Surviving the Mob - Dennis Griffin [93]
“So as the days wound down to the holiday, the oldest of our group and our top chef, Mike, kept me busy stealing all the ingredients he thought we’d need for our Thanksgiving meal. Mike was also a Gambino guy who worked for a Bronx faction under the leadership of Frank [Frankie Loc] LoCascio. Mike was a sweetheart of a guy and turned out to be one of the best friends I’ll ever have. Early on Thanksgiving morning, I went to the mess hall and stole a whole cooked turkey. I hid it under my bed hoping that the other three birds they had would be enough to feed the fifty or so guys in the unit.
“As the main dinner was being served, one of the inmate workers dropped a whole turkey on the floor. To this day I believe he did it on purpose out of jealousy. They figured the dropped turkey would bring the missing bird to the attention of the civilian who ran the kitchen. Then he’d shake down the unit looking for it. But it was late in the day by then and the mess-hall boss wanted to get home to his family. So they started to serve chickens to supplement the turkeys.
“When the smoke cleared and everyone was busy doing other things, I brought the stolen bird into the dining area. I called about fifteen or so guys to eat with us to make up for anything they might have missed during the earlier dinner. I remember telling them that I knew some of them wanted to see us crash and burn, because they were jealous of us. I said my message to them was that they could go fuck themselves. In the future we wouldn’t give them a fucking crumb.
“The meal was great. And later that night, Mike told us some good news for him. The day before he’d received his release papers. He’d be getting out just before Christmas. I was happy for him, but I knew my time would be harder to do without him. True friends are hard to come by and Mike was a true friend.
“In spite of Mike leaving, I was looking forward to December and my parole hearing. I knew things might not work out in my favor. But I had to get some kind of closure. Not knowing was worse than dealing with the result itself. And then I was notified that the hearing was postponed and rescheduled for February. As you can probably imagine, Christmas is stressful enough for guys in prison. Throwing in the uncertainty and frustration of the parole thing could have made me absolutely fuckin’ miserable. But I refused to let it get to me.
“To keep my mind occupied, I planned and carried out my annual Christmas food robbery from the mess hall, so the troops would have a good holiday. The heist went off without a hitch. Over my many years in prison, between working in the kitchen and preparing food in my cell, I’d become one hell of a cook. And those skills served me well in the years ahead.
“Even though I was keeping busy, I still thought about the parole situation sometimes. I began to wonder if the government was playing games behind the scenes and delaying the hearing. I hoped that wasn’t true, but who the fuck knew?
“I called my ex-wife to let her know that there was a chance I’d get an early release and enter phase two of Witness Protection. I told her if that happened, I’d like to see my son before I was relocated. But Dina didn’t want any part of it. We ended up in a good old-fashioned screaming match over the phone. She made it clear how much she hated me for my decision to roll and leaving them behind.
“That wasn’t true, though. I gave them an opportunity to enter the program too. We wouldn’t have been together while I was in prison, of course. But at least they’d have been safe. She chose door number two: to stay behind and remain friends with the Gambinos. And then she decided to turn her back on me altogether. She wouldn’t even accept my phone calls.
“It had already been four years since I’d seen my son and under these