Straight Gangsta, John

That's a play on the line, "Straight Gangsta, Mack," from Digital Underground's best-known song, btw. And please forgive me using my name in third person.

Anyway, here's my brush-with-gang-life story:

I used to valet park cars for quite a while at a high-end steakhouse in Cincinnati. Valet parking cars "for quite a while" is akin to setting the minor league home run record, which I think is still held by Kevin Costner. Both dubious feats indeed. And if you're up on your "Working Stiff's Manifesto," Iain Levinson already said that restaurant slaps always are in between opportunities. "I'm just waiting tables before I get into law school," or maybe the same person will say sometime later, "I'm just waiting tables until I get my AARP card." You never hear anyone say, "I've got a plan for myself, and it hinges on my long-term employment as a waiter right here. Now hand me that A1 bottle, bitch." That's probably something that would be said by the one dude who had me start his car for him by blowing into that device that those with multiple DUI arrests are required to have in their cars. True story; he'd had enough DUIs but still couldn't say no to the sauce one night -- many nights -- after work.

OK, restaurant mini-rant is over. Back on track.

So I made some good friends and a nice chunk of change at The Precinct, and I have a handful of good stories to tell. One of them involves one of the restaurant's regulars, a Cornell grad who wasn't shy about talkin' his game quite a bit. But I didn't care because he took great care of me and was an overall friendly cat.

One week, however, was a little odd. JerseyGuy -- that's what we'll call him -- knew me well enough to know my schedule at the restaurant. He rolled up in his Jaguar one night, trophy wife in tow, and asked, "You're working again Thursday night, right?"

"Yeah, why, what's up?"

"Do you have a big duffel bag?" he asked.

"I sure do," not knowing if I really had one. It just sounded like a question I should say yes to, considering it was being asked by someone who liked to hand me money for a wide variety of reasons -- including standing, breathing, and sometimes sitting.

"Cool, I'll see ya here before you leave for the night, and you might want to talk to Rodriguez before then."

Rodriguez* was one of the higher-ranked guys who worked inside the restaurant, and while I enjoyed socializing with him, it hardly surprised me that he was behind what later turned out to be an authentic, gang-style heist.

Thursday rolled around, and at the end of my shift, I found myself pulling dozens of styrofoam packages -- each of which contained about six or eight nice, new watches -- out of several big, corrugated boxes, and stuffing them into my oversized duffel bag. As you can imagine, the instructions also called for me to leave the duffel bag in the trunk of JerseyGuy's Cadillac -- his third car was a Toyota Land Cruiser -- which was parked behind the restaurant near the basement door, and break down and dispose of the corrugated boxes.

For all this effort and the right to tell a story, I earned $100. And wanting to show JerseyGuy that I wasn't a restaurant lifer and was, indeed, between better opportunities, I showed him my creative side by telling him the dumpster down in the parking lot didn't seem safe, so I took the boxes to the one in my apartment complex parking lot.

"Oh, you do have my back, doncha Johnny?" he joked after pulling his cigar out of his mouth. Cha-ching. That was worth another $50. The dumpster decision was quite lucrative.

Now that I'm up in New York, I just wish I could find someone like JerseyGuy and run a few errands for him. In the meantime, you'll find me playing bocce out back behind Satriale's.

* (Rodriguez is a fictitious name based on a very real person. I always wanted to type a sentence like that!)