If there was a strange noise in the swamp, Phil heard it. If there was a series of sonic booms, they always seem to break Phil’s windows. If aliens ever came to Bedford County to conduct weird experiments on one of the residents...they’d have probably picked old Phil. God help them if they didn’t, because if anyone around here gets the chance to outdo Phil in the tall-tale category, he gets downright bent about it. Phil has done it all. If Phil hasn’t done it, then it shouldn’t have ever been done by a human being in the first place.
But Phil has never looked as upset, or seemed as sincere, as he was when he walked into my office the first week in November, last year. Lord he was trembling! Wait, did I just use “sincere” and “Phil Lowery” in the same sentence? There, ya see? That’s how serious he was. He came in to my office and shut the door behind him. That door don’t ever get shut. I told him so, but he just shut it anyway, then came over to my desk and leaned in until his face was about six inches from mine and he scowled. “You just never mind about that door, Stanley. We got a real problem and I don’t want nobody else hearing us talking about it. Them mafias infiltrate everywhere. Even the sheriff’s office.
I set my coffee cup down on my desk. “Them what?” I asked him. “The mafias. The mafias, Stan. We got ‘em right here in Forest, yessir. Heck we got ‘em on my street!” he hissed. “What…” I said slowly, standing to my feet, “…In God’s green earth are you talking about?” Phil started explaining, “The mafia, Stan! The mafia is right across the street from my house. I seen him burying bodies last year, and just this week he was on the phone, talking about having his own grandmother, his father, and his momma, wearing concrete shoes on their feet, and sleeping with the fishes, along with four other poor souls. Seven of them Stan! Seven people are gonna be sleeping with the fishes. And do you know when? Christmas Eve!”
Phil was lathered up real good now. He pounded his fist on my desk and kept going. His voice was about as high as it’s ever been. He gets that way when he’s upset. “Some excon hit-man named ‘Tommy’ is coming down here from Philadelphia to do the job. I heard that part too. He’s driving them down here in a rented Suburban, to make them old folks think they’s coming here to spend the Holidays. Then the guy’s gonna whack them. In cold blood. Why I bet he’s gonna wrap them in burlap, and bury them in his garden like them other poor saps.” Phil was wildeyed now. “You gotta stop him Stanley. He’s a sick, deranged sociopath!” He was serious. He never calls me Stanley.
“Phil, slow down, now. Who are you talking about?” “Mezilli! Mezilli! Joe Mezilli, my neighbor, dang it! He’s one of them mafias, Stan, I’m telling you! You have to go and get him before he kills off his own family. He’s gonna kill his own mother, Stan! What’s that remind you of?” Phil sputtered. “Oedipus?” I asked. “No wait. Oedipus killed his father. I don’t know, Phil, none of my acquaintances ever killed their mothers.” Phil had no idea who Oedipus was. I hadn’t really expected him to. “Tony Soprano! Tony Soprano!” Cousin Phil yelped. “Tony was going to kill his own mother in the hospital with a pillow! Don’t you see? He’s a mafia.” I took a sip of coffee. “Phil,” I said quietly, trying to soothe him a little, “The Sopranos was a TV...never mind.” I didn’t want to have this conversation with him about the reality of TV shows. Not again. I tried a diversionary tactic instead. “You have all six seasons on Blu-Ray now, Phil?” This ploy didn’t work. “Yes I do. And what difference does it make. The man is a killer!” Phil took a breath, because he was just getting warmed up.
“Besides that, there are the drug deals I told you about.” “What drug deals, Phil?” I asked. Phil’s head almost popped. “The drug deals. He goes to the airport in Lynchburg every week and comes back with a package. Every Wednesday, like clockwork. The man is retired. What’s he having flown in here every week Stanley?” He stood up again. “And what about this!” he said. He pulled out his cell phone and started scrolling through the pictures. “Why is Hank Milledge’s dog peeing on you in the bushes, Phil?” Phil sputtered and coughed and scrolled to the next picture. “He’s peeing on the bush, you moron. He didn’t see me! I was hiding. Hiding so I could take these pictures!” He scrolled to the next one and showed me a grainy picture of two very blurry figures carrying a blurry brown object.
I was getting nowhere with Phil. Instead, I thought I’d appease him. I figured I’d drive out there and introduce myself, get to the bottom of this whole affair. Besides, this was an election year coming up, I could use another vote.
So I set out to meet Mr. Joe Mezilli, the big-shot mafia don. ...according to my cousin-in-law, the idiot.
The Way To A Sherriffs Heart
I sure wasn’t expecting to see the sheriff at my front door. At first I thought maybe one of the boys hit a baseball through the neighbor’s window or something. But then I realized that my neighbors are all about four hundred feet away and my boys can’t hit a ball that far. Not yet anyway. He was nice enough. Really gentlemanly. Stan Stevens, I said to myself, I am really going to have to get used to these vanilla names. I invited him in. The boys were out back playing Rough Touch which is the Philadelphia area version of touch football. If you’ve seen the movie, “Invinicible” those guys playing that brutal football game in the empty lot…that was the Delco Rough Touch League, and yeah…they really do play that hard.
Anyway, the boys were all outside, and Anj was in the kitchen with Emmy. Anj had decided it was time to teach Emmy how to make cannoli in time to help with the Christmas cooking. They were mixing up the sweetened ricotta, and talking about going to look at horses. Now, they’ve seen plenty of horses before. We weren’t that cityslick. Angie had decided that Emily should take riding lessons and it turns out Emmy was a natural. So in reality, they weren’t going looking at horses…they were buying one. We’d board the horse at a stable until Emmy was older and knew how to take care of one. Then maybe we’d keep some at the hunting camp.
Anyway, Stan Stevens came calling on a Saturday morning, in mid-November. I asked him to come in and have a seat. “Stan, can I get you a cup of coffee?” I offered. “Why that’d be great.” he replied. He was an immediately friendly guy. I liked that. He is also a pretty stocky fellow. Pretty much like you’d figure from a southern, small-town sheriff. At least the way the movies and TV always portrayed them. He had a very genuine smile. I’d come to appreciate a genuine smile in a neighborhood where everyone seems to be smiling on the outside but inside not so much. Stan was large in the shoulders, and equally large in the belly. He wore a Stetson and carried a revolver, not a semi-auto. I don’t know why, but I kind of liked that. He reminded me a lot of Benny Mastofione, whose wife worked for my dad all those years..
Stan sat down on the couch, and I walked into the kitchen to get him a cup of coffee. “What do you take in your coffee, Stan?” I asked him. The kitchen is open right into the living room so Stan was only in another room, technically. “Oh, cream and sugar. Thank you sir.” “Sheriff,” I said, “We’re gonna have to start this relationship out on the right foot. Now unless you want me spitting in your coffee, you just decide right now to call me ‘Joe,’ okay?” Stan chuckled. “I deeply respect and appreciate the manners down here, sheriff, but it just feels like I’ll never get to know anybody very well, with all the ‘sirs’ and ‘ma’am’s’ and ‘Mr. Mezilli’s’ I keep hearing. Please...I’m Joe and this is my wife Angie, and our daughter Emmy.” Emmy got up and shook Sheriff Steven’s hand, just as bold as life.
Stan Stevens laughed deeply at that. I liked him already. He stood up and walked into the kitchen and took the coffee cup from the counter. He walked over to Anj and Emmy and asked, “Whatcha making over here, ladies? He asked. Emmy answered him, “My mom is teaching me to make cannolis.” Stan smiled, and turned to me. “You know, I’ve heard that word for years. I mean everybody quotes ‘Leave the gun, take the cannolis’ from The Godfather, but I never knew what they were.” “They’re a pastry, Stan.” Angie answered him, “They’re a thin, crisp shell, fried
and dusted in powdered sugar and filled with sweetened ricotta cheese and chocolate chips. I like to use candied fruit sometimes too. If you stick around, you can try the first batch.”
Before long, Anj had Sheriff Stevens rolling out the next batch of cannoli shells and helping Emmy fill them with the pastry bag. The first time he tried one was magical. I thought he was going to start crying, right there in my kitchen. He had filled about a dozen shells and then he looks at Emily and says, “Well...how’d I do?” Emmy put her hands on her hips and cocked her head a little and said, “Well I think you did okay, but this is my first time. My Mom is the expert. Ask her!” Angie piped right in, “You did great, Stan. You ready to try one?”
I thought, for a minute, that I might have to call an ambulance. Sheriff Stevens almost fell over right in my living room. The look on his face when he tasted that cannoli for the first time was something I’ll never forget. I instantly spotted him as a guy who likes to eat. Now, he is a pretty rotund fellow, and it was easy to see that he liked eating. But his reaction to the cannoli told me he really liked great food. “Stan, you’re going to have to stay for lunch,” I told him. “I made gravy yesterday and we were going to have some ziti and meatballs after the cannoli were done. “Like sawmill gravy?” he asked. “What’s a ziti?’ Now that made me laugh. “No,” I said. “You’d probably call it ‘spaghetti sauce.’ we call it ‘red gravy’ if we make it with meat. If we don’t, it’s sauce. Marinara is sauce. And ziti is macaroni shaped like a tube. Trust me, you’ll love it.”
Sheriff Stevens laughed and joked his way through the filling of about fifty cannoli. He ate two, and would have eaten more except I reminded him that we were having lunch soon. Anj put the finishing touches on the last cannoli while I made the ziti and fried the meatballs. “Come over here Stan,” I said, “let me teach you how to make a real meatball. The kind Nonna makes.” “Who?” he asked. “Nonna,” I answered, “It’s the Italian word we use for our grandmothers. Nonno is our grandfather. You know, back home they have a saying: ‘Nobody can claim to cook Italian who didn’t learn in Nonna’s kitchen.’ Anj and I both learned the same way, from our grandmothers.” Stan smiled.
“So, which of you is the better cook, then?” Angie laughed, “Well you know how to divide a family, sheriff.” She smiled, “It’s really a tie,” she said, “Both our grandmothers are great cooks. It’s like a contest with no losers.” That’s my Angie. The cannoli were all done and Emmy helped her mom clean up while I had sheriff Stevens standing at the kitchen island, shirtsleeves rolled up, teaching him how to roll meatballs. “Not too firm, but not too loose, either.” I told him. “My meatballs are famous in Philly. Once you get them rolled and stacked on your plate here, we fry them in olive oil until the outsides are just a little crispy.”
Stevens was literally smiling like a kid. The smells in our kitchen were driving him nuts. We had the meatballs frying, and the kettle boiling and ready for the ziti, and the gravy simmering on the stove. “Come over here and taste this, Stan.” I said to him. I grabbed a spoon from the drawer and dipped some gravy from the pot. Stevens approached it like the Holy Grail. “You know,” he said, “The only Italian food we have around here is Olive Garden. We have to drive in to Lynchburg to get anything better than that.”
“I’ll try to forget you said that name in my house.” I laughed, as I handed him the spoon. “Now you try this and tell me again about ‘Olive Garden.” Stan Stevens almost cried. I mean, he caught his breath, stared at the spoon like maybe Jesus Himself had once used it, and literally stood there with his jaw open. “Dear Lord!” he said slowly, “I mean...that was...I’ve never had anything like that. That was amazing.” I’d won over yet another newbie to the magic of Nonna Mezilli’s gravy.
“What’s your secret, Joe?” he asked. “Stan,” I smiled, “You’d need a subpoena to get that out of me.” Lunch was a typical Mezilli family affair. The boys ate their way through two pounds of Ziti and about six meatballs each. Between the adults and Emmy, we used another pound-and-a-half, and another dozen meatballs. Stan had little beads of sweat on his forehead, and not because I make my gravy particularly spicy. It was because he was working over that ziti, and those meatballs, and the Amoroso’s rolls we have flown in every Wednesday.
“I’ve never had bread like this, Joe.” he gasped in between bites. “And this gravy is just the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth!” he said, smiling. Then he patted his belly and laughed, “And I’ve put a whole lot in my mouth, as you can see.” We ate and joked and he asked my kids questions, and we swapped stories about our families. Suddenly, as if a bolt of lightning hit me, it dawned on me that the Sheriff of Bedford County was sitting at my kitchen table eating my Nonna’s gravy and laughing with my kids and my wife. And I had no idea why. Be subtle. I thought to myself.
“So Sheriff, other than the time Frank Rizzo came by my grandparents’ house to sample Nonno’s homemade wine, I’ve never had dinner with the local law enforcement.” I smiled, “What brought you out here today...rumors of my cooking?” Stevens smiled and took a sip of his tea. “Frank Rizzo drank homemade wine with your grandfather…the
Frank Rizzo?” He laughed. “Sure,” I said, “Giuseppe and Rizz went way back. You hear because you heard rumors about Frank Rizzo at my house, eating gravy?”
“No, rumors of your garden.” Stevens answered. I laughed out loud at that. “Really?” I asked, “My garden?” “Yeah, no kidding.” he said. “I’ve heard about those tomatoes you grow back there. And the cucumbers and zucchini. Nobody can grow that stuff around these mountains. Why I even heard you imported your own soil last year. I didn’t believe it, myself. I mean that’s a lot of work for tomatoes.”
“You’re in my wheelhouse now, Sherriff.” I said coyly. “Tomatoes are sacred to the Mezilli family. I had some special ingredients shipped down here, that much is true. It’s a family secret though, Stan. I’d be in a lot of hot water if I told you.” I was joking around, but Stevens seemed a little serious when I said that. “Did I break some kind of law, or something, Sheriff? Having soil trucked down here, I mean?” Sheriff Stevens was silent for a long moment. Then he slapped his hand on his knee and laughed.
“Oh heck no, Joe!” he bellowed. “If your tomatoes are as good as this meal was, I might be having you bury some of that secret recipe in my garden next year.” “Well Sheriff,” I answered, “how about if I just give you some tomatoes from time to time instead. I can only tend one garden, these days.” “That’s a deal.” he said, “Now I think I’d better get going. The other reason I came out, Joe –besides wanting to finally meet you and all- is that, well...the election is coming up next year. I’d sure like to think I could count on your vote. You and Angie.” He stuck out a beefy hand and I shook it with a smile. “Sure thing Stan. Anything I can do to help your campaign, you just say the word, okay?”
Stan was putting on his jacket when Angie walked in with two paper grocery bags filled with food. “Stan, you take this home to your wife.” She instructed him. “There’s a box of macaroni in there. It’s San Giorgio, the kind we get back home. And two quarts of gravy and some meatballs. And this box has six cannoli in it.” Stan smiled widely at Anj’s hospitality. “Now, don’t you eat those cannoli on the way home. You share them with your missus!” Angie joked. Stan laughed and thanked us both and I walked out the door with him.
“Let me help you with the car door, Stan.” I said. We walked to the driver’s side of his Ford. “That’s a real sweet family you got yourself there, Joe.” He said. “I’m glad I stopped out to meet you today. Shaking my hand again, he said, “Really happy to have you as a neighbor, Joe. Real happy.” I held the bags as he got in his car. “Drive carefully Sheriff!” I said as he backed out of my circle. He tooted the horn as he drove off. I turned to walk inside.
Son of a... I started to say to myself. Phil Lowery was peering through the venetian blinds again. And not even trying to hide it.
The Last Smart Man in Forest
“Dang it! Dang it, dang it dang it!” I yelled. “Dang that Joe Mezilli! And dang that spineless cousin of yours...the sheriff!” I guess I shouldn’t have blamed Gladys for her cousin being sucked in by Joe Mezilli’s charm, and I didn’t feel any shame for it, he’s her family, not mine. Gladys answered, “What on earth are you talking about Phil? What’s Stan got to do with the Mezilli’s?” “Well he’s over there right now, supposed to be checking them out. But he just came out of the house and Mezilli handed him two grocery bags...probably full of money to keep him quiet and buy his favor!”
Gladys looked completely baffled. “Quiet about what, Phil?” “Quiet about the bodies!” I hissed. “What bodies? What does Stan have to do with them?” I was steaming. “What’s he got to do with them? I’ll tell you what he has to do with them, Gladys. I’ll tell you.” I grabbed my phone and scrolled through the pictures. I started showing her the pictures I took of Mezilli carrying bodies to his garden. “Why did you take a picture of Milledge’s dog peeing in the bushes, Phil?” She asked.
“Oh...fiddlesticks! Forget about the dog for a minute, Gladys. Look at this one.” I scrolled to the next picture. “That’s Mezilli, and that there is Timmy Peppers, and they’re carrying a body. A body wrapped in burlap!” Gladys looked a long time at my picture. Then she handed me the phone and said, real meekly, “I can’t tell what that is, Phil. It’s so blurry. I think you’re just stirring up imaginary trouble again. Besides, I like Angie and Joe. I think they’re sweet folks, and good neighbors, and this wild obsession of yours with the mafia is gonna get you in trouble.”
I couldn’t stand arguing with Gladys so I slunk out to the garage and stood in the back with the lights off, just watching the Mezilli house and planning on how I was gonna expose this Yankee mobster once and for all. Mezilli...you ruthless scoundrel, I thought to myself in disbelief, you even got to my wife. Then I stiffened up and whispered, “This is war.”
The Legend of Joey Trucks: The Accidental Mobster Page 19
