wednesday, four august: eight of pentacles
For Christmas, my mom bought my dad a book about Mob history. He's been reading it a little bit at a time, a chapter here and there. Most recently he read a whole section on Lucky Luciano, and he wanted to tell me and Declan all about it. Lucky Luciano was apparently in prison for seven years and spent the whole time reading books on military history and strategy. My dad is very impressed with this. In the middle of the story, he's all, you know, he knew my cousin. Apparently my dad's uncle, my grandpa's brother who I think might have been estranged from him? Or some other relative, I had trouble following this story. Someone in my dad's family, he lived in central New Jersey and was involved with the local Boys Club, and then Lucky Luciano was his son's godfather.
When I was a year or two out of college, there was this one night when my phone rang late at night, it was like two in the morning or something, and it was one of my ex-boyfriends who lived in California, where it was not quite so late at night. He'd just started watching The Sopranos (and in context I think he might also have been high but I can't confirm that) and he was calling me in this near-panic because he was quite sure that my father was in the mob and that I either didn't know or was in denial. And I was all, okay calm down, it only seems that way to you because my father is the only Italian man from New Jersey who you've ever met. And he said yeah, but what does he do for work, are you sure it's not a cover story? I mean, my father was a defense contractor. I'd been to his office. He lived in Oregon for ten years, the company threw a big party to celebrate some new product launch, my dad flew me and my mom out for the party and we ate boring catered food and got a special tour of the clean room where they produced the LCD screens, I'm quite sure my dad's job was actually his job and not a cover for organized crime. That said, it wouldn't shock me if it turned out my dad's social circle was mob-adjacent; there was a lot of that going around. This Lucky Luciano story doesn't help.
The drawing on today's tarot card is a spider at the center of a large web. Craftsmanship, skill, attention to detail leading to accomplishment. I feel like my week is more about "things I should do" and less about "things I am doing" but I appreciate the sentiment.