FISH FARM

Chapter 2

Randi’s on the Bay knows how to make memories. The banquet hall and restaurant on Cross Bay Boulevard in howard Beach, Queens has a reputation for putting on the best parties and affairs in the New York City metropolitan area. From retirement dinners for Deputy Commanders of the NYPD, to gala meetings for major corporations, to a mafia princess’s wedding planned three years in advance, Randi’s is second to none, and simply the most extravagant place for a wedding of this magnitude. Not big with the Orthodox crowd but 20 Bar Mitzvahs a year wasn’t bad for a joint in a near totally Italian neighborhood.

Everyone knew or at least suspected who was behind the place, making the prospect of attending an affair there just a bit more exciting.

When entering Randi’s lobby, you are soothed by the palate of colors and geometric designs on the terrazzo marble floors, leading to a dark green staircase and the visually stunning second floor lobby. Muted beige and brown stone, with red and gold speckles looks very much like a welcoming Tuscan countryside. The walls are framed with exquisite thick, blond wood crown molding, and adorned with magnificent hand-painted murals of the Tuscan countryside and vineyards making the guest long to be part of the landscape. The finest, four-inch beveled, lavender-speckled, granite accents the rich, brown mahogany valet and information desk, a duplicate of the same station bar on the second floor overlooking the bay. Both units embellish the rest of the décor finishing the rooms beautifully. The second floor boasts four working, strategically situated, wood fireplaces in all corners of an enormous room and hand painted ceilings reminiscent of Venetian and Florentine Renaissance palazzos. The scenes are of grand balls and gardens of the great Medici era.

A separate bridal suite with different but no less rich appointments of art and architecture are used for the bridal party with privacy before their staged and grand introduction to the guests, who enjoy a separate cocktail gathering. The ceilings are not painted as most of the rooms. Three crystal chandeliers are in a straight line in the ninety foot room with individually lighted portraits of counts and countesses. Their progeny on the walls provide the room an art gallery feeling.

The grand entrance of the bride and groom is a sight to be seen, and can only be described as reminiscent of a choreographed Las Vegas show. In the grand ballroom a glass elevator shoots through the floor to make the enshrouded couple look like a mythical apparition. Eight huge crystal chandeliers illuminate the room on cue from the lighting director. Elvis wished that he could have made an entrance like this.

The spectacular, outdoor, red brick path lined with gardens was bursting with dozens of varieties of plants. lit to enhance the romantic aspect of Randi’s waterfront location. Several under-lit Japanese maple trees were the focal points in the garden with white and blue hydrangea, flowering rhododendron, pink azalea bushes and hostas plants peppering the landscape. Photographers love the estate-like grounds for shots of the happy couple and their families. More often than not, a bridesmaid wanders into the secluded grounds during the din- ner to get stupped by one of the ushers. In one case, it was a bridesmaid and the groom that hooked up, but that story could have easily been urban legend.

From the Italian perspective, what makes Randi’s the best is they serve first-rate, quality food in abundance, and the selection of dishes is flawless. The decadent cocktail hour overflows with large lobsters, pink prime rib, wild boar and fresh turkey carving stations, a polenta bar with five different sauces, and a full and authentic sushi bar where three Japanese chefs cut and roll the freshest fish available. Offerings of Peking duck to Moo Shoo Pork to a personal customized pizza parlor are popular with the younger crowd. The older and more sophisticated are blown away by a seafood tower, and a variety of Russian caviars with all the trimmings that wind about a first quality vodka fountain. Directly to the right is a scotch sampling table where a kilt-wearing attendant pours Riedel snifters. Finally it would not be a New-York-style party without fried calamari and pigs-in-a-blanket.

Ten, tuxedoed, white-gloved, handsome waiters pass around gold platters of juicy, baby lamb chops and other hors d’ouevres. The seven, full liquor bars, each manned by two bartenders, ensure thirsty guests suffer no wait in line. Two floor managers who look like Rosanno Brazzi and Armand Assanti stroll around to make certain that everything is done to Anthony Randi’s precise specifications. Wearing Secret Service-type earpieces and equipped with mics in their hands, these two communicate with the kitchen, the band, and wait staff supervisors, keeping everyone on their toes for the duration of the affair.

The bride and groom respectively have a personal waiter and waitress in waiting. The father of the bride, who generally pays for the extravaganza, enjoys the constant attention of a waiter supervisor. If the father of the bride goes to the men’s lounge to take a leak someone stands at the ready to shake his dick for him.

The speaker system rivals that of Carnegie Hall with the highest quality electronics and acoustics available. The house band is so good their music beats Earth, Wind and Fire’s and the Black-Eyed Peas’ cold. If a guest doesn’t care to dance, he or she may watch a fabulous concert that includes 20 instruments and six, very hot dancers who change outfits three times during the five-hour performance.

Howard Beach exudes an air of mafia influence that cannot be found anywhere else on the planet. Unlike the Sicilian towns where seedy mob guys with four-day beards sit around drinking coffee and chain smoking American cigarettes, or the Naples Camorra wise guys just waiting for the next daytime shootout, Howard Beach has a clean, almost sophisticated tone. Great schools, restaurants, nail salons, beauty shops, and a safe place to live and raise a family unless of course, you happen to be black. And to mention on a minor note, John Gotti lived here.

At Randi’s, everyone knows the drill—the Tuscan Grand Ballroom’s 660 guests, brides, grooms, waiters, waitresses, maitre ds, musicians, busboys, videographers, florists, cigar rollers, valets, FBI, NYPD, and Drug Enforcement Agency. Everyone is there to do a job, to be part of the landscape. The FBI shoots video from a van while the photographers walk around getting guests to squint into the camera and say ridiculous things.

Angela remember that weekend we all went to Point Pleasant and got sunburned? So many memories and now you’re a married lady. And, "You should both be as happy as me and Aunt Jenny….cento anni kids."

If the FBI were really smart and efficient it would buy the video to get what it needs on tape and use the van to share donuts and coffee with NYPD as well as the DEA staff. But who’s expecting the FBI to be smart and efficient? Even homemade donuts were arranged for the no-budget wedding and brought out to the law enforcement guests to mock their spoiled anonymity.

If requested, Randi’s makes certain that when an evening finishes every guest receives one dozen, freshly fried donuts sprinkled with his choice of cinnamon or powdered sugar, one dozen assorted bagels from The Bagel Boys, along with The Sunday Daily News and The New York Post for his morning coffee. Oh, and for the ride home, a bag of warm, sugared, cashew nuts and two bottles of San Pellegrino. These extra touches are an a la carte item on the service list for the bride and groom to approve for the ad-on charge of $2,750. Not a problem for this couple. Dominican cigar rollers cost only $1,800. Why not? In for a penny, in for a pound...and you thought that the rich people that went to the Waldorf Astoria know how to live.

The guests eat, drink, dance, kiss each other and the men especially kiss the other men and usually on both cheeks. Don’t dare check out anyone else’s girl, wife, commade— that is the girlfriend on the side—or daughter unless you want to disrespect a guy who is dressed well. Not well-dressed, but dressed well.

Great food, an amazing band with six vocalists, and a fabulous Italian couple set the stage for the hottest wedding since Randi’s opening in 1987. Having hosted 12,622 without a virgin among them, including this wedding, Randi promised this night as the best wedding evahh.

Two 26-year-old kids from Dyker heights, da neighborhood—were tying the knot at Randi’s this particular Saturday evening in July. This couple was clearly on a different level than any other. Known as a factory, Randi’s generally had two nuptial events, a silver or golden anniversary, and another party scheduled on the same night in the vast space available. For this affair, however, the families were so large and so respected in mob circles that Anthony Randi decided no other fetes would take place at his famous catering hall. None. He looked at it as the right thing to do,the respectful thing to do. That’s the only way he would operate in this life, demanding respect above all else. After all, he had known both families since he had been a kid on the streets of Queens, and both families were immensely powerful and fully invested in the life. They were friends of ours—the mob parlance signifying their common association. More importantly, Randi was getting top dollar for the event. In cash, of course.

All 60 tables would be packed, and a full contingent of 22 bridesmaids, ushers, maid of honor, and best man would grace the dais.

Angela and Carmine, were the best-looking couple with whom the photographer had ever, and probably would ever, work with. The photographs of the Miceli-Iorio wedding would turn out to be his best advertising going forward and would make him the most sought after wedding photographer in three states—even in that Garden State, faraway New Jersey. Oh, by the way,– this phrase makes it seem important and it’s not—it would also be his biggest payday ever. In cash.

Angela Iorio was gorgeous—not just pretty but drop-dead gorgeous. A raven-haired beauty with Sicilian and Neapolitan lineage, Angela had started at age nine to resemble none other than Sofia Loren. Angela’s figure was simply magnificent. She had more curves than the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. Her legs were perfect, strong thighs and toned calves with a perfect derriere. She walked like a racehorse and with the posture of a ballerina, Angela always turned heads.

Interestingly, unlike most Brooklyn women her age who looked only half as good as she did, Angela didn’t act like she knew of her attractiveness. Down-to-earth, sweet to everyone, and classy as they come, Angela embodied her name. Having attended private schools all of her life had finished Angela nicely. Nevertheless when some strunzzo made a pass or cat-call her Brooklyn street-side rose to the occasion. No one from the neighborhood would ever have dared to make a pass at or a distasteful remark to Angela. Outsiders had no idea that flirting with her could easily land them in the emergency ward of the nearest hospital with multiple bone fractures and a need for rows and rows of stitches.

All but one of the wedding party hailed from Brooklyn, howard Beach or Staten Island—an out-of-towner named Gino Ranno who lived in faraway New Jersey. Just 30 miles, maybe 45 minutes by car from Randi’s, but Jersey could have been 31,000 miles away in the minds of most guests. You could swear that some of the old-timers thought you needed inoculations to go to Jersey.

Asked by Carmine, Miceli to honor his son the bridegroom, Gino was oldest of anyone on the dais. Carmine, wanted Gino, his godson, to have a special place at the wedding according to a tradition that went back generations, to Sicily where the families were forever bound by violence and vengeance. Both families consisted of poor farmers who had become close back in the town of Lercara Friddi, in the mountains of western Sicily, and had kept their friendship to be passed on forever, one of the few traditions without strings tied to the Miceli business empire.

While not with the family, Gino was certainly around it and was well spoken for. The protection of the Rannos continued tacitly for three generations. Gino and his family needed no protection. However, they nonetheless found it comforting to know that their insurance policy was paid up in full. Somewhat like having a rich uncle upon whom they could call if things got rough.

Carmine, Sr. loved Gino, and his son Carmine, Jr., the movie-star-handsome groom, loved Gino as a second father. Gino often took Junior on fishing and golf trips, and to Mets and Yankees games. They met the players at the stadiums, and in the locker room at Hofstra University’s New York Jets foot- ball practice complex they even had lunch with the players. Whenever a player recognized Carmine, Jr. especially on a first-name basis, he flew into sports-fan orbit. Just imagine how this, and the fact that these athletes that he would read about in the New York Daily News and cousin Gino were pals, impressed the young man. Hanging out with any of the celebrities that Gino knew from his business deals was a trip and a half for the young Miceli, who would later be groomed to take over the family business and always remain a Jets fan. Like so many Sicilians, these became part of Carmine, Jr.’s life ritual. Football and macaroni were served every Sunday at the younger Miceli’s home unless he was at home games in the Meadowlands with Gino. Then the macaroni could wait.

Carmine, Sr. was all business and not the kind of dad to toss a football or to get a glove and play catch with his son. Gino did all that when he and Carmine, Jr. visited. Senior and Junior could never talk about girls, but Gino listened to Junior and made the funny comments that Junior shared with his buddies, turning his older cousin into a sort of folk hero. Carmine, Jr. loved Gino, and Gino loved him back without any motivation on either side. Gino didn’t need the younger mans power and Carmine, only needed friendship and affection. No positioning, no money, no reason other than true friendship.

Bloodlines run very thick among Sicilians. The Rannos considered the Micelis as family, and that relationship was written in stone. While as thrilled by the show of love and respect, Gino felt deep down very much out of place if not downright nervous as a part of the wedding party. He would have preferred just to have been an invited guest sitting at table number 32 with whomever. In fact, Gino had butterflies swirling in his stomach for the first time since having attended Catholic school. Back in the 1950’s, the nuns struck such fear into the kids that some of them vomited their morning oatmeal outside of school. Gino had been one of those up-chuckers. He had stopped eating breakfast altogether in the seventh grade as he had been embarrassed and had not wanted to display his anxiety for fear the other boys would see him as weak. They no doubt would have taken that view. Such humiliation was not going to happen to Gino Ranno—not then, and not now.

At 57 years old, Gino felt like he was the chaperone for the kids in this spectacular wedding party. He felt old and not part of the younger crowd in the wedding party but would never think of disappointing the Micelis. Considering himself too short to wear Armani couture, he felt discomfited and silly clad in a black, Armani tuxedo from which peeped a lavender shirt that matched the bridesmaids’ gowns. He thought deep down that the wedding party and the wedding in general were tacky, especially the facts that half the girls chewed gum and all of them barked rapid-fire orders to their escorts so that, in their minds, everything would be right for Angela’s special day.

Gino could not even look at Angela’s bridesmaids, friends, and cousins—some of whose christenings he had remembered attending. Now they all had fabulous, incredible bodies and ridiculous cleavage that was hard to miss in the gowns they had selected for this extravaganza. The wonder-bra phenomenon made Gino feel as if he were a leering pervert, so he made an effort not even to look. The young gals all thought that he was so cool and so cute, and their flirtations embarrassed him.

The men in the bridal party— all tall, unlike the generations of men before them—dwarfed Gino, making him feel more uncomfortable. Still Gino had a full head of hair, although it was starting to recede. This hair, he thought, may be the only saving grace masking his age just a bit. Gino’s teenage insecuri ties were creeping back in and he felt the stings of the past. When a nun would ask the students to form a line by size place Gino would always be first. It would have been great if he was second but first meant he was the shortest and shortest was not good. He was self-conscious of this until the girls started to pay attention to him because he was always the cutest. But still, short trumped cute in his mind. Who needs to go down this road again, especially at my age, he thought to himself, feeling ridiculous but knowing his role in the wedding, his place of honor, and handling it with the deepest respect.

After two failed marriages and three grown kids, Gino was feeling like a high-school sophomore again. In his teenage years, he had always disguised his true feelings with humor—but that had stopped so long ago that he couldn’t even remember the feeling of not being in control. Back then, he had been shy around girls to the point of having never gone to a school dance to meet them. He was much better one-on-one with people, especially with girls, and he did pretty well in that department.

Two things always troubled Gino, his lack of patience and ill temper around other people. He had never possessed a knack for small talk which women seem to enjoy. As a result, he had had a string of girlfriends who had complained about his inability or, more accurately, his lack of desire, to listen to them. Basically, he became very bored very fast and was too pragmatic to be overly romantic. If acting romantically were going to get Gino laid, then he would put in an extraordinary amount of time, effort, and money. After that, it was not in his nature to put effort into his relationships. Getting close to Gino was a very difficult task to achieve.

The wedding invitation had been hand-delivered in a golden envelope on a gold tray to Gino’s Fort Lee, New Jersey apartment by a stern-faced, tuxedoed soldier of the Miceli family. The envelope, calligraphic in glimmering gold, flaked ink, bore the inscription, Mr. Luigino Ranno and Guest. This was the first and guest invitation Gino had received since having separated from his wife Ellen after 29 years of marriage. He felt that sad,