Just Supposed to be a Summer Job

Freshman classes seemed easy to Stevie, who as the No. 7 graduate in a class of 630 students, was at Iowa on a half-scholarship. Math was Stevie's strong suit, and there weren't many math equations in high school that he couldn't figure out in his head. That always drove his high school teachers crazy, because on tests and homework assignments he would turn in his answers without accompanying "work."

"You have to always show your work, so if you miss a problem we can review with you where you made the mistake," the teachers would say. "You might still be able to get partial credit if you show your work."

"I don't want partial credit. If it's right, score it. If it's wrong, mark it wrong. I made the mistake; mark it wrong. I'll live with it," Stevie would complain back.

The social aspect of college was a little tougher for Stevie. With his darker skin and long, curly hair, the Iowans in the crowd didn't know what to make of him. They assumed since he had long hair, he was a hippy and was probably on drugs. Many of the other kids at the school were from the rich suburbs of Chicago, who pretty much looked down on anyone who didn't look like them and act like them.

Stevie and Gary bonded with the pair of roommates right across the hall from them. Rich Nowinsky was a tall, strapping kid from Philadelphia, who spent the first three days in Iowa City drunk on his ass because Iowa was an 18 state for drinking age, and Pennsylvania was a 19 state. Andy Mayhew, his roommate, was from downstate Illinois, and his father worked in a GM plant, so he had the blue-collar vibe working. The two sets of roommates bonded so well and were together so much that the other guys on the floor started calling them "El Quattro," Spanish for "The Four." Rich was the nominal leader of the group, so he got to be called, "Uno." Andy was "Dos," Gary was "Tres) and Stevie was "Cinquo." Since the group was called "El Quattro," none of its members could have that as their name, so they skipped that and went to five. All of the other floor members thought that was hysterical.

Stevie was solidly built if a little on the slight side, and his darker skin and deep brown eyes gave him somewhat of a swarthy look that many girls throughout his high school years had liked. The same held true for college, and Stevie could usually find a date when he wanted one. He was in no hurry to go exclusive with any girl. For their part, the college girls seemed a little more "worldly" than the girls had in high school, so getting them into his bed wasn't a problem. His roommate in particular noted that Stevie didn't seem to lack for pussy, and occasionally made sure that others knew as well.

"Is it the hair or the skintone?" Gary would sort of ask no one in particular when El Quattro was hanging out in one of their rooms. If there were others in the room, they would usually sit quietly until the banter among the four friends assured them it was all in jest.

Despite not being that outgoing, Stevie was fast gaining a reputation on campus as a good sex partner. Although his manhood was just an average six inches, his willingness to eat pussy and his talent at doing so made him almost a marked man. He remembered Angela's advice.

In high school on Long Island, Stevie had mostly dated white girls, simply because they were in the overwhelmingly majority of the female population. But he encountered mostly black girls when he helped out at his father's butcher shop in Brooklyn on Saturdays while in high school, and had dated several of them as well. Skin color wasn't much of an issue when it came to dating for Stevie, but he was perceptive enough to note that it was an issue to some people, particularly to some of the parents of the girls he dated. Stevie's father advised his son to be as respectful to a girl's parents as he would his own, and things would usually turn out for the better.

"It's not the color here that counts," Stevie remembered his father saying as he pointed to his face. "It's the color here," he said, pointing to his chest. "Everybody's heart is the same color."

Stevie and his father, Marty, could talk about almost anything while he was growing up. Marty made it a point to encourage Stevie to ask questions of him and his wife, Naomi, on any number of subjects. "The only stupid question," he would say, "is the one that didn't get asked. That's the one that gets you into trouble."

The discussion of race came up every now and then. New York City had 8 million people, and there was every race, creed, color, and religion on display on a daily basis. Marty never shied away from any question that was asked of him on the issue, except he didn't volunteer information on one issue -- and his child never asked: Stevie's exact race. Stevie's birth certificate said he was Caucasian and that both of his parents were Caucasian. But while Stevie's mother had a slight olive complexion reflecting her Sephardic Jewish heritage, his father had pale skin reflecting his Russian Jewish heritage. And while Marty was stocky by nature and only about 5-7, Stevie grew to a height of 6 feet and had more the build of a runner than a football player. When they were together, it was easy to tell they weren't biological father and son, and sometimes, particularly when Stevie was younger, some rude fool would opine just that, before Marty would stop the offender with a look and, sometimes, with a hand to the throat.

"Birth certificate says he's mine and I say he's mine. Good enough for me, so it's good enough for you," he'd say to the loudmouth.

Of course kids being kids, Stevie heard all the insults at one time or another, both because of race and because of religion. He rarely responded to them, and only had to use his fists a few times to keep the taunting to a minimum.

Stevie anticipated more trouble in Iowa than he faced in New York. After all, New York was a metropolis with people of all types, but Iowa was the sticks. Probably hadn't ever seen anyone who looked like Stevie that wasn't a scholarship athlete, and wouldn't know what a Jew was if Jesus Christ himself came back to earth.

It wasn't until spring of his freshman year that Stevie first ran into any measurable racism. The four friends were at spring dance on campus and were hanging out by a back wall of the rec center when Stevie spotted Amanda Fishbaugh on the dance floor with a guy. Stevie was in two classes with Amanda and thought she was beautiful: caramel-colored skin, about 5-3, with big boobs and an ass that was begging to be fondled in her skin-tight jeans. She appeared to be just friendly with the guy she was dancing with, and when the song ended Stevie made his move and asked Amanda if she would dance with him.

"Get the fuck away from me, wannabe," she yelled at him. "My daddy would beat my ass if he caught me even dancing with a white boy."

"Got a pink tongue," Stevie replied right back.

Amanda didn't expect that for an answer, and raised an eyebrow.

"So I've heard, white boy, and I'm told you know what to do with it, too. Are you offering?"

"Are you accepting? What would your daddy say?"

"I guess if you make me scream loud enough, I wouldn't even be able to hear him in my head, now would I?"

"Score another one for Angela Bonafiglio," Stevie thought to himself as she escorted the delectable Ms. Fishbaugh back to his dorm room.

"Guess I'm bunking in with you guys again," Gary said to Rich and Andy. "This guy is killing me."

Angela had told Stevie that the Bonafiglios would be back in the Catskills for two weeks the next year, so Stevie called the resort to get his summer job back. Although Ronnie wasn't coming back, his uncle was more than glad to get a good summer worker back, and he even gave Stevie a promotion to chief of one of the crews. That put Stevie up to $2.75 an hour, not bad money for a kid in 1970.

Angela noticed immediately that Stevie seemed a lot more confident this year, probably as a result of the experienced he gained with her last year followed by a year away at college. He had also filled out some and seemed to have more stamina in bed. For his part, Stevie knew that what he brought to the table this year was a lot better than last year, and he did his best to show Angela how much he appreciated her.

At one point in the proceedings on their first night back together in a year, Stevie went from sucking on Angela's nipples to climbing down to below her, where he lifted her ass with both hands and then slowly impaled the woman with his rock-hard dick. Five minutes later
Angela's body stiffened and then shuddered with a long, deep orgasm, which she accentuated with a guttural growl. Stevie kept pumping while she finished her orgasm, then he removed his cock and put his mouth into Angela's sex. She exploded for a second time about a minute later, grabbing Stevie's long, curly hair with both hands. Stevie found the hair-pulling a bit painful, but he realized that Angela had no idea in the world what she was doing. A minute later, she stopped almost mid-spasm, having passed out from sheer enjoyment. Stevie removed his face from her vagina and just watched as Angela slowly came out of her stupor.

"Holy shit, young man, where the hell did you learn that?" Angela shrieked in joy.

"You taught me some, but some of it is me just paying attention to what my partner wants," Stevie grinned. "We math geeks tend to spend a lot of time thinking about things. I do that for a lot more than just math."

Stevie's ability to slow down and think things through also came in handy when he was fucking Angela -- or making love to her. He seemingly could last as long as he needed to make Angela come multiple times on his cock.

"Between your dick and your tongue, the girl that gets you to put a ring on her finger will be the luckiest lady in the land," Angela said on their last session of the vacation.

Stevie just smiled at the compliment with Angela's juices dripping off of his face.

Primarily because of Angela, Stevie returned to the Catskills for the next two summers as well. While he was getting more than his share of pussy at Iowa during the college year, he regarded Angela as right up there with the best, and told her so before leaving her for the last time as her lover.

Angela blushed crimson, wondering if the kid was just being his usual polite self.

"I truly mean it, Angela," Stevie said, anticipating her look. "I can't see how Charlie could ever step out on a goddess like you. I know I wouldn't."

"As you've learned, kid, there's sex and love, and sometimes the two don't intersect. I know he loves me, and I love him. You know I don't love you, and you don't love me. But damn, kid, you do turn me inside out sexually, and if we had met in another lifetime, I'd never turn you loose."

++++++++++

The last school year was moving toward graduation for the friends when Stevie got a phone call that was to change his life forever. His mother called to tell him his father died of a heart attack in his butcher shop just an hour previous. Stevie told his mother he would be on a plane home the next day, then sat down on his bed and wept for the first time since he was 6 years old and some neighborhood toughs had called him several racial slurs. Finding Stevie crying in his room that night, Marty had told his son that giving in to the taunts of others was a weakness, and the ability to ignore stupidity was the mark of a truly strong man. He also taught Stevie a few self-defense moves that he had learned while growing up.

"Just because you're strong doesn't mean you shouldn't be ready to defend yourself," he admonished Stevie.

Stevie thought of nothing else but his father on the three-hour jet ride into LaGuardia Airport. Growing up, Stevie had thought his father was nearly invincible, with chiseled good looks and a solid 190 pounds packed on his 5-foot-7-inch frame. Thanks to years of carrying beef halves and whole hogs, Marty had the biceps of a champion weightlifter, and the shoulders and chest to go with that. Stevie was always on the thinner side with a lot less muscle, so not only was he colored differently than his father, he was even a different body type. Still, Stevie didn't realize there was something off with this picture until he was about 13, about the time many boys start playing school sports and start hitting the weight room. Still, he never mentioned his doubts to either parent.

With no other family in the area, Stevie's mom opted for a small funeral for Marty, and he was buried the next day in a traditional Jewish ceremony. Stevie himself covered almost the entire casket with dirt, not letting too many others throw more than a shovelful of dirt, as is tradition. The physical nature of the task kept Stevie's mind busy.

Stevie and his mother, Naomi, ate a small dinner that night, mostly sitting in silence at the kitchen table. Naomi studied her son fretfully, finally making a decision.

"How come you never asked your father or me if we were your real parents?" Naomi began. "You're not stupid, Stevie. You had to know something was not quite right. You had to know that you weren't your father's son."

"But that's just it, Mom. I was his real son," Stevie said. "I might not have been his biological son, but oh, yeah, I was his real son. And he was my real dad. And if I would have asked the question, I would have broken that man's heart. And I could never do that to him. He knew I knew. But it didn't matter to him, so it didn't matter to me either. He's the only father I ever needed."

Naomi was crying softly at this point. Stevie had tears in his eyes.

"Do you have any idea how tall that man was?" Naomi finally asked after a gap of about a minute.

"Five-7, maybe 5-7-1/2," Stevie finally answered.

"Not even close," Naomi answered as she stopped crying. "As far as I was concerned, that man wasn't an inch under 10 feet tall!

"I was three months pregnant when your father and I got married. We had been friends, but nothing more, since the eighth grade, and toward the end of our senior year in high school I started dating a black guy in secret. Several of my friends knew about it, but I didn't dare date him openly -- it was 1951 -- and that just wasn't done. My parents certainly didn't know. He wasn't Jewish, he wasn't white. And then when I got pregnant ... Almost all of my friends left me, my parents were devastated ... and then he left me, too, said I shouldn't have been stupid enough to get knocked up and he wasn't going to take care of it.

"I'm not sure how your father found out. But he came to me and told me he would stand up with me and marry me and take care of me and my child -- our child -- forever. He only asked that he be listed as the father on the birth certificate, and that we never talk about it until you had questions. Then we would tell you the truth. But you never asked. He knew your knew. You knew he knew, but you two were an unstoppable force.

"And that man loved both of us with every ounce of energy he had. And his love was infectious. I saw it in his face every time I looked at him. I even tried to give him children that were his biologically, but it was not be. You were destined to be his child -- his only child."

A phone call interrupted the two.

"Who could that be now?" Naomi wondered aloud as Stevie got up from the table and answered the phone hanging on the wall.

"Tanner's" Stevie said into the mouthpiece of the black phone.

While Naomi looked on, Stevie stood stock still, with only his facial muscles moving, as he listened intently to whoever was calling. She knew this couldn't be good.

"Yes, sir," Stevie finally answered, and quietly hung up the phone.

Stevie knew that his mother had nothing to do with his father's butcher shop. The store had closed for the funeral, but Stevie knew that the three workers his father employed had families to look after. He assumed his mother would close the store permanently and continue working for the local school system administration to help supplement what Marty's meager insurance policy would pay.

"Who was it, Stevie? What did they want?"

"I have a job interview tomorrow with one of Big Paul Castellano's guys. I'm pretty sure they are going to take over Dad's shop. How deep was he in, Mom?"

"We never really discussed specifics, dear, but I know he owed Ranbar Packing a good amount. Just give him the store and walk away, Stevie. You remember what your father always said about the Mafia.

"Yeah, don't fuck with those guys, Stevie," he'd always say. "And don't ever joke with those guys. They take a joke the wrong way and it's going to get ugly fast."

Stevie had met several of Big Paul's guys when he had worked summers for his father when he was in high school. Several times during those years, Marty took a couple of bags of meat to a house owned by Mike Marsico, and met for several hours. Although Stevie was invited to go inside the house with his father, Marty insisted his son stay in the car. Stevie always kept a book in the door pocket to read.

"I don't need them getting too familiar with you, and vice-versa," Marty would say.

Stevie drove over to his father's shop the next morning for his meeting. When he pulled up his car in front of the store in Bedford Stuyvesant, a familiar face was among the four to greet him. Charlie Bonafiglio greeted Stevie like an uncle, throwing a big arm over the young man and introducing him to Carl Cosentino, Big Tony Lupelli, and Sal Costa. The five went inside the store and locked the door behind them. While Marty had always warned Stevie that the Mafia could be vicious, they were usually good family men, so Stevie was hopeful that he was going to walk out of the meeting without getting hurt. That part was apparently Sal's forte, and for most of the meeting he was standing by the door while Stevie talked to the other three.

Cosentino was the numbers guy, because he got right down to it with Stevie. Marty was in $40K deep, and had put up his house as collateral for the debt. Stevie was shocked at the number and tried to keep his face as bland as possible, but his mathematical genius immediately started running numbers to try to figure a workable payoff. Lupelli then started talking about options, but Charlie put his hands up like he was signaling a stop. All talking ceased. He turned to Stevie.

"How about we do this, kid?" he said as he wrapped one of his big arms around Stevie's shoulders. "We take the store, you come to work for me for a few years and Mommy keeps the house, nobody touches nobody. I'll even pay you good so you can help pay off that big nut."

Cosentino and Lupelli started to protest before Charlie raised his hands again.

"The kid didn't have anything to do with it. He's good people. I'll talk to Big Paul personally and get this worked out. Besides, if I let Sally here rough the kid up, then I'm not getting any from Angela for a month. She likes the kid, too, and she'd be busting my chops for the rest of my life if the kid got hurt.

"We got a deal, kid?"

Stevie didn't realize it, but he had been holding his breath for about a minute. He finally took a big suck of air and nodded his head as Charlie, Cosentino, and Lupelli all had a good laugh. Charlie stuck his hand out and Stevie shook it, knowing that to both of them, that handshake was better than any contract.

"I have about six weeks to go before I graduate," Stevie said to Charlie. "I can join you then."

As everyone was heading to the door, Charlie took Stevie's arm and held him back, out of earshot of the other three. He then leaned in close and very quietly said, "And this doesn't include any time with Angela. That thing that you guys did in the summers is done. Got my drift?"

"Yes, sir, completely."

In truth, Stevie was hoping to work for one of the big accounting firms in the Midwest. He had interviewed at three, and thought his chances of getting a job offer at two were pretty good. But he wasn't about to turn down the opportunity to work for a Mob lieutenant, especially when it meant he wasn't going to have the shit kicked out of him ... or worse.