The Flying Mafioso Brothers

Today was a damn good day. A day of firsts. My first time travelling on business. My first time working for Talbots. My first hotel room by myself, my first time staying in a four star resort hotel. Good times.
My flight was to leave at 1020 Sunday am from Newark. I dont know Newark well so I left at seven to be there by 830 knowing how uotite they are about international flights. My bizarre, bush hating fundamentalist christian, proported ex-med student at the Guadalajara Medical school for do-gooding wannabe doctors, spoke like a 40s radio announcer and drove like a grandma at dusk. Even so, i was very early. I bought water and the latest issue of Paper magazine and bided my time until Peter showed up.

When he arrived, we compared seats and realized that we were really far apart so i switched out of an aisle in the rear of the plane and into row 11 seat D...the party seat!!

Peter was in the same row, in the window seat on the other side of the plane. Thank god he wore headphones the whole time. Across the aisle from me sat a morbidly obese older man with a porcine face. He quietly asked the passing stewardess for a seatbelt extender and they removed the arms on the chair. He got up out of seat five times, each time placing a vast expanse of back, butt crack and side roll inches from my face, and reached into his bag in the the overhead compartment to get Hershey's bars with almonds. Thats five bars, and five butt in faces, before takeoff. It was very depressing.

Next to me sat two clean cut, jersey looking guys. I borrowed a pen from the closest one to me to fill out my customs form. We started exchanging pleasantries when a stewardess came over the intercom and announced that the plane had a flat tire (did you just notice once we were all aboard??) and that we would be leaving in another 40 mins. They had coffee I had water. We took off. I napped. I woke up. They ordered screwdrivers, I declined. They ordered another drink...and split a large Vicodin. I knew at that point it was either join in the party or suffer the rest of the flight. I had a margarita. Theyre on a golf trip and the rest of their party is sitting in first class. Sal, the slightly stooped stocky man sitting in the window seat, which means he has an almost unbearably bright halo around his shining bald head when he leans across to talk to me, is the resident pro at the Country club in Jersey that they all belong to. Which basically makes him god. He has a close grey goatee, wears his sunglasses on his neck and a pink polo shirt emblazoned with the logo of some exotic golf tourney somewhere. They take these hedonistic golf trips all over the world. Ireland, Bahamas, etc. No wives allowed. They both agreed they left their wives with a couple grand for the week and and told em they were away on business. The first thing I noticed about Sal was his voice. I told him he should try a career in voice over and i wasnt kidding. He sounds like marlon brando at 65 after a bourbon and a couple cigars. So deep and scratchy. It coulda made hm millions. In point of fact if he had tried out for a role on the Sopranos he certainly would have gotten it. As they drank more and more screwdrivers each one with four mini bottles of Skyy at a time, his scratchy rasp got louder and louder. Larry, in the middle seat, is the newest protogee on his first trip with Sal. He is tall and well built with beautiful hands and a weird naivete to him that you wouldnt expect from someone so wealthy. He had recently had his nose done. I found this out when sal was like "you like that nosea his? Elegant an' slenda, no?" According to both, it had been big to begin with but was very crooked after he was accidentally hit in the face with a skeet at the club. He has thinning dyed hair (dyed, he revealed) in a classic italian modified pompadour. Both men wore shorts.

They drank fast and heavily. I had a screwdriver, with one vodka. No ability or interest in keeping up with them. Especially since Larry is constantly reminding me that Sals the professional, Sal knows what hes doing, He, Larry, is the straight man, just keeping up, trying to learn the ways. Sal starts telling stories. Hes been up and down and up and down in life. Playing high risk stocks and heavy into what he called (to my great joy) the cash business he had won and lost a serious fortune twice. Hes lived out of suitcases and laundered huge sums through remodeling and flipping mansions in nassau county. He built a hundred thousand dollar bathroom with heated walls and floors. A legacy golfer he has been in the country club business in Brooklyn and Long Island where he grew up, nad now New Jersey. He pulled out of the clubs in LI when his cash contributions to the politicians to remain the Club Pro grew to outsize his salary. He says the BK and LI mobs are essentially dead and that its all politics now. You just pay directly instead of giving the protection money which eventually went to the politicians. Its worse, he says, now because unlike the Cosa Nostra, there is no honor to the Mayors and reps, you dont even get what you pay them for. He prefers NJ where things remain in the hands of organized crime. He recalled his first Guinea basement party in Bay Ridge. He went with his girl, now his wife who sounds like a real spitfire. There were little kids singing in Italian, brains stretched out over a dryer being made into tripe, and an old man in the corner playing accordion.

Sals a complex man. Constantly reminding us that hes not an educated man, he is sharp as hell with amazing street smarts. He seems acutely aware that thought he leads the group, hes their employee, and never forgets it. Larry worships him. Larry's a smart soft stockbroker. He grew up in Buffalo and his career and marriage has followed an easy arc to tremendous financial success, a lovely wife and six year old child. Basically he feels like a pansy, like being the family man has lost him touch with his inner child, who wants to drink, play golf and cards, travel and pal around with other wealthy grown men acting like bad kids. he reads historical fiction and lets his wife put his passport in a plastic bag and mark his luggage with a ribbon. I heard them talking to each other "Larry I gotta be completeleh honest witcha, yer a pussy larry." " I know Sal. I know Im a pussy, but Im working on it."
So larrys drinkin hard trying to convince sal that he doesnt want to be the wall street fruit that he really is. Sal's shoutin, starting to repeat stories, every other anecdote he stops to invite me to come and celebrate Sammy Hagar's birthday with them at Cabo Wabo. "Lissen, we ah just hahmless guys. Were heyh to golf, drink al'col, smoke a little, and laffs. We jus' laaff and laaaaff and have fun. Its all about laffs. You'll be the queen, we gonna take carayah." With Larry repeatedly interjecting "yeah! we're the nicest guys ever" and laughing nervously. The people around us were glaring at us with increasing hostility, and the vodka keeps flowing. Is there no cut off in the air? Im wondering as i check again to make sure peter isnt one of the people looking annoyed. One of their friends comes back, ostensibly to visit but i could tell he came to tell them that they could be heard in first class and to apologise to me for having to put up with them. Meanwhile theyre telling they guy how fantastic I am, how im the best and this is the best fligtht ever and that im going to go to Cabo Wabo with them and bring all the models from my photo shoot. Death first?

Their friend offers to let me watch a movie on his IPod. Sensing my only out before Sal starts getting truly innappropriate i take him up on it. I choose the untouchables and spend the next hour half listening to Kevin Costner try to bust the mafia smuggling liqour in prohibition times and the other half hearing Sal ask larry if theyre gonna get laid tonight. Completely harmless. Larry "Yes, absolutely, Ill make sure of it. If I have to pay Ill make sure." Sal "I dont mind payin, im the typa guy, ill be completeleh honsest I got no problem breakin out my wallet myself and paying." They try to order yet another round and are told they have drunk the plane dry.
Then segwaying into a story about their mutual friend Paulie, "Laary. Laary you got to cahl Paulie. i loves freakin paulie. i loves dat paulie and hes in trouble. he still owes me for the pills I got waitin for him at da house, and he comes to me he cant pay? you gotta call paulie larry. Hes in trouble. I love Paulie Laary."

I think the obese man across the aisle, who im sure cant fit into the tiny bathrooms, has crapped his pants. Not a good smell with recirculated air.

We are informed that we are descending into the Cabo airport and all electronic devices must be shut off. Slurring now and half lidded, Sal takes this opportunity to tell me how beautiful I am and what a nice girl but hes not sure of the haircut. he doesnt like the bangs, i have too nice of a face for bangs. I need a new hairstylist according to Sal. meanwhile larry the pussy is sort of chuckling at what sal is saying and sort of apologising for him and telling me incredulously that hes never seen him so wasted and simultaneously tryin g to get me to to call them later.

Then Sal comes out with the kicker, right as we land "You know, you shoulda been a guinea insteaduva jew. You know dat? Dont you think so? In fact my fadda said its best to be a jew from the neck up and a guinea from the neck down." I couldnt make this stuff up people.

Finally we landed and Sal says he hopes he hasnt been too obnoxious. I assured him i had had a good time. Which I had. And we figure out that well be on the same plane back. Amazing.

I didn't call them, but I kept Larry's number cause I would love to go meet them at the club for lunch one day. I loved going to the Country Club with my grandparents in LA as a kid, all that old fashioned gallantry and formal rules of dress and conduct. It would be fun. Its all about the laughs!