Charlie Stella is righteous

I read the last two-thirds of Charlie Stella's Mafiya last night, and if roosters crowed in South Philadelphia, I'd have heard them greet the new day.

Among my observations on the latter part of the book are that the humor picks up slightly when Stella introduces a few Italian cops and agents, and that one example of Stella's sympathy for working men and women struck a chord with me even though my collar would be decidedly white if I didn't wear T-shirts or sweaters to work most days.

First, the humor, a special agent comparing traditional Italian mobsters and the new Russian crime gangs from which Mafiya takes its title:

"Of course the risks are real. Worse that can happen to me watching wise guys I get a gravy stain on my shirt. The redfellas will kill you to test a new gun they bought off the street."

The personal chord came in a scene of police interviewing an embittered ex-convict hard at work at one of his two jobs who faces the prospect of raising two children alone now that his hooker/escort wife has been murdered (she was hooking to earn the kids' private-school tuition.):

"I'm out just a few months and working here mostly. I also pump gas closer to where I live. For Indians, you can believe it.' 

"`It's a job,' Moss said. 

"`Yeah, so I shouldn't complain.'"

It's hard to miss the mockery and the bitter humor in that statement, the bitterness of a man told too many times that silence, humility, and gratitude that one is not even worse off are the proper responses to adversity.

© Peter Rozovsky 2013