Queens Mafia Hangout Feeling Recession

WOODSIDE

The Winged Tip Shoe is feeling the sag of the economy. “It’s a [nightmare],” Pete Limpelli, owner and operator said Thursday. “Minchia, these prices,” Limpelli trialed off as he pulled the wood handled level of the giant Elektra Espresso machine behind the bar.

The Jules ( Read more... )

            Ed Groat left Sitwell’s, and made his way back to his Hyde Park house in his dilapidated pick up truck. It was time to shore up the canoe. Sand that somebitch down. Bolster the ribs. Stitch some canvas. Put some pitch and some Kiwi Shoe Glue all over that somebitch.

He pressed the gas pedal on the truck, and it sputtered ( Read more... )

            Pete Limpelli made a few phone calls from his hotel room on Central Parkway. Back to Queens.

Into the phone, Pete would say things like; “Minchia, whatsamadda for you?”

Phone calls back to The Winged Tip Shoe always seemed to precipitate that sort of acrimonious discourse. Mooks always fucking things up. ( Read more... )

   Ed Groat filled mason jars with homemade glue.

“Yeah, a little beeswax, some honey. A few drops of kerosene. Some benzene.” He said, “Add about a cup of tar, some rose hips. A few parsnips. Some collared greens.”

His hands told a larger story. A gesticulated scene complete with stirring actions, shaking, mixing, syllabic ( Read more... )

            The dreadlocked white kid shook his fist, and said things like solidarity, and corporations, and fair trade. He screamed, and the small crowd near the restaurant area of Wild Oats nodded, and said right on to whatever he said.

A girl, wearing a full length skirt, which looked as if it had been manufactured from a curtain, ( Read more... )

            The door of the Sorbonne Starbucks had been glued with Kiwi shoe glue, that's what the lab report showed anyway.

"What's the scoop?" Rick Hollo asked over the phone. It was a hard black plastic rotary phone Rick insisted on keeping in the office. He told everyone on the force that it was a good phone, and the phone his ( Read more... )

Pete Limpelli always slept till around ten in the morning.

“What’s the rush,” he’d say to me.

“I wasn’t criticizing,” I’d say.

He’d field a phone call or two from Carmine Calamari, or me, or some telemarketer.

“Minchia,” he’d say, “ten g’s.”

Or he’d say, “Pete Limpelli is deceased.”

He’d chew on his tea tree oil toothpicks.

“Dental hygiene ( Read more... )

            I went to the hospital to visit a friend, and another friend wanted me to write a poem about it.

“I don’t do poems anymore,” I told her.

“For me?” she said. She gave me one of those soft looks, and positioned her hips just so. It reminded me of better times.

“Maybe,” I said. I had to go back to my ( Read more... )