But Nick mentioned it in the comments. An old friend and classmate of mine killed himself Tuesday. He ran a cherry factory in Red Hook. The cops came in on a fake warrant and scoped out that he was running a pot growing operation in his factory. So he went into the bathroom and killed himself.
We went to grammar school together at Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary grammar school on Hicks Street. He was one of the kids who would play fistball and Skelly that you saw described in "Joey Gallo's Lament." Just a neighborhood knock around guy I used to run around with and run into at the discos in Bay Ridge or at Cousins on Court St to listen to a little jazz. I heard he got divorced a few years ago and hooked up with a Russian chick.
I was talking about it with Georgie from the Pork Store today when I was getting lunch. We both agreed that pot bust was not what sent him over the edge. Don't get me wrong. The civil forfeiture might have taken away his business. But I bet he was pretty depressed. As a fifty year old guy running his own business it is no surprise that he killed himself. It is a wonder that any of us don't kill ourselves.
He is laid out at Raccuglia's tonight so I will go over to pay my respects. If you have a chance remember him in your prayers.
32 comments:
My prayers for his family and friends. I believe he is w/ the Good Lord. I don't buy this suicide makes one a sinner. And, I sure don't buy growing pot is a sin!
Aw man, that is terrible. Prayer for the repose of his soul will be said.
TOP did two posts on this story but I ignored them. I went back and read them along with comments.
It seems to me, given the facts, that something's missing in the equation.
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I got interested in maraschino cherries about six months ago when I needed fake ones to use in my "Faking Bad" drinks collection. Despite their artificiality, they are hard to fake. It's the translucency -- the property of how they let a little light in and have a sort of "depth." I ended up making my own starting with fake ones which looked natural and then spray painting them with several coats of cherry red and clear enamel. They look great, especially when submerged in plastic.
I wonder if your friend made cherries that I've eaten? I don't recognize "Dell's"." Maybe it's an East Coast thing like Drake's Cakes. By far, the best maraschino cherries are made by Luxardo and are imported from Italy but they are quite pricey. I have a jar of Mezzetta maraschinos which come from Napa Valley.
Our son loves those cherries so much when he was ~12 we got him a bar size jar. He loved it.
My greatest gf ever could put one of those in her mouth and tie the stem into a perfect knot.
Wait. A guy from the neighborhood killed himself. Why the fuck am I talking about maraschino cherries?
Sorry for your loss, Troop.
Thanks guys. The wake was pretty tough. They are never good but this one was pretty bad.
There is something about suicide deaths. My brothers best friend hung himself @ age 23. A smart, good looking, athletic, funny guy. He was consumed by depression, before there were good meds. I was in horrible pain. To say this kid isn't w/ God is a sin. Your buddy is w/ God. The living suffer, his pain is over.
"He" was in horrible pain. Freudian?
I think the older we get the more we can understand what goes on in the mind of someone who takes their own life.
Maybe we just understand we are not to judge. The trite saying is "suicide is the cowards way." I hired a retired state homicide detective to work for me. He did all the suicides and taught me a lot. The will to live is so strong it is rare that someone can kill themselves w/o using drugs and/or alcohol. The first thing he would do is look @ the toxicology report. If there were no drugs or alcohol, a red flag went up.
So, killing yourself is not cowardly.
I agree with you Nick. Sometimes when people are backed into a corner it is the only way out for them.
Something you and I can never understand because we are not that kind of guy.
Killing yourself is not cowardly but it is killing yourself, and there's a hundred ways it can happen before the final shot is delivered.
We're back to authenticity. Living with unresolved secrets is one of the surest ways to feel alone. This is true for funny, famous people carrying debt, betrayal and Parkinson's along with those who provide the cherry on top of the sundae, while keeping a significant part of themselves locked up in a back room, alongside the toxic dyes.
I'm sorry your friend took his life, Trooper. I'm sorry you lost someone you knew and valued, a fellow entrepreneur and a part of your past. It is difficult to process through the thoughts and feelings that accompany such an act and loss and my heart is with you. My heart also goes out to his family as they are now without him and the goodness that was part of him, as they sort through the mess he had a hand in creating.
Suicide is not the only way out of a corner, but it can seem like that to those who feel alone or trapped by their own doings or the acts of others.
Maybe it's better not to go into a corner in the first place.
He had kids. He had a nice, honest business making a simple item that people liked, wanted, and bought. Isn't that enough? Why back into a corner by engaging in an illegal enterprise? He could have just bought a misdemeanor amount of weed when he wanted to get high; so why start a felonious farm?
Now his kids won't inheret a business and they have the lifetime emotional damage of a parent's suicide to deal with.
It's rough, losing a longtime friend, especially by suicide. The toughest part must be knowing that he wouldn't have had to do it, had he only kept himself out of a corner he could have avoided in the first place.
Depression is @ the root of virtually all suicides. Depression is chemical imbalance to varying degrees. I surmise Trooper's friend was growing weed to help himself get out of a financial hole. He had the perfect facility to start a grow operation. And, if he was using weed, it is a depressant, just like alcohol.
As I said, the guy I hired whose specialty was suicide taught me a lot. He was a real smart guy. His dad was a Harvard trained MD. Ernie was a bit of an underachiever, in his dad's eyes. But, he loved what he did. Like myself, he was iconoclastic. Ernie said the investigations usually took 2 paths. The first, few people were surprised, he/she had attempted suicide previously, or talked about it. The second path was everyone was shocked, no one thought it possible he/she would commit suicide. There is often no note. Ernie said the best way to understand that investigation is to watch an episode of the superb show, Homicide: Life in the Streets. The episode is where Crosetti, a great character, commits suicide. His partner, he knew him well, did not believe it. But Munch and the big man, Bolander, do a meticulous investigation and prove to the heartbroken Meldrick that his good friend did indeed kill himself.
Trooper, just understand that a suicide death is different than any other for the living. It is the most difficult to process. That's why my prayers are for you, his family, and other friends. A little digging would show the reasons.
Crosetti's funeral is heartwarming w/ the angry Pemberton wearing his dress blues for the procession. The dept. did not allow dress blues @ the funeral because it was a suicide. It seems police dept. have the same heartless and archaic notions as religion.
There is no doubt that financial pressures led to him growing pot. When you get pushed in a corner you can do strange things. Pot is a strange thing. So many people minimize it. It is legal in some states. But the cops love it because it leads to cheap busts, inflated stats and the chance to seize property.
This was a neighborhood guy who couldn't face the shame of the pinch and what it would mean. He couldn't face the people he knew since he was a little kid that he would see at church, at the pork store and at the bakery buying cannoli. This would never have happened if he was part of the transient society that America has become the last thirty years.
Roots are a tricky thing. They can hold you solid but the right wind can be strong enough to rip them out of the ground and topple the biggest strongest tree.
It is funny you mention Crosetti. Another middle aged Italian guy who couldn't face it. If I remember it right didn't he come back as a ghost in one episode?
I don't remember a Crosetti ghost episode. I loved his character, and his obsession w/ the Lincoln assassination. A great series.
Pot seizures are easy busts. Ironically, 30,000lbs. were seized @ the border crossing in San Diego on Thursday, one of the biggest busts on record. It was a tractor/trailer ostensibly hauling mattresses. The news reports call it a brazen attempt to smuggle a large amount. Well, I think there is a crooked border agent @ the crossing who got cold feet and didn't wave the truck through. A crooked agent was convicted @ that crossing last year. The cartel knew when he was working. They told the crooked agent what trucks to wave through. The driver said he was offered 50k to take the 30k lbs. from Tijuana to Burbank. Pot are easy busts, that's why the criminal justice lobby, from cops to prisons, to parole agents, etc. unions lobby to keep it illegal. It's all about jobs and money..OUR TAX MONEY!
I agree. It cost Artie Cherries his life.
I mean I am not making excuses for him but it is true. If the cops didn't get him on a fake warrant for bullshit none of this would have happened. He broke the Law and the Law won. I guess.
Hope the're happy with themselves.
For what it's worth I agree with Haz. If he was pushed into a corner then it was largely his own doing. The business had been established for a long time. Maybe he got into a hole by gambling or by otherwise spending in an exorbitant matter. Such things can be controlled. And should have been before being "forced" into selling pot. Then, the terrible wound to his own kids. Hard to sympathize.
Yikes, exorbitant manner, not matter
I don't disagree ric. He made some big mistakes. He wasn't forced into anything. It was his choice. His free will.
It is just sad that the kid you shared panale sandwiches and played stoop ball with decided to off himself.
Being the king of personal responsibility, I agree. It's illegal and no one put a gun to his head. I just know cops love low hanging fruit and guys like this, trying to start a grow house in a city, are not even low hanging fruit. It's fruit on the ground, just bend over and pick it up.
It is just sad..
It truly is.
In keeping with the things-are-not-as-they-seem theme, which I find less troublesome than the "reasons why I should not own a gun" tag, there may have been more going on than depression over current business conditions, with mafia connections mentioned along with a six year investigation in the works, of which he must have had some awareness. By the time someone is installing huge generators to power a secret and illegal farm, and keeping the whole thing going while under investigation, they've lost their ball in high weeds. The arrest prompted him to end a life he'd been compromising for some time. That those choices led to painful loss for those who knew and loved him is a sad thing.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/axed-worker-chopped-brooklyn-cherry-king-article-1.2132447
This is why grace and truth need to function together when looking at a life or hoping the law is happy with themselves. Land on one without the other, and distortions occur, of the kind that fuel outrage without a buffer of understanding and awareness.
That said, outrage is part of grief and writing it out, as happens here, is the path through. A story this close to Joey and memories of things Pabst is not easy to process.
It's always great when the government can hound someone to suicide for providing a product people want. Yay.
Sorry for your loss.
As I get older, I've gone from "Well, I would NEVER..." to "Well, I'd at least be ASHAMED..." Maybe this guy did, too. I have a lot more sympathy for that than politicians, who have no shame.
It's always great to read Mama and blake back to back. Could Darcy be far behind? Sixty? Time to bury hatchets. Death, particularly suicides, show us that life is tenuous.
It makes for some blood stirring action, ND!
As I wonder what follows a Yay when it comes to fear of mafia ties and repercussions hounding someone to commit suicide. Maybe an Aye?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/nyregion/secret-marijuana-farm-beneath-brooklyn-cherry-factory-leaves-many-mysteries.html
Everybody who comes from my part of Brooklyn has Mafia ties. I have tons of them myself. It's what you do with them that is important. He took the easy way at the time. In the long run it never works out.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/03/how-bees-revealed-a-pot-farm-beneath-the-maraschino-cherries.html
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