Moe kindly posted this link on another forum topic which i read. If you read the entire link, and i think you should, nothing i have yet to read describes what this life style is all about better than this. I bumped this hoping some of you "wanna be" tough guys read it just to get an idea what can happen to you at any given moment when dealing with these kinds of people.

http://www.american-buddha.com/lit.brotherhoodlawson.7.htm

A guy owes you 10 grand and doesnt want to pay it back, he spreads a rumor that you are a rat and then get tortured to death.
You have a nice construction racket and a friend decides he wants it. Well, he goes to his boss and tells him you disrespected him. The boss has you clip him and now you get a share of that nice construction racket even though the poor bastard was solid and a stand up guy. Thats the life in a nut shell. For every Barney Bellomo or Steve Crea, there are 10 Jimmy Hydells.

That's an interesting read, thanks for the link, Belmont!