At eighteen, after leaving high school for a pro-fighting career, I moved closer to the Lansdowne Gym toç share a house with Palooka, whose real name was Eddie Paricini. Eddie worked the phones as a bookie for Bertie, the owner of the Lansdowne and my Toronto fight manager, between 6 and 8 pm in the house but did not reside there. He, like Bertie, was Calabrese from Southern Italy, and though not a ‘made’ man himself, was respected in the echelons of the underworld from Toronto to New York. His specialty was an ability to assess a ‘customer’s ceiling’ after just a brief conversation, meaning his ceiling of credit for wagering. This saved Bertie or whoever Palooka worked for, from having to send debts to ‘collectors’, referred to as ‘slappers’, such as the infamous Baldy Chard, in Toronto. As was well known in that world, winning the bet was the relatively easy part of the business; getting paid was what stripped the gears.
The house I would share with Palooka was atypical; a working-class home with a standard gray clapboard exterior. Two bedrooms, only one boasting a proper bed, the other just a small day bed and a lamp. The living room contained the essentials—a rug, a worn sofa, a modest coffee table, a standing lamp with a yellowing shade, and a TV resting on its cardboard delivery box from General Electric.
During the week, Palooka, arriving around 4, would make a beeline for the kitchen to begin preparing our dinner.
In stark contrast to the rest of the house, the kitchen was exceptional, well-stocked with an array of pastas, canned plum tomatoes, tomato paste, and various olive oils—some for cooking, others reserved for salads. Depending on Palooka's preferences or the dish , scallions, mushrooms, garlic, sausages, and occasionally cod were often added to whatever Southern Italian dish he cooked up.
We ate around 5 while watching the Mod Squad, a popular television series about three young ‘hip’ detectives—one white and similar to Warren Beatty in appearance, the other a hip black dude with an Afro haircut, and a very attractive blonde, the leggy actress Peggy Lipton. The three of them were overseen by a traditional, suit and bow-tied police ‘Captain’, who was Palooka’s favorite. On figuring out a plotline early, he would smirk and growl at the television, “The Captain ain’t gonna fall for this shit.”
Around 5:30, Palooka would place the phone on the cleared kitchen table alongside two pads of paper and a couple of pens in preparation for his evening’s work. Around 5:45, the phone would ring, and Palooka would receive the lines—odds—for the evening, and if it was football season, also the early lines for the weekend.
Just before six, another co-habitant of the house, Sandy, would appear and settle comfortably into Palooka’s lap just before the phone began ringing, precisely at 6.
Sandy was an orange and white tabby cat, whom Palooka adored, and the sentiment appeared mutual. Sandy, after the phones stopped ringing at 8, would— as Eddie tabulated the evening’s work—take her last meal for the day. When Palooka left around half past eight, Sandy would disappear until the next morning when I had refilled her food and water bowls.
Thus, over the next sixteen months, my life had sharp contrasts: the rawness of training and actual fighting in the ring, bracketed by a domestic home life of Palooka’s pasta and Sandy.
Over time, having racked up wins in the professional ranks, I aroused some interest from Johnny Papalia, alias Johnny Pops; just ‘Pops’ to the few who managed to stay on his good side.
As a 'made' man, Pops was the head of the eastern Canadian mob and answered to Jimmy Napoli, aka Jimmy Nap, the head of the Genovese crime family in New York.
‘To me, he closely resembled the mobsters portrayed in old-time Cagney gangster movies; rarely going out in public not clad in a suit—standardly midnight blue or dark grey pinstripes—and a fedora placed on his head at a slight angle. He only went to restaurants or nightclubs where he was known, fawned over, and, fancying himself a lady’s man, was given a wide berth with the waitresses, hostesses, and hatcheck girls.
Pops also had an earned reputation for being quick-tempered and easily offended, often overreacting to a slight or perceived slight. In the early sixties, he gained some cache, having served two years after his conviction for beating Maxie Bluestein, a fellow traveler in the underworld of Toronto, following Maxie having refused a drink sent by Pops. As the story went, he had gone to his car to retrieve a crowbar, and returned, to personally, in front of the whole bar, lay a terrific beating on Maxie.
Still, I was not impressed, frankly finding him more of a caricature of a mobster. I mean, two years behind bars! For what? Seemed a stretch to impress people, no pun intended.
Though never directly confronting Pops, he was irritated by my lack of respect, which not openly displayed, was revealed in subtle ways; such as correcting his grammar at dinners.
Conversely, the gang at the Lansdowne—Bertie, Tasker, Oochy, even Dukey—resembled the characters as portrayed in the series, The Sopranos, a few years back. Bertie to some degree resembled the character Tony Soprano, as played by the actor Gandolfini. He dressed casually and , both fair and reasonable, he was also well known for his respect for working people.
As my reputation in the ring grew, it was decided that I move to New York to be under the direct wing of the Genovese family; partly for me to gain more experience in New York gyms but more likely to move me out of Pops’ gunsights…um… eyesight.
For even though the money wasn’t big, the fight game, in the early '70s, was still under the control of various Mafia families, thus I was in some form under the wing of the Genovese family whose reach went as far north as Toronto.
The upcoming year in the Big Apple proved to be good for both my career and entertainment.
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