Reading Time: Episode 18: Flashback Hustles – Jerry’s Kids and BMX Bikes For the most part, I’ve tried to keep these Chronicles, well, chronological. But since there are so many stories that I skipped over, I’ve decided to do a few flashbacks. What sparked the idea of flashbacks was a story I recently told my wife, about how I came to love motor sports. More on that later. For now, I’m going to share with…
Read More
Reading Time: Episode 9: Hiding In New York “Appropriating” that guy’s gun collection stirred up a hornet’s nest of trouble for me, because the ATF and Feds got involved after a few of the guns popped up in raids and arrests. Now I had the Feds, ATF, and some State cop with a hard-on for me hot on my tail. When my grandfather, Peter Paul Tocco, learned that the Feds were building a case against…
Reading Time: Episode 8: The Bloodhound Collections became my primary job for the Family. I would have loved to have been involved in some of the more lucrative rackets, but because I was a “difetto” (only half Sicilian on my mother’s side), my uncles knew I could only rise so far in the Family. So they just used me as a sort of auxiliary soldier whenever they needed to get something done. Collections was my…
Reading Time: Episode 7: Chop Shops and Squeeze Plays Like I mentioned previously, before I got locked up I lived a strange double life, one that in many ways was very lonely because I only had a few close friends, and almost none of them knew how heavy I was into the streets. Funny, just yesterday I talked to my good friend Mark, and he told me that after reading some of these Chronicles he…
Reading Time: Episode 6: Enforcement Muscle After high school, I lived a strange sort of double life. I had my normal friends, and then I had my cousins and the guys I hustled with. I tried working a few odd jobs, but hated manual labor and I always quit after a few days. I used to joke and tell people, “I think I’m allergic to work.” I was a hustler at heart. I knew how…
Reading Time: Episode 5: Enforcement Muscle Like I mentioned before, I’ve always been an intrinsic fighter. In fact, growing up, I got kicked out of pretty much every school I was ever in for fighting. I only lasted 6 weeks in high school. Although, to be honest, I got expelled from high school for possession of stolen property, which is another story in itself. But I’d also been suspended several times for fighting, so the…