Richie DeSalvo (3:34)

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is O.T. and I'm a retired pickpocket. I see a lot of you reaching for your wallets right now. But I did say retire because if it wasn't, you'd be too late. Anyway, let me tell you how I became acquainted with this way of life. I'm from St. Louis, Missouri, and I was about 15 years old. It was in the summer, around May or June. I was working in Ray's pool room and these guys came in. There were about six of them. Multi colored outfits, looked like human peacocks coming through the door. Beautiful girls with big asses. I said, oh, shit. Diamond rings on their hands. You know, the cars match the suits. You know, they had bankrolls big enough to choke a horse. I had been confused about what I wanted to be in life. But when I see these guys, I say, that's the fuck what I want to be. Whatever they is, that's what I want to be, you know? So these guys came in and as Faith would have it, they stayed right around the corner from my mother, where I was staying with my mother. They stayed right around the corner from there. So I made myself acquainted with them and I became the errand boy. I would run to the store and get the food. I would go take the car, get it washed, I would walk the dogs and all this stuff, you know. And in the process, I would get a few dollars. And I was learning how to cheat in cars and I was learning how to cheat in dice. I could shoot four pair of dice and I could deal off the top of the deck, and I could deal off the bottom of the deck. And so I'm sitting there and one night the girls come in and I hear the girls talking about how much she took. She took $1200 out this guy's pocket. And the other one says, she took 600 out this guy's pocket. I say, fuck, this car. Dice shit ain't getting me no money. I want to be a fucking pickpocket, you know? So this is what I want to be. So I goes to my tutor. I tell him, I say, I want to be a pickpocket. He said, you don't know nothing about pickpocket. I said, I didn't know nothing about cars. And Dice did. You taught me that. Taught me how to pickpocket, right? And so he commences to teach me, but he don't know that much about it himself. You understand what I'm saying? And so I get the basics, but I'm not that good. So, Mardi Gras season rolls around, so we all get together and. And we go down to Demonic Grove. And so he tells me, say, look, I want you to go buy five different costumes. I said, what? Yeah, buy five different costumes. Batman, Superman, all these different type of costumes. You understand what I'm saying? Mickey Mouse and all this stuff. I said, what I'm doing now, he said, in case you get hot in one costume, you can run to the hotel and turn it into another costume. Cause it's Mardi Gras time and everybody's in costume, you know? And so I put it on my Batman costume. And I'm walking down the street and I wait to pick some pockets. And you see this redneck, this redneck Foreman with these beer overalls on and a flat ass. And he's walking down the street, and the wallet is jumping in and out of his pocket like fish out of the stream. You ain't got to do it over tired in the motherfucker and grab it. You understand what I'm saying? I tie the motherfucker, grabbed him up. And so I see the police. I know I'm getting hot. So I run back to the hotel, I change my costume and come back out with the Daffy Duck costume. I get some more water, get hot, and run back to the hotel. Come back with a Buzz Bunny costume. So I'm steady taking wallet to change the costumes, right? And so at the end of the night, I tell my tutor, I said, this ain't shit. This was a piece of cake. He said, let me tell you one thing. If you think that you was that good, take your ass to New York. He said, that's the way. If you can do it in New York, you can do it anywhere. I started packing my fucking bags that night, right? I'M headed for New York. So he came and told me, say, look, here's a letter of an introduction. You got $500? I said, yeah, here's a letter of an introduction. When you get to New York, I want you to go looking for a rapper. He's a gypsy. He'll smooth out your edges because you're not really a pickpocket yet. So I said, okay. So I get to New York, and I check in the Howard Johnson Hotel on 8th Avenue and 52nd Street. The gypsy place is about three blocks down the street there on same street, 8th Avenue. And so the next day, I go to the Gypsy Place. It's this little storefront with these two ladies in the front and got Cabot, and they're reading palms and all this bullshit. So I go in and I tell them. I said, well, I'm looking for Ralphie. So she said, wait right here. So she goes to the back, and Raffy comes out and I give them the letter. I give him the $500. Now, Rafi is a thin, smooth guy. Silk black hair. Looks something like girlfriend pilfer mustache. So he tells me, come on the back. He takes me in the back. And God damn, all you could see was mannequins everywhere. Mannequins with coats on, mannequins with no coats on. And mannequins with just pocketbooks. And mannequins with just pockets. And there's a bunch of little gypsy kids in the corner ranging from 5 to 10. They was picking pockets. No wonder they so goddamn good. They start early, right? And so he introduces me to this guy called the Fat Man. And the fat man was. He was. He was. He was to be my teacher, right? So the fat man comes out, he says, you a pickpocket? I said, yeah. He said, let me see what you know how to do. Now on all these pocketbooks and on all these wallets, if you know there's a bell that you put on baby booties. Well, everything has a bell on the wallets, the pocketbooks. And if you pick something and the bell ring means you're caught. And so he said, let me see what you can do. So I'm going through this crowd, picking the wallets and picking the pocketbooks. And bells ringing like a motherfucker. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. He said, you're not a pickpocket, you know, he said, yeah, we better start from the beginning, you know. So that man teaches me how to. And he was graceful. I mean, I could see he would go through a Crowd of mannequins. And he, I mean, like, he was smooth as a panther. And he would go on the ball of his feet like a ballet dancer. And he would go through and the bell ring, and we'd come out on the other end of the crowd with six or seven wallets. I said, that's what I want to be like, right? I want to be just like that. So every day I would come from 9 to 12. You understand what I'm saying? I would practice every day from nine. Every day was Sunday from nine to 12. I was there, and he taught me that. And I learned, right? And learned. Sooner or later, you know, I, I, I was getting it together. And sometime I would mess up. He would slap my hand. He'd say, gently, boy, gently, like a pianist, you know, You're a pickpocket. If there's only three walls in the world and the preacher and the Pope has one, and the president has one, you supposed to have one. You understand? Yes, sir, I understand. You know, so you're a pickpocket. That's your heart. If you go to heaven and there's professionals listening up there, and he's, I'm a professional doctor. I'm a professional lawyer. You stand up and say, God, I'm a professional pickpocket. You know, so you being professional with this thing that you're doing. So after three months of this hard drive from Fat man, I finally graduated. He told me, say, there's nothing else I could teach you. You're on your own. I was off and running. The first place I went was Grand Central Station. I went through Grand Central Station. It was like a pilgrim. It was like a Muslim. It's in Mecca. It was all these people, right? I said, jesus fucking Christ. So I went to pick the Wallace up, G. I was just going through the crowd, hitting wireless, getting wireless. And I stayed there for about, oh, about two, three weeks until I got hot. I knew I got hot because the police started watching me and stuff. So I said, it's time for me to leave. So then I picked another spot, 57th street and Third Avenue. So that became. I became comfortable with doing bus stops and stuff, you know. So I was picking pockets there. But I stayed there quite a while, and people went to complain. So the police set up a bus for me. They sent some undercover police to get me, right? So I'm on the bus one day. It's crowded, packed like this place is now. It's packed. You understand what I'm saying? And I'm going Through the crowd. And I hit this old lady. She got on pearls and beautiful diamond earrings. So I hit mom and get this. While I close the back. And when you close back, you have to call. Oh. To make sure you don't hear the sound, right? Close that back. So I hit this guy inside pocket. I spin around and get this guy's back pocket. So I'm coming through, and at the corner of my eyes, I see these lights turning, and I notice this is police life, right? I say, oh, shit. Then the bus driver starts to pull it over to the clear where there ain't no bus sign at. I said, oh, shit. I'm fucking busted. Right? Then I look at the corner of my eyes again. Here comes the guy with a crew cut. I know he's the five zero. I know he's the police. He's trying to get to the crowd, to get to me. So as he's rushing toward me, I'm rushing toward the front. But as I'm rushing, I'm putting Wallace back. Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. I put everything back, right? I put all the fucking wallets back. By the time I get to the front door and the sergeant get on, he said, grab him. We got him, sergeant. We got him. So the sergeant grabs him. I said, let me. I haven't did anything. Fuck you. You ain't did it. Search him. So they straightened me some sergeant. He don't have no wallets on him. I thought you said he had wallets. He said, I'm telling you, I was washing him. So he said, wait a moment. So he goes to the lady, said, check your pocketbook. She say, I got my wallet. She said, check it. I got my wallet. I hit so size say, get off the fucking bus. Get off the bus. He said, look, I don't want you in this precinct anymore. You understand? I don't want you. If I catch you this precinct, I'm like. I said, this is a free country. Do you understand what I'm saying? I said, yes, sir. So I goes around the corner and I walk out. By the time I get around the corner, I kind of speed up my walk. And I said to myself, I look up, I said, I started laughing. I said, well, big man, you might have taught me how to get them out the pocket, but you sure as hell didn't teach me how to put them back. You understand what I'm saying? And if there is just three wallets, and the president had one, and the Pope, I'll damn sure had a third one. You know, but now I want to tell you that I didn't stop picking pocket by choice. It was due to a deterioration of my health and too much of cocaine and alcohol, not to mention a pretty little old lady by the name of Judge Kirkpatrick. She told me, if you come in this courtroom one more time, I'm going to send you to a tropical island called Rockers. And so I felt it was better to stop while I was ahead. So today I haven't did drugs in about two years. I haven't smoked in two years. I'm with aa. I'm studying now to be a home care attendant, you know, and I go to church every Sunday. And that's my story.

Sherman O.T. Powell (13:08)

Sherman OTP Howell spent 40 years as a pickpocket. He was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. Our second story on the podcast this week is from Richie DiSalvo. It's another one about being in business for yourself. It was told live at the Players Club here in New York City. Here's Richie.

Anthony (13:31)

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. 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'd go to the 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 was there. And 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. 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 one of 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. 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 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. Anthony, you know, I know you know, you. I liked it in the beginning, but what am I going to do now? I'm out of a job. He says, let 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, what 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 minutes. So I. This is pretty good. This is nice of you, Anthony. You know, I'm sorry I yelled at you. You know, I started. Sorry. I got a little excited. He says, go sit down. Put by the lawyer, put everything in your name, and you're 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 DeSalvo'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. 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. It'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. 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 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 from blocks 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 towels. I bought an air conditioner. Okay, so October, November, December, January, February, March. I'm doing really good now. I need a drink of water. 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 it's 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. 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 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 I'm in all the courage I can get up. I open the door I says, what's up? They say, 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 the blonde, 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. And he just, you 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, 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 summer. 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.

Sherman O.T. Powell (26:14)

Richie DeSalvo Richie DeSalvo is the inventor of the Baby Calzone. He's also a graduate of the Moth Community Program. Thanks to all of you for listening and we hope you have a story worthy week.

Dan Kennedy (26:28)

Dan Kennedy is the author of the books Loser Goes First. Rock On An American Spirit. He's also a regular host and performer.

Sherman O.T. Powell (26:36)

With the Moth Podcast production by Mooj Zaidy. Moth events are recorded by Argo Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ru West. The Moth Podcast is presented by prx, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx. Org.