All my life, all I ever wanted to be was a gangster.
Okay maybe not a gangster, but I at least wanted to be cool. At least cool enough to be able to tell someone “Fuck you. Pay me.” and get away with it.
Those were aspirations to live by as I coasted through my last days of 8th grade. Before any of you cast unkind words towards my saintly mother and her supervision of me, rest assured, a criminal enterprise far exceeded my meager abilities at that time. Sure, I could likely buy a pack of cigarettes illegally, but without a car or even a driver’s license, there was no way I could be selling cartons of smokes out of a trunk behind Val’s Pizza. I was a “good” kid, but what teenager wants to be saddled with that description?
At this point in my early adolescence it would be a full year before I could hear Ray Liotta’s voice utter those famous words from Martin Scorsese’s gangster classic, Goodfellas, but I was treading a similar, though way more innocent, teenage path.
I wanted to be popular, which in my small town middle school world, was the equivalent of the gangster life.
And if ever words were eternally true for those in power, it were those, and damn I wanted to say them to someone, anyone, and not get smacked in the face for it.
I wasn’t quite popular enough for that level of moxie.
I may have been one of the lower tier cool kids in eighth grade, but was wasn’t anywhere near Henry cool, but I could eventually identify with him, if only in the most infinitesimal of ways . That year I had been on all the sports teams, a standout on an undefeated baseball team, made the honor roll, and for a few blessed months before self-sabotage, had the good fortune of calling one of the pretty cheerleaders my girlfriend. We couldn’t experience the immaculate and dizzying tracking shot through the Copacabana for our early “dates” but we did manage to secure the backseats of the school bus on the way home from basketball games where we could make out uninterrupted for at least forty-five minutes.
Much like Henry Hill, I enjoyed the perks of my moderate power while I could. I got to sit at the cool table in the cafeteria with all the other top dogs in the modest school of roughly one hundred and fifty tweens. My hormone addled brain became swelled enough that I broke up with the lovely cheerleader. The specifics have long left my brain, but I can say without hesitation that of course it was my fault. As my late grandmother was fond of saying, I had grown “too big for my britches” and likely felt a high ticket item such as myself surely deserved the attention of the high school girl.
I might have gotten a bit cocky.
Don’t feel too bad for that lovely cheerleader though. With no income nor transportation, the most entertainment I could provide her with were descriptive playthroughs of my obsessions at that time, the Nintendo game Castlevania II. Henry Hill’s wife might have been long suffering and often feared for her life, but she never had to listen patiently and feign interest as I thoroughly detailed my adventures as Simon Belmont. Luckily for me, thirty years later I would be gifted the opportunity of fixing that mistake and asking that pretty cheerleader, now a brilliant nurse practitioner, to marry me. She agreed on the condition that I never speak of Castlevania again. Luckily for me, I’ve now moved on to The Last of Us 2.
Those days of living high on the hog seemed endless and for some reason my burgeoning ego believed the good times would continue well into my freshman year.
But let’s backtrack for a moment so we can at least give a reason as to why I might have wanted to be Henry Hill.
When we are introduced to Henry he’s a young kid, probably close to the same as I was at that time. Unlike him, I didn’t have the fortune of growing up near a cabstand/gangster hang out. Those few blocks near his childhood home most likely had a larger population than the entirety of Milo, where I grew up. I had the misfortune of living on the outskirts of town, my closest neighbor a ten minute walk away. My closest friend was another ten minutes past that. I never got the community joy of having neighborhood pals, as my playdates depended on parental chauffeurs or choosing to ride a bike in the tiny and uneven stretch of dirt alongside an unfriendly road. During the summer I’d often ask to be dropped of in town in the morning and spend the entire day around the baseball field. Henry and I couldn’t have been more dissimilar in that.
However, we did have one common theme in our childhood.
My dad was angry as well. Angry that work in the woods wasn’t always steady but was always difficult. Angry that it made him tired. Angry that we didn’t have enough money. Angry at my mother for a million made up reasons. Angry at me because I didn’t like hunting, fishing, or anything that he enjoyed. Angry that the only solace he could find was in multiple cans of beer that were never enough and only offered him a five cent deposit instead of a way out.
Angry that even at a young age I knew I didn’t want to be anything like him.
So when Henry speaks of having to sometimes take a beating, I felt that, and like him I wanted the opportunity to maybe not even have power, but at least feel a bit powerful and have a least some control of my young life. Eighth grade had given me a taste of that.
I rolled into my freshman year thinking I was Henry Hill. There were bigger people above me, but if I played the part they’d take me under their wing, right? Before the first school bell had even rung I’d made the soccer team. Did it matter that everyone who tried out made the team, or even that I was one of the five freshman who wouldn’t even get a “real” uniform because we’d never actually play during a game? Of course not. I was a VARSITY ATHLETE before I’d received my locker combination. Surely this would be my year.
I wish it had only been soccer balls that had gotten kicked around.
Anyone ever low man on a sports team in high school can tell you it’s not the most supportive environment, and hopes of upward mobility are quickly dashed. Most of the time they didn’t acknowledge my existence unless equipment needed to be picked up or retrieved.
I was Tommy when Billy Bats told him to go and “get your fucking shine box.”
I could’ve handled things better. Perhaps I could’ve been like Spider and told the upper classmen to go fuck themselves. At least I wouldn’t have gotten shot. Lord knows I was angry enough to do just that. I didn’t handle the rejection well. The thought of being a big shot was right there, just slightly past my reach, and instead of having Jimmy’s plans or Tommy’s balls, I just fucking took it and processed it internally, which everyone knows teenagers are not equipped to do well. That anger turned to a bit of self loathing and I took it out on those I could, mostly, the people on the totem pole below me. I didn’t exactly kick anyone around, but I let my mouth go off whenever the opportunity presented itself and allowed my quick wit to do some damage. I wanted to feel above someone, anyone, and in doing so I’m quite sure I was an insufferable ass.
It was about this time in my life that I was able to actually see Goodfellas and had I been as smart as I believed myself to be I could’ve seen the lessons unfolding before me in real time. Despite all the glitz and glamour, the world rarely turns out well for gangsters, with either a shot to the back of the head or a long stay in prison waiting for them at the end. Me, I wasn’t ready for the lesson yet.
I had the fortune of lucking into another girlfriend who likely saw me as the only viable single option left at my cousin’s party. I’m 100% certain she was bored or lonely because there is no way, while everyone else was partying out in the camper, that she found me, sitting alone in the house watching The Burbs, that endearing. And in this relationship, because she was a Junior, she was the Henry Hill and I was the Karen. She had a car and a license, which enabled me to actually go places on the weekend and not be sequestered in my room watching HBO. On her arm I was whisked away to parties with upper classmen who could secure a case of Budweiser or their mom’s coffee brandy. It was my head that spun while she bought me clothes that stretched beyond my usual t-shirts and jeans, although I can honestly say I never felt comfortable in my Z. Cavaricci pants and Chess King shirts. The first bling I ever owned was a silver herringbone necklace that she put around my neck.
The fact that I had lost any semblance to who I was didn’t matter because I was having sex before all my friends and living the high life. I turned my back on all of them and barely spent any time with them for the remainder of the year.
Of course, when we broke up the following summer it all came crashing down.
I wish Layla had played in the background because at least then I would’ve had a cue to exactly where my life was at that point because I honestly felt like Henry at the end of the movie. Sure, I’d come out unscathed (except for some unhealthy relationship expectations that I’d picked up) but I ended up alone with no idea what to do with myself.
Thankfully there was another film that would help me deal with that.
Goodfellas (1990) was directed by Martin Scorcese and written by Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese. It starred Robert De Niro as James Conway, Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito and Lorraine Bracco as Karen Hill.
