A lot of you have probably never met a mobster. Let alone had the opportunity of hanging out with one all day… This was a blistering afternoon in July, 1995. I was nineteen…

I was late for work at the golf course. The residing professional was five years older than me and a new friend… he strolled around the corner as I walked in late and alerted me that I had the afternoon off. I thought I was fired.

“Listen, my dad’s good friend Brother Martino is coming by to play the course today; he’s got Serge with him.”

Serge? Was he talking about an electrician? Or, the latest Titanium driver?

Brian, as we’ll call him, waited from my reaction. He led the way back outside, into the glorious sunshine, waiting for me to say anything.

“Do you even know who Brother Martino and Serge are?”

Honestly, they were the last things on my mind. I was basking in the knowledge that my day of work had been cashed in for a round of eighteen. Who I was playing with was of no concern. I snapped out of it.

“No, who, are they really good?”

I could tell Brian wanted to slap or belt me for my inability to grasp anything.

“Brother Martino is a capo in the “ “ crime family. That’s like a captain. Serge is his fucking hitman… do you get it now.”

What I got now was that this guy’s father invited some pretty apocalyptic people to the golf course, and our job now was to dance and drive around and entertain them.

It was overwhelmingly obvious that Brian was wishing for that moment he’d pursued a different profession.

“Shit there they are.”

All I can remember about the car is black. Everything about it looked like deep space with a high beaming shine. It could’ve very well been made by Black Motors in a little town called, Black.

When the two doors opened I was ready for a soundtrack. I don’t think organized crime broke the mold after these guys, I think they dropped it off the Empire State Building.

Out of the passenger side of the car, with a cigar the size of a phone book, and an ultra tight Chia-Pet head of salt and pepper hair, was the Brother himself. His late fifties frame stretched and looked around as if the threat of getting wacked followed him even to a rural golf course, one hundred miles away from the city. Every piece of clothing stitched around his body was black.