According to Yahoo, my father was a notorious (damn that word) Irish gangster who had spent most of his teenage years in detention centers because he couldn’t stay out of trouble and a good bit of his adult life in prison for the same reason. His crimes ranged from extortion, burglary, assault and battery, racketeering, and loan sharking. There was no mention of drugs and prostitution, so I guess he had to draw the line somewhere.
I left for college at eighteen and came home after getting my law degree at twenty-four. My plan was to go to work for a big firm and make as much money as possible and to distance myself from my notorious father.
When people asked if I was Patsy O’Connor’s son I would just say no and quickly change the subject.
Then my dad showed up at my apartment late one night a few weeks after I’d moved back to the city. I remember opening the door to find him standing there, his coat slick with rain and a look of impending doom on his face. For a moment, I thought he was there to tell me that my mother had died. No, he was there with news that was, in his mind at least, probably worse.
“The feds are up my ass again,” he said, sitting at the bar that separated my tiny kitchen from my tiny living room while I pulled a bottle of Irish whiskey and two tumblers from the cupboard. He brushed the rain from his buzzed white hair and wiped his hands on his shirt. “Motherfuckers, just won’t leave me alone.”
I stood across from him and poured two fingers of whiskey into his glass. He downed it before I could pour mine. He held out his glass and I filled it to the rim.
“Tell me exactly what’s going on,” I said, shooting back the whiskey and sighing as it burned its way down my throat. I studied his eyes, wondering if this was the pivotal point in our relationship when he actually told me the truth.
“You know about my business,” he said, his voice deep and gravelly. The older he got, the lower he spoke. His voice had become a growl since I’d been away at college.
“Is that a question?” I asked. “Or a statement.”
“You know what I do,” he said, taking a sip of the whiskey and wiping his lips with a knuckle. “You’re not stupid. I know.”
“No, I’m not stupid, dad,” I said. “You’re in the import/export business. The problem is the things you import and export are not exactly legal.”
He shrugged with his entire face. He had aged substantially since I’d been away at school. His pale, pudgy features went up and down.
“We don’t do dope and we don’t do guns,” he said as if I should be proud that he had at least set a bar for his illegal activities. “Mostly counterfeit goods, these days. Knock off designer handbags and shoes coming out of China. Some watches out of Korea. Goddamn fake Rolexes. Look just like the real thing.”
“So, you’re knocking off watches, purses, and shoes,” I said. I held up my glass to toast him. “Glad you’re not into human trafficking or anything really immoral.”
He glared at me from beneath his bushy eyebrows. “Don’t you fucking talk down to me, boy,” he growled. “My business put food on the table and a roof over your head since the day you were born. And paid for that expensive law school you just had to go to. NYU wasn’t good enough for you. No, you had to go to fucking Harvard.”
“I appreciate everything you’ve ever done for me, dad,” I said. “And I will pay you back, every cent.”
He waved a thick hand at me. “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, boy, I don’t want your fucking money.”
“Then what do you want, dad?” I asked. “Why are you here?”
“I need you to come to work for me,” he said, pleading with his eyes. It was the first time I’d ever seen such a helpless look on my dad’s face. “I need you to help keep your old man out of jail.”
Over the last ten years I had managed to keep him out of jail and move him toward legitimate business interests. He was resistant at first because the business made so much fucking money. Incredible amounts of cash. The kind of money that was hard to resist, even by the most moral among us, including me.
I became his corporate and private legal counsel. I had insight into every aspect of his business, legal or not. I finally knew after all those years exactly what my dad did for a living. I learned every secret, business and otherwise.
We stayed up all night, finishing that bottle of whiskey and putting a good dent in another. He told me about every aspect of his business. And without me asking told me about every aspect of his personal life. He railed off a long list of women he’d slept with (other than my mother), how each relationship started and ended, how much it had cost him to get the scorned ones off his back, and most interestingly, how he had been having an affair with his secretary, Boozie, since before I was born.