Six Years Inside the Mafias: how I worked my way through college: a true story

by Yari Stern

  Yari retreated to the kitchen for lunch. His father Sam joined him a moment later.

  Together they sat at the Formica-topped table eating grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, watching the TV set atop the refrigerator showing scenes from Birmingham, Alabama of Black and White Civil Rights marchers being blown off their feet by fire hoses while White policemen taunted the marchers, hoping to illicit a response they could use as an excuse to bash a few heads.

  Sam shook his head, despondent. Yari agreed in his own silent way.

  No words were spoken between the two. Yari was well aware that his father, an Inspector in the Philadelphia Police Department, dealt with the best and the worst of people at the store and at the schools, churches and synagogues he lectured at.

  Ridge Avenue was a microcosm of society. Sociologists and the city elders saw the problem as one solvable by throwing money at it, but the merchants and the residents knew better.

  Daisy, the light-skinned black sales girl, peeked into the kitchen. “There’s a big dude trying to push some stuff on Carl,” she said to Yari, leaning into the room while keeping her feet outside. “You better get out here and back up your brother.”

  Yari was in a momentary fog of reflection, caught by the events on screen.

  “Yari,” Daisy repeated.

  “I’m coming,” he replied, then spun out of his chair and followed Daisy, overhearing as he did his father mumble something about how to hold a family and its traditions together against the tides of temptation.

  “There.” Daisy pointed to a black man speaking to Carl. His head almost touched the florescent light fixtures hanging down from the eight-foot ceiling.

  Yari was alerted by a composure that didn’t jive with the locale. As he approached, he listened to the guy lay a smooth line on his older but far more gullible brother. “Yeah, it’s right from the armory. Retails for two large,” the man said, patting the long, thin, leather case now sitting on the counter.

  Carl perused the gun with a distorted image based on words that came out of the shill’s mouth like pearls. “What do you want for it?” he asked with impotent voice.

  Yari saw that his brother was in the guy’s pocket.

  “A thousand,” he said, zipping up the case and lifting it off the counter. He gave Carl a wiry smile, as if to say, “You’d better move fast, chump, this sale is almost over.”

  Yari checked the guy over carefully: a very cool customer wearing a thin brown leather jacket that conformed perfectly to every contour of his wiry body and matched expensive beige slacks that looked like they had been pressed by an anvil. Short, neat hair portrayed someone trying to fit into the white world rather than make a statement for the black one. His speech was too articulate for the street, but harmonized well with manicured nails, and conservative, yet impressive rings on four fingers.

  Yari shook his head sadly as his brother walked toward the register like he was in a trance. Just as Carl began pressing down on the change lever to open the cash drawer, Yari countered his brother’s motion, never taking his eyes off his opponent.

  “A thousand? For an M-1?” Yari was talking to Carl, but still looking at a man who was nearly half-a-foot taller than himself. “It’s from Nam. Probably been in every swamp in South-east Asia. Rusted, un-oiled, worn out like pussy in a whore house. It’s…not…worth…dick,” he announced slowly, savoring the guy’s discomfort, reflecting disbelief that a sixteen-year-old Jewish kid could know that much and have the balls to stuff it in his face.

  “You better think twice before you try to pull that shit on me,” Yari said directly to the shill.

  The big man glared down at Yari, using his height as an intimidation factor.

  “You tryin’ to lay a guilt trip on me? Hey, I never owned a cotton farm. I treat people with the respect they’re due…Black or White.”

  The guy straightened up and said, “Who the fuck are you? I’ve never seen you here before. Carl and I are getting along just fine.” He leaned over as he spoke, to accentuate his size and control.

  “You aren’t dealing with my brother anymore. This is my department,” Yari explained. He relished the confrontation, hoping the guy would do something rash so he could prove himself in some new way. “If we’re going to do business, I need to explain the rules. Nobody fucks with me or mine. I’m ready to give it all up, any time.” Yari stared at the hustler with an expression that projected a total lack of concern for the consequences.

  “I think we can do business, brotha,” the black guy said as he took a step back. His demeanor changed at once.

  “You got something I can make a profit on, Slick? As opposed to donating shit to Goodwill?” Yari took on a cocky stature, making himself look almost as tall as the “brother.”

  “Slim, the name’s Slim. Guns. Right from the armory. New shit. In the wrapper. Machine guns, sniper rifles, M-1s. I deliver from the manufacturer to the army. We move a hundred pieces a month on the side.”

  “How can you guarantee it’s going to continue?” Yari asked, following the guy’s eyes to see if he was for real. “They’ll pick you up after the first shortage.”

  “We’ve been takin’ care of business for three years.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Dis ain’t no mom n’ pop operation. This is the Black Brotherhood. We got people on the inside, accounting and shipping. They don’t fuck-up. Every-body’s in deep. It’s covered from all angles. You dig?”

  ”Sounds like you got it wired. What the hell do you need me for?” Yari stepped back as he always did when it sounded too good to be true.

  “My main man went down last month. I can’t be unloading the shit one piece at a time to brothers who live in tenements. Someone will dime the cops or security at the armory.” Slim shifted his weight onto the heavy glass counter top and went on. “We almost lost the whole deal a few weeks back because of that. What I need is one guy who can take it all. A hundred guns, five hundred each. That’s fifty large. You up for that?”

  “Hey, I’m The Fence.”

  Carl grabbed Yari, pulling him aside. “Where are you going to get the money to cover that?”

  “My destiny isn’t waiting on people who use The Inquirer for toilet paper,” Yari explained. “I’m not going to put on a suit and tie and work for a company paying me peanuts and trapping me like a rat in a cage, getting paid a salary that’s closer to an insult than income.” He adjusted his tone from accusation to justification. “This neighbor-hood’s devoured whole generations. If I don’t get out of this soon, I’ll get swallowed up too.”

  “How about the rest of us?” Carl appealed.

  “It’s all about freedom; to be able to come and go as you please; to have what you want without having to work like a slave or beg like a dog to get it; to think and act and not give a shit about the opinions or concerns of anyone else; or to feel like Niagara Falls is running through the fuckin’ house every time a goddamn neighbor flushes the toilet because the walls are made of tissue paper. That’s worth everything to me. You’ll have to decide for yourself what price you’re willing to pay.”

  “But you still need to--”

  Yari disregarded Carl’s continuing entreaty when he noticed a change in Slim’s expression, feigning a disbelief in his potential. Yari stood calmly as the towering black man stepped toward him, eased Carl aside, put his arm around Yari’s shoulder and said, “Here’s a number to call. Let me know when you’re ready to step up and be the man.”

  “Just sit by the phone,” Yari insisted as Slim swaggered to the front door. “You’ll be hearing from me real soon.”

  Yari then turned to Carl, “I’m out of here.”

  “We’ve got a big order coming in this afternoon. We’re going to need your help.”

  “Sorry, I’ve got a date with destiny.”

  “Huh?”

  “I tell you about it later…if I’m not locked up.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Devon, Pa.

  Yari strolled
down the street, whistling a tune, looking straight ahead but seeing everything in his peripheral vision.

  At 9:00 p.m. there were no lights on in the downstairs of any of the house on the block. A few lights still shown in the upstairs bedrooms but no shadows were visible behind the curtains.

  Satisfied, conditions were as good as they would get. He stop along side the car and slid a loving hand along the fender of the 1966 Shelby cobra 427, one of only 23 ever built while only two were made by cobra in the Super Snake molds. This was model number CSX-3015.

  The Arabs were willing to pay fifteen thousand dollars for the car which was worth twenty times that much on the open market. Unfortunately, a title was needed to play in that arena and Yari didn’t even have a set of key, let alone the pink slip.

  He was testing the waters…seeing if the owner or anyone else was watching. Satisfied, he removed a Slim Jim from his bag of tricks and slid the flat, foot long metal rod between the window and the door frame. The door lock button popped up. He opened the door, took a small, pointed hammer out of the bag and whacked the ring around the ignition switch. With two tries, the ring broke off leaving the switch exposed. He took a long-handled screwdriver set it against the key slot and hammered it into the lock. He jumped into the driver’s set, pressed the clutch and turned the screwdriver. The car roared to life.

  He didn’t’ wait to see if any shades came up, rather popped the clutch, hit the gas and peeled out of the driveway.

  The first shot hit the side view mirror, blowing it off cleanly. The second shot whizzed by the side of the car, close enough for Yari to hear it pass.

  From seemingly out of nowhere…a police car appeared behind him. Yari instantly went into diversionary mode. He raced through a stop sign; the cruiser's bubble lights flashing. Two more cruisers came speeding head-on toward him, sirens wailing.

  Yari made a hard left, and flew sown a narrow street, little more than an alley. He geared down into second; the RPMs went up to 7,000. He was going so fast the cars look like they’re moving backwards.

  The adrenaline was surging through his body and his brain was reacting on previously acquired knowledge his driving and the cops’ reaction.

  Out of the alley, he fishtailed on a straightaway, sped up, and felt the boost. But he picked up another cruiser passing in the opposite direction.

  Ahead, a roadblock formed.

  “How'd they get that deployed so fast?”

  Behind him, was a sea of red and blue flashing lights. He gunned the car...straight at the roadblock which consisted of three cruisers and a portable wooden barricade. Yari shifted into third gear and pinned the RPMs.

  At the last moment, the cops dove out of the way. Yari banged the gear shift into neutral, yanked the parking brake, and the Cobra spun, screeched, and took a hard left into a shopping district where vehicle traffic ended. The sign read, “Foot traffic only.”

  The police closed in. Yari spun the wheel and drove into a public park, across the grounds, and passed rows of plants and flowers, careful not to damage any of them.

  He came out on the other side of the park, sped down an alley, around a Sears store, and back out on to the highway.

  When he looked behind him, he had lost the cops.

  Five minutes later, he rolled up to a ship in the Philadelphia Harbor. The waterfront was a dark latticework of docks and wharves, warehouses and shipping crates. Freighters were moored up and down the pier as far as the eye could see.

  A dozen very fancy, very expensive cars were sitting there. Some already in a shipping container; others were getting ready to be loaded.

  Yari put the Shelby in line.

  An Arab, wearing a keffiyeh, was seated on a tilted back chair, reading a newspaper. He barely gave notice to Yari but smiled at the car.

  He set his paper aside and walked over to the car. “Very nice, Mr. Stern.

  Yari grabbed his bag and stepped over to a clipboard with a magic marker tethered to it. It was a list of cars. He drew a black line through “1966 Shelby Cobra,” then turned to the Arab.

  “Fifteen large.”

  “Change of plans. Ten large, Mr. Stern.”

  “Really?” Yari said, a voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “Yes, my employer found out you were an infidel…and even worse, Jewish.”

  “Oh, that explains it,” Yari said, as if agreeing with the Arab.

  “Yes, I am glad you see things correctly. And what kind of name is Yari, anyway?”

  “What kind of name? Well, you mental midget, let me explain it to you. My uncle was Avraham Stern, head of the Stern Gang, a paramilitary organization that killed every single Arab that stood in the way of creating the Jewish homeland. I was named after him and just like him, I don’t take any shit from anybody.”

  “Well you better look around, Yari. You are not in Israel and you do not have any one to back up your big words.”

  “Yeah, I guess it’s just me and you.” Yari took a quart bottle of out of his bag and doused the car with gasoline. He took a lighter out of his pocket and flicked the flint.

  He was about to toss the lighter on to the car when the Arab screamed. “No! Wait! It is just a misunderstanding! Confusion due to our language barrier. Here,” he said, handing Yari the agreed upon amount of money.

  “Better.”

  “Yes, now please, put you lighter away.”

  Yari complied but said, “Don’t ever fuck with me again. If you do, I will set you and all your cars on fire and use the Koran for kindling.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Drexel University. Civil Rights class. Phila. Pa.

  As usual, Yari was late for class, thereby marking him as the target for the professor’s diatribes.

  Professor Kelsey tapped a finger on the page of an open book covering the day’s lesson. “Mister Stern,” would you care to elucidate on the cause of conflagration occurring in our country?”

  “The enemy isn’t the Whites…or racism, but classism,” Yari suggested.

  “A start, but I’m not letting you off the hook that fast.”

  “Everything was status quo until the Second World War when GIs came home from the war where they fought and died for their country. They expected to be treated as equals. And with the GI bill, they got college educations and low interest loans on houses. They began infringing on White jobs and White neighborhoods. It was okay when they were limited to their own narrow existence, but then the Black people were no longer satisfied with the status quo. That led to the marches and the clashes and the rise of Dr. King.”

  “But city councils and the federal government think that programs such as welfare, food stamps, and subsidized housing will resolve the problem,” Kelsey argued.

  “Welfare perpetuates the inequality, the dependency,” Yari insisted. “Black people, for the most part, don’t want anyone to give them anything. They want opportunity…equal opportunity.

  “But asking for their civil rights has only led to bloodshed. Should we not give time to allow the laws to take hold...to put an end to discriminatory practices?”

  “Social gains are never handed out. They’re seized,” Yari retorted

  “Violence begets violence,” the professor countered.

  “What happens when you turn both cheeks but the blows continue?” Yari asked.

  “Touché,” the professor replied.

  “The old, White aristocracy, which controls the government and the courts, is like a magician telling you to watch what they’re doing with one hand while doing something else with the other.”

  “What are you suggesting, Mr. Stern? That our leaders are charlatans?”

  “Laws condoning segregation and separate but equal are being overturned, while at the same time, laws like the criminalization of marijuana, predominately used by the

  Black community are being rewritten and more heavily enforced, prosecuted and penalized,” Yari elucidated. “They don’t call it Black persecution but it’s the same thing.”

>   “Some things take time, Mr. Stern. After all, slavery was around for hundreds of years. We can’t expect that all remnants of that system to be erased in a dozen years.”

  “But it’s not just the Blacks that are being cheapened by the racism; it’s Whites as well. Anything that cheapens one of us cheapens all of us. It’s a law of human nature. And it won’t be merciful to our blindness.”

  “Not everyone is willing to be as vocal as you, Mr. Stern. There are many who have families and businesses that could be caught in the middle of a very real riot.”

  “Martin Luther King said, ‘In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.’”

  “We are a nation of laws, Mr. Stern, some of which, it is my understanding, you have flaunted. We cannot circumvent the system upon which our country was founded.”

  “JudgeLouis D. Brandeissaid, ‘We needto be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government offers beneficence. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without under-standing.’”

  “Yet there are many wrongs of the past that need to be righted,” ProfessorKelsey insisted. “How else but with laws that are the foundation of our republic?”

  “Thomas Sowell, said, ‘History cannot be invoked in support of affirmative action, no policy can apply to the past but only to the present or the future. Its failures can no more be purged than its achievements can be expunged. Those who suffered in centuries past are as much beyond our help as those who sinned are beyond our retribution.’”

  “Yet we are fighting a war in South-east Asia, Mr. Stern. Should not the country’s focus and resources be on that effort?”

  “A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens. Was it Edward Livingston who said, ‘Do not let us be told, sir, that we excite a fervor against foreign aggression only to establish a tyranny at home; that we are absurd enough to call ourselves ‘free and enlightened’ while we advocate principles that would have disgraced the age of Gothic barbarity’,” Yari questioned.