This was written for an anthology series that supports a great cause: Democracy Docket, which fights voter suppression. That series is Low Down Dirty Vote, and I wrote the fourth Joey Cucuzza story for the third book in the series, The Color of My Vote, for editor Mysti Berry. Full subscribers can read the first four stories in the Story Archive.
Joey Cucuzza Loses His Election
by Thomas Pluck
Joey Cucuzza didn’t want to shoot the guy, but he didn’t get a vote on it.
They were parked in a remote section of Newark’s Weequahic park, between the jogging paths and the cemetery. Nowhere to run. The shot from his Baby Beretta would crackle off the autumn-painted trees, and some dog walker would find the body once it got ripe.
If someone had seen him beckon the young man out of the massage parlor and into his electric blue Alfa Romeo sedan, they wouldn’t talk. Not in that neighborhood. Not if they liked their families on this side of the grave.
As the partner of a mob captain, Joey walked a fine line. It gave him great privilege and power, but also caged him in ways a citizen could never conceive. Such as having to ice a dumb masseur who’d given a happy ending to the capo of the juiciest slice of northern New Jersey, so he couldn’t flap his gums that the boss—a high school football hero gone to seed, a real swinging dick, a man’s man—was not only bisexual, but a power bottom.
The young guy barely said a word. Joey wasn’t sure he spoke English. But you could rat in any language.
Joey had said no to the handy offered by his own masseuse. He’d chosen the chestiest of the women to keep his appetite from distracting him, because he never got a rubdown without a few tokes off the pinch-hitter pipe that he kept in the car. But Aldo Quattrocchi, the best-earning capo of the Mastino crime family, and his partner of eight years, was not one to restrict his appetites.
So the massage therapist was fertilizer. He just didn’t know it yet.
From the look on his face, it looked like he thought Joey wanted a taste of what Aldo got.
Joey could see why Aldo had gone weak in the balls over the guy. He was built like a young Bruce Lee. Ripped, athletic. Joey was no slouch himself, for fifty-five. He hit the gym every day, unlike Aldo, who preferred to hit Hobby’s delicatessen for a pastrami, Jimmy Buff’s for an Italian hot dog, or Fiore’s for a chicken parm with fresh mozzarella. A big Italian bear.
That was Joey’s type. The massage therapist was as far from that as possible. Petite, nearly twinkish—and guessing—mostly hairless. But he could probably outrun him, so the best way to kill him was while he was occupied. With his pants down, or his mouth full. So he couldn’t scream.
Joey walked him to a shady spot in the trees, away from the road, and tried not to think about it.
*
Aldo had needed the release of a good massage and fucking because of the election coming up. After that sfachim Chris Christie, who had screwed over the mob’s offshore online poker empire by legalizing gambling, the leadership had taken extreme care in vetting future candidates at all levels. The mayor of Newark was usually a lock. Whatever party won, they had to play ball, unless they wanted a garbage strike or the snowplows to start breaking down during a blizzard. Even if they went out and shoveled their neighbor’s steps like Cory Booker had.
“He’s one of us,” Aldo had said about him. “You should be happy. You care about that shit.”
By “one of us,” Aldo meant that he thought Booker was gay, because he wasn’t married, got pedicures, and had a stereotypical mannerism. But Joey had the better gaydar, and had hit on enough big, sweet hotties like Booker only to find out they were just nebbishes who wanted a girl who was just like mom, and would stay single until they found her.
By “that shit,” Aldo meant that Joey followed politics beyond who they had to bribe to keep their slice of protection, prostitution, and smuggling through the port. It gave Joey agita, but he followed the news.
He hadn’t for the longest time, having become cynical after seeing how cheaply many politicians could be bought. But after his niece Nicky got interested in his old computer and the records she’d found in his Ma’s attic, they started hanging out, and she never stopped with climate change this, voting rights that, and white privilege, vaffanculo!
For a while, he humored her. Then he played devil’s advocate, to see if she would quit. But she never did. She quoted sources, scrolling on her phone. Busting his balls like a kickboxer with a Ramones haircut and a goth wardrobe. Half the time she dressed like Lady Gaga, and the other half like Johnny Ramone. Sometimes both at the same time.
Joey got that. He’d known he was gay after the first time he woke up from a wet dream. But in the clubs, he’d played around with his identity, after dealing coke to Club Kids and drag queens alike. And it wasn’t the drugs that made him do it. It was the freedom he’d never had growing up. His father didn’t kick him out, but he beat the shit out of him, to toughen him up for “the life he chose,” as his old man called it.
Now Joey presented the sharkskin-suited persona of a rangy light-heavyweight, a pantomime he’d come to enjoy. When a ruthless mob fixer wears a hot-pink shirt under his jacket, even the crassest homophobes don’t say shit. Not when his street name is “the Big Cucuzza.”
Cucuzza is a pale green squash the size and shape of a baseball bat, comical in nature, where Joey was nothing but.
On the street, Joey Cucuzza was said to be hung as long as the eight-inch Sicilian stiletto he carried. And was also said to keep a rusty, iron sash weight from an old style windowsill to break bones and crack skulls when diplomacy didn’t work on a hardhead, a cappadose.
Neither were true—he was above average in size, and the sash weight was merely a prop. He left the physical work to the gorillas on their payroll. From experience, Joey found that personal violence was like any other drug: it left you with bills to pay. Some psychological, some at the dry cleaners.
Or maybe his niece was making him soft. He had to keep his phone silent now, because of her. He caught up on her texts, with the phone under the table.
She was a vegetarian, and he nearly found himself arguing with Aldo about ordering the osso bucco at their outside table at Regina Margherita. But some things were sacred.
But there was nothing sacred, or arguable, about who would be a better mayor of Newark for the Mastino crime family in the next election. The Brick City was as hard as the bricks from which it got its nickname, and brooked little idealism. But the two candidates had polarized people.
Including him and Aldo.
The incumbent mayor was a progressive firebrand who wanted to continue the police reforms that had brought peace to the city, and improvements like the lead water pipe replacements that had been completed three times as fast as predicted.
But the police reforms had come at a cost. They hurt their business.
Because the police weren’t busy stopping cars in the poorer neighborhoods to fill quotas, shaking down kids for “furtive movements,” and chasing homeless sleepers from under bridges near the train station, they now had time to keep an eye on the port, where their interest was not wanted.
The port operated day and night, and a lot of money was made by workers who took double shifts, often with the assistance of pharmaceuticals. As dock boss, Aldo was paid for every hour that anyone was working at the shipping terminal. And Joey, as hiring manager, kept the shifts spread out so overtime was made, and Aldo was paid OT for twenty-four hours a day.
But when your employees got pulled over for driving sleepy, because their man couldn’t deliver speed and nose candy, it had a domino effect. And it was hitting him and Aldo in the pocket book. Their traditional revenue streams of protection, prostitution, and pharmaceuticals all required kick-up to the bosses, and could often fluctuate, with collection. The port paycheck was all gravy, and this was the first time in Joey’s memory that they’d taken a hit.
“Raimondo Torres is better for the union,” Aldo said, eating a tender piece of veal. “Which means he’s better for us.”
“In the short run,” Joey said, poking at his mushroom risotto. “In the long run, he’ll feed us to the rats, and smile while he does it.”
Torres was a former cop running on a hard-on-crime ticket. Not that crime was bad, but with crumbling infrastructure, a paucity of jobs outside the gig economy, and rising rents, people were angry, and wanted someone to blame. Torres took advantage of that, pushing the “family values” line that appealed to the older, church-going constituents, but he only valued a certain type of family.
He’d made his name as a coach, collecting a school salary along with his cop pension, and going after trans kids on the opposing teams. Right-wing news made him a mainstay, and after he resigned rather than coach a trans kid at his own school, the usual suspects made a hero out of him.
Torres was running as a Republican, so the union couldn’t openly support him without raising the ire of the Essex County machine. But there were other ways to get him elected.
“You tell the crew, no overtime if the eggplant gets reelected. They’ll spread the word. The leadership might support him, but the working man don’t.”
Joey saw something on his phone screen that made him clutch his spoon like it was the stiletto in his suit jacket pocket.
“Calm down, babe,” Aldo said. “It’s business. You like going to Capri, don’t you? Sometimes we gotta eat shit.”
Joey nodded, without a word. Aldo always voted green, and that didn’t mean Green Party.
“I’m pragmatic, and you vote with your heart,” Aldo said.
Joey thought he was the pragmatic one. You could always make money, long term. Short term gains that cost you to fight hard-fought battles again weren’t worth it.
“Don’t go behind my back on this. Didn’t I take care of those two citrullos at the coin show? That wasn’t free. They were paying customers.”
They had also been Nazis. Joey knew that he’d have to pay for that, sometime. This was that time.
*
Joey drove down Route 21 fast, and the Ramones on the stereo made fun of Reagan. After the original Ramones all died, he’d read that Johnny, the guitarist, was a hard-line conservative who stole the singer’s girlfriend, and thus inspired Joey Ramone to write “The KKK Took My Baby Away.” He wondered how they held it together, with dueling songs like “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg” and “Too Tough to Die.”
People might say the same about why he and Aldo were together.
Joey might eat shit for the job—the job had done him well—but he’d be damned if his niece was going to eat it, when he could do something about it.
He’s Here was all that she’d texted, and that was enough.
Nicky wasn’t trans, she’d said, but that didn’t stop the other kids from teasing her, and the kids who were. And the rise of Raimondo Torres had made things a lot worse for them all.
Nicky’s school was one of the best in the city, the same one Joey had gone to. There was a police cruiser in the parking lot, and a couple of black SUVs with “Vote Torres” signage. He left the stiletto and Beretta in the car.
The school administrator told him that candidate Torres was speaking to the children in the auditorium. “Your niece, uh . . . caused a disturbance. We let her take study hall instead. I can have the school officer take you to her.”
“Thank you, I’ll find her.”
He found Nicky in the quad, hugging her knees under a tree.
He sat down next to her. The grass would stain his suit, but that dry cleaning bill he could handle.
“What did my little hell-raiser do?” He gave her an admonishing glance, but his eyes showed pride.
“We booed him. And when the principal had us taken out, I yelled that Torres was an ignorant bigot who was only brave enough to attack little kids.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
She stared straight ahead. “They chant his name at us, now. They know the teachers won’t do anything, in case he’s elected.”
No threat Joey made to them could top what Torres could do as mayor. The local teacher’s union supported the incumbent, but the last thing they wanted was attention from Torres and his supporters putting them in the news.
But the parents of the bullies, they could be leaned on. They had jobs, businesses, and homes in his territory.
“There’s got to be a ringleader. Let me help.”
“Help how?”
“I could talk to them.”
“Like you did to that guy on the phone?”
She’d been in the car when he’d straightened someone out, and he’d had to explain how his job was essentially acting as a referee and diplomat, so people with anger management issues didn’t kill each other, or get themselves killed for being a cappadose. Sometimes that meant listening to them vent until they accepted reality, other times it meant playing middleman between two hardheads so they made him the bad guy instead of each other—as a made guy, he was untouchable, so killing him was out of the question—and sometimes, well, it meant brandishing the Big Cucuzza.
Not literally swinging the iron sash weight that he kept in the trunk of the Alfa, but making them think about what it would do to their fingers and toes.
But more often, it was swinging the figurative Cucuzza: not even voicing the threat, but letting your target think about what a connected guy could do to their business, career, or family life if he applied the appropriate amount of pressure.
Like your garbage not being picked up for a couple of weeks. A minor annoyance at first, until it started to stink. And the health inspector came around. Or a truck parked in front of your driveway or loading dock, and mysteriously, the police and towing were busy when you called. Or that delivery you were expecting? The truck broke down. And then it was stolen. What bad luck. They’d heard the nightmares, and didn’t want them happening to them.
“Not exactly like that. But sometimes people need to know there are consequences for their actions.”
She rocked back and forth, her Chuck Taylors digging in the dirt. She was more Ramone today. “I don’t want you doing that for me.”
“Why, you getting too old for your uncle to help you out?”
“No, Uncle Joey.” She rolled her eyes. “Because it’s wrong.”
“And what this stronzo Torres does is right? Don’t give me that ‘they go low, we go high’ bullshit. In a fight, they go low, and you go high? They hit you right where it hurts.”
She shook her head, as if to rattle out the crap he’d dumped in her ears. “Just don’t do it, okay? Promise.”
“All right, I promise. But these little shits lay a hand on you, all bets are off. Their parents are gonna fall down some stairs.”
“They know better than that. The bullies know their way around zero tolerance.” She rested the back of her head on his knee, and looked up through the branches. “Remember what I said about wanting comfort, not advice? This is one of those times.”
He sat quietly and let her talk until the bell rang for next period.
“You gonna be all right?”
“Will you come to Nonna’s on Sunday and play Demon Attack?”
“Only if you let her put bracciole in the sauce this time.”
She hugged him hard, and he kissed the top of her head.
After she hit the doors, he double timed it to the parking lot, against the flow of teenage salmon getting to class. He was a head taller than most of them, but he felt vulnerable, like he had when he was their age. He felt relieved when he made it to the parking lot. But he had guessed right. The cruiser and SUVs were still there. They would wait until the next class started to escort Torres out to his truck.
He lit a cigarette from a rose-gold case, and waited.
He hadn’t promised Nicky that he wouldn’t talk to Torres himself.
He fiddled with his phone. He’d been using the thing a lot more since Nicky got him remembering how he’d used to program his Atari. They had all the old games on the phone now. And a lot of other things.
Joey had become a stickler of the no-phones rule at meetings now, which made him the bad guy to silverback capos who liked their Facebook and Candy Crush.
Torres strutted out with his entourage, which included a YouTuber shouldering a Steadicam rig with an iPhone bobbing at the end, which Torres gesticulated at while ranting about teachers indoctrinating children. His police escort looked starstruck.
When Torres was finished jabbering, Joey pocketed his phone and flicked his cigarette under the police cruiser.
“Mister Torres, a word?”
The officer moved to block him before Torres waved him off.
“I’m a representative of the stevedore’s union.” Joey showed his Waterfront card. Everyone who worked on the port had one.
“I thought you guys always went Democrat.”
“We like your stance on crime. A word in private, if I may? My superiors would like to talk, but like you said, it would be inexpedient to do so publicly.” Joey flashed his shark smile.
Recognition bloomed. “I got a minute for Joe Cucuzza.”
The officer frisked him, to earn his OT.
Torres led him to a hill by the library. Behind it, a red brick church peeked through the trees. “I went to school here, class of ’89. This is where we settled our differences.”
“I was four years ahead of you. Church Hill. That’s how we called you out.”
“Church Hill,” Torres said. “I haven’t thought about that in years. But you didn’t come here to talk about that, did you, Guido?”
Ah. So that’s how it was gonna be.
“No, Do-Re-Mi, I did not.” Joey used Torres’s nickname on the force, because his hand was always open for dough.
Torres bared smoker’s teeth. “If you think I’m dumb enough to take an envelope from a goombah on the campaign trail, you’re wasting your time. You guys made your bed with the county machine. Why should I even talk to you?”
Joey let him dig himself a hole. The fool didn’t even consider that he had the stevedore vote locked. Zero street sense. The smart beat cops learned that the Italian crews were pro-police because the cops hassled their competition. “And yet, here we are. The dark money from the Koch brothers dry up?”
Nicky had told him where Torres got his financing.
“What, you think anyone cares about that? They’re afraid of freaks like you in their schools, maricon.” Torres winked, like Joey’s orientation was secret knowledge.
It wasn’t, but Aldo’s was.
“Why you think I’m staying visible? I ain’t going off alone with you. Nice try, fag.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. The management wanted me to talk some sense into you, to ask that you not break the peace. It’s bad for business. And we know you took money then, and you’ll take money now.”
“Well, you tell them, in their language, vaffanculo.” Torres made the Italian salute. His crew couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they saw the gesture and cheered. “But you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Up the ass. I got the police union, the Port Authority, and the churches. Crawl back home and tell your bosses I don’t need the guinea vote. You better get used to kissing my ass, because I’m gonna be mayor of this shithole.”
Torres walked back to his crew, making a face for the camera.
Joey slunk back to his car, to make them think they’d won.
*
The massage therapist didn’t run, and Joey was glad for that. But when they found a nice shady spot for afternoon delight, or a murder, he didn’t drop to his knees, either.
“I know who you are,” he said, turning slowly. The young man’s accent was gone. “You have nothing to worry about from me.”
Joey cocked the Beretta in his pocket. He’d hate to ruin a set of bespoke trousers. He drew it out. “On your knees.”
The guy thought about running. Joey was glad when he didn’t. The guy sank to his knees easily. Joey backed up, out of lunging range. “So, who am I?”
“You’re the Big Cucuzza.”
“And?”
“I’m Kyle.”
“Kyle, in the car you acted like you were fresh off the boat.”
“I know. But your, uh, boss? He assumed I couldn’t speak English, and I played along. He liked it better that way.”
Yeah, Aldo would.
“It’s unfortunate that you know who he is, Kyle. Do you understand?”
“What was I supposed to do? He handed me a bankroll thicker than what you’re rumored to be packing in those Italian wool trousers. I’ve got student loans. Why else would I be working a side hustle at a sex parlor?”
Kyle had been squeezed. Like the poor bastards that Nicky didn’t want her uncle squeezing. You couldn’t say no, and when you said yes, it was just as bad. Damned either way.
“Go back a bit. Why don’t I have anything to worry about?”
“Duh?” Kyle sighed like Joey was stupider than a box of cocks. Like Nicky had begun to do. Young people. He nearly shot him in old-man exasperation.
“Kid, you’re not helping yourself here.”
“Because you’re gay? I mean, you’re like a street hero. Everyone knows which way the Cucuzza swings. It would be like me ratting out John Waters.”
Point for Kyle, for knowing who John Waters was.
“I appreciate your respect, but there are people who will do things to you, much worse than I can do with this,” he wagged the Baby Beretta, keeping the barrel aimed at Kyle’s torso. “They’ll make you betray us. You won’t want to, right before you die, but you will. Trust me, I’ve seen it.”
They had a plastic shredder at the port. Hanging above that, hoping they’d get to go home with their remaining stumps, even the toughest would say anything.
“Well, shit. How am I supposed to get out of this, Mister C?”
Joey’s finger tightened on the trigger. Crack crack crack. Two more in the head. Then toss the gun in the lake, dry clean the suit, hit the gym and the shower, and pop a few pills so Kyle didn’t haunt him in his sleep. Tomorrow there’d be another problem to deal with, and Kyle would be forgotten, until the next massage.
But Nicky’s words dug at him. Wrong. What was wrong, in this world? She always said every choice mattered. He couldn’t leave the life, but he had choices.
“You been to California, Kyle?”
“I told you I have student loans. I’m lucky if I get to Brooklyn.”
Provincetown was closer, but he and Aldo went there when they were supposed to be deep-sea fishing. If Aldo saw the guy waiting tables, there’d be hell to pay. San Francisco, though. Aldo would never go back there, after he stepped in human shit on the sidewalk, and threw out a pair of eight-hundred-dollar loafers.
“You wanna live in San Fran a while? Few years, maybe?”
“Fuck yes, Mister C.”
“Give me your license.”
Kyle rolled his eyes. He took out a stack of cards and bills held together with a rubber band, and tossed an expired Rutgers student ID card at Joey’s feet.
His name really was Kyle. Joey pocketed the ID, and the gun.
“Get up. Unless you’re feeling curious about my street name.”
Kyle blushed.
Back in the car, Joey gave him the glove-box money he kept for fixing problems. It would hurt to replace. But it would go a long way, even in SF.
“The Castro, Kyle. I mean, it’s cliché, but it’s our place. No question. You’ll live in Oakland, probably. With roommates. But you’ll have a hell of a better time living there. Maybe you’ll find a sugar daddy to pay off those loans. If Aldo was single, he sure would.” He kneaded the back of Kyle’s neck. Maybe he nudged him down, but Joey preferred to think what came next was born of gratitude.
*
Back outside the massage parlor, he took a photo of Kyle’s ID with his phone. “You come back to visit home, I’ll know.”
Kyle kissed him on the cheek. “Why would I come back here? That scumbag Torres is gonna be mayor.” He ran back inside.
Joey thumbed his phone from the tinted-window solitude of his Alfa Romeo. He played back the sound clip of Torres that he’d recorded.
Aldo hated the slur “guinea” most of all. If he still wanted to vote green after hearing that, Joey would play it to all the Italians on the docks. They’d go with their hearts, not their green.
The real gem was Torres calling their home town of Newark a shithole. The city was tough, but it had its pride. And Torres lived in the suburbs. Joey didn’t know where to upload the clip for the best results, but Nicky would.
He hit send.
Fuck Capri.
©2022 Thomas Pluck, all rights reserved.
What I think of as 'grandmother food'. There she is, tucked away at the kitchen table and taking the stones out of bags of lentils, peeling individual cloves of garlic, etc etc
Gotcha. Thank you. Okra I use in Indian cooking (Sambhar / Rasam etc). Not sure how much I'd be up for peeling them. Don't believe they're on offer this side of the Ditch. Well, outside of Italy/Sicily.