God, I’m so fricking tired of this shit. Every morning I get up early, wake the damn kids up and feed them their fricking Cocoa Puffs. This is the thanks I get. That piece of shit won’t start again. I just had the battery replaced. So, what the hell is wrong with that bucket of bolts now? I’ll have to wake up Gerry and see if he can get it started. I have to take those brats to school. I have to go to traffic court for that trumped-up DUI ticket.

 “Gerry, wake up. The hoopty car won’t start again. Get up.”

“What, what the hell do you want now? I just got to sleep a couple of hours ago. God, can’t you keep those kids quiet and turn down that damn TV.”

“Don’t you go to sleep again, you lazy good for nothing? You’re just another example of how I try to help people, and they end up taking advantage of me.”

“Alright, alright, let me put some pants on and take a piss. Can you give me five minutes?”

“Five minutes, that’s it. You get your sorry ass out on the curb and help me. You have been living here for a year and a half, and you never lift a hand to help me. And I let that brat of yours live here too. When you leave, she’s going with you. Keep that in mind.”

God, it’s so cold out here. What am I going to do if he can’t fix it? I’m tapped out. I used up all the child support this month already. That old bag of a mother won’t lend me another dime. I spend the SSI money on heating oil. My exes won’t fork over any more money. My credit cards are maxed out. Crap.

“Well, it’s about time you got your sorry ass out here. What took you so long?”

“I’m here now; let me try it. You probably just flooded it.”

“Well, can you fix it or not?”

“Not. I don’t know. Maybe the alternators dead, or it needs a new ignition system. You’ll have to take it up to Pep Boys and get it checked out. I’m going back to bed.”

“The hell you are. If I don’t get this piece of crap running, we’re all screwed. Do you have any money you didn’t tell me about?”

“Oh yeah, my hidden assets. You take my disability check the second I get it. Where would I get any money?’

“You think I don’t know that you’re selling meth out of my trailer out back. Come on, hand it over right now, or get the hell out of here. And take that skanky daughter of yours with you. I’m sick of her waking me up all night with her constant hacking. She always seems to have money for her smokes. Where’s she getting that money on her back?”

“Hey, don’t you talk about my daughter like that? Here I’ve got fifty bucks, that’s it.

“That’s not enough. I have to find some more money fast. I’m just going to take a credit card out in Harry’s name. I did the same thing with the older two. I don’t have any choice.”

“What the hell are you talking about? A credit card in Harry’s name; he’s only seven years old. And you did that to the other two too? Man, you really are one crappy mother. You’re always calling them names and knocking them around. Now you’re screwing up their credit too. What are you going to do next? Make Sissy prostitute herself?”

“She probably already does. But she won’t give me any money. Right now, I’m going to call my mother. See if she can come and pick up the kids and take them to school and then drop me off at court. I have to take care of that bogus DUI.

After traffic court, Meghan stands outside the police station trying to decide what to do next when her cell phone rings.

“Meghan, it’s your Aunt Tilly.”

“I know who it is, Aunt Tilly. What do you want? I’m having a hell of a bad day, and it’s not even lunchtime.”

“Meghan, it’s your Uncle Morty; he’s really bad. If you want to see him again, you better get your ass over here now. He isn’t going to last much longer.”

All I ever do is give, give, and give.  All I ever get back is crap. Nobody appreciates anything I do. How I keep food on the table and clothes on their backs. They never lift a hand to help me. Now I have to go visit my Uncle. What’s next? Do I have to serve food at the homeless shelter? Next thing I know, I’ll be living in the shelter along with those two brats of mine.

“Hi, Aunt Tilly. I got here as fast as I could. I had to go to court today. My car broke down again, and I had to take the bus to get here. It’s cold as hell out here. Can I come in? Can you give me a cup of coffee? I could eat too. I haven’t eaten anything today. I’ll go see Uncle Morty while you’re doing that.”

 Oh, Jeez, look at him. He looks like he is about to breathe his last breath. God, it freaking stinks in here. I hate old people. They stink. I ought to get a medal for this.

“Hi, Uncle Joe, it’s me, Meghan, I came to see how you’re doing. Aunt Tilly called this morning and said you weren’t feeling too well. Uncle Joe raises his limp hand and signals for Meghan to come closer. She leans in, and his breath almost knocks her over.

“Jeez, Uncle Morty, would it kill you to rinse out with some Listerine once in a while? So, what do you want to tell me?”

She hears him whisper, “Here. You were always my favorite.”

He hands her a paper. She looks down, and it’s a check. At that moment, she sees his hand drop-down, and he releases a long sour breath. She looks at him and lifts one of his baggy eyelids. He’s dead. She screams at the top of her lungs. Her aunt comes running in.

“For the love of god, what are you whaling about? You scared the hell out of me.”

Meghan points at Uncle Joe. Aunt Tilly says,” Well, if that don’t beat all. The first time I’m out of this dam room for more than five minutes, and he croaks. He was always such an inconsiderate bastard. What’s that in your hand?”

Meghan looks down at her hand and says, “I forgot. He handed this to me and told me I was his favorite. “It’s a check for…oh my god, it’s for one hundred thousand dollars. Is this for real?”

“Yeah, it’s real. He said he was going to leave you something. But I thought he was going to leave you his baseball card collection. He said that you and he used to collect those when you were a kid. And he took you to all the Phillies games. I guess you were his favorite. He didn’t leave your mother anything.”

“Holy crap, this is the answer to my prayers. Thanks, Aunt Tilly. I gotta be going. Let me know if I can do anything to help with the funeral. I have to get home to pick up the kids from school. I’ll see you later.”

“Wait, you’re leaving now? Aren’t you going to at least wait until the mortician comes to pick up your uncle?”

“Naw, I can’t now, Aunt Tilly. I’ll call you later.” Meghan takes the 402 express bus home and gets off in front of the bank. She wants to cash the check before her aunt decides to stop payment on it or something. She walks up to the bank teller and hands the check over. “I want to cash this check. Can you put it all in one-hundred-dollar bills?”

The bank teller takes a look at the check and gives Meghan a look over too. “Can you wait a minute, please? I have to talk to the manager. I don’t know if we have enough cash on hand at this branch. We may have to contact the main branch to get this amount.”

About twenty minutes later, the manager calls Meghan over to her office. Here you go, Ms. Mullen; sorry for the wait. We had to get the cash from the main bank. I put the money in an envelope for you. I don’t recommend you walk around with this much cash. Perhaps you would like to open up a savings account and place some of this money here for safekeeping.”

“What? No, no, I’ll be taking it to… to my accountant tomorrow morning. Don’t worry about it. Thanks.”

 Oh, my freaking god, I’m rich, rich. Finally, I got what I deserved all these years. The first thing I’m going to do is get rid of that freaking piece of shit car and get those freeloaders out of my house. Then I’m going to take a vacation by myself. Maybe I’ll get lucky and meet a rich guy on a cruise or something, somebody with class.

One month later, Meghan returns from a gambling cruise on the Mississippi.  Her pockets are empty, and no rich guy in tow. Her mother meets her at the door.

“Well, it’s about dam time that you showed up, Meghan. These brats of yours are driving me half crazy. I had to let Gerry and his daughter move back in. I couldn’t cover your bills by myself. You neglected to leave me any money while you took your vacation. Your car still isn’t working. I hope you saved some of that money to get a new car or at least get that junker fixed. The least you could have done was stay for your Uncles funeral. Aunt Tilly was really pissed when you didn’t show up.”

“Goddam, it all to hell. Can’t I ever catch a break?

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Sorry, I forgot to attach the link. Here it is https://susanaculver.com  for my blog, Write On.

Susan A. Culver

Dear Write-On Followers: I am taking a Spring Break for the next two weeks. I will be spending my time working in my garden. I will be posting four of my best stories, and you are free to read any of my other 285 stories that I have written in the past five-plus years. Here is the link to Write ON blog:https://susanaculver.com

Susan A. Culver

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Christmas time is here again. At my age, it seems difficult to summon up the Christmas spirit.

But when I was a child, it was a different story. I remember the days leading up to Christmas seemed to go by at a snail’s pace. I would ask my mother every day, “how many more days until Christmas, Mom?

She answered, “one less than when you asked me yesterday. Now, why don’t you go find something to do and keep yourself busy.”

I know if I kept bugging her, she would find something for me to do. “Ok, Mom, I think I’ll take a walk. I’ll be back in a little while.”

I decide to walk downtown and look in the windows of the stores. We live in a little town in Southern New Jersey called Maple Shade. And all the stores are decorated for Christmas. We even have a Christmas parade. And Santa Clause takes a ride all over town in the fire truck. And he throws candy to all the kids that are lined up on the sidewalks. All my friends and I walked down the pike on Main Street to see it yesterday. We had such fun. It was really cold outside, so we all had our winter coats on and hats and gloves and snow boots. Because the day before yesterday, we got over a foot of snow.

As I walked down the street, I noticed that the repair shop had a TV in the window, and it was playing It’s A Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart. I’ve seen this story before, but all the same, I stand there and watch it for quite a while. I can’t hear the sound, of course, but I know most of the dialogue anyway since I’ve seen it so many times. I decide to walk down to the Five & Dime Store to look at all the cool toys in the window. I ask Santa for a Barbie doll. I hope I get one.

The Christmas Lights along Main Street are beautiful. Of course, they look better when it’s dark out. The volunteer firemen drove up and down Main Street in their Fire Trucks and put up the lights and the Christmas Wreaths with big red bows on them the week before Thanksgiving. I watched them. The Rexall Drug Store is next to the Five & Dime Store. They have a display with a train set riding around on the train tracks with little houses and churches and trees and tiny little people walking around. There is even a little dog in the front yard of one of the little houses. At least, I think it’s a dog, but it’s hard to tell because it is so little. Above the houses, Santa is flying through the air with his reindeer, including Rudolph with his red nose. There’s a little stream of smoke coming out of the smokestack of the train engine. I wish we had one of those going around our tree.

I walk down to the bakery and look in their window. There are so many delicious-looking cakes in the window. My stomach starts growling really loud. My mother says I have a sweet tooth. I’m not sure what that means. But I really do love candy and cake. I hope I get some candy canes in my Christmas stocking and some chocolate kisses with red and green foil wrapped around them. Oh, how I would love to have an éclair too. My mother is making a cake for Christmas. She is a really good baker. I hope she makes a vanilla cake with shredded coconut on it. I really do love coconut. Oh, I almost forgot that every Christmas, my mother makes a giant tin of Christmas cookies. She puts the cookie dough in a cookie press and squeezes out these cookies in all kinds of shapes, and puts different colored sprinkles on them. I always find where she hides the cookie tin in the cellar, and I eat a whole bunch of them before Christmas gets here.

As I’m walking down Main Street, I see a police car coming in my direction. The car pulls over, and I hear the policeman calling out my name and saying, “Merry Christmas, Susie.”

I walk over to the curb, and I see it is Mr. Lombardi, our next-door neighbor. He is a policeman in our town. “Merry Christmas, Officer Lombardi,” I scream at the top of my voice. And then he waves again and drives away.

I continue walking down the street, and I see a couple of kids from school. I hear them yelling, “hey Susie do you want to go and play behind the church?”

“Sure,” I say. When I caught up to them, I saw it was my friend Helen and Ann Marie.

“What were you up to, Susie?”

“Nothing, just walking downtown and looking in all the store windows. What do you guys want to do?’

“We were just going behind the church and seeing who is playing in the snow out there. Are you getting anything good for Christmas, Susie?”

“I don’t know what I’ll get, but I asked for a Barbie doll and some art supplies. How about you guys? What did you ask for Christmas?”

“I ask for two games, Operation and Twister. I love games, said Ann Marie. “

“I ask for an Easy-Bake oven. said Helen.”

“Oh, that sounds like fun.”

We rounded the corner at Main Street and Fellowship Road, and I said, “let’s have a race to the pump house behind the church. Ready, set, go.”

And we all ran as fast as we could. And at the last minute, I slipped on an icy spot and fell flat on my back. Ann Marie and Helen ran up to me and said all at once,” are you alright?”

“Yes.” I manage to say, even though the wind really got knocked out of me.

“Ok, then I bet I can beat you to the pump house Helen yells.” And before I even got up from the icy sidewalk, they were running at top speed to the pump house. I scramble up and start running as fast as I can. I was just about to catch up with them when I heard them yelling, “we beat you; we beat you.”

All the same, I kept running, and before you knew it, I was scrambling up the side of the pump tower to the top along with them. There were a whole lot of kids from Our Lady of Perpetual Help school there and some of the public-school kids too. And they were climbing up hills of snow and sledding across the parking lot. We laughed hard, and the air was so cold I could hardly breathe. I don’t know how long I stayed out there. But I know by the time I heard my mother yelling, “Susie, it’s time to come home. It was starting to get dark outside. What a day it was, what a day!

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As long as I can remember, my life was polluted by secrets. I can’t remember a single day when I was young when I wasn’t terrified that someone would find out my secret. And they would divulge it to everyone I knew, including my friends, neighbors, and workmates. And then what would happen? My life as I knew it would never be the same.

I didn’t realize at first that my family was different than all my friends. I had a father and a mother, two sisters and older brothers, and grandparents. We all lived together in a big, old Victorian house in Philadelphia, Pa. I was the youngest. Not to mention the endless number of” Uncles” I had.

My parents told me over and over again that what went on in our house stayed in our house. There were no if, and, or buts. I was warned that there would be dire consequences if I ever told anyone about my family and what they did. I really didn’t even understand what was going on. Because all the meetings that happened in our house were behind closed doors. There were always men coming and going from our house. My mother told me that my father was a businessman and that’s all.

And so, I believed that all these guys were members of our family and they were discussing business. The weird thing was that the people who lived in my neighborhood gave my family, especially my father, a wide berth. All of my “uncles” were big guys with black hair and mustaches. They wore expensive suits and had gold pocket watches. They smoked stinky cigars that bobbed up and down in their mouths when they were talking. I never saw them without cigars. Our house always smelled like cigars.

Once a week, they had a big meeting at our house, and they all marched into my father’s office, smoking their cigars and talking and laughing loudly. After they all arrived, my father would close the double doors to his office and lock the door. Sometimes I could hear them arguing with one another. Occasionally a fight might break out, but that never lasted too long. Because my father, who was a big man, would pick up the guy causing the problem by the seat of his pants and throw him out the front door. I would never see them again. I was always afraid of my father because he was angry, loud, and violent.

One night I snuck down the steps from my bedroom and listened at the door to my father’s office. I could hear my Uncle Vinny arguing with someone, and then I heard my father say, “Hey Joe take Vinny for a ride. He needs to cool off. And that was the last time I ever saw my Uncle Vinny. I was afraid to ask my father where he was. And my mother told me I shouldn’t ask such questions. If I knew what was good for me. I missed my Uncle Vinny. He always bought me black licorice, and it was my favorite. After Uncle Vinny went for the ride, I never saw him again.

What I didn’t know when I was a little kid was that my father was a part of the Mob or Mafia, and he and his cohorts were involved in illegal gambling at the casinos, and the race track, prostitution, and of course, selling illegal alcohol. As I got older, I realized that my family was not like any of my friend’s families. Their fathers were mailmen, factory workers, and mechanics. They worked from nine to five and didn’t have scary men coming to their homes at night. Which often ended with violence. Because of this environment, I became afraid of my father. I wished that I had just an ordinary family.

If any of the kids at school knew my father was in the Mafia, they never said a word to me, and that goes for teachers at school as well. No matter what kind of trouble I got in, I was never held accountable for it. Because nobody but nobody messed with the mob and their families.

My mother was strict with my siblings and me. She wouldn’t tolerate trouble coming to her door. And she really didn’t have to worry about it because nobody was going to rat out me or my brothers or sisters.

 

At some point when I was a teenager, it dawned on me that no matter what I did, I didn’t get into trouble. So, I did whatever I wanted to, and I have to admit I became something of a bully. This didn’t go unnoticed by my older siblings or my father. I couldn’t help but notice that my father seemed kind of proud that the other kids in school were afraid of me.

When I was about sixteen, my father told me he wanted me to start going with him so I could learn the family business. And so that was the end of my formal public school education and the beginning of my life as a member of the Mafia. I have to confess that I loved every minute of it, the power, the influence, and the respect I received from the people in my neighborhood. My childhood was behind me. And my career as a mobster began. And then there was the attention from all the young women in my neighborhood, especially after I bought a 1953 red Buick Skylark. I could have any girl that I wanted.

My brothers and I worked together. We split our time between bootlegging, alcohol and gambling, and prostitution. We were literally rolling in the dough in the late 1950s. That is when my father started getting involved with construction and controlling the Unions in the casinos in Atlantic City. My life was exciting. As I grew older, my power and influence increased, and so did my brothers. We were a family to be reckoned with.

Up until the 1970s, we didn’t feel threatened by the FBI or local police. Even the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under J. Edgar Hoover didn’t believe that the local Mob families were a federal problem. And local police didn’t have the money or knowledge, or experience to support continual investigations and make cases against members of our families. We were untouchable for many years.

Not to mention that many of the local police departments were easily corrupted by the Mafia. The occasional successful prosecution had little, if any, effect on our businesses and operations. New members could easily be recruited to replace imprisoned colleagues.

And my life went on with little interruption. The Feds tried to build a case against me, but they were never able to prove anything. As I got older, I took over more and more of the responsibility from my father. In fact, my father said that he and my mother were planning on retiring soon, and he wanted me and my brothers to take over the business. And in fact, that is what we did. We took over the Family business.

My brothers and I made a great team, our business was growing, and we were making plenty of money. We even began investing in legitimate businesses. We hope that by doing that, there would be fewer problems with the Feds and the local police. But unfortunately, that is not what happened. The Feds were closing in on us, and by 2010 they had infiltrated the Mob to the extent that one of our members agreed to turn his back on the Mafia and the FBI took us all down. More than twenty-seven Mob bosses were arrested, interrogated, tried, and incarcerated.

And I was one of those. And here I sit and will continue to sit in this jail cell for what will probably be the rest of my life. I will miss the action, the power. But I knew what I was doing, and I wouldn’t change a thing about my life. It was the life I was meant to live. I do regret not being able to be with my family. I miss my children and grandchildren. I hope that one day, they will forgive me and come to visit me. All the money in the world can not make up for losing my family. It was too high a price to pay for power and money. But there is no changing past mistakes. There is only regret.

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WRITE ON FOLLOWERS TOMORROW I WILL BE POSTING A NEW STORY, ALL IN A DAY’S WORK. I LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR FEEDBACK. SUSAN A. CULVER

I will be unable to post any stories on Facebook for the next four weeks. My next post will be on September 15th. Please feel free to go to my blog site and read some of my past stories that you might have missed.

Susan A. Culver

 

Did you ever get up on the wrong side of the bed? And you were just in a foul mood. Well, that’s how I woke up feeling today, yesterday, and every day for the past six years.

No, I’m not exaggerating. And the reason was I was sick of my current life. I needed a change, a significant change. I have no idea what I want to do or where I want to be. But I know for sure I need to do something different, or I’m going to go out of my freaking mind. https://susanaculver.com/home/

 

Susan A. Culver

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am taking the next two weeks off. I will post previously published stories on Wednesday and Friday this week and next. I hope you are having a great summer. Susan A. Culver