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Dan Kennedy (1:21)

Welcome to the Moth Podcast. Hi, I'm Dan Kennedy. The Moth features true stories told live without notes. All stories on the Moth podcast are taken from our ongoing storytelling series in New York and Los Angeles and from our tour shows across the country. Visit themoth.org this week's story is by Richie DeSalvo. Richie is a graduate of Moth Shop Community, which provides free storytelling workshops to students and diverse populations in neighborhoods around New York City and beyond.

Richie DeSalvo (1:52)

One of the regulars in this pizzeria that I used to manage was Anthony the Hat. Every time Anthony would come in for lunch, he would tell me, richie, you run a great operation here. The place is always clean, food's great, take care of the people. Nice. He says, someday you have to get your own place, you know, you need to have your own pizzeria. One day in the back of my mind, I'd be agreeing with him because that was my dream, to one day open my own pizzeria. And but, you know, money. I was working. So anyway, one afternoon, you know, I had been in the business for like 15 years and like every boss, the boss that I worked for was the same old crap. You know, Richie, you're a good worker. We'll give you a piece to the action. We'll take care of you. But like, after a while, you know, many years, it was just like they were stringing me along and I was kind of getting fed up with the whole thing. So one particular afternoon, Anthony comes in for his usual lunch. Two slices with anchovies, five garlic knots, a calzone and a diet of Coke. I could never understand that. And he says, richie, I got this proposition for you. I want you to come and work for me. I'll take you under my wing, and I'll let you make some real money. And, you know, it happened to be a bad day at the shop that night. So, you know, I was kind of. Let me take a shot with Anthony. So he tells me, I'm setting up this operation downtown. Gonna have my friends in the back taking some illegal bets on sports, a few numbers in the back. And your job would be to stay up front, run the operation up front. All you need to do, Richie, is you look out for the police. You know, take care of the buzzer, let in the clients, press the code if you see the police. And in the morning, when my workers come in, make sure everybody has that little metal, plastic, waste paper basket filled with lighter fluid, and make sure everybody has matches. That was my job. Piece of cake. I says, no problem, Anthony. For three times the amount that I was making, it sounded pretty good. So I started working for Anthony. I mean, you know, it was great. I mean, not only working at the job. It was just like every night after work, we'd all go down to Eddie LeBlanc Social Club down on Sullivan Street. Start off with a little cappuccino. We'd go to Nick and Eddie's on Sullivan Street. We go to La Dolce Vita. Every time we walked in the restaurant, the seas would part. The waiters would trip over themselves to take care of us. Because Anthony the Hat was there. Eddie LeBlanc was there. Frankie California. You know, from working behind an oven all these years, this was kind of a nice thing, you know, I mean, people would stop at the table, give their respect to Anthony, buy us a bottle of wine, and just move on. And it was kind of nice. It was. I started feeling like King Kong after a while, and the money was great. I'm spending it as fast as I'm making it, and things look good. Now, this is going on for about seven months, and as fate would have it, and it usually does, I look out of the corner. I look out of the corner of my eye one afternoon, and I see cops coming with hammers, and they're pretty close. So I was just able to get the code in and warn the guys. And so I knew they would get this work in the waste paper basket, no evidence, and everything would be cool. So now they must have known the operation. They must have had somebody come in the back, because they just bolted past me and they broke down the door, and they wanted the guys in the back to try to get the papers and stuff like that. So with that, I was able to walk out of the place. You know, I just kind of scooted out of there, ran down a block, got down in the subway, and I'm going like this, man, why didn't I stay sweating behind this pizza oven rather than come aboard with Anthony? But I didn't. And I was running down the train station with no job. So now I didn't know what to do at first. So I just laid low for about three days. Then Anthony called me up, and I said, anthony, you know, you took me away from this job. Now what am I going to do? I'm out of a job. This lasted a hot nine months. I. Anthony, you know, I know. You know, I liked it in the beginning, but what am I going to do now? I'm out of a job. He says, would you take it easy? Don't worry about it. You meet me at the Woolworth building tomorrow morning. I didn't really want to meet this guy anywhere or any of his friends at that point, but when Anthony said to meet him somewhere, you usually went and you met him. So I did as I was told, and I went out to the Woolworth building, met Anthony. We go up to the ninth floor, and we meet his lawyer. And he hands me. We walk in there, and he hands me a brown bag. I says, what is this, lunch? He goes, no, are you a wise guy? He says, open the bag. So I open the bag, and it's $38,000 in there. And I says, what is this for? He says, you see the man over there? He goes next to my lawyer, he goes, that's the owner of the pizzeria. Okay, so. And that's only the pizzeria. That's going to be your pizzeria in a couple of. Couple of minutes. So I. This is pretty good. This is nice of you, Anthony. You know, I'm sorry I yelled at you. Sorry I got a little excited. He says, go sit down. Put by the lawyer. Put everything in your name, and you are the owner of the pizzeria. I says, I can't believe I'm saying this is unbelievable, Anthony. This is just about too much for me to, you know, this is beautiful thing. This is my dream. This is my dream working many, many years. So lo and behold, I get the pizzeria. I go down to Brooklyn. I set it up. I clean up the store. I name it Desello's pizza, Home of the baby calzone. I was the only one in Brooklyn or New York to make a little baby calzone from then and now. I've never even seen it anywhere. I think Domino's might have stole my idea by now. I don't know. But here I am. It's my dream. That's my dream. I buy neon. The business is going good. I mean, this was, like, in October. October, November. My accountant can't believe it because I'm tripling the business. I mean, the business is, like, quadrupling within about five months. I mean, it's like, five times the amount that the guys previously were doing. So, you know, things are looking good. I mean, like I said, I put neon in the window. I. I framed it with green. I put coca cola in red, and I put pizza in white like the Italian flag. It was, you know, it was real nice. I mean, and the young kids in the area could see you from blocks away and said, richie, that looks really cool, man. We could see you five blocks away. And it was a nice sign, and I really liked it. I spent money on these antique coke bottles. I put them on the table, and my heart was really into it. This is my dream, man. And now I put fresh flowers in the antique coke bottles every day. Give it a nice, homey look for the ladies and the kids. And it was nice. And I was painting it up. I was putting tile. I bought an air conditioner. Okay, so October, November, December, January, February, March. I'm doing really good now. I need to drink. All right, so, okay. So I really fixed this place up nice, and I was making some good money. My dream was there. Now what happened is it was my first time in business, and I really didn't plan things well. I was so excited that Anthony had set me up. I didn't plan on the fact that the summer was coming along. And the school that I was selling a lot of pizza to was going to close. And it was a residential area. A lot of people go on vacation. So my business started to take a downturn, and it went down half. It went down a little bit more than that. And then July came, and everybody was out of town, and, you know, the business was down. Now, in the meantime, Bobby cash was coming in for Anthony's payments every week. And I was paying him off, and it was no problem. I paid him off. I had money for supplies. I was paying the store off. I paid my workers, everything. Was great. So now, first, this one week, I told Bobby Cash, bobby, I don't have the $500 this week. Could you come next week? He goes to me, yeah, but don't let this happen too often. So he says, all right, we'll double up next week. I says, fine, I'll pick up the business. I told him what was going on. So the third week comes by, he comes back, he comes down, and he comes in the store. He kind of gets a little irritated. And I said, can I speak to Anthony? And at this point in time, he says, no, Anthony's not in the picture right now. I'm collecting the money for Anthony. So my dream's becoming a nightmare already. So now Bobby comes down the last time and he kind of like throws me up against the wall. And I'm saying, and I'm thinking of all the stories that he used to tell me when we were having a good time about how he shake people upside down off a 15 story construction site to get money for Anthony, and this is not a good thing. So he leaves the store, he goes, I'm gonna come back tomorrow and you need to have the money. I says, all right, I'll get it up somehow. Anyway, with that, I knew there was no way I was going to get the money. So I just shut the store down. I moved out of Brooklyn. I went out to Long island to my sister's house. And I was trying to figure out a plan how I'm going to get these guys their money. Anyway, I'm out there, two weeks in Long island, trying to hide, trying to calm down, trying to lay low. But I'm sick. You know, it's not. Anyway, one particular night, I get a knock at the door. I peer out the window, and who's there? It's Eddie leblanc. It's Frankie California, and it's Bobby Cash. So I look around, turn around about my sister, and I'm ready to say, eileen. Maybe I can tell Eileen to tell him I'm not here. But I can't really bring this to my sister's house. You know, I did this myself. I have to take care of this myself. So summon all the courage I can get up. I open the door, I says, what's up? They says, anthony's in the car. He wants to speak to you. I says, okay, let me get my jacket. So, took off all my jewelry. I told Eileen, I'll be back in a little while. And we go down the driveway into the car. He says, get in the back. And Anthony's in the back. And Eddie LeBlanc, this scary individual, sits right next to me. Okay, but Anthony, Anthony says, take off. So we take off down the road. Nobody's saying a word. Get on a Long Island Express. We're riding for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and nobody's saying a word. The silence is deafening. And the silence is deafening. And my heart is about to come through my chest because I knew he was just going to do that. And we're driving, my head is down. I try to speak to Anthony. I tell him, you know, the store, this someone, and he's just, he don't want to hear about it. So at this point, I don't really know what's going on. We're just driving and nobody's saying a word. So finally Anthony speaks. He goes, richard, you remember the IOU that we signed in my lawyer's office? And I says yes. And again I try to tell him about this. And the summer came and the air condition and he tells me to shut up. So we're driving along and you know, out of the corner of my eye I see Anthony going like this and my stomach is flipping, my heart is racing, my head goes down even further. And he comes out with the IOU and he goes, remember this IOU that you signed in my lawyer's office? And I says, yeah, Anthony, but the summit. And he just, everybody starts laughing. He rips it up. He goes, richard, you're a stand up guy. When you get the money, you take care of it. If you don't get it, don't worry about it. You look a little sick. Are you all right? I says, yes, I'm fine, but I have a date tonight. Anthony, could you get me home immediately? You know, and with that, I was thinking the next time I went out to eat, it was in a diner. And I didn't care who took care of me. I ate by myself. I paid with my own money. And it was one of the best dinners I had had in a long time. And I'll just stick to my guns. How I was brought up. If I want to make money, I'll do it. How I was raised to, that's work hard, do it yourself. Don't count on anybody. Hard work in America will do the trick. That's my story.