I Knew the 'Psycho' NYC "Bistro Bandits" Pt #1 - Another True Story by AngryMan

Dark and twisted individuals have always entered my life in some fashion. We all have encountered a few here and there, but in my case…there were many; I don’t know why.

                         

Perhaps it was the various paths I chose to follow? I’ve chosen many roads in my time, straying off to explore in many different directions. My keen, inquisitive nature from an early age led me…for better or worse, like a curious alley cat; hell…I even had a girlfriend once who said “you kind of look like a cat.”

Maybe I was? Puss’N Boots incarnate…the magical, adventurous feline of yore? Perhaps Krazy Kat, or Felix the Cat; who knows? One thing’s for sure…I could have easily been dead a few times, yet cheated the Grim Reaper; escaping from the clutch of his cold, clammy hands…

Guess you can tell I kind of like cats, I like a lot of animals…the furry kind, not so much the flesh colored human variety…they’re filled with too much greed, hate, envy and a host of other negative traits. People kill for many unnecessary reasons…animals kill only to feed themselves, and sometimes in defense.

                         

This is a story about three flesh colored animals I once knew; true psychopaths…Randy, Sandy and Gloves. Glove's real name was Robert (Robert Segal) but we always called him Gloves in the Pool Hall. The guy had one of those ‘germ’ fears…among other weird characteristics.

He worked as a private chauffeur for an old, well-to-do lady from Forest Hills, Queens, where the ‘gloves’ made a little sense, but he wore them all the time. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that he slept with them on…just in case he dreamed about touching a doorknob or something.

Gloves used to act in strange ways too. He’d order coffee at the snack bar, and make the girl grab an empty cup from the stack, a few cups down. Too close to the top I guess meant more ‘germ air’ exposure? Scooping sugar from the sugar bowl was a big ordeal for him too. He would push all the top sugar from the middle, to the sides and then dig deeply underneath for a ‘germ free’ spoonful...He did this meticulously too; hunched over, eyeballing for any apparent, foreign debris. 

You might say that he was a bit of an odd fellow a rather unusual bloke…or maybe…just, “a fuckin nut job’…???

                        

Gloves had another strange habit. When he took his coat or jacket off, he’d hold it at the top and shake it a few times. Then he would neatly fold it lengthwise, and again diagonally a couple of times, before laying it down on a chair. He had perfected the art of ‘germ avoidance’…I’m surprised he didn’t don a surgical mask.

Now, Sandy…He was a character of opposite traits; how they merged as friends under such conditions, I’ll never know. One guy was a ‘clean’ freak, and the other couldn’t care if he stunk to high heaven, ate food that dropped on the floor, scratched his ass before shaking your hand…you know…normal things most of us do…

Sandy actually had a ‘sometimes’ nickname too, it was Sandman , but hardly anyone called him that. His ‘real’ name was Sandor (Sandor Sebok) of Hungarian decent on his father’s side; his mother was Italian. How Sandy got the “Sandman” label, would be hard to figure out, because he never seemed ‘sleepy’…maybe it was because he wore you out just watching the guy? Made you tired enough to ‘want’ a little cat-nap.

You see…Sandy must have been a crank, meth or crack-head because he never stopped moving. If his body seemed still, all you needed to do was look down and see a leg jiggling or foot tapping, as if keeping beat to some music; and those ‘shifty’ eyes were always in search of an opportunity…a mark…a fish…someone he could take something from...

                         

The Sandman had a long, serious drug problem and his only mission in life was to get some money, to get some drugs…that was it…simple and easy to understand. He really didn’t care how the money came into his hands, because it wouldn’t stay there long anyway. Robbery, theft, mugging, scamming…didn’t matter…and he was well practiced at his craft.

He once scammed me into breaking a hundred dollar bill for him at the pool hall, which of course turned out to be fake; but a ‘good’ fake…probably printed in Iran; I hear they made the ‘best’ bogus U.S. currency outside of the Mint. It took me days to catch up with the guy and convince him how wise it would be for him to give me back my twenties. He borrowed it pretty quick from someone; so, “I didn’t have to do something I didn’t want to do” He understood.

Sandy was tall and lanky, kind of a wiry, muscular build. He seemed pretty strong too, despite years of drug abuse and malnutrition, and he could fight…if need be; but not inclined to without a baseball bat, or pool cue in his hands.

Gloves, was the opposite in this way too. He was a lot shorter, soft and pudgy; not fat…kind of what we call, “skinny-fat” these days. Gloves must have been the kind of kid who never came out and ran around with the other kids on the street.

Probably, he was kept inside by his mother after school, played checkers by himself, or solitaire while munching on Snicker bars and Cheese Doodles. Those leather gloves on his hands were never boxing gloves…that’s for sure.

          

Which brings us to the “Bistro Bandit’s” ring leader, Randy; Randy Caggiano (The killer)

Not very long after being released from jail for murdering his own brother, Randy showed back up at his favorite, old haunt in Queens; The Golden Que. About seven years earlier, while on the run from killing his brother, he showed up there too and got chased down Queens Blvd. by Buddy the Cop shooting at him.

Buddy the Cop still played pool there…mostly nine-ball, late in the evening after getting off the four to twelve tour. He was way past the retirement age for NYPD, but loved the job, so he stuck around doing it.

Seeing a stone cold killer back on the streets after a relative short prison sentence, was no surprise to Buddy…he’d seen it plenty of times before. We ‘all’ did…back in the day…I knew about six or seven who only did two to five years, and out. Walking the streets like they had never left...

The world had changed…murder was no longer a Capital offense…as long as you didn’t kill someone important in New York City, and had a good enough reason for the Judge to accept, you got time served plus a few more. They call it “plea bargaining”…you say, “yeah, I did it, but I didn’t mean it” and that saved the court a lot of money and time not having to convict you…A favor for a favor; just like in politics.

Yeah...Crazy Randy was back on the street, crazier than ever and just itching to cause some kind of mayhem, somewhere; and he'd easily find two other psychos in the pool room soon enough, to help with his miss-deeds...

                         

END of PART #1

To be continued soon.

Another @angryman 'True' Account of an Unusual Life. Posted June 5, 2018 on Steemit.com

Link to This Story Introduction Post - Here 

Image Credits