INTRODUCTION & DISCLAIMER - It's time for another trip in RetroFan's time machine, and this time we travel back over 40 years, to an Italian-American neighborhood in Queens, New York in 1972.
Danny, an 18-year-old auto-mechanic, has a problem. He likes a beautiful 18-year-old girl named Marissa, and she likes him. What's the problem you might ask? Marissa is his boss's daughter, and her father just happens to be a powerful mobster in the local area.
Will Danny take an opportunity to screw mafia minx Marissa, or will he be too afraid of her father Sam, aka, his boss?
All characters and events in this story are fictional with any similarity to persons living or dead coincidental. Only characters aged 18 and over engage in sexual activity. This story contains frequent coarse language.
Please enjoy your trip back to New York in the early 1970s, and please rate and comment.
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WHEN Danny Rossi arrived into the world in 1954, he was put on this Earth to work on cars. He loved automobiles and as a boy could name the make, model and year of every car on the street of the Italian-American neighborhood in Queens where he lived. When he grew older, he would maintain his father's car, and cycle over to his grandparents' house to do the same with their old Studebaker. At school, Danny would count down the minutes to workshop class.
Danny's parents insisted that their two sons and two daughters including Danny finished high school, but when Danny finally graduated at the age of 18 in 1972, he immediately started an apprenticeship at a local auto repair shop in the area. He worked with three fully qualified auto mechanics, Tony and Frankie, who were aged in their 20s and both married with young families, and Carlo, a man aged 50 who was married with adult children and two grandchildren.
The other mechanics liked Danny because of his good work ethic and the way he would always listen when they trained him, but being the new guy, would also play practical jokes on him, such as asking for a left-handed screwdriver, or sending him to the spare parts supplier to pick up a top radiator hose for a Volkswagen. Danny took all this in his stride; it was just fun, and he had secured his dream job.
The local girls in the neighborhood seemed to take an interest in the goings-on in the workshop, often stopping by to talk with Tony and Frankie on their way past. They had paid especial attention to Danny since he commenced working there, with his tall, fit physique and handsome face with brown eyes and dark hair attracting their interest.
Danny's boss was a man by the name of Sam Lupino, a Queens businessman who in addition to the workshop owned several commercial and residential properties, and a plant hire shop. Sam, a tall, physically imposing Italian-American man aged in his 50s with a full head of white hair, was in Danny's opinion a firm and formidable, but fair employer who provided good working conditions for his employees.
Sam maintained an office at the workshop, but was frequently away engaged in other business activities. Danny was streetwise enough not to enquire what these activities were. It was said that Sam was a go-to man in the local community, who for a price could make things happen, or not happen. Nobody, however, ever said the word 'Mob'; it simply wasn't done. Sam's associates would often call by during the day for meetings behind closed doors. These included a portly man who always wore a Panama hat and large sunglasses no matter what the weather, and was referred to as "The Frog". There was Luigi, a small-statured, graying man with a perpetual scowl on his face; a younger man Silvio who had slicked-back, jet black hair; and a tall, muscular, silver-haired man called Roberto with a stern face like stone, never speaking nor showing any emotion.
Although Sam was an even-tempered man not prone to rage or shouting, he always had an air of menace about his persona, something Danny had witnessed the previous week when three punks walked by the garage, throwing trash on the ground, swearing and spitting. Sam had gone out to confront them, reminding them to watch their manners and hygiene and asking them to pick up the trash they had thrown on the ground.
"What you going to do about it old man?" the first punk had asked aggressively, to which Sam had smiled and shaken hands with the punks, introducing himself as Sam Lupino. The punks' faces fell when they recognized the name. Sam then asked the trouble-makers how they would like it if he came to their houses, spitting, swearing and throwing trash around, suggesting that him visiting them where they lived might not be something they wanted. With that, the punks apologized, collected their trash, and ran off at great speed.
Danny had met Sam's wife Francesca, a slim, blonde woman in her 50s several times when she met her husband at the office, and they had three daughters. The eldest was Connie, an attractive young woman who like her mother had blonde hair, unusual but not completely unknown for Italians. Connie was aged in her 20s, married with a young son and daughter, and would visit the auto shop several times a week to do the books. She had an especially broad New York accent, chewed gum most of the time and would jokingly ask Tony and Frankie, "Which receipts and invoices have you two clowns screwed up for me this week?"
Sam kept a frame with pictures of his three daughters on his desk, and it was only because of this that Danny knew what Sam's middle daughter Gina, and his youngest daughter, Marissa, looked like, as he had never met either of them before.
Gina, a redhead whom Danny guessed must be aged about 21, seemed to be something of the troubled middle daughter, with her photograph several years out of date due to having limited contact with her family in recent times. Sam almost never spoke negatively of anyone; however Danny had heard him talking about Gina to his friends when he was showing them over a car in the workshop one day. He despaired at how his bright daughter had thrown away a promising college education by getting involved with a no-good, draft-dodging hippie named Luke, participating in anti-war demonstrations and eventually running off with him to live with other hippies in a commune in Vermont. To Sam, who along with his brothers was a Second World War veteran and had a nephew currently serving in Vietnam, this was completely unacceptable.
Another time, Sam had returned to the office with The Frog, talking about his daughter's hippie boyfriend. The Frog had suggested that maybe they should take the hippie out for a fishing excursion and see how well he could swim, to which Sam had laughed sardonically and said that Luke was not a great fan of bathing or deodorant and that he and The Frog would probably get the worst of it sharing a car and boat with him for any length of time. In addition, the hippie was a strict vegan and would not eat any animal products at all, so this would be a problem convincing him to go fishing. The Frog had shaken his head and laughed, and said that when he was a kid, he and his siblings had a choice of food - eat it or go to bed hungry.
Sam's youngest daughter, Marissa, was an exceptionally pretty girl, with long dark hair, big brown eyes and fair skin with a perfect complexion. Danny had not had a chance to meet her yet as she had worked the summer as a counsellor at the Catholic Church summer camp in rural New Jersey. Now it was September, and she had returned to the city for her final year of high school, Sam mentioning that she had had her 18th birthday on the Saturday after school started again.
The summer weather was holding up well into September, and this Thursday afternoon was fine, sunny and warm. Danny was alone in the workshop. Carlo had a couple of days off on vacation, Tony had taken a car back to Brooklyn with Frankie following so he could return him to Queens, Connie had finished for the day and gone home, and Sam had gone out to The Bronx with his associates, for what he described as a 'business meeting'. Danny was certainly not going to query him on the details of what this meeting entailed.
Danny had just finished changing an oil filter to complete a service when he heard the bell to signal that somebody had entered the front reception area, followed by a female voice, young and with a noticeable New York accent, although not as strong as Connie's accent. "Hello, is anybody there?"
"Just a minute," called Danny, putting down the automobile's hood and walking through the workshop to the front reception to find Marissa standing there waiting. The girl was even prettier in person than in her picture, Danny thought. Marissa was wearing her parochial school summer uniform; a white short-sleeved blouse with a dark green tartan skirt and a matching tie, and on her feet black leather shoes with white socks. Her long, silky dark hair tied back with a green ribbon flowed down past her shoulders, the light of the late afternoon sun reflecting upon it through the window. Marissa carried a clarinet case under her left arm and fixed Danny with a smile when he entered, making her even prettier, if this was possible.
"Hi, can I help you?" asked Danny.
"Hi, I'm Marissa, Sam Lupino's daughter," said Marissa. "I was wondering if my father is here?"
Danny shook his head. "Sorry, he went out for a business meeting. I don't think he should be very long, if you'd like to wait for him?"
"Well, I'd rather wait here than on a street corner," joked Marissa. "Dad's probably forgotten that he was going to drive me home tonight. I don't believe we've met before. As I said earlier, I'm Marissa. It's nice to meet you."
The girl extended her hand, Danny returning the handshake. "I'm Danny Rossi, I started working here a few months ago. It's nice to meet you too Marissa."
Marissa looked down at her right hand in dismay. Danny followed her glance down, and his facial expression also changed to dismay very quickly. He had neglected to wash the grease and oil from his hands, and now it was smeared all over Marissa's hand too. In a panic, Danny snatched his hand back and frantically wiped both hands on his overalls, then without thinking the flustered young man grabbed Marissa's hand and wiped it on his overalls too, the girl raising her eyebrows in surprise.
"Sorry Marissa," he stammered, blushing and breathless. "I didn't mean to do that."
"That's okay," Marissa assured him. "Warm water and dishwashing detergent works best in getting grease off." She walked through into the small kitchen, put her jacket ran the taps and applied the dishwashing detergent to her hands, the grease and oil coming away quickly.
"Again, I'm sorry," said Danny through the doorway.
"It's fine Danny," Marissa said. "It was my fault really, I went to shake hands with you. I should have realized that you might have been working on an engine, and it seems rude to refuse somebody's handshake, right?"
"Yeah, I guess," said Danny, watching Marissa dry her hands on a towel, the girl's breasts prominent in her school shirt. Danny, having finished the last job of the day, also washed his hands.
