Fiction, Essays, and Other Things

  The images are still vivid after more than three decades. I was only eleven but, even then, I could detect the juxtaposition of a mighty elephant adorned with brightly colored circus dressings laying dead in a parking lot in Honolulu. The horror hit me hard; an elephant had to be gunned down and a human life was lost. Her name was Tyke and her death, tragic as it was, brought about winds of change in the capture of exotic animals for entertainment. Tyke was not the first circus elephant to run amuck. Just over two years before, a 27-year-old Asian elephant named Janet went ballistic under the big top in Palm Bay, Florida while carrying six volunteer spectators (most of them children) on her back. That incident ended without human tragedy, the riders were helped down to safety before Janet was put down. Nor was this rampage on August 20, 1994, Tyke’s first outburst. Multiple times in 1993, Tyke had shown signs of pent up aggression brewing, throwing tantrums while performing i...

  The modern Mafia was born with the assassination of Salvatore Maranzano on September 10, 1931, and yet not a single photo of Maranzano alive has surfaced. There is but one verified photo of Maranzano, after he was stabbed to death by Lucky Luciano’s gang at Maranzano’s office in New York Central Building, a bloodied corpse spread on the floor with his face mutilated beyond recognition. From this photo a face impression was recently stitched together by computer wizards but the limits of technology show. One mystery the technicians, with all their skill, could not crack is the identity of the assailants who brought Maranzano down.   This lack of record is baffling considering the pivotal role Maranzano played in the history of the Mafia, his rise to power coming at a pivotal time in its transformation. Maranzano saw opportunity playing upon the growing rift between the new generation of mobsters and the old guard but instead became its second victim and kicked off a purge o...