A Visit from a Confused Gangster

Today was the first time anyone has ever tried to kill me.

It had started like any other day, more or less. I woke up around nine, took a shower, got dressed, watched some TV.

After a repeat of Friends I was off to a good start. It was Friday, and I was still jobless. Back in February I had been a chef at an upscale restaurant in Hollywood, but then the place got closed down because the owner, or manager, or someone involved with the place was arrested for dealing cocaine. Needless to say, it was a job that didn't go anywhere.

In April I was working as a waiter at another restaurant a few miles from my apartment, but then I was laid off because the manager's kid brother needed a job and he had one too many waiters already.

"Sorry, Joe," he had said. "I've gotta lay off someone...and I can't tell my brother no, so...I've gotta let you go. Good luck." Then he had closed the door. I never received my last paycheck. I contacted his office in Beverly Hills one day (he also had a job as a part-time lawyer, big surprise) but never got through. Always his answering machine - although one time I could have sworn he picked up the phone, then just pretended to be the answering machine after he realized who was calling.

Now I could barely afford rent. I had tried to land jobs at other places, but Burger Kings were below me, and expensive restaurants were either above me or fully staffed. I eventually just lost interest and began begging my family for money. My brother Lewis, whom I hadn't spoken to in many years, was none too eager to share his wealth. (He's in Real Estate in Florida.)

"Fuck you," he had told me, then hung up rather abruptly. I took it as a bad sign.

My parents in Virginia were less responsive. The conversation went something like this:

Dad: Hello?

Me: Hi, Dad, it's Joe, I -

(dead line)

Me: -- Dad? Dad?

So, I was stuck in a rut. I decided my options were to get a crummy job and lose the apartment, kill myself, or keep looking for a new job opportunity whilst I enter deeper and deeper into bankruptcy.

I was looking at the newspaper that day when the knock came on my door. I had circled two employment possibilities - one at a day spa, the other as a chef for an okay place in an okay area. I had studied to be a cook in school, although I dropped out after two years. I was twenty-seven now. College seemed like a long time ago.

I opened the door to my apartment. There was a short guy in a smart black suit (Armani?) standing outside the door. Wearing sunglasses, even though it was a rainy July day, overcast and miserable.

"Hello?"

"Are you Joe Sommers?" No greeting.

I pondered lying, making up a fake name and saying he had the wrong person, anything to get him to leave me alone - he gave me the creeps.

"Uh...yeah, that's me," I said after a short pause.

Before I could protest he had me pinned up against the wall inside my apartment, slamming the door shut with his foot as he grabbed for a handgun hidden underneath his suit - yes, an Armani, definitely, I could tell by now. With his left hand he held my throat in a vice; with his right, he brought the weapon up to my left temple.

"Vince Mancini ain't pleased with what happened last Tuesday, Joey. You know what I'm talking about?"

I shook my head, No.

Smack. I'm pretty sure the bottom of the gun left an indent on the top of my skull as he cracked it against my head.

I flinched, and he tightened his grip and asked me again if I knew what he meant. I wasn't in the mood for arguing right now. "Yeah," I sputtered, trying to look at the gun barrel without turning my head - an impossible task, my pupils so far to the left they seemed to bury themselves into my sockets, and when I stared back at the man in front of me, I was momentarily disoriented.

"Good." He loosened his grip a little bit - barely noticeable, but now I could at least breathe, and the purple discoloration of my face was shifting to red.

"Now, we both know what happened can't be changed now...but Vincent isn't the type of guy who likes to get fucked by strangers, you know what I'm saying?"

At this point in time I had absolutely no idea what he was trying to say, I didn't even know what he was talking about - who was Vince Mancini? What happened last Tuesday? But I lied: "Yeah." What else to say?

"You may be wondering how we found you. Well, we have our ways."

At this point my head was ready to burst from the pressure of his gun barrel, which felt like a hot iron pressed against my skull. I had hoped for a fleeting second he was about to leave.

No luck, though. The guy was here to stay. He dropped his grip and I fell to the floor, then he kicked me in the stomach a few times before wiping some drool away from the corner of his mouth, which he had accumulated from spitting at me so much. He was a short plump guy with dark receding hair and a solid face, clean-shaven with piercing black eyes. Very Italian, very chic-looking, complete with gold jewelry and leather loafers.

He turned back around, facing me, the drool gone. Pointed a bony finger at me and said, "You may have thought you were protected by unanimity, but think again. When you're dealing with Vince Mancini, nothing is unanimous."

And now I was thinking to myself, I think he means anonymous, not unanimous, but oh well. I wasn't going to correct him.

I began to pick myself up off the floor, but he came back with another hefty kick to the gut. I felt it, bad. It really hurt. I fell again, and then he smacked my head with the butt of his weapon.

"Where's the money, Joey? Where's the fuckin' money?"

"What money?" I said, spitting blood onto my then-clean carpet.

His response was harsher than words: he kicked me in the face, then slapped me around.

"Don't play dumb you dumb fuck!" he screamed. "Tell me where the money is, or else!" That's when he raised the gun and aimed it at me, obviously as a threat, but I wasn't sure if it was a bluff or not. He was obviously a gangster, and presumably this was nothing new to him. He wouldn't be scared to do it, would he?

"Look," I said, leaning back against the wall, "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know Vince Mancini. I don't have any money. I think you've got the wrong guy."

"Oh yeah?" he said, grinning. "I've got the wrong Joe Sommers?"

"Yeah."

"There was only one in the phonebook, asshole, and it was you!"

I didn't bother pointing out that the phonebook had more than a few J Sommers and one Joe Sommers, the former of which was likely to include more than just Johns and Jacques.

"I'm telling you, you've got the wrong guy! Maybe your info was wrong."

His face turned dark. He kicked me again.

"Vincent Mancini never receives false information, asshole!"

"Then you've got the wrong Joe Sommers. I'm not a criminal. I'm a cook."

Another kick; this one in the groin, which hurt the most.

"I told you already! You're the only Joe Sommers! So tell me where the money is before I have to get all dramatic." The gun cocked. I wondered if he realized how silly he sounded saying these clichés, but then I wondered if gangsters really talk using a GoodFellas vocabulary.

"Okay, okay, okay," I said, pleading for my life. "The money is...in a locker. Downtown Hollywood. At a train station...in a locker...the..."

I can't even remember which train station or which locker number I gave him. I just called out whatever sprung to mind. The station probably didn't even exist, the locker number something silly like five thousand.

But it made him relax, and he stopped kicking me.

After the Joe Pesci lookalike left I sat there by the door for a little while wondering what had just happened. My body was still aching and I realized how sad it was that I had just let myself get beaten by a guy half as small as I was.

So I got up off the floor and walked into the adjoining kitchen area, a small little area overlooking the living room. I decided I should figure out who this Vince Mancini guy was, because obviously he had something up his ass and I wasn't going to let myself be killed over something as stupid as mistaken identity. So I grabbed the phone book and looked for Joe Sommers. Sure enough there were at least four or five names listed apart from my own - the crazy short guy who had attacked me clearly just picked the first one he saw listed - which, of course, was mine.

I gave the next J Sommers a call. After four rings a gruff voice answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hi, is this Joe Sommers?"

"Yeah."

A pause.

"Do you know anyone named Vince Mancini?"

Another pause.

"Huh? Who... who is this?"

"Joe Sommers," I said.

"Yeah?"

"I am."

"You are what?"

"Joe Sommers."

"Yeah?"

"That's me."

"What is?"

"Joe Sommers."

"Why do you keep saying that...I already told you I'm Joe -"

"No, I am -"

"What?"

The conversation was turning into Abbott and Costello so I got straight to the point. "Look, do you or do you not know a Vince Mancini?"

"No. Who is this?"

"Bye."

I marked his name off in the phone book and was about to call the next guy when there was another knock at my door.