Well, tiger, you have to figure, we were kids when he was bothering me. If I was 10, he must've been about 12. To me, he was just a bully, but I guess my parents knew about his dad, etc. I wasn't aware of any of that. But then I saw him and a few of his friends with these stupid ass jackets with some logo on the back, which I forget now what it was. But it was like his little gang he formed.

My dad is from Sicily, too, and I remember him going to talk to Paulie's dad at the bakery about him bothering me and after that, things cooled off. My dad said that Paulie's father said he was pretty sure it was because Paulie had a crush on me and it was probably normal behavior. I had a black eye at the time for fuck sake! But, also, at the time, my dad was a federal court clerk with the Southern District of NY, and had a high profile mafia case going on at the time, and I knew he didn't want to make trouble or bring attention to himself. Not sure. There was a lot I wasn't aware of at the time. But for me, Paulie was just a local bully. There was a lot of them back then, he was just worse than most. As he got older, I know he started causing a LOT of trouble and people WERE scared of him, but by then, i wasn't on his radar anymore. lol