As a young man, Tony lived on Staten Island with his stepfather. He worked as a bus boy and a dishwasher. Then he started a mattresses business with a friend. During the week, they roamed the streets of Manhattan, looking for mattresses put out with the garbage. On the weekends, they rented a truck and sold their harvest at a market at the Bronx.
“Good business,” Tony says. “Sometimes we made a thousand dollars in a weekend. But then I got ambition.” Tony becomes silent for a moment and lights a cigarette. The waitress yells that smoking is not allowed. Tony tells her to stop whining and offers me a Marlboro.
“You know what ambition is?” he asks. “Over there, that’s ambition.” He points at a big chocolate glazed donut with colored sprinkles in the window. It looks awfully delicious, and I nod at him that I get it.
“Okay,” Tony continues. “I got ambitious and got greedy. I started to deal drugs. A few times I got caught by the police. But I was lucky. Every time, I was released on bail, paid by my step-parents. But the real trouble started in 1961. I started to use drugs myself. And you know, you need money to maintain an addiction. A lotta money.”
Tony looks down at the floor as though he regrets his past. “We started to rob people. All in all I robbed a few hundred people. Sometimes I did two on the same day. And no bullshit with nine millimeters. These days, every kid walks around with a gun. In our time we did it bare handed. You see, I was very strong at that time. Everybody was afraid of me.”
I look at Tony. He must be over fifty, but he still looks pretty tough. “And one time it went wrong. I had kicked a guy unconscious. The victim was brought to the hospital. The cops arrested me and I was thrown in a cell. After a few hours, a cop came in. ‘You just killed a guy,’ he said. ‘How do you feel?’ I was shocked and told him I did not feel anything because I did not believe I had killed a person. But it was true. The victim had died in the ambulance. I went before the judge, but I hardly understood anything. My English was not so good at that time. It was a kangaroo trial.”
I look at him puzzled. “A kangaroo trial is when you don’t understand anything that goes on. They tell you one thing, they do another. The attorney said I had to plead guilty to manslaughter. Then I would get a light sentence, seven to fifteen years. I told him I would go for the deal. At the trial, the judge asked if I knew why I was there. Yes, your honor, I said. Do you take the trial or the plea, he asked. I told him I take the plea. Are you ready for the sentence? Yes, your honor. Twenty years to life, was the sentence. I felt knocked to the ground. I just could not believe it. My step-parents comforted me. We will visit you, we will send you packages. But okay, there I was.”
Tony goes further back to his past. Originally he is from Puerto Rico. When he was fourteen, he came to the U.S. “They call it adoption now,” he says bitterly. “But I was just sold.” His mother died young and left eight children. His father couldn’t take care of them all.
The deal was closed in a cafe, remembers Tony. “I saw my father put a big wad of bills in his pocket.”
“My step-parents were good people,” he continues. “They had a nice wooden house on Staten Island and bought me a puppy. They flew over my sister because I missed her.” Tony’s stepmother died a few years ago. He doesn’t talk to his stepfather anymore, not since the day he deeply offended Tony.
“I visited him last year for the holidays,” Tony says. “He told me straight in my face in the presence of my sister; ‘What’s the matter. Is there no food in New York that you have to visit me?’”
Tony is silent for a moment, and then goes on about his prison experience. “Attica was terrible,” he says. “Twenty-three hours a day you were in your cell. One hour a day they let you out. I can still dream the dimensions of my cell. After the riots, things changed. We got a TV in our cell, we got more recreation, they made a baseball court, we could work. I got a job as a maintenance painter. But fifteen years is a long time. Do you know what I mean? You don’t think Monday, Tuesday, et cetera. You start to forget there are days and weeks and even months, you start to count in years. You gotta change your state of mind. They have your body, but they don’t have your mind.”
He pauses and lights up another cigarette. Arrogantly, he blows big circles towards the ceiling. The waitress has understood that we will just ignore the non-smoking policy, and she is not bothering us anymore. After confessing his past, it’s like a large load has come off his shoulders and Tony is in a good mood. Confidently, he talks about his future plans.
“Actually, I am a designer. In prison I already made glass paintings. Now I got a brilliant design for a T-shirt.” Tony unzips his fanny pack and takes out a carefully folded piece of paper. With great pomp and circumstance he unfolds it at the table, drawing everybody’s attention. His design is a busy drawing of some serrated and fingered leaves, halfway between marijuana leaves and ferns. In the middle he has painted some orchid-like flowers. It looks like a psychedelic record cover from the sixties. Tony apologizes that the design is in black and white. “The original is in color but is at my sister’s. Too valuable to keep in the tunnel. People might steal it.”
Tony carefully puts his design back. “I am gonna print T-shirts of this. Three hundred pieces. I know the vendors on the Lower East Side, on Canal Street who will sell it for me. Twenty dollars apiece.”
Tony grabs my pen and makes a calculation on a greasy napkin. “Three hundred times a fifteen dollar profit. You see, that is 4,500 dollars!” Tony hands me the napkin as proof of how much money he can make, as if he is looking for serious investors. He goes on enthusiastically. “Boy, you have to see it in color. Fantastic. Makes your head spin. The tourists at Rockefeller, they see me, they will run at me and ask me ‘Where’d you get that design?’ No hesitation!”
Tony jokes with the waitress and lets her refill our cups. “The people, they laugh at me when they see me with my cart walking the streets. Just let them laugh. I have more money in the bank than they.”
Tony mentions a big inheritance that is waiting for him. For some reason, the money is blocked, maybe because he is on probation. It is a vague story I have heard before. True or not, it keeps him going. “I am in no rush. I know the money is coming,” he says confidently.
Tony goes on about his plans. “I got ideas. I am working on creations and inventions. Not one, but ten at the same time. At least. I’ll tell you three of them. I know how to stop a cab on the street. Do you know what I mean? You hold up your hand, but every cab whizzes you by. I invented a machine for that. Something else. I know how to stop a bank robbery in progress. I know. But I can’t tell you.”
With a face triumphant as though he just threw four aces down on the table, he looks at me expecting me to faint with amazement and admiration. That does not happen, so he goes on. “Liquid earrings. I have a design ready. I am the only one who has it, it’s here, in my mind. The ladies see it, they go wild! They’ll all wanna have it….”
Overconfident, Tony starts to talk really loud now. People turn around with annoyed expressions. Tony loves the attention and elaborates on his invention to stop bank robberies. “I have the phone numbers of the top guys in banking,” he says. “I just have to call them. And one other call, and all the TV networks are here. But only with my permission. If not, I’m gonna sue ‘em!”