An Open Letter On Climate Change From Me, A Mobster…

So, guys in my rarefied profession don’t usually weigh in on the “news of the day.” But when an issue starts to affect my business? Something’s gotta get said. (And in case any made men just started makin’ in their pants? Exhale. I ain’t a rat. No names.) OK, here goes:

 

We gotta do something to fight this Climate Change thing.

 

Few weeks ago, an associate and I were asked by our capo to take care of a matter in Las Vegas. The less said the better, but it involved someone in the gaming industry failing to pay certain fees owed to his superiors…

 

So my partner and I fly out, put a bag over the guy’s head, encase his feet in cement and take him out to Lake Mead for a little moon-lit dip. We row out to the middle of the lake – the guy’s screamin’, cryin’, beggin’ – all the things – and we say, “{NAME REDACTED} sends his regards,” then drop the guy in the drink. Easy peasy, right? I’m already thinkin’ about what movie I’m gonna watch on the flight home, or should I binge a streaming show since that’s where so much innovative storytelling is happening nowadays?

 

But get this. Guy splashes in, starts to sink. Then. Stops. Sinking. Turns out, due to Climate Change-related droughts in the American Southwest, Lake Mead’s water level now only comes up to this genius’s arm-pits. So there we are, me and {NAME ALSO REDACTED}, our jaws hangin’ open and this idiot realizes what’s happening – it’s his lucky day – and out of sheer relief? He. Starts. Laughing.

 

Now, I don’t know if it was the shock or the absurdity of staring at a guy with a bag over his head and cement shoes standing there in the water like he’s at a pool party…but then I start to laugh, too! And then {NAME ALSO REDACTED} starts to laugh and he’s got this crazy kinda snort-laugh, like a pig – classic {NAME ALSO REDACTED}! – so then we all totally lose it! Three morons out on Lake Mead, crackin’ up like old fishing buddies! Nuts.

 

So anyway, we blow the guy’s brains out, sledgehammer the concrete off his feet, dismember the body and spend the entire rest of the night driving to remote spots in the Nevada desert. Burying a leg here, a torso there. At one point, {NAME ALSO REDACTED} gets stung by a scorpion. Can you fucking believe that?! A fucking scorpion!!

 

By sunrise, we both stink of this asshole’s intestines and, even though we’re woozy from all the shoveling, back at the casino we can’t even look at our Meat-Lovers Breakfast Platters.

 

Or take any pleasure when the dearly departed’s weepy goomar staggers in all, “Where’s

{CEMENT SHOES}?! {CEMENT SHOES} didn’t come home last night!” Normally, that’s half the fun. But nope, not today. We were just too zonked.

 

And I’m not alone. Seems every other day, I got hit men, con men, made men, trigger men, bag men, button men – you name it – tellin’ me how they stored a stiff in a meat locker only for an extreme heatwave to cause rolling black-outs, and both the corpse and 700 pounds of beautifully-marbled Japanese Wagyu wind up spoiling rotten! Such a waste.

 

Last month, this heavy I know had some snitch’s car all set to pop. But at breakfast, the rat reads some think-piece in The Atlantic about the environmental impact of the fossil-fuel industry and winds up walking to work! This goes on for a full week. Finally, the heavy gets so sick of waiting, he hunts the guy down while he’s jogging in the woods. But the poor fat bastard gets so winded choking this guy out, he has a heart attack and dies. (To be fair, he’d also eaten a bunch of that spoiled Japanese beef earlier in the day). So the Feds find two stiffs out in the woods!

 

This is no way to kill. Sure, many of us wear track suits. But not to actually run in! And what can we trace it all back to? Man-made Climate Change. (OK, don’t act like it’s not us who’s doin’ it, ya dingbats – you know it’s us who’s doin’ it!).

 

So to our World Leaders, I say: Please. I’m begging you. Schedule a sit-down. Make this thing right. Because even if you’re not in the mafia? We’re all connected.

 

And if we don’t pay tribute to Mother Earth, we just may wake up one day to find there’s no more fishes left to sleep with…