Mom and Dad, I hear someone in the house says Wracks

It is your Godfather says mom, ask him what he wants.

It is late at night, probably after 12 and the moon is gone for another month Wracks exits the hall, enters the family room, and turns on the light. 

Hello Wracks says the Godfather, how are you tonight

I am fine says the Godfather who dresses in dark clothes and black shined loafers.

I have some business on this side of town says the Godfather.

What kind of business is in the dark after 12 AM says the Wracks?

I have to meet someone says the Godfather.  Just business.  Your grandmother gave me a key to your front door.   She bought your parents this house.   Anything good in the refrigerator so I can make myself a meal.

Yes, says Wracks.   There is some chicken and a baked potato you can have.

Thanks, says the Godfather.   There is something I want you to do.

What is that asks Wracks?

I want you to get married have a career and start a family.  There is no such thing as easy money.   Easy money has strings attached.   Do you understand?

Kapiche says the Wracks

The Godfather smiles sits down and begin to enjoy his meal. 

Don’t do anything your heart tells you is wrong.   Don’t get eyes bigger than your stomach

I won’t says Wracks

You go back to bed.   I have to leave soon and will close up the house.  I hope to see you again.

The Wracks can’t remember if the Godfather came back at night and if he did, he didn’t wake up the house.   His father would get home at 11 PM at night from his second job, smoke a cigarette, and then go to sleep.  Time moves on and Wracks grows up Grandmother moves in and takes his room and he moves in with his brother and gets into fights. 

At his confirmation at the Catholic church where Wracks becomes a soldier of Christ and takes an affirmation of solidarity until death, he saw the Godfather again.   He was sitting in the back of the church with his wife.  He wore a dark worsted suit with a white carnation in the left lapel.  After kneeling in front of the bishop at the altar and kissing his ring, Wracks saw him and he smiled and waved at the Wracks.   His mission was completed; he saw Wracks safely into adulthood.   Soon he would die of a heart attack with his friend in an orchard. A glass of wine, Wracks thought, a glass of wine.

Remember, keep your enemies far away and hold your friends close says the Godfather.

Later on in life, Wracks saw funny movies that got academy awards for best picture and best actor based on his Godfather. They depict him as a violent man cast into a corrupt world, but he has a religious background.  The Godfather was not a big, dark-haired, swarthy gangster with dark skin, rather he is medium height, built like a European with brown hair and freckles. 

The Godfather the Wracks knew was a decent man and a man that taught him the facts of life and the difference between right and wrong.   He was a man who would employ people, convicts, and others that society relegates to the trash can.   He was a man who built an empire and united the families as one.  To all the sacrosanct, holier-than-thou hypocrites and haters that decry anyone who will not make them money, let this serve as an example.   Life is not black or white, it comes in shades of grey.  As lady justice says to Wracks, the balance favors the side of the righteous. 

Wracks is older now and looks back.    The stars are the same but change position in the sky.   Orion the hunter presides over the winter schema in the heavens and gives the Wracks something to look forward to every starry night.  In the central valley in Northern California the nights are cold in the winter but most of the time the atmosphere is clear.   He did not get a chance to teach his children what the Godfather taught him because his wife wouldn’t let him.  Let it be written that the only one in the world who would teach Wracks religion and belief in God was the prince of thieves.  

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