A PIG-NAPPING AT SATRIALE'S: SOME THOUGHTS ON THE SOPRANOS AND MY (GLORIOUS) MISSPENT YOUTH

Unless you've spent the last decade living in a cave somewhere, chances are you're intimately acqainted with the HBO series "The Sopranos." The exploits of the crew from Satriale's Pork -- Tony; Paulie Walnuts; Big Pussy; Sil -- not only made for groundbreaking television, but resonated with the American TV viewer in a way that's never before -- and will likely never again -- be duplicated. For me it's a bit more personal. The Sopranos wasn't merely the greatest television drama of all time; it was a trip down memory lane.

I grew up in a section of Queens, New York, that was the Mecca for all mob-related activity in NYC. Traditionally it had been Manhattan's Little Italy which served as headquarters for the NY Mafia; but in 1985, our most famous resident, one John Gotti, "pushed a button" on one Paul Castellano. As Big Paulie's body lie lifeless and bullet-riddled outside a posh Manhattan steak house, "Johnny Boy" usurped his throne. John Gotti was now the "Capo di tutti capi" . . . the "Boss of Bosses" . . . or as Mario Puzzo had once put it: "The Godfather." Life in Queens was about to get very interesting.

Ozone Park, Queens, was home to the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club: a nondescript storefront on 101st Ave. just off Cross Bay Blvd. that served as Gotti's headquarters. A tough, blue collar neighborhood whose side streets ran like tributaries into the main drag of Liberty Ave. -- auto body shops, construction companies and warehouses thick with graffiti, all doing mob business in the shadow of the old elevated train tracks. Ozone Park was the stomping ground of "Goodfellas" Jimmy 'The Gent' Burke and Henry Hill -- and home to our very own "Satriale's Pork." I'm not gonna spill the beans and mention the establishment by its real name (last I heard it's still in business and I like my kneecaps where they are); let it suffice to say that it was a mob owned 24 hour dairy farm & deli famous for the Italian sausage ground and stuffed in its basement. It was also the place where local teenagers such as myself made late night beer runs.

The dairy farm sat on a triangle of asphalt -- the building itself tri-cornered. Atop its roof, perched in each of three corners, were the giant, fiberglass replicas of a cow, chicken and pig. While the cow and chicken were rather pedestrian representations of their respective species, the pig was in fact an enormous, cartoon "Porky Pig" sporting a chef's hat and apron. Were it not for this fact, my story would end here.

It was a hot, late summer Friday night. My best friend Doug and I had been club hopping out on Long Island. Unsuccessful in our attempt to score with any of the local talent, we'd decided to call it a night and head back to Queens. Buying a couple six packs, we took up residence on a bench in a little park just across from the dairy farm. As we drowned our frustration in Pabst Blue Ribbon, I had a clear view of Porky perched on the roof above. Illuminated by a spotlight, there he (it) stood: big as life (bigger actually), in his chef's hat and apron. I don't know why -- maybe it was the beer buzz, or my thwarted hormones, or just the fact that I was an ornery, young punk from Queens whose colyones were bigger than his brains -- I dunno -- but I just hadda have that pig.

"Hey Doug." I said, swilling some warm PBR, "I'm gonna climb up there and grab that pig."

"You know who owns that place?"

"Yeah."

Doug drained his beer; crushed the can like an accordion and flipped it into the public trash receptacle, "What the fuck. Let's do it."

Now, scaling the side of an all-night dairy farm and making off with an 8 foot fiberglass pig bolted to its roof without benefit of ladder or tools was no easy feat. Fortunately I was well-muscled from years of pumping iron and pounding heavy bags in various NYC gyms; Doug, on the other hand, was a big old bear of a kid tipping the scales at 240 plus. I'd once seen him knock a man clean through a wooden piss house door with a single shot to the solar plexus. We were more than up to the task. So we hopped into my blue, 4 door '74 Maverick: the tranny went about every other month leaving me with only reverse gear, and it leaked power steering fluid like a sieve, but man if cars could talk. Pulling around back of the dairy farm we parked next to a dumpster. Using the hood of my car as a starting point, we hauled ourselves up onto the top of the dumpster, then a low roof jutting from the first floor: an awning; a drain pipe and don't ask me how, but in minutes we were on top of the building itself -- and there was Porky.

We knew the sucker was big just eyeing him from the ground, but up close . . . Man he was HUGE! 8 feet was a conservative estimate . . . and girth? . . . how 'bout 4 feet around at the beltline? Not only was he bolted down to a wooden platfom, but secured by four wire cables as well. For the luva Christ how were we gonna pull this one off??? Peering over the edge of the roof we could see that the well-lit parking lot was filled with cars; a steady stream of late night shoppers coming and going. This was crazy . . . but so were we. Besides, we'd come too far to back out now.

The cables were first. We managed to rip them free without too much effort (though we had to wrap our t-shirts around them to keep from lacerating our hands). Then the bolts. There were four of them as well -- good sized suckers -- punched through a fiberglass lip molded around Porky's feet. Using brute force, Doug and I grabbed hold of Porky and snapped them off at the base. It made a horrendous cracking sound -- loud enough, I was certain, to be heard inside the dairy farm -- but Porky was free of his restraints . . . and he was ours. I shinnied back down onto the first floor roof. Using the remnants of the cables still attached to Porky's body, Doug lowered the prize down to me. We repeated the manuever til Porky was safely on the ground. More awkward than heavy, we hoisted him onto the roof of my Maverick. While I drove with one hand, an end of one the cables wrapped around the other, Doug did likewise in the passenger seat. Together we managed to anchor the giant, fiberglass pig to the roof of my car.

Foregoing the safer side streets, we made our way up Rockaway Blvd. Screw the cops. We were like a couple of drunken barbarians who'd just pillaged an unsuspecting village displaying our booty. Actually we were just young and stupid. So what? We passed late night motorists slack-jawed with disbelief at the sight of two teenagers making off with a giant, fiberglass pig atop the roof of their car. One old biddy, her hat festooned with geraniums -- probably returning home from a late night bingo session -- made the sign of the cross. We hit a red light at Woodhaven Blvd. Some mustache in a Cadillac Eldorado rolled up next to us. He just sat there grinning in his liesure suit and pinky ring. Doug leaned out the window.

"Hey mister. We got a body in the trunk. Can ya help us get rid of it?"

The guy sped off.

With our prize secured, we headed for Sixty Park (a fenced-in playground adjoining P.S. 60 elementary school) -- our hangout. Driving onto the sidewalk, we pulled through the front gate of the park barely clearing Porky's potbelly. As expected, the boys were all there getting lit. The whole crew: Bubbles; Gleepy Globster; Claff; the Cleary brothers; Pingle . . . Murch. Whenever any shit went down in the neighborhood, Murch was the kid the cops always came looking for. A freckled, beanpole of a kid, by age twelve he was already over 6 feet tall and could suck down two six packs without blowin' chunks -- the rest of us had to be carried home after 2 or 3 cans. There was only two things Murch truly loved: getting wasted and basketball . . . and fucking with people -- well, three things (and not necessarily in that order).

"Well gents . . . looks like someone's brought home the bacon!" Murch said as we rolled up by the parkie house.

The boys gave us a hero's welcome. Amidst all the hand slapping and bear hugging as we recounted the tale of our "pig-napping," only Bubbles managed to interject a note of lucidity.

"Are you guys fuckin' stupid? Do you know who owns that place?"

Yes. We were fucking stupid. But what's the point of being young if you can't be stupid?

So, what do you do with an 8 foot fibergalss pig 'earli in the mornin'? -- If you're the collective mind of a group of drunken teenagers in Queens, NY, circa 1978, you do the most obvious thing: stick it in the public restrooms in back of the parkie house -- the ladies' room of course. One problem though: there was more pig than doorway; about 6 inches more. So we made a contest of it. We stood Porky in front of the ladies' room doorway and each took turns charging like a linebacker, attempting to shoulder-butt him (it) through. Honestly, I don't remember how many attempts it took, or who finally turned the trick, but we managed to wedge Porky through -- cracking off a piece of him in the process. We left him next to the toilet stall; all 8 feet of him. Our work was done.

After more hand slapping and bear hugging, Doug and I left the boys to their drinking. The sun was coming up and they were firing up the grill at the Forest View Diner on Jamaica Ave. Time for some grub. What we didn't know (but would discover later), was that while Doug and I were busy wolfing down our eggs and sausage; home fries, double toast and coffee, Phil the Parkie had arrived to start his work day. Phil was the grounds keeper at Sixty Park -- an overweight, middle-aged drunkard prone to psychotic episodes. When he found Porky next to the ladies' toilet, he immediately dialed 911 and began screaming that there was an 8 foot pig in the ladies' room. Now, what Phil neglected to mention, was that the pig in question was wearing a chef's hat and apron -- and made of fiberglass (an important bit of information as it turned out).

Finishing our breakfast, Doug and I decided to swing by the park one more time to admire our handywork. We weren't prepared for the scene that awaited us. Phil's frantic 911 call had created a shit-storm. Hearing that there was an "8 foot pig" in the Sixty Park ladies' room, the authorities naturally assumed that a giant, wild boar had somehow wandered onto the premises. Nearly every emergency vehicle in the county had converged on the site. There were fire trucks, ambulances and police cars everywhere. Poor Phil was strapped to a gurney, being given oxygen by a team of paramedics. It was bedlam. We got the hell out of there pronto.

Porky was eventually returned to the dairy farm and once again placed atop the roof next to his two fiberglass pals: the cow and chicken. And guess what? A month later Doug and I climbed up there and swiped him again. This time we spared poor Phil and left Porky on the front lawn of the captain of the local police precinct -- an s.o.b. we'd nicknamed "Barney Fife" -- who reveled in harassing the Sixty Park crew. A few days after the incident, two guys in pinstripe suits paid a visit to Phil at the park. Representatives of the dairy farm, they were curious as to which of the young punks who hung out there might be responsible for the pig-nappings. Phil gave them only one name: Murch. The very next day, Murch was snatched off the street by the same two guys and forced into the back of a black Lincoln Town Car. They took him down into the basement of the dairy farm, sat him next to the sausage grinder, and in no uncertain terms explained that the next time their pig disappeared, so would Murch. Murch was one of the boys. Though he may have ended up as sausage links cooking on someone's barbeque grill, he never gave us up. Murch was a stand up guy . . . and we never forgot it.

We never swiped Porky again. Though every now and again we'd threaten to just to see the look on Murch's face. Hey, we were young and stupid and living in Queens, NY, at the tail end of the '70s. Looking back on it all now, I wouldn't have had it any other way.