroes’?”
“Always has been.”
“You can have the box set. Take good care of it, Dr. Jack.”
“Wow! Jimbo, you rule.”
“Think nothing of it. Feel like a drink?”
“Sure! Maybe a Mojito?”
“Sorry. I meant like a Pepsi or Mountain Dew.”
They sat in the box set room. Dr. Jack sipped his Pepsi as he stared at all of the rock star photos on the walls.
“Part of the deal,” said Jimbo, “is that you tell no one about me or this place. Liz seemed to have trusted you, and I trust her completely, so please honor that.”
“A hundred percent, bro. Why would I help the scumbags to shut you down? They took away our lives.” Dr. Jack downed the last of his cola and crushed the can in his hand. “But – if I may ask – are you like super wealthy or something? I mean how…?”
“The billion dollar question,” grinned Jimbo, as he cast his gaze on the hanging photos. Rolling Stones, Beatles, The Who, Led Zeppelin; dozens of others. “I had a best friend. Geelan. I don’t know what’s become of him. When this…war…began, he told his friend about me. This friend was a record producer. There wasn’t much that he could do on his own, but he told that guy.” Jimbo was pointing at a photo of a legendary rock star.
“Get the fuck…”
“Yeah, and he told that guy, and that guy told that guy,” continued Jimbo, as he pointed to some of the biggest stars in musical history.
“Did you get to meet them?”
“Most of ‘em, yeah. They came to my house – my old actual house in Oceanside – before all of this. They saw my personal collection of maybe 25,000 CDs, asked me some questions, listened to music, drank Pepsi – just like you – and said they’d get back to me.”
“And…?”
“Well, look around. They pooled their money, hired people they trusted, transformed this whole place, stocked it with untold thousands of CDs, vinyl, DVDs, Blu-rays, books. I mean, I must have fifty copies of that Bowie box alone, but each one is precious. Now more than ever.”
“How do you care for this whole place? What about security?”
“I have friends who help me. As for security? Well, I could never hurt a fly, and I mean that literally, but there are technological measures that have been put in place to protect me, and more importantly, the physical media. Short answer: Don’t try and harm me, Dr. Jack.”
“Never, my friend.”
“So, what are your best memories of this place, from before the country turned?”
“Man, so many,” declared Jack, “Run-DMC, Kid Rock, and Aerosmith was pretty epic.”
“I was there!” exclaimed Jimbo.
“What about No Doubt, Lit, and Black-Eyed Peas – before they had Fergie?”
“Killer,” replied Jimbo. “The B-52’s, Go-Go’s, and Psychedelic Furs!”
“No shit?”
“Yeah. July 21, 2000. Amazing show.”
Two Pepsis later, and after giving Dr. Jack a homemade CD-R labeled Jimbo’s Hard-To-Find ‘80s, it was time to go.
“Be careful, Jack,” warned Jimbo, as he watched a monitor feed of his camera drone. “Looks clear, but sometimes they come in packs – both sides.”
Jimbo opened the door, and two figures stood before them.
“Oh, fuck!” yelled Dr. Jack.
“Be cool,” said Jimbo, “these are the friends I told you about.”
Imwan and Captain Ice had arrived, crates in hand.
The Jones Beach Marine Theater opened on the south shore of New York’s Long Island in 1952. It sat on Zach’s Bay, which led to Jones Inlet, and out to the Atlantic Ocean. It went through numerous renovations, expansions, and name-changes over the decades. It suffered severe damage during Hurricane Sandy, and was officially closed when music was outlawed.
The final refurbishment began under the guise of it becoming a museum, paid for by a company formed by the world’s most legendary rock stars. No matter what its official name, no matter the year, attendees always called it the same thing: Jones Beach. Some might just say, The Beach.
But now, in a country divided; in a nation ravaged by its second civil war, it was where Jimbo lived. It was where he became caretaker of the music. The fifteen thousand seats remained empty, but there behind the stage, in the bowels of the former backstage area, sitting on, and surrounded by Zach’s Bay, was the cavernous, and technologically advanced final renovation.
Tit for tat.
That’s really what started it all. An enormous pissing match. One side took down historical statues, the other tampered with environmental safeguards. One took steps to minimize women’s rights, the other came to confiscate firearms. This snowballed into the destruction of a country. Independents were forced underground; sometimes literally. There were only two sides, and when one was in power, they pummeled the other into the ground. One of them removed the letter Q from the alphabet. After the next election, it was reinstated. Eventually, sometime after the legalization of cocaine and the criminalization of the straws used to inhale it, physical media was banned. Two years later, music, in any form, was outlawed. Movies and books, too.
The war began in middle America and fanned out toward both coasts. Long Island became the final frontier. Jimbo, and his archives, were in grave danger. Backs up against the water.
The Marx Brothers’ Monkey Business filled the big screen in the main living area. Jimbo guffawed at the 1931 comedy, a crossword puzzle still on his lap – completed in ink. Evening had fallen, and Imwan and Captain Ice enjoyed their dinner over a game of Scrabble, pausing to laugh along with Jimbo while merely listening to the film they’d already seen many times.
“You know, Jimbo,” said Imwan, her dark hair sweeping across her darker shoulders, “I taught you how to repair that front door cam two weeks ago. Are you trying to outlast me and force me to do it?”
“Not at all. You are so much better at that stuff. I’m all thumbs.”
“I could fix it using only thumbs,” she laughed.
“So you should!”
“Don’t get lazy on us, now. Ice and I may not always be here to help.”
“Correct!” added Captain Ice though his split-toothed grin.
Ice and Imwan were both roughly half of Jimbo’s age, but they possessed the wonderful talents required to train and guide him. They’d been hand-picked by the agency contracted by the rock stars. The duo was part of the team that set the whole plan in motion. They helped design the restructuring of the Jones Beach Amphitheater, and they continued to train Jimbo in areas of which he needed to master – quickly.
They learned much from him, as well. They now knew infinitely more about the history of music and film than they’d ever previously imagined, and they were fast becoming crossword puzzle scholars. The determination to preserve the art in America became the food of their souls. No one was legally permitted to enter or flee the war-torn 48 states, so though music, film, and literature continued to be the norm in most of the free world, this might be their last stand for the red, white and blue.
The problem was that there were heavily-armed opposing armies slaughtering each other, and anyone in their paths, and they were getting closer by the hour; and the only guardians left standing for popular music were Jimbo, Imwan, and Captain Ice.
“I wanna see your dad’s records, Imwan,” pleaded Ice. “ Don’t you, Jimbo?”
“Of course. When she’s ready.”
“We just risked our necks to go and get them, so I wanna see them!”
“I know,” answered Imwan. “I just wanted to steel myself a bit. I lost my family to this insanity.”
Captain Ice took her soft hand into his calloused and ruddy paw, “As did I, and Jimbo. When you’re ready, we’re ready.”
Imwan stared down at the Scrabble tiles. After a deep breath, she spoke, “Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome. ‘Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk’.”
“Come again?” prompted Ice. Jimbo’s grin was already broad.
Imwan’s throat tightened, “Dad’s favorite album. Parliament.”
Jimbo walked to her side, though his attempt at comforting words might differ from those of others, “Parliament and Funkadelic – and even Bootsy’s Rubber Band – were basically identical groups releasing albums under different monikers.”
Grasping Jimbo’s hand, which sat upon her right shoulder, Imwan sniffled and looked up at her pop culture mentor. “Who the hell uses the word ‘moniker’ in everyday speech, Jimbo?”
The laughter helped. They were soon gathered around Imwan’s record crates. Earth, Wind & Fire, James Brown, Ohio Players, Stevie Wonder. They weren’t preserved in thick plastic, such as the vinyl in Jimbo’s archives. The faded covers sported ring wear and the occasional cigarette burn, some of the lps were moderately scratched, one or two of the jackets were empty – the records once held within now lost to the echoes of time.
“Sorry for their condition,” said Imwan to Jimbo.
“Are you kidding? He obviously enjoyed the heck out of these albums. I can see some of those scratches being caused by your mom dancing and bumping into the turntable.”
“Or falling into dad, knocking the Marlboro from his mouth onto that KC and the Sunshine Band record cover!” laughed Imwan.
“Seems it’s not so much about the records as the moments they produce,” offered Captain Ice.
“Wise words from the guy with the worst musical taste!” chuckled Imwan.
“Hey now, I’m just more of a movie guy. Come on now, Jaws, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Hunt for Red October…all so great.”
“All based on novels, brother. You need to crack a book,” added Imwan.
“Wiseass. Let’s see you reel in a 500 pound tuna. Even Jimbo will soon be a better fisherm…er, fisherperson than you.”
“Not likely,” asserted Jimbo. “My stomach turns at the mere sight of Charlie the Tuna.”
“You will adapt, Jimbo. You must.”
They were staring at the dog-eared cover of Parliament’s “Aqua Boogie” twelve inch single when they heard it.
The door bell.
They instinctively scanned the monitors. Broken door cam, right. The dark of night had taken hold and they had previously decided against the use of any outside lighting, as to remain as close to invisible as possible. Jimbo reached the door and opened the steel eye slot. Before he could part his lips, the pair of visitors spoke in unison,
“Moon is up.”
“Uh, okay,” replied Jimbo, reaching for his flashlight. “Can you take like three steps back and…”
“Fl-ash-light,” whispered Imwan in song, as she and Ice stood nearby, eavesdropping.
Outside, the pair – a guy and a girl – late twenties, couldn’t stand still.
“We came for some records. Dr. Jack hooked us up. But now we’re scared. You hear that?”
Jimbo turned an ear toward the slot. There was some rumbling, but nothing he could clearly identify.
“Stay calm,” he said. “We get skirmishes out there, beyond the seats, but so far…”
“This is for real,” snapped the female, eyes wide. “They’re killing each other out there.” She turned to her companion, “But you just had to hear fucking Collective Soul tonight.”
“How was I to know?” he answered.
Jimbo trained the flashlight on the pair.
“I’m going to fly a small drone to scan you guys. He’s known around here as ‘Dewey’. It only takes a minute. Did you bring something to trade or…”
“Please just let us in. We brought baseball cards,” said the young woman.
“Not practical,” suggested Captain Ice from behind the door.
“Yankees?” asked Jimbo, ignoring his friend.
“Yeah. Reggie, Thurman, Goose,” replied the nervous man, placing his arm around the girl. “We’ve got some really mint…”
There wasn’t much sound to it – a bit of a swoosh, followed by a couple of thuds against the steel door – but, as Jimbo scrutinized their precious Yankee declaration, the heads of both visitors simply toppled off. Clunking and rolling to the concrete below. Sliced at the necks. It almost looked phony, as if in some B-movie he’d seen a dozen times, but this blood was real. The bodies collapsed onto each other, baseball cards spilling to the ground, milling with the two heads, and forming little islands in the fresh crimson pool.
Chakrams. Two of ‘em. Serrated discs made of brass. Flying guillotines.
Jimbo was dizzy.
“What’s going on?” yelled Imwan, as she and Ice had no view of the outside.
“Some attack…” began Jimbo, as he spotted four or five shadowy figures approaching from the dark seating area.
“Someone’s looking out that door!” yelled one of the attackers.
“I fucking knew it,” said another.
Just as Jimbo was about to close the eye slot, the whole lot of approaching marauders promptly exploded. The grenade came from a larger group behind them, stampeding in from the tunnels that would’ve produced excited concert-goers in days gone by.
This posse possessed more than chakrams. Gunfire erupted, rattling off the concrete and steel structure that housed Jimbo and his crew.
As if shedding skin, Jimbo transformed from the fun-loving, crossword-playing, music-obsessed pacifist into something else. His jaw tightened along with his resolve. His vertigo vanished. These crazed looters weren’t getting to the art. He took to the far wall, opened a panel, and flipped a switch that could have been right at home on an old tube amplifier.
An enormous horn speaker arose from the top of the stage cover. It resembled a gigantic Gramophone speaker straight out of the 19th century; all it needed was the dog beside it. Then, it ascended too. Maybe seven feet tall, sitting right next to the speaker. Nipper. White with black ears and collar. The lights activated as well, all around the theater. Almost like during the old concert days.
“Stay back!” ordered Jimbo, via the speaker, his voice echoing throughout the venue. The attackers froze. “We are peaceful,” he continued, “but we will defend ourselves to the fullest. Turn and exit via the way you came in.”
“And buy a fucking tour program on the way out,” mumbled Imwan, as she steadied herself behind several computer screens. Captain Ice had already bolted toward another section of their haven.
Outside, the raiders thought things over. Coming to a decision, they tossed a batch of grenades toward the roof. Nipper and his speaker were blown to pieces.
“Crap!” yelled Jimbo, as he turned to Imwan. “Do it,” he said.
In three keystrokes, they were activated. Distant cousins of the lasers that had scanned data within the legion of CD players that had graced Jimbo’s existence, they came to life with an ominous hum. Crisscrossing the area between the marauders and Jimbo’s refuge – bright red beams. The perfect spiderweb.
Again, the invaders paused. Except for one.
“This here is full-on spoof!” he yelled, as he reached his arm out into the path of one of the beams. He yelled even louder as that appendage was instantly sliced off, leaving both sides of the detachment smoking. Jimbo’s drone was flying in the shadows, providing an aerial view for Imwan.
“Just hit the source lamps with grenades,” commanded one of the attackers. “That’ll disable ‘em.”
The militia did just that, destroying some of the mechanisms, but sending others spinning, turning formally static laser cutters into uncontrollable slicing machines. Virtual rotating machetes. The unbridled carvers turned twenty invaders into forty fragments before losing functionality.
Jimbo and Imwan studied Dewey’s video feed.
“That was the best laser show ever,” said Jimbo. “Except maybe for ELO at the Garden.”
“We’re out of defenses,” warned Imwan.
“I was hoping they’d retreat, but they are still coming.”
“Those explosives will do us in,” she responded.
“Imwan, we all figured this day was coming,” he cautioned, with a hand on her shoulder.
“Should I tell Ice?”
“Yes. Immediately.”
She accessed the interior communications system.
“Captain Ice, as per Jimbo, Operation Emotional Rescue is now live. Repeat: Emotional Rescue now!”
“Copy that,” came the reply. “You guys will need to come up here, then. Oh, and hang on.”
Captain Ice sat at his control station. The panoramic windows looked out onto the dark swirling waters of Zach’s Bay. His touchscreen main station offered up the solutions he required.
Disengage. Power up. Forward. Lights.
Jimbo and Imwan grabbed the walls as they hurried toward Ice. Everything rocked.
Outside, the militia fired bullets and tossed grenades as the entire venue shook. Jaws dropped as the entire structure – from the enormous covered stage to the furthest backstage sections – detached from the seated area of the theater. Massive telescopic push rods shoved Jimbo’s entire vessel out into the bay. The inboard diesel engines roared.
For the most recent upgrades to the Jones Beach Amphitheater; the clandestine ones – courtesy of the rock stars – the time had come.
When Jimbo and Imwan reached the bridge, Captain Ice was scanning available functions. He and Imwan had trained extensively for this, and Jimbo was their prized pupil.
Solar Panels. Wind Generator. All ready for eventual use.
The newly-launched vessel motored toward Jones Inlet, leaving their attackers back amongst 15,000 empty seats. Jimbo, Imwan, and Captain Ice found themselves in a quiet moment, just eyeballing each other. There was some disbelief that the moment had actually arrived. Ice worked a control panel, and from what was once the imposing stage roof, came a rumbling. Just forward of where the large speaker and Nipper statue had been blown apart, arose three grand and gleaming sailing masts.
Imwan sat at another section of the control center, eyes on screens. Ice, from his seat, did a final program check on the masts. Jimbo stood between his friends, focused on the night’s crashing waves, which were illuminated through the front windows.
“We should probably play some tunes,” he asserted, with a smirk. He grabbed an old school remote and aimed it at a CD player. Then, he turned to Ice.
“Captain,” he commanded, “set a course for international waters.”
Through the murky inlet it roared, toward the churning expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Remotely guided by Imwan, and trailing the ship by roughly the distance from home plate to the right field porch in Yankee Stadium, buzzed Dewey, gaining ground, red light blinking.
The Rolling Stones’ “Till the Next Goodbye” played as Dewey reached home base, touching down on the damp deck that was once a shimmering stage. Below it, the newly-revealed stern brandished what Jimbo might refer to in everyday speech as the vessel’s “moniker”:
Archive
Long Island, NY
May 22, 2017
A Day in the Life; The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper” turns 50.
I’d known of the Beatles for a few years. My lovely older cousin Pat used to teach me how to dance to their music. That began when I was four years old, and I had just lost my mom. When I was five, Pat wanted to take me to see the band when they played at New York’s Shea Stadium. She worked hard at it, but she was only a teenager herself and my grandma said “Patsy, the boy would be trampled!”
Of course Mama was correct, and I never got to see the Fab Four in concert.
Then, I turned six. Things were changing; the world, the Beatles. The boys started to look different. My brothers, Ed and Kevin, both about a decade my senior, looked different too. They looked more like the Beatles.
I finally owned my first full length lp. I’d had a bunch of 45rpm singles given to me by Pat and my brothers, but owning an album was big time for me. It was the North American release entitled, BEATLES ’65. It was already over a year old, but it was new to me. The three songs that opened that album weren’t in the happy-go-lucky “She Loves You” mold.
“No Reply”, “I’m a Loser”, and “Baby’s in Black”.
The titles tell the story. That third track always reminded of how everyone had dressed at my mom’s funeral.
Then, Dad died. It was right as I began first grade.
The Beatles stopped touring. No one would ever see them in concert again. They wanted to concentrate on making the best music possible, rather than just keep singing “She Loves You” to screaming fans.
As first grade came to an end, I was feeling accomplished – the way most of us do when we think we are getting “big”. I lived with my grandma; my four older siblings resided together with our aunt.
One day, toward the end of that first school year, my big brothers came to visit. They had a new album with them. Ed was beginning to look a whole lot like Paul McCartney, especially the way Macca looked on that colorful new record sleeve. We were going to experience, for the first time, SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND.
Something seemed different as my brothers got set to play the record. EVERYONE came into the room to listen; cousins, Aunt Peggy and Uncle Henry. Hell, even Mama, almost 80, sat back in her chair as the needle dropped. I, at age six, had no idea why everyone was suddenly interested in the Beatles. I mean, Uncle Henry? I recall he took quite the teasing as we listened to “When I’m Sixty-Four”. He was probably just over fifty – and younger than I am now – but he laughingly took all of the “64” jabs with grace.
He took some shots about “Henry the Horse” as well.
As PEPPER played, I just wanted to get my hands on that record jacket. It looked like it had so much; all kinds of people, lyrics, colors, and maybe even…clues.
I don’t have too many memories from when I was six years old, or younger, but oddly, most of the ones I do have revolve around the Beatles.
Rather than recount that initial playing of SGT. PEPPER via the bits and pieces of my foggy memory, I will include an excerpt from my novel, SONS OF THE POPE. I used my actual experience to create a scene where a young special needs boy named Joey got to enjoy, with his family, the recent masterpiece by the band he loved so. Joey had received the album as a Christmas gift, six months after its release.
“Hey, Joey,” said Kathy. “I got you something.”
She knelt beside him and took the brightly colored album
jacket out of the thin bag. The first thing Joey noticed were
the colors and the images of all the people. He recognized
W.C. Fields because Peter would always watch his movies,
but he didn’t immediately connect with anyone else—except
for the four lads in the kaleidoscopic military garb. They held
brass and wind instruments instead of guitars, and though
Joey could not read what was spelled out by the red flowers
at their feet, he knew.
Beatles.
Kathy helped him remove the shrink-wrap. She had
already taken off the Woolworth’s price sticker.
“Ooooh,” yelled Mary. “He’s gonna love that! We buy him
the little records, but those big ones are expensive. You
shouldn’t have done that, Kathy.”
“I know he loves the ‘Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane’
single; this album is like that.”
Joey’s grin was wide as he stared at the record cover. He
opened the gatefold and got a closer look at his favorite band
in their vivid garb.
“Let me lower the television set. Put the record on for
him,” said Mary.
As Kathy placed the record on Joey’s portable turntable,
Mary turned down the Christmas music. The yule log still
burned, though—a constant loop that reset every twenty
seconds.
“He loves that music, and it’s okay ‘cause he’s always with
me and can’t do any harm to himself, but I think this music
can lead kids to bad things. You know, the drugs and all,” said
Mary.
“Maybe, but it doesn’t have to. I don’t think drugs are
needed to expand the mind,” replied Kathy. “I think a needle
in the groove beats a needle in the arm any day.”
The family sat there as the recording began. They
eventually met Billy Shears and Lucy. Mama left her chair to
make some coffee, but the rest remained. They were taken
away to a color-splashed circus. Kathy flipped the record over
and they arrived in India, only to be quickly transported to a
1940s dance hall. It was at this time that Sal began thinking
of the old music that he loved so much. Mama returned in
time to hear a chicken cluck morph into a guitar pluck. The
military band that had unleashed this animal were now trying to
get it back in its cage. There came an incredible crescendo
that sounded as if all the music they’d ever heard was being
played at once. Then it stopped—but not before a thunderous
piano chord that seemed to echo into eternity. Mary wanted
to speak but wasn’t sure when to start, fearing another
explosion of sound. Peter beat her to the punch.
“Wow!”
“These are the same fellas that sang ‘I Want to Hold Your
Hand’?” Mary asked.
“Hmmmm,” replied Joey before another could answer.
“What did ya think, Ma?” asked Mary.
“Nice boys. But I like the Italian music. I wish them luck.”
Of my real family, from the factual version of my first exposure to SGT. PEPPER, I am the only living member who was in that room on that evening in June, 1967. I dedicate this memory, with love, to all of them.
Life goes on within you and without you.
SONS OF THE POPE is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other fine retailers. Also on Kindle, Nook, and Audiobook.
The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper” turns 50.
I’d known of the Beatles for a few years. My lovely older cousin Pat used to teach me how to dance to their music. That began when I was four years old, and I had just lost my mom. When I was five, Pat wanted to take me to see the band when they played at New York’s Shea Stadium. She worked hard at it, but she was only a teenager herself and my grandma said “Patsy, the boy would be trampled!”
Of course Mama was correct, and I never got to see the Fab Four in concert.
Then, I turned six. Things were changing; the world, the Beatles. The boys started to look different. My brothers, Ed and Kevin, both about a decade my senior, looked different too. They looked more like the Beatles.
I finally owned my first full length lp. I’d had a bunch of 45rpm singles given to me by Pat and my brothers, but owning an album was big time for me. It was the North American release titled, BEATLES ’65. It was already over a year old, but it was new to me. The three songs that opened that album weren’t in the happy-go-lucky “She Loves You” mold.
“No Reply”, “I’m a Loser”, and “Baby’s in Black”.
The titles tell the story. That third track always reminded of how everyone had dressed at my mom’s funeral.
Then, Dad died. It was right as I began first grade.
The Beatles stopped touring. No one would ever see them in concert again. They wanted to concentrate on making the best music possible, rather than just keep singing “She Loves You” to screaming fans.
As first grade came to an end, I was feeling accomplished – the way most of us do when we think we are getting “big”. I lived with my grandma; my four older siblings resided together with our aunt.
One day, toward the end of that first school year, my big brothers came to visit. They had a new album with them. Ed was beginning to look a whole lot like Paul McCartney, especially the way Macca looked on that colorful new record sleeve. We were going to experience, for the first time, SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND.
Something seemed different as my brothers got set to play the record. EVERYONE came into the room to listen; cousins, Aunt Peggy and Uncle Henry. Hell, even Mama, almost 80, sat back in her chair as the needle dropped. I, at age six, had no idea why everyone was suddenly interested in the Beatles. I mean, Uncle Henry? I recall he took quite the teasing as we listened to “When I’m Sixty-Four”. He was probably just over fifty – and younger than I am now – but he laughingly took all of the “64” jabs with grace.
As PEPPER played, I just wanted to get my hands on that record jacket. It looked like it had so much; all kinds of people, lyrics, colors, and maybe even…clues.
I don’t have too many memories from when I was six years old, or younger, but oddly, most of the ones I do have revolve around the Beatles.
Rather than recount that initial playing of SGT. PEPPER via the bits and pieces of my foggy memory, I will include an excerpt from my novel, SONS OF THE POPE. I used my actual experience to create a scene where a young special needs boy named Joey got to enjoy, with his family, the recent masterpiece by the band he loved so. Joey had received the album as a Christmas gift, six months after its release.
“Hey, Joey,” said Kathy. “I got you something.”
She knelt beside him and took the brightly colored album
jacket out of the thin bag. The first thing Joey noticed were
the colors and the images of all the people. He recognized
W.C. Fields because Peter would always watch his movies,
but he didn’t immediately connect with anyone else—except
for the four lads in the kaleidoscopic military garb. They held
brass and wind instruments instead of guitars, and though
Joey could not read what was spelled out by the red flowers
at their feet, he knew.
Beatles.
Kathy helped him remove the shrink-wrap. She had
already taken off the Woolworth’s price sticker.
“Ooooh,” yelled Mary. “He’s gonna love that! We buy him
the little records, but those big ones are expensive. You
shouldn’t have done that, Kathy.”
“I know he loves the ‘Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane’
single; this album is like that.”
Joey’s grin was wide as he stared at the record cover. He
opened the gatefold and got a closer look at his favorite band
in their vivid garb.
“Let me lower the television set. Put the record on for
him,” said Mary.
As Kathy placed the record on Joey’s portable turntable,
Mary turned down the Christmas music. The yule log still
burned, though—a constant loop that reset every twenty
seconds.
“He loves that music, and it’s okay ‘cause he’s always with
me and can’t do any harm to himself, but I think this music
can lead kids to bad things. You know, the drugs and all,” said
Mary.
“Maybe, but it doesn’t have to. I don’t think drugs are
needed to expand the mind,” replied Kathy. “I think a needle
in the groove beats a needle in the arm any day.”
The family sat there as the recording began. They
eventually met Billy Shears and Lucy. Mama left her chair to
make some coffee, but the rest remained. They were taken
away to a color-splashed circus. Kathy flipped the record over
and they arrived in India, only to be quickly transported to a
1940s dance hall. It was at this time that Sal began thinking
of the old music that he loved so much. Mama returned in
time to hear a chicken cluck morph into a guitar pluck. The
military band that had unleashed this animal were now trying to
get it back in its cage. There came an incredible crescendo
that sounded as if all the music they’d ever heard was being
played at once. Then it stopped—but not before a thunderous
piano chord that seemed to echo into eternity. Mary wanted
to speak but wasn’t sure when to start, fearing another
explosion of sound. Peter beat her to the punch.
“Wow!”
“These are the same fellas that sang ‘I Want to Hold Your
Hand’?” Mary asked.
“Hmmmm,” replied Joey before another could answer.
“What did ya think, Ma?” asked Mary.
“Nice boys. But I like the Italian music. I wish them luck.”
Of my real family, from the factual version of my first exposure to SGT. PEPPER, I am the only living member who was in that room on that evening in June, 1967. I dedicate this memory, with love, to all of them.
Life goes on within you and without you.
SONS OF THE POPE is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other fine retailers. Also on Kindle, Nook, and Audiobook.
May 4, 2015
Thanks for all the laughs, Mr. Letterman.
On May 20, 2015, David Letterman���s final show will air on CBS.�� Events such as this are not altogether uncommon, but this is the first time I���ve been compelled to write about one of these things.
The reason: To me, it is anything but ���one of these things���.
In fact, two nights ago, I had a dream that Mr. Letterman was walking across the street from me, and I wanted to go up to him, shake his hand, and say ���thank you���.�� I was unable to reach him, so I scribbled a note in red ink (not sure why the ink was crimson, but hey, it was a dream) and handed it to a Late Show staffer who happened to be close by. They promised to get the letter to him.
I was not able to meet David Letterman in that dream, but I have met him twice, and was even interviewed by him.�� I shook his hand, made him laugh, received a compliment from him, and he even handed me a sponge.
All of that is very high on my lifetime thrill meter.�� Super-amazingly high.
I was a huge admirer of Johnny Carson.�� I enjoy Jay Leno.�� I love Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and Conan O���Brien.�� But, for me, David Letterman is king, and always will be.
This was the only show, be it on NBC, or CBS, that I would watch EVERY night.�� For years it was community viewing with my buddies, then, I watched with my wife, then with the wife and kids.�� Now, the kids are adults.�� We all still watch.�� Always the same. Always Letterman.
I won���t rehash all of the crazy skits, but, things like the Velcro Suit and the Alka-Seltzer Suit were just not the norm on television.�� Having a run-of-the-mill, middle-aged, Brooklynite named Calvert DeForest appear regularly as a hapless, and generally un-scripted, character named Larry ���Bud��� Melman was pure genius. That was taken to the next level when Calvert played ���Bud���, who in turn played ���Kenny the Gardener���.�� You couldn���t get stuff like this anywhere else.�� Stuffy types didn���t get the joke.�� They watched other shows.�� Those of us who loved Letterman felt like we were part of some ���in crowd���.�� The more ridiculous it was, the better we liked it.
I have been to so many Letterman tapings that I���ve lost count.�� I���ve been to the big anniversary shows too.�� My wife, my buddies, and I were in the front row for a big anniversary show at Radio City that included Bob Dylan, Bill Murray, and a host of others.�� We stood in line for hours to grab those seats.
There used to be a stand-by list for tickets, where show staffers would call you on the phone if seats opened up.�� To get tickets, you had to answer a David Letterman trivia question.�� I never got one wrong.
I used to work security for Saturday Night Live just when Dave was beginning his NBC show. I was about twenty years old.�� One time, he was exiting the building at 30 Rock, through a revolving door, just as I was entering.�� I nodded at him, and smiled, through the glass.�� He did the same.�� I count that as ���meeting him��� and always will.�� I went full-circle in that spinning door just so I could watch where he was going outside the building.�� A tiny car pulled up.�� A VERY tiny car.�� And old. ��Someone got out, pushed the front seat up, and Dave squeezed into the back, with a couple of others.�� There were at least five people jammed into that little vehicle.�� I guess I had expected a limousine.�� Letterman got into a car that looked like it would normally carry me and my buddies.
That made me smile.
A couple of years later I REALLY met David Letterman.
I was on line outside the show, as usual, with my fianc��e, and our friends.�� A staffer came up to me and asked if I had a good story about a recent snowstorm that had blasted New York City.�� I had absolutely nothing of interest to report, so of course I immediately said ���Yes.���
Our whole group was ushered inside and seated in a prime, reserved location.�� We were the first audience members in the studio, so the room was even colder than its usual, famously freezing temperature.�� Paul Shaffer and his incredible band were not yet even on stage to warm up the crowd.�� The sound system was playing ���Another World��� by Joe Jackson, and I truly felt like I was in another world.�� I knew that I was going to be interviewed by David Letterman.
I had no idea what his line of questioning would be, but I had seen the show enough to know that it would, at its core, have little to do with whatever I had experienced in that blizzard.
Our segment was entitled ���The Winds of February���.�� I learned this as it began.�� He interviewed a man sitting in front of us.�� I knew there would be three audience interviews, but I didn���t know if I���d be next, or third.�� While Dave questioned the first guy, I saw on the monitor that they had a scrawl on the screen that read ���Part One: The Storm Gathers���.�� I paid no attention to what the guy was actually saying, as I readied for my part.�� When Dave came to me next, he asked where I was from.�� When I answered ���Brooklyn��� I got a big cheer. I knew the New York crowd was with me.
Then, before we continued, and as a bit of a shock to Dave, I decided to introduce him to my girlfriend (and now wife), Joanne, who was seated beside me, as I stood with Letterman.�� The crowd chuckled at the change of pace, and Dave seemed to get a kick out of it (how much of a kick will be revealed later).�� He shook hands with Joanne, said ���Very nice to meet you���, and was quite pleasant about it all.
Then, he asked me about my snowstorm experience.�� I remembered that ���Part One: The Storm Gathers��� scrawl that they had placed in front of the first guy on the monitor, so I just began by saying ���Well, my story picks up just about where his leaves off������
That was all it took.�� The crowd got it and howled.�� Dave stopped a bit just to laugh at my joke.
I had made David Letterman laugh.
I forget most of the rest of the interview, but sure enough they put something up below my face that read ���Part Two: The Storm Descends��� (or something like that).
After Dave interviewed the third guy, and as the show left for commercial, he returned to me, shook my hand again, said something to me about how he appreciated how I helped the bit, and got the joke.�� Then he handed me a coveted ���Late Night with David Letterman��� sponge.
The letters have faded, but I still have it.
Here���s the best part:�� About a month or two later, the show did a bit called the Late Night Emmy Awards.�� There was a category for ���Best Audience Member���.�� In typical, brilliant, Letterman fashion, guess who won?
���And the winner is – Dan O���Connor���s girlfriend.���
Yes, Joanne, who did nothing but shake Dave���s hand and smile, won the ���award���.�� They had an elderly woman come on stage to ���accept���.
���Dan O���Connor���s girlfriend is away in France and unable to accept in person,��� said the announcer.
Absolute genius.
As I write this, there are but a handful of nights that will include the opportunity to watch a new episode of a talk show featuring David Letterman.
I will watch every one.
Thank you to Mr. Letterman, and to everyone who has ever worked for him.
This will never happen again.
April 29, 2015
TRUE GANGSTER STORIES (Part 2)
For part one of ���TRUE GANGSTER STORIES���, scroll down to the post from March, 2015.
���Hey, I���m Sonny.�� My father is in the Gambino Crime Family.���
This was the opening line of a neighborhood Brooklyn jackass when he tried to impress a girl.�� He used it on a 15 year-old who, years later, became my wife.�� Maybe it worked on the dimwits, but it repulsed at least as many.�� He may as well have worn a sign that read ���Wannabe Gangster���, but he���d probably have had to borrow it from his clown father.
This particular father was a real tough guy, and Mafia enforcer.
At least, in his mind, and amongst a crowd of impressionable teenagers.
Young punk Sonny would start trouble with everyone.�� Then, when he had to fight to back up his instigations, he would show up with his bigger, older cousin to do battle for him.�� If that failed, he���d be back with his father.
No one we knew ever saw that father fight a man his own size or age.
Real ���mobster���.
In my prior gangster blog post, I referenced an old Brooklyn health club a couple of times.�� Sonny���s father had a memorable moment in that gym one day.�� While pumping iron, he mentioned to another member that he had been in that weight room on the night of the famous New York City blackout (July, 1977).�� He said ���It was pitch black when the lights went out.�� I couldn���t see a thing.�� Couldn���t even find the stairway.���
The other guy said, ���How black can it get in here? I���m pretty sure I could find the stairway.���
���No, you couldn���t.���
���Yeah, I could find the stairway.���
Boom. ��Weights flying everywhere.�� Fucking this. ��Fucking that.�� Walls being punched as everyone looked on.�� Sonny���s dad did his best Lou Ferrigno-becoming-the-Hulk impression, as he raged all over the gym.
Important note: He did not approach the other weight-lifting adult male or challenge him to a fight.�� If the other man was a young boy, the intimidation would have been full-on.
Word is that Sonny is doing life in prison, and his cousin died in jail.�� Not sure what became of the dad, but I���m guessing it wasn���t pretty.
He loved to describe himself as ���Limo driver for the Gambinos���, which could only mean one thing; he was not a limo driver for the Gambinos.
You know the guy in the neighborhood who calls himself a ���car service driver���? Now HE might be driving for the mob.�� I knew one of those.�� Let���s call him ���Mac���.�� Mac was an Italian/Jewish-American, and as a non-full-blooded Italian, he could not become a full-fledged member of the Cosa Nostra, even if he so desired.�� But that didn���t preclude him from lower-level jobs, as long as he could keep his mouth shut and know his place.
Mac began by picking up customers ��� initially mostly well-off, older Jewish women from Long Island ��� and transporting them (and their checkbooks) to some of the backdoor, illegal gambling houses in Bay Ridge or Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.�� When driving those ladies, he was Jewish.�� In the casinos, he was an Italian.
After several weeks of chauffeuring, the powers that be had grown fond of Mac.�� He did his job and kept his mouth shut.
���Can you deal?���
Mac was offered a spot working the Blackjack tables.�� The secret casino had seven ���21��� tables and 4 for Poker.�� The bosses noticed that Mac had an eye for catching mistakes and before long he was a pit boss.�� The former driver was raking in the cash because he was on duty seven days per week, eleven hours per day.
One night, ���The Shiek��� walked in.
This was the highest of rollers.�� He owned an unknown number of gas stations and whatever he needed was provided by Mac and his staff.�� Mac was now in charge of extending credit, and The Shiek had the rare privilege of being offered unlimited credit.
It was a bad night for the gas tycoon.
He couldn���t win a hand.�� The Shiek wound up staying at the casino for three days.�� They fed him anything he wished.�� He was permitted to nap and bathe.
By the final night, the mob boss who ran the gambling house also was the proud owner of two gas stations.
When that big boss, and family don (a famous gangster whom Mac, decades later, still refuses to identify), decided to visit one of his casinos, everything stopped.
He would enter, as in a movie scene, with a beautiful woman on each arm, and a pair of enormous gorillas behind him.�� Mac would hurriedly, but politely, ask all seven gamblers seated at a given table to please stand and wait for an opening at another.�� Mac would then escort the boss to his now-private table, where he, and his entourage, could play as they wished.
Mac is one of many regular Joes who never hurt a fly, and certainly never killed anyone, yet provided for his family by working for the New York Underworld.�� He is a lot like the character Salvatore Salerno in my New York gangster novel, SONS OF THE POPE.�� The way Mac respects and protects the identity of his former boss is similar to the way some characters in SONS will not even mention the name of their don in public.�� They merely touch the tips of their noses when referring to him.
A lot of this stuff is amusing, but it���s important to understand that the mob is no comedy show, and if you choose to involve yourself, you may have to pay the ultimate price. (Continued below SONS OF THE POPE link).
These true stories would not be possible without the help of Paul Smith, Ken Angelos, Deborah Joyce MacDougald, Nora Ball, M.a. Tarpinian, Michael Musumeci, Marc Sheer, Thomas Pirics, Jason Altman, Richard Anderson, Ernest Loperena, Maureen O’Connor, & Joanne O’Connor.
March 23, 2015
TRUE GANGSTER STORIES (Part 1)
Long before Gangsta,��there was Gangster.
���John Gotti is my uncle.�� He���s gonna kill your whole family.���
Most people I know enjoy a good mob story; especially, the TRUE ones.�� As a former police officer, I have no love for lifelong criminals.�� The world would be a wonderful place without them.�� There is a certain fascination with gangsters, though.�� The REAL ones, anyway.�� Those who won���t bring harm to your loved ones ��� unless your loved ones are part of ���The Life���.�� The ones who keep their bloodshed exclusively in-house gain a certain respect from me, even though I���d put them behind bars in an instant.�� I���ve seen the workings of the mob through the eyes of a Brooklyn kid who lived among the legends, and then, much later, from my perspective as a New York police officer.�� My New York friends and family have a seemingly endless supply of mob stories, as well.�� Actually, there may not be any true good guys or bad guys.�� Only differing shades of gray.
I, along with my late cousin, Peter Randazzo (who had even more tales than I) have a novel called SONS OF THE POPE.�� It is fiction ��� but based on things all too real.�� It is the story of a family-within-a-family.�� It spans five decades of New York.�� It, as the best-selling title ever from its publisher (Blood Bound Books) has achieved something that doesn���t happen often ��� an option for television for an indie novel.�� More on all of that, and some pretty big name praise for the book, at the end of the post, but how about some REAL organized crime stories ��� FOR FREE ��� from the mouths of the Brooklyn folks who were there?�� None of these incidents appear in my novel. That is chock full of the better ones. Unless an incident is already public knowledge, names have been changed to protect ��� everyone.�� Feel free to add your own stories in the comments section for all to see!
If this post draws interest, I will add additional true mob stories in a series, perhaps weekly, so be sure to ���follow��� this blog to be notified of the latest updates!
It might now be relevant to include a quote from the first page of my novel as we begin:
���Though inspired by certain true events, SONS OF THE POPE is a work of fiction.�� Because as many a New Yorker will tell you when asked about organized crime���There���s no such thing.���
—–
���John Gotti is my uncle.�� He���s gonna kill your whole family.���
I���ve heard that, or some variation on it, countless times.�� Sometimes Mr. Gotti was their cousin, or their aunt���s ex-boyfriend, or their girlfriend���s neighbor.�� The smarter ones would use John���s older brother, Peter Gotti, as a more realistic curveball.�� This was when I was a cop in New York.�� Mind you, I was working in Suffolk County, Long Island.�� My precinct was 30 miles from John Gotti.�� Seemed any punk who was unhappy with being locked up, somehow thought the cops would shudder in fear, and open up the jail doors, at the mere mention of their fictional connection to a famous mobster.�� I can only image what the NYPD cops heard.
Years before, as a kid growing up in Brooklyn, if I happened to have the upper hand in some street fight, or even just an argument, I���d get Carlo Gambino or ���Big Paul��� Castellano thrown in my face as the man who was going to do me in.�� That���s right, the alleged head of an organized crime family was going to execute a 15 year-old boy because he happened to have someone in a headlock.
The point of all this is that the big mouths who are quick to tell you how ���connected��� they are, or boast about who they ���know���, and who is going to be dumping you in a swamp, are always completely full of shit.
If you have a confrontation or altercation with someone, and they dust themselves off, give you a steely-eyed smirk, and quietly walk away, THEN you might have something with which to concern yourself.
My wife watches the VH1 television series MOB WIVES, and whenever I have seen a bit of it, my mind has been blown.�� Some of these ladies may actually be connected to alleged crime families (or were – before they were excommunicated), yet they are the complete antithesis of a true gangster, in every way.
The late Vincent ���The Chin��� Gigante ��� a man who, to downplay any relationship to the criminal mastermind the government accused him of being, spent decades walking the streets in a bath robe and staring into space ��� can you picture his reaction to watching an episode of MOB WIVES?
Seems all they do on that show are scream at each other, call one another ���rats��� or ���cop-callers���, and boast about their affiliations with ���the lifestyle��� ��� oh, and they do this all ON NATIONAL TELEVISION!�� Back in the day, this would not have stood a chance of happening.�� In fact, in the early 1970s, the makers of the film THE GODFATHER made a deal with legendary wiseguy Joseph Colombo, whereby the terms ���Mafia��� and ���Cosa Nostra��� would not be uttered in the movie ��� and that motion picture, based on Mario Puzo���s novel, was FICTION. Shortly thereafter, Colombo was shot, paralyzed, and eventually died from his injuries.�� Word on the street was that he was targeted because he was bringing too much unwanted publicity to the five crime families of New York.�� This was the guy who thought THE GODFATHER was bringing too much attention to the Mafia ��� and HE was likely gunned down for doing the exact same thing.
Now, think about MOB WIVES one more time.
I lived in the heart of the Joe Colombo/Joey Gallo stronghold for a part of my youth.�� I lost my parents before I turned seven, so I bounced around a bit between families ��� both mine and the territories of the ���Five Families��� of New York.�� I always, however, lived in Brooklyn.�� From 1960 through 1990.
Joe Colombo���s Italian-American Civil Rights League offices were directly across the street from the apartment in which I lived, on Fifth Avenue.�� I could see it from my bedroom window. Right around the corner, on President Street, was the entry into Joey Gallo���s territory.�� Many believe that Colombo was shot (in 1971) because of his many television appearances in connection with his Civil Rights League.�� Too much of a spotlight brought to the families.�� Most also believe that Joey Gallo was behind the shooting, though he did not pull the trigger himself.�� A year later, Gallo was murdered in a restaurant in Manhattan.�� Bob Dylan even wrote a song about him.�� ���Joey��� appears on my favorite Dylan album, DESIRE.
Did you know that the mob even controlled gumball machines?
Joey Gallo���s crew used to give neighborhood kids a quarter to smash any gumball machines that were not owned and operated by their gang.�� Well, one day, a shoemaker on Smith Street caught three kids in the act of destroying the machines in front of his store.�� He managed to grab one as they fled and began to inflict some street justice.�� I guess he didn���t count on the other two returning to help their captured friend.�� Return, they did ��� and the three of them handed the shoemaker one of the more serious beatings the neighborhood had seen.�� The kids made their bones that day.�� Instead of the 25 cent piece they would normally receive for the routine machine-smash, they each received a stack of crisp bills.�� Within days, the Joey Gallo gum machines stood in front of that shoe repair shop.
As a child, my own Italian wife, Joanne, growing up near Court Street, was told by her parents, ���Do not go too far down President or Carroll Streets.�� That���s where the gangsters are.����� The many law-abiding Italian-Americans went to great lengths to steer clear of the trouble.
After Gallo���s murder, his sister Carmella declared, over his casket, that ���The streets are going to run red with blood, Joey.���
This may have run through the minds of some of my childhood friends as they sat, one late night, on a street corner in Sheepshead Bay.�� They were in their early teens.�� A black car pulled up, and two well-dressed, burly men got out.�� They walked up to the teens and said ���Yous might wanna go somewhere else.�� It ain���t safe here.����� Now, these kids usually would have risked a smack in the teeth by responding in some smart-ass manner, but they had the street sense to know this was the big leagues.�� They retreated into the alleyway behind the buildings.�� Within the hour they heard the shots fired, screams, then, a bit later, police sirens.�� That meant, to them, that they could emerge.�� They ambled from the alley to find people surrounding a bloodied man on the sidewalk.�� He was in front of a restaurant and a health club.�� They recognized the woman kneeling over his body as a young lady they knew from the neighborhood.�� For reasons known only to her, she was wiping his blood on her arms and face as he died.
���The streets are going to run red with blood, Joey.���
Those same kids, in that same back alley, had an incident happen in broad daylight, as they played a game of Wiffle Ball.�� The stores and restaurants along a certain section of Avenue U would have their back doors open into small yards that were fenced in from that particular alley.�� There was a restaurant there that had closed down and was converted into a ���social club���.�� The kids were often given five bucks by the club members to run to OTB (Off-Track-Betting was a legal form of wagering on the horses in NY at the time) and bring back copies of The Racing Form (also known as the ���scratch sheet���).�� The kids had earned their cash, brought back the Racing Forms, and were now onto their Wiffle Ball battle in the alley.
They thought they heard fireworks.�� Maybe some M-80s or ���ash cans���, they figured.�� Then the men from the social club began to scale the back fence and spill into the alley, completely disrupting their ball game.�� It was a shotgun hit in the club.�� The kids later learned that the victim was the father of someone they knew fairly well.
Remember that health club I mentioned, outside of which the young woman was wiping her dying boyfriend���s blood all over herself?�� As a kid, I ���worked��� there.�� It was also featured in the documentary PUMPING IRON, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou (���Incredible Hulk���) Ferrigno.�� When I say I ���worked��� there, I mean I had a handshake deal with the owner.�� I would come in at the end of each day and put away all of the weights that were strewn about the floor.�� I would keep the place tidy, and in return, I could work out any time I wanted. That is how Brooklyn operated back then.�� That���s how an orphaned kid, without a cent, could secure a prime health club membership.�� Also, see nothing and say nothing.
The Story of Muscle Matty:
Muscle Matty might���ve been the strongest guy I���ve ever met, in terms of physical power.�� Sometimes it would take two of us kids to hand him the dumbbell he was going to pump with his ONE hand.�� We were in awe of him.�� He was a monster.�� Unfortunately, he was also a monster of a different kind, and we had no idea.�� It seemed Muscle Matty had a thing for under-aged boys. ��Word was, if the boy wasn���t interested, Matty might just take what he wanted anyway.
Who was going to stop him?
This may have been one of those cases where the mob actually did some good.
Matty apparently came upon a boy he fancied in a public restroom.�� The kid wanted no part of him, but the muscle-man forced himself on the child.
Unfortunately for Matty, that kid was one of the quiet ones who knew better than to boast about the connections he had.
Maybe a week later, Muscle Matt���s body was found with his own severed penis stuffed in his mouth.
Lest anyone think my claim is that only Italian-Americans can be gangsters, I can assure you that I am well aware that there are gangs and gangsters of almost every ethnicity.�� It���s just that the Mafia has risen to a strange level of popularity in American culture.�� My own father, at the age of eight, in 1931, was almost accidentally gunned down ��� most likely by Irish-American gunmen.�� He was just a kid walking down a Brooklyn street at the wrong time, when one of those machine-gun-out-the-window-cars we have all seen in the movies turned a corner blasting at somebody.�� He dove under a parked car for safety.
���You shouldn���t hang around here, Eddie,��� said one of the local toughs as everyone dusted themselves off.�� My father ran straight home, never bothering to survey the aftermath of the drive-by.�� He also knew, at that tender age, to be ���in the wind��� by the time the coppers arrived.
In fact, my father���s first cousin, Helen Walsh, was, at that very moment, gun moll, and accomplice for Irish/German-American gangster, murderer, and cop-killer, Francis ���Two-Gun��� Crowley.�� Miss Walsh was in the fifth floor Manhattan apartment with Crowley and his partner, Fats Duringer, as they waged a gun battle with 300 New York City police officers, before finally surrendering.�� 15,000 people found their way to the scene of that incident that day.�� My cousin Helen wound up testifying against the two men, and both went to the electric chair.�� Needless to say, I am not proud that my own blood was an accomplice to a cop-killer, and also had the distinction of becoming a ���rat���, or a ���canary��� ��� ���singing��� to the feds.
Well, we all have family members who go astray.�� But, the reporter who gave the tip that brought them all down was named Joe O���Connor.�� Shared my family name.�� Way to go, Joe.
Two-Gun Crowley was immortalized by the character Cody Jarrett, as portrayed by James Cagney, in the 1949 film, WHITE HEAT. ��I never met my cousin Helen, who lived her life out on Long Island ��� never uttering another word about her times with Francis ���Two-Gun��� Crowley.�� I did know her sister, Margaret, who was all too willing to share details about the entire story.
Currently, if one does a YouTube search for ���Two Gun Crowley���, footage of his arrest is available.�� After he is wheeled out, wounded, Helen Walsh can be seen being escorted, and arrested, by police.�� So too can Fats Duringer.
I wonder, is there any chance my then eight year-old father, wasn���t just ���accidentally��� in the sights of those machine-gunners?�� Could this have had anything at all to do with his high-profile gangster cousin and whatever the heck she was up to her elbows in?�� Could he have been a pawn ��� or part of some message to her and Crowley?
Probably not, but I���ll never know for sure.
I have some amazing, true mob stories all set for the next blog post, so please stay tuned!
If you���d like to read a novel that Amazon reviews have compared to gangster classics such as THE GODFATHER, GOODFELLAS, and THE SOPRANOS, take a FREE peek at SONS OF THE POPE.�� It���s available in a new, second edition paperback, and for Kindle or Nook.
It has a 4.9 rating (out of 5) on Amazon.com.�� 4.4 on GoodReads.
It has been optioned for television by brilliant creative forces behind incredible shows such as DEXTER, NURSE JACKIE, RECTIFY, RED WIDOW, and CONSTANTINE.
Remember AL PACINO���S incredible performance in THE DEVIL���S ADVOCATE? Well, the man who wrote the novel upon which that film was based, ANDREW NEIDERMAN, has praised SONS OF THE POPE, and his quote can be found on the back of the book.�� Mr. Neiderman has also written all of the books in the VC ANDREWS series for over thirty years.�� He has sold over ONE HUNDRED MILLION books.
New York Times best-selling author, KEVIN O���BRIEN, who has brought readers to the edge of their seats with ONLY SON (optioned for film by TOM HANKS), THE NEXT TO DIE, THE LAST VICTIM, and UNSPEAKABLE, called my novel, ���A rich, epic chronicle of murder, the mob, and miracles.���
JOHN LOCKE, who was the first self-published author to sell over ONE MILLION novels on Kindle, felt so strongly about SONS OF THE POPE that he ran a contest for his readers to win copies of the book.�� He bought those contest copies with his own money.�� Mr. Locke���s DONOVAN CREED thriller series and EMMETT LOVE westerns have proven so popular, he became the first author ever to sign a distribution deal with Simon & Schuster.�� He retained all editorial rights, and control over design, content, and pricing.�� In the publishing world, that is unheard of.
Take a FREE peek at what those three New York Times best-selling authors are all excited about.�� See what might spur a top television producer and director to option an independent novel for television.
Have a look at SONS OF THE POPE.
Thank you.
August 29, 2014
UPDATE: Ariana Grande’s Latest Response. One Week Later.
BRAND NEW UPDATE (08/29/2014) – ONE WEEK AFTER THE ARIANA GRANDE INCIDENT.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE RESPONSE FROM MS. GRANDE AND HER REPRESENTATIVES?
THE ORIGINAL POST, THAT SOMEHOW BECAME A NEWS ITEM, IS RIGHT BELOW THIS ONE.
How has Ariana Grande responded to the disappointed MTV contest winners?
That is the question I have received most over the past week. There have been a lot of questions, and I’ll try to answer them all here at once. This has actually become too big to even handle by a family without the power of a public relations army working for them.
I never imagined that our little blog post would be read by hundreds of thousands of people, in almost 200 countries, but somehow, it has. Many of these people have asked if Ms. Grande has reached out to the fans she walked out on one week ago. These are the most popular questions:
“Has she invited everyone to re-do the meeting?”
“Has she mailed the explanation letter she talked about writing?”
“Has she tweeted any of the fans who were there?”
“Has she called anyone on the phone?”
We have waited a week to answer these questions, as we didn’t want to rush into anything, and my daughters had faith that she would maybe just make a two minute phone call, so they could all explain their side, get past the whole thing, and the girls could concentrate on buying and enjoying her new album.
Our family has been bombarded with interview requests all week – and up to this point have granted NONE. We had no desire to make this a bigger issue. Those few who have labeled us as “fame hungry” may not realize that we wrote a post, out of frustration, on a blog that used to get maybe 3 hits a day. We didn’t follow up until now, and we didn’t sell any interview to anyone. We just wanted to speak out for fans everywhere – even those who now hate and harass us. Treating contest winners as an annoyance is not really cool. This was not a case of interrupting a celebrity on the street, or in a restaurant, and it was not a large scale meet and greet of hundreds of people. It was three contest winners, with one guest each. That’s it.
Ariana has tweeted that she was saddened by the contest-winning artwork that featured a drawing of her and her departed grandfather. We do not dispute the fact that she may well have been so affected, but this is important to note, please:
EVERYTHING in the original blog post occurred BEFORE she saw the artwork that featured her and Mr. Grande.
EVERYTHING.
The “only a selfie allowed” warning.
The confiscation of any gifts intended for her, including one fan’s contest-winning CD of violin versions of Ariana songs. That young man poured his heart into that, and traveled across the country to hand it to her.
The lack of banter with anyone – not even asking their names, or if they were the contest winners (as opposed to the guests).
The ordering of security to be sure all non-selfies were DELETED.
Heading off to leave after spending just seconds with each winner.
ALL OF THIS OCCURRED BEFORE ANY ARTWORK WAS PRESENTED TO ARIANA GRANDE.
She was already walking away from her fans when my daughter Jen mustered up the courage to approach her with the artwork. Jen and her sister Kelly had recently lost their own grandpa, and their intention was to tell Ariana that they loved her and that they felt her pain because they knew what she was going through. They wanted to say “We feel you as a person right now, not as a superstar, because we know the pain in your heart.”
They assumed Ms. Grande was aware of the artwork because it won the contest for Jen, and, as with the other young man’s violin CD, it came from a place of love. Jen wanted to give Ari the originals to keep.
The other piece of artwork featured Ariana and Iggy Azalea, and it was this drawing that Ariana was looking at when she ordered all pictures deleted. She had not seen the grandpa drawing yet. When she did see the grandpa drawing, she walked out. Remember, she had been on the way out already, before Jen walked up to her with the artwork. She had taken the fan selfies and was on the way out.
We believe that Ariana was affected in some way by seeing the artwork, we are not challenging that. It’s just that nobody knew it at the time, and it doesn’t really explain everything that went on before it. The fans were treated horribly before that final few seconds.
So, to answer the above questions, there has been no contact at all from Ms. Grande to the fans in the week that followed.
We received a midweek phone call from Mr. Joseph Carozza, vice president of Ariana’s Republic record label. The girls looked at me as if to say “We knew Ari would make this right.”
Here was the sum total of the phone call: Mr. Carozza asked me to update the blog by writing that we now understood why Ariana acted as she did – because of her being in mourning.
When I asked him why I should do that considering that everything noted in the blog occurred BEFORE she saw the drawing, he responded that this post had become a legitimate news story and that it was Ariana’s album release week, and the story was making her uncomfortable.
I told him that I was sorry for all that, but that my girls had been affected too – as they were receiving death threats.
He reiterated the notion that Ariana had wanted to contact the girls after she had walked out on them, but that MTV had no way to deliver the “letter” she talked about.
I reminded him that MTV knew exactly where the contest winners were staying for all three nights – as they had placed them in that hotel. They also had everyone’s phone number (that’s how Mr. Carozza got it to call us in the first place), home address, email address, and quite literally – their picture IDs and social security numbers.
Perhaps the Ariana letter could have been sent over to the hotel when MTV had the VMA passes driven there two days after the meet and greet?
I suggested that maybe Ms. Grande could phone the contest winners personally, for two minutes, just to have each side make nice, put it all behind them, and I could update this blog with a happy ending saying how Ariana reached out and acted like a true star. I could then write that the girls were excited to buy the new album.
He refused.
We still waited several more days, in the hope that, within all of her promotional fan interactions, she might still call, tweet, or send a note to the original winners, as part of her weeklong album release fan experience.
Didn’t happen.
I called Mr. Carozza as a final reaching-out gesture to see if any contact might happen soon, before writing this follow up.
No, it will not.
There is a happy ending to this, though. The happiness is not with the spurned contest winners, but with the fans who have met Ariana Grande since this blog became news. She has gone out of her way to meet many fans, with cameras rolling, surprising them at America’s Got Talent and the Today Show. Giving them VIP passes – on national television, singing happy birthday to one, hugging them all, taking Vines with them, doing repeated live chats, and telephone Q&A sessions. She also has tweeted several of them personally, and posted repeated tweets about how she loves all of her fans.
The ones who earned a meeting with her through difficult contest entries, and follow up phone interviews, have received none of that.
They have been forgotten by Ariana Grande and her huge publicity machine.
They have no voice in this world except for this tiny blog page. I’ve been asked why I wrote it to begin with – well, Ms. Grande is famous for (rightfully) defending her family when they have been wronged. I chose to do that for my daughters, and the other contest winners. It’s that simple.
But the happy ending is that, at least for now, some fans are being treated as actual human beings.
That was the point from day one.
For the few who call our family “liars” regarding all of this, I put this offer out there: Every one of us will take a public polygraph exam if Ms. Grande will agree to do the same.
Every word I have written has been the absolute truth.
We don’t have a corporate spin machine to twist the story, we don’t have the power to tell magazines and websites that we will refuse future interviews with them if they don’t slant the story our way, and we don’t have millions of fans who believe everything we say.
We just know that if we tell the true story, there will be no guilt in our hearts.
