Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Bruno (I finished it - for better or for worse)

I kill people for a living. I wear makeup to relax. My name is Bruno.
Killing became my vocation the way it does for anybody else; I have no specific talents and zero patience for rules, corporate or otherwise. I tried on other careers but they never seemed to fit.  Growing up in the north end of Boston in a full blooded Italian family, I was exposed to a lot of characters. Shady guys who sat around a lot, outside the pork store, in front of Italian restaurants featuring exquisite cuisines. They all dressed the same; lots of gold, hip length two tone button down shirts, supple Italian leather shoes. Pinky rings. Their hair was immaculate and so were their nails.
I was encouraged to get an education so I could avoid “the life”.  As a youngster I didn’t even know what that meant. As a teenager, “the life” became an obsession. I wanted in.
My accounting degree meant nothing to me. My days were spent in a cubicle. The nights in front of Santoro’s.  Frankly, the education I got at night made more sense to me.  Black and white, crime and punishment. The sense of loyalty, the camaraderie, and the vibration of danger made me feel alive.
I got the hell out of accounting and immersed myself in the life. As with any other career, if you love what you do you will excel. I moved quickly through the ranks.
Killing people is not as hard as you might think. There is no emotional involvement; you are hired to shoot somebody you have never met before and most of the time you do it from a distance. Doing it up close and personal presents more problems, but I dealt with that by buying a bunch of cheap shirts. I got tired of cleaning the blood stains out of the expensive ones. Questioning the motive of your employer is not part of your job description so there is no conscience involved. And it pays very well.
I never really fit in and this created a problem for me. I am sensitive, my employers are not. Acting the tough guy, treating women like meat, being forever crude was not in my nature but it was a requirement of the job. My personality got buried down deep until I couldn’t stand it anymore.
I really connected with the women, the strippers and hookers, in a deeply emotional way. The look in their eyes told me everything I needed to know. They took the shit but maintained their individuality and their hope. We had relationships and I began to believe they were tougher than the tough guys.
I wanted to be like them so I started wearing makeup. Eyeliner, rouge, mascara, lipstick. Only when I was alone in my locked and bolted apartment.  It made me feel sensitive and tough at the same time in some strange way, and I began to make a confused connection between makeup, toughness and killing people.
Things got difficult when I exposed my new persona to the light of day. The first time I killed someone in makeup (me, not him), the false eyelashes got crushed against the scope. Poked me in the eye; I pulled my head back and lost contact with the victim. Fortunately for me, he had stooped to pat a Dachshund. When he stood with a sappy smile on his face I shot him through the forehead. Animal lovers.
My boldness increased with my self-confidence and I took more chances. While shopping for some superb veal cutlets one day I was spotted from a distance by some of my co-workers. They noticed the eyeliner. Suspicions were aroused.
Carmine was assigned to keep an eye on me and to deal with “the situation” in any way he saw fit. If you think Luca Brasi was a fictional character you have never met Carmine.  Apparently he followed me around from job to job for a couple of weeks but I never noticed him because I was feeling so bold and so good about myself that I was getting sloppy.
Everything came to a head on the rooftop of the Bank of America. I was perched up there waiting for Johnny Scaggs to show his face on the streets of downtown. He was a gambler who didn’t understand that he couldn’t gamble his way out of what he owed. He was out of excuses and it was up to me to make sure that he was also out of time. Permanently.
I was focused on the door to La Tratorria, where Johnny was just finishing up a nice veal scaloppini, so I never even noticed Carmine until the cold steel of his silencer pressed up against the side of my head. When I looked up at him he let out a surprised laugh. Mascara, lipstick, and blush did not turn him on. At least not on me.
Carmine is a man of few words and I think in this instance he was positively speechless. Although he did regain his composure.
As he was pulling the trigger he said “Makeup and mafia don’t mix.” Not exactly a Clint Eastwood line but I took it with me to the grave.





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