Let’s Make Him an Offer He Can’t Refuse

More than three decades of Mafia peace has been shattered by the murder last night of Gambino crime family boss Francesco ‘Franky Boy’ Cali. Cali, 53, was shot six times and run over by a pickup truck outside his redbrick house in the upmarket Todt Hill neighborhood of Staten Island. His wife and young children were inside the house and one man, believed to be a family member, ran outside, collapsed and cried, ‘Papa! Papa!’ The media is a buzz with this news. Cali’s murder is the first hit on a Mafia boss since John Gotti arranged the assassination of then-Gambino head Paul Castellano in 1985. Oh, boy, a Mafia war is back after a 30 year hiatus. This love affair with ‘all things gangster’ is a phenomena that fascinates me. When I was a kid, the word was “hoodlum” or, depending on when you grew up, “mobster” or “gangster” or “crook.” It was uttered in anger by your mother (“Don’t talk like a gangster”) or your father (“Do that again and I’ll smack you, you little hoodlum”). It was never a term of endearment. And never something to aspire to. That has changed. And while I can’t prove it, I’m pretty sure it started 45 years ago, when a movie called “The Godfather” was released. Suddenly, the bad guys were the good guys. The lowlifes led the high life. The dark and violent was the cool and interesting. I once knew a family from Mahopac who built their lives around this movie. To the point where their dog was named ‘Vito’ and Sunday night dinners at their house was recast as a dysfunctional brood with dialogue from this movie and “Goodfellas,” “Casino,” “Donnie Brasco,” “Scarface,” “A Bronx Tale,” “Analyze This,” being used to help them navigate through life. When many of us revere the “family” story of the mob, it’s something different. Remember, the love affair that began with “The Godfather” and continues on with these types of movies and TV shows overlooks one small but important detail: Given who they are and what they’ve done, almost everyone on these movies if they stepped out of the set and into the real world, would be in the same place. Prison. Sorry, my Mahopac friends, “I’ll never take sides against the family again.”