The First Two Times my World Changed - Premonitions and Learning about the Hits - Not Elvis

I had a pleasant childhood. I didn't see my father, Montgomery Muttnick, too often. I knew in the mornings he went to work on Madison Avenue. My avenue, as I thought it was named for me. Of course, I later learned it was vice versa, but till the age of four I thought myself famous. Early on in grade school, I learned that most dads were home by 6 PM. Mine rarely was. When I asked Mom where Dad was, she shrugged her shoulders. "It's not a woman's or child's business to know such things. Mind your business. That's how you get on in this world." She said and usually walked away immediately.
Once she said. "Don't question how he provides. You live nice. so no questions." Her tone did not allow for any further discussion.
Once with a cruel smile she said, "Persistent curiosity eliminated the cat. Don't be too nosy."
By age six, I started having those dreams. Once I saw Mrs. Nelson, the nice lady who lived down the hall, in my dream. She was in a bed, in a large room with plenty of other people in loose gowns. Ladies with white hats and white dresses hurried from bed to bed, helping those who weren't asleep. Mrs. Nelson was asleep, and had plastic tubes on her arms and into her nose. It was really quite scary. A big machine was pumping every few seconds with a gush of air. By the end of the dream, Dr. Nachman pulled the sheet over her head, and walked away.
I didn't know what this meant, but it scared me. I had the dream several nights in a row. On a Friday, I rang Mrs. Nelson's doorbell, just to see if she were home. She answered, but looked quite normal. Everything appeared normal and all right. Something inside me without speaking, said it was not. The dream said she was going to the hospital.
I had the dream all the next week too.
On a Monday two weeks later, I heard Mrs. Nelson was taken to the hospital. She had been struck by a Buick walking to the store. "She was very sick," my mother told me, but Dr. Nachman was a good surgeon. Two days later she died.
That was the first time I realized, I had seen the future in my dreams. I didn't want to sleep for the next several weeks, but I could not help myself. I didn't want to know the future. It was too scary.
The next dream I remember was of a man, who in the dream was called "Stumpy." Stumpy was in an alley and it was dark. He didn't want to be there. I could tell. Another man, who's voice sounded familiar, said. "Lucky don't like when you skim. Where is the moolah?"
Stumpy stepped forward and handed the man in the shadows a bunch of money. That man took it with his right hand because the other was holding something dark. As Stumpy stepped back from the shadow with his hands up, Stumpy said, "Lucky got his money, let me go. Please Monte."
Two loud bangs made Stumpy jump and buck backward. He fell and blood was coming out of his stomach. He didn't move. The way the gun man walked off looked familiar too. But I didn't make the connection. Maybe I was too scared, or maybe I refused to think straight.
I saw this dream for one month before I read in the papers, Mel "Stumpy" Waxman, a runner for Lucky Luciano was found dead of bullet wounds in an alley off Madison Avenue.
Only 10 years-old, I still didn't put it together. Even after my mother told me I was old enough to know that Dad earned extra money performing hits. I thought he sang like Elvis Presley at Bar Mitzvahs and such. That was why he was never home. He did sing opera along with our old Victrola record player.
I had a dream about my pet dog Roy. He died while I was at school. The dream kept playing. One day when I came home from school, my mother's face told me Roy was dead. We buried him under the clothes line between the brownstones. It was the only dirt in the neighborhood.
One of my classmates, a guy whose father ran numbers in the neighborhood, asked me, "Heard you Pops whacked your dog?"
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Your dog's dead, right?"
I just nodded. "So?"
"Did your Dad, TheWidowMaker, do the hit?'
I couldn't speak. That's how I found out my father was a hit man for Lucky Luciano.
I was twelve, but I swore that the first opportunity I got, I would leave our house and make it on my own. Something inside me knew it was wrong to do what my father did. I needed to separate from him and his reputation.
Can you imagine a twelve year-old planning to live on his own and leave his family?
It did not happen until I was 18 left for college. I enlisted in ROTC. I knew I could become a doctor and pay back what I Dad had deal out. I could go the Berry Plan, and would not need his money.
I would balance the hurt my father caused, and do it without his help.
I never returned to the house in which I grew up.
My father learned what I did, he banished me from talking to my mother.
My father made me a dead man to my family.
But I survived. I am here to tell you the story.

-- Madison Muttnick M.D. 

Karmic Knight grade one 

The youth of Madison Muttnick - future Karmic Knight

Madison Muttnick (That's me.) was born to Gertrude and Montgomery (aka TheWidowMaker) Muttnick in Brooklyn New York after the Second World War. I believed mom popped me out at Manhattan Lying In Hospital. It became the world's largest Methadone Clinic for awhile thereafter, quite appropriate.
As to lying, in or out, my father had a real talent. Although I was Gertrude's only child, I am not sure if I am Monte's only one. I am quite sure there are other Mutt's running around this earthly sphere with the Muttnick brow and a nose that is our family's signature.
My father ran a Pony Parlor and Book Joint for Lucky Luciano on Madison Avenue. Monte selected my first name because of the address of his business. Gerty accepted it as she always did. She was a very forgiving lady, of necessity. In that time, off track betting was illegal, and by betting you supported the Mafia not the state or city government.
Every one had his bookie. Whether he worked from a shoe shine stand at Penn Station, or sat in the back of the local tavern smoking his cigar or had a whole room or two dedicated to betting the horses - the forerunner to race books in A.C. and Vegas, these gentlemen allowed you to play the numbers too. Everyone was protected by one of the five families, because if they weren't they went out of business faster than a Stakes quality nag can breeze two furlongs.
Bookies were in high demand at that time. Everyone chased the dream of getting rich in the early fifties, and while the government made a show of shutting down some parlors. Usually the ones owned by Lucky competitors. It had not started to openly compete with the bookies by instituting a universe of lotteries. Who knew that the Mob and Big Brother was competitive siblings? The lotteries going head to head with the numbers.
Two differences between legal and illegal numbers play, win a lottery you get to pay income tax. Never paid any taxes on winnings paid by the Boys. The government is smart enough to double dip in your pocket. They get you when you play and when you win, if you do. Two, hit the lottery, no matter how large the amount, and you get paid off. The government is not going to leave the neighborhood in the middle of the night to avoid your big score. Hell the government is the neighborhood, and the bigger the score the larger the tax on it. They are praying for a single winner to hit a large number, because they are everyone's constant partner in any winnings.

Back to Monte, who moonlighted as an enforcer/hitman.
Since many of the bookies operated on credit and trust?, a player could dig himself a hole (deep debt, can you spell bankruptcy?) and his markers could be called anytime. If the loser had assets, sometimes they were signed over in partnership to Lucky (helped him launder money) until the debt was paid off. The interest rates on the loans were such that once you owed money, you needed to hit the number big to break even with your partner. The chances of you reclaiming your property and canceling your debt were so small that you would need an electron microscope to locate them. Not a good thing.

But some players were particularly unlucky. They didn't have assets to sign over, and their debts became a life threatening event. They needed to find money quickly or ... and borrowing from a loan shark was not available to them, as the word went out that they were in debt to a pre-mortem level. Friends tended to avoid them so as not to get caught in the path of a stray slug. The loser might as well have lived on the moon for all the human interaction he get in his neighborhood.
One time at home, Monte joked that someone's debt level had reached the threshold of Bubonic Plague. I was five and didn't realize what he meant until I reached Medical school. Bubonic Plague was uniformly deadly. Apparently my father, TheWidowMaker, was a symptomless carrier, but he did infect many others. The police and the FBI never proved he was the source, although they examined him and inspected his life and tried him several times. He never spent a day in prison.    
Sometimes, if the player was lucky he only got roughed up, as a display to others. Being a visual presentation to the community, the loser survived. Sometimes, and occasionally but rarely, the loser became a demonstration. Demonstrations were found in public places with a bullet hole behind the ear, or they were never found, but often discussed as among the missing, usually when my pop discussed such people it was to educate other losers. It was a solemn event. He would removed his hat and don a very serious face out of respect for the missing. The few times I heard the speech, the listener turn absolutely pale. I guess they were worried about catching the same disease.
That was my childhood and I was oblivious to my father's work until I was almost a teenager. To me, when he was home, he was just pop, not like the report of a gun, like in dad.
That all changed in middle school.

- Madison Muttnick M.D.

Karmic Knight grade one