by Philip Carlo
On a daily basis, often several times a day, neighborhood bullies picked on Tommy. They made fun of his voice, his clothes, his walk. He was slapped or kicked for no reason. He was mocked and spit on for no reason. In short, the young Pitera had no peace, had no solace, had no way to strike back, had no friends. Not wanting to appear like a crybaby, a sissy, he said nothing to his mother and father about the abuse he suffered on a daily basis.
Frequently when he came home from school, he was on the verge of tears. In fact, he often cried alone in his room because of the grave injustices he regularly suffered at the hands of the neighborhood miscreants. Like most who are mistreated, Tommy fantasized about striking back, hurting those who abused him—getting even. As he got older, those fantasies became tangible realities, and, unbridled, they grew to monstrous proportions. The abuse and ostracism caused in the young Pitera an antisocial mind-set, a feeling of being alone in the world, cornered—a feeling he could not shake. It was him against them; he felt as though he was on an island, alone and unloved. Whenever possible, he would readily express his feelings of anger via the only way he could—striking back and taking revenge in diabolical ways. He stole, as an example, Little League baseball equipment and sold it on the street. He did this not only for the money he was able to make, but more importantly, it was his way of getting back at the establishment, it was his way of undermining, setting fire to, what he could not become a part of. In a very real sense, it was Pitera’s way of saying, “Fuck you, world.”
Tommy attended Boody Junior High School on Avenue S. When recently queried, teachers there had very little recollection of him. He was so quiet, so shy, so put upon, that he seemed to disappear into the woodwork. It wasn’t unusual for Tommy to sit at his desk and stare out the windows, imagining himself a valiant, badass fighter, a champion of the downtrodden. Because of his unusually high-pitched voice, it was difficult for him to make friends. In this rough-and-tumble, macho world, boys who spoke like girls didn’t have a chance. Even girls in his classes made fun of him, mocked him, imitated his voice. As days melted into weeks and weeks into months, the young Tommy’s inner turmoil, animosity, and hatred grew and grew. What was in him could readily be likened to a bubbling cauldron, a witch’s brew, getting hotter and hotter still.
The young Pitera particularly liked a popular television show that would end up playing a large part in his life. It was called the Green Hornet and featured the brilliant martial artist Bruce Lee as Kato, the Green Hornet’s sidekick. Fascinated, fixated, Tommy watched Bruce Lee fly through the air, slide down poles, beat bad guys into submission before they knew what hit them. He threw amazing kicks. His punches were lightning speed. Yet he was always respectful, particularly toward women; he was a gentleman. This, too, appealed to the young Pitera’s sense of fair play.
Naturally enough, Tommy became interested in martial arts. He viewed it as a way for him to be left alone and, if need be, strike back with great force. It was no secret now to Tommy’s parents that he was regularly bullied, and when Tommy told his mother and father he’d like to take karate classes, they acquiesced; they thought it would be a good thing for the boy. They understood the obvious—if the bullying continued, it might have a long-term negative effect on their son.
With great enthusiasm, Tommy began going to karate school in Sheepshead Bay, practicing kicks and punches, turns and jumps, with the dedication of a cloistered monk. He quickly moved to the head of his class. What was motivating the boy, what was driving him, was that karate gave him strength—an almost religious calling. When, in 1969, Bruce Lee’s first major feature film—Marlowe—came out, Tommy Pitera was hooked on martial arts for life. He became a zealous devotee of throwing accurate punches and kicks. He accepted all the constraints placed around martial arts: you were never to pick a fight; you were always supposed to avoid trouble; to turn the other cheek was the righteous thing to do.
However, when Tommy watched Bruce Lee beat sneering bad guys to a pulp, he felt justice had been done—street justice. Inevitably, Tommy’s muscles began to grow, become more defined. His skinny arms were replaced by strong sinew and muscle tissue. His fists flattened out and widened from constantly hitting heavy bags. His knuckles grew to disproportionate size. His stomach became cut up. The leg muscles between his hips and knees thickened and became defined from endless practice kicks.
As Tommy entered high school and moved through the classes, he was a very different individual. He walked with his head high and his shoulders back—defiant and arrogant. He feared no one. In his feet and hands, he felt he had weapons that he could use quickly, discreetly or indiscreetly as he chose. He began to think of himself as a human weapon. He knew, as an example, that professional boxers were not allowed to fight outside of the ring, that the hands of professional boxers were thought of as weapons.
Now, when neighborhood bullies started with him, made fun of him, they were confronted by a completely new person. Suddenly the Tommy they used to abuse without response was kicking and punching them from three directions at the same time. He was tough; he was fearless. It didn’t take long for neighborhood punks to walk around Tommy when they saw him coming. Despite the disapproval of his parents, who didn’t want their son looking like a “hippie,” Tommy also let his thick, straight, black hair grow down past his ears and to his jawline. His father and mother didn’t like the long hair. They wanted him to get it cut. For the most part, Tommy was a good son, an obedient boy, but in this he would not listen to them. Bruce Lee had long hair and so Tommy wanted it, too.
Still, Tommy Pitera had that awkwardly high falsetto voice. Previously, when in a new classroom, when a question was posed by a teacher, the whole class would look in his direction. Now, though, no one made fun of him, no one mimicked him. This voice would be a curse Tommy had to live with all his life, an imperfection that no amount of martial arts training could alter.
What he did do, almost as a way to balance this feminine voice he’d been cursed with, was train harder and harder. He approached martial arts as though it would be his life’s work. Tommy’s karate teachers were proud of him. They saw in the boy a ferocious appetite to fight. They saw in the boy a particular acumen when it came to throwing punches and kicks; he was not only very fast, he was hard to hit. Some of his teachers, who were ten, fifteen years Tommy’s senior and had a hundred pounds on him, were astonished by how ferocious he was when he fought.
“His punches stung as though you’d been hit by a hammer,” one of his teachers recently explained. The resentment and pain that had been a daily part of Tommy’s life had been replaced by animus and anger.
As well as training for hours every day, Tommy lifted weights. His body took on the look of a laborer, of a man who worked carrying heavy crates all day every day. Tommy stood in front of a mirror in his parents’ home and marveled at his muscles, moving slowly this way and that, admiring so how his body had changed.
Inevitably, Tommy began fighting in martial arts competitions. Here he was pitted against boys his own age and weight and he ate them up. It seemed that there was a full-blown ferocious man inside the teenage boy. He had a pent-up anger, hostility, that, when expressed, was a very difficult obstacle to overcome. It wasn’t just a matter of physical strength. It wasn’t a matter of larger biceps or thigh muscles, calf muscles. It was something inside the boy’s head that would inexorably grow and become a fearsome entity. The endless taunts, abuse, and beatings he had endured had planted a kind of dragon seed in him that would grow into something horrifying and unspeakable.
Not only did Tommy bury himself in martial arts but he began to read voraciously about war in all of its shapes, strategies, and tactics. He learned how to torture, how to take apart bodies, where to strike for the maximum effect, where to strike to cause death, how to kill. When Tommy read these words, written carefully by learned men from all over the world, he felt that he was becoming part of an underground culture—a sophisticated society that was wiser and more in touch wi
th the truths of life. His daily martial arts workout, his lifting weights, reading, and the watching of violent movies, particularly martial arts films, was filling the boy with a combustible, dangerous recipe for disaster—chaos.
The fact that the young Pitera was growing up on the streets of Gravesend and Bensonhurst added jet fuel to the fire inside him, teeth to the dragon. Here was the largest concentration of Mafia members in the world; this was ground zero for the American La Cosa Nostra. Here was a culture in which the killing of human beings was the norm; here was a culture in which murder was as inevitable as the changing of the seasons. A young boy in this environment could not help but see and know and feel the tangible elements of the Mafia that were as much a part of the place as pizzerias and espresso cafés. Tommy Pitera came to admire the mafiosi he was surrounded by. They were on every other street corner. They drove fancy cars. They sported silk suits and expensive Italian shoes and were always well barbered, cared for. They were a kind of aristocracy for that place and that time, exuding power and a feeling of danger—things Pitera was drawn to.
For the most part, Pitera was a loner; he was ideally suited for what they wanted. Tommy inevitably began fantasizing about going that way, becoming a respected mafioso. He knew that even with his Mickey Mouse voice, nobody would make fun of him anymore, that people would speak to him respectfully, look the other way when they saw him coming. That if you fucked with Tommy Pitera, you would be dead. To some, this might seem like a fanciful stretch, but when you look at bullied young boys taking up firearms all over the country and attacking their schoolmates and teachers, killing them, killing them without guilt or remorse, killing them in the light of day, you can begin to understand the hateful seed that had been planted and was growing in Tommy Pitera. They say the soul of a man is in his eyes. Well, when you now looked at Tommy Pitera, you saw hooded, bright blue eyes that had the cold, flat depth of ice. One could readily liken his eyes to those of a predatory animal that knows no fear, an animal that would readily tear open your throat—that is its nature.
Martial arts gave Tommy Pitera a calling. It gave him a belief system that would, he was sure, serve him well for life. Naturally competitive, he became so adept at throwing punches and kicks and avoiding being hit that he won contest after contest. When a large martial arts bout was held in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay, Pitera competed. In order to win his weight class, he had to fight seven different opponents and, ultimately, beat them all. This was no small task. There was not only a substantial cash prize but a large amount of prestige went along with the win. Tommy was also offered a “scholarship” to go live in Japan and study under one of the country’s most revered martial arts masters. For the young Pitera, this was an exciting, monumental event.
Initially, Tommy’s parents didn’t like the idea, but they changed their minds and gave him their blessing. They felt it would be good for the boy; he would further learn discipline and strengthen his character. The trip would give him a rare opportunity to see the world outside of Brooklyn, an opportunity that few boys in that neighborhood were afforded. His winning the tournament and the prospect of traveling to Japan further bolstered Tommy’s commitment to martial arts. He not only surrounded himself with, immersed himself in, martial arts but he embraced the Eastern culture’s way of thinking, eating, and behaving. Interestingly, he also embraced Eastern cuisine. He began eating sushi before it was fashionable; he shied away from Italian food with its emphasis on dairy products and pasta.
When finally the day came for his trip, the Piteras drove their only son to Kennedy Airport and, tearfully, said good-bye to him. He was not only going to a foreign country but he was going to a country where they didn’t speak English, a country far removed from anything he had known. They were worried for him.
However, as Tommy made his way to the gate, there was joy, a quiet rejoicing, in his every step. He was not sure where this trip would lead, but he viewed it as an exciting adventure that would bring him in touch with the best martial artists in the world. He felt blessed. All the bullying, all the barbed, vicious taunts, slaps and punches and kicks he regularly suffered, were now a thing of the past. The plane taxied and took off, and Tommy Pitera was soon high above Jamaica Bay. The sun was setting and it laid a flaming blanket on the wide expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Tommy Pitera of Gravesend, Brooklyn, was soon speeding toward Japan and his violent destiny at five hundred miles per hour, the dormant, fire-breathing dragon in him slowly awakening.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE MAKING OF A DRAGON SLAYER
As Tommy Pitera made his way to Japan to learn the finer points of martial arts, DEA agent Jim Hunt was seventeen years old. Though he didn’t know it yet, Hunt had being a cop in his blood. Of course, he knew his father and grandfather were both dedicated to law enforcement, but he had no personal connection to their careers, to their morality, their sense of right and wrong—to their dogged adherence to the rule of law.
His grandfather, Joe Hunt, emigrated to America from County Roscommon, Ireland, in 1913. Joe heard that there were jobs that paid well in the mines of Montana. After arriving in New York, traveling with fellow Irishmen, he made his way to Montana by way of trains. The work in the mines was backbreaking and bone twisting, under the worst, most dire of circumstances, but Joe Hunt did not complain. Joe Hunt did what was required of him. He was a genuinely tough man, nearly six feet tall. He had blond hair, blue eyes, and chiseled cheekbones. In his mind, calluses and sweat went hand in hand with making a living, getting somewhere in life.
News of World War I hit Montana like a bomb. Though Joe Hunt hadn’t been living in the States long, had only been exposed to backbreaking, menial labor, he felt it was his inherent duty, obligation, to go fight in the war to end all wars. He traveled via rail back to New York and without hesitation joined the army.
As it happened, Joe Hunt was wounded in hedge grove country in France, both shot and gassed. Because of the gassing, he would have respiratory problems his whole life. He was given several medals and an honorable discharge. He heard, through family and friends, that there were civil servant jobs available in New York—specifically, openings for policemen. This, in a large way, appealed to Joe Hunt, so he found his way back to the cobblestone streets of New York and joined New York’s finest.
A large, tough man, Joe was ideally suited to work the rough streets of New York. He readily passed the physical and psychological tests, and he began walking a beat, carrying a club and wearing a shiny, brand-new .38 on his hip. Joe quickly took to the job. He liked putting bad guys behind bars. He felt he was not only protecting society but the weaker members of society—children and women. He felt he was the difference between chaos and order. It was the Roaring Twenties and drinking and living in excess were the norm, making Joe Hunt a very busy man. Despite the realities of the age, Joe dealt with the curveballs life threw without regret, attributes he would instill in his sons. A dedicated family man, Joe returned home after work every day, and the weekends found him with his family. The murders, the violence, the amazing brutality men showed one another, were all left at the door. Joe never brought the job back home, to his wife and children, one of whom was named James.
When Joe Hunt retired, he was a happy, content man. He had found his niche in life and he felt he had served society well. Since he was only fifty-two years old, he opened Joe’s Stroll Inn bar on Crescent Street in Queens. The bar was frequented by many in law enforcement and Joe’s Stroll Inn prospered. The problems in Joe Hunt’s lungs by way of gassing during the war gave him a severe case of emphysema, which ultimately stole his life away.
Like his father before him, James Hunt I, known as Jim, was born to be a cop, but as it turned out, he was a natural-born fighter as well; not barroom brawls, not with strangers over supposed or real insults; he was not an argumentative individual who was easily offended. Jim was a boxer, a very tough middleweight. As a boy, he began boxing in the Golden Gloves and knocked out numerous opponents. He was fast
and agile and had a wicked left and right, both capable of knocking out an opponent. He was thickly muscled with no fat on his body. If he’d had his choice in life, he would have chosen to be a professional fighter, and he had been moving in that direction. Jim liked the discipline and regimentation of boxing. He liked being the best at what he did, a quality that he would have for the rest of his life. This was an attribute that would make him one of the most successful and famous law enforcement individuals in the annals of American crime history.
Gladly, Jim joined the army and went to war when World War II broke out. He had come to love America, the freedom and equality it readily afforded its citizens. He would gladly lay down his life for America. America’s enemies were Jim Hunt’s enemies.
Inevitably, Jim began boxing in the army. He quickly rose up the ranks and became an army middleweight champion. This was no small feat given that there were nearly one and a half million men in the army—he had tremendous competition. To be a boxing champion in the United States Army back then immediately elevated the boxer to rock-star status, though star status and adulation did not at all interest Jim Hunt. He was a true sportsman, loved boxing, and was in it for the sport and competition. The army was filled with men who not only wanted to fight, but wanted to kill. When there were boxing matches, held in England before the invasion, it was always standing room only. Boxing was, by far, the most popular pastime for fighting men. The stringent competition only furthered Jim’s aspirations to box professionally, to make boxing his life’s calling. Jim knocked out most everyone he was pitted against.
As it occurred, the reality of war, the reality of fighting an enemy as consistently tough and resistant and belligerent as the Germans were, struck home during the Battle of the Bulge. This was close, hands-on fighting that took place over a period of some thirty-two days, mostly in the Ardennes forests between Belgium and France. These lush, thick, fertile forests were a terrible place to make war. The American forces were up against highly motivated, deeply entrenched German soldiers whose ferocious fighting acumen took a terrible toll on the American soldiers. There were some eighty thousand Americans killed, maimed, or captured during the campaign; nineteen thousand were confirmed dead. It was on this bloody stage, man killing man, that James Hunt was severely wounded. As he made his way across an open field, he was brought down by machine-gun fire. All around him, men lay dead and dying, their blood being quickly absorbed by the fertile soil. James looked up to the sky and cursed in anger. He didn’t want to go down like this, lying there injured, helpless, as his buddies continued toward the enemy. At first, there was no pain. The natural endorphins of the body kicked in. But soon a hot, angry pain bit into his legs and all James could do was grit his teeth and wait for help.
