B. wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 7:11 pm
- I've read about a lot of Families and very little phases me, but the Chicago group comes across more ominous and genuinely terrifying than any other. It's like they had a bunch of Greg Scarpas who never ratted. The way Nick Calabrese described his induction,
you get the feeling those same guys in the room wouldn't hesitate to kill him right then and there for wincing when they pinched his finger . Just look at the Spilotro brothers murder -- they lured them there on formal grounds and the new generation of leaders wanted to fucking be there to participate in the horrific and primal "unmaking" of Spilotro. Then they killed the guy who disposed of the bodies when they got found. Frank Calabrese told his brother he was sad he wasn't included in the murders. It's like the Spilotro murder was a sacred ritual unto itself that tells us more about the organization's psychology than an actual making ceremony.
Spilotro trying to say a prayer too -- it's like he knew he was dealing with Satan in the flesh. This group didn't become that way overnight.
Funny that you said this, as Frank Sr claimed that during the ceremony they let the paper burn down to the skin of the initiate's palm. No tossing it back and forth in the hands and then dropping it to the floor. Apparently small detail, but for me highly evocative of the ethos of the family. The ceremony wasn't simply a purely symbolic act of rebirth, but also a very real, flesh and blood test of the initiate as rite of passage. Presumably, they weren't going to be sponsoring guys who were going to flinch, but letting the card burn down to your skin while watching your reaction instills in the initiate in a visceral way what is now expected of him and what will happen if he fails. Another seemingly minor idiosyncrasy to note is that neither Frank nor Nick Calabrese mentioned anything about them "locking in" or joining hands during the ceremony. Indeed, each initiate was inducted individually. This wasn't done for secrecy or operational security purposes, as the initiates were all present together in the waiting room. But rather than inducting them in a group, they are instead brought in by Al Tornabene one-by-one before the rappresentante and capos of the family to face them as a lone individual. I see it as a "born alone, die alone" message, as the initiate is tested and inducted before the body of men who will be the ones to order his execution if he errs. Nick C later stated that he thought over the years of what would've happened to him if he had turned down LaPietra's "offer" when notified that they were being sponsored for membership, for good reason I think. Not like these guys were going to be like "Hey, you've been selected to be part of a tiny number of men to offer your blood to our ominous Brotherhood, to belong to us until death. Oh, you don't wanna do it? No prob, we wish you all the best in your future endeavors". They would've dropped them right there in Angelo's basement.
Frank to Frank Jr:
“Holy pictures. And they look at you to see if you’d budge, while the pictures are burning. And they, and they wait till they’re getting down to the skin” [...] “They’re watching you.”
[...]
“I didn’t want it. I would be strapped down and if I wanted to do something else, I couldn’t” [...] "You know what I regret more than anything? Burning the holy pictures in my hand. It bothers me.”
I see the 1983 ceremony as metaphor and metonym of the family itself, a window into its dark soul. This was an organization born and nourished through a century of blood and fire; as B. states, it didn't get this way overnight. Totally unsurprising that when we finally got a look at how Chicago brought in new "friends", it comes across as the most sinister and ominous induction ceremony that I'm aware of. Another hint of the seriousness of Chicago's making ceremony is the claim that Cerone was made in 1935 in a church in River Forest. Presumably, in 1935, they could've elected to hold his initiation at any number of other locations, so if it did happen this way there must've been a reason.
As a final observation on how seriously Chicago took these things, Nick C testified that he had no idea what would happen at the ceremony after LaPietra notified him that he was to be made. This was an associate who had been raised in an old Outfit neighborhood, who had reached the level of trust and respect where he was being sponsored for membership, and had apparently never heard anything about what that actually entailed. All the more reason to approach older accounts regarding Chicago's ceremony (or lack thereof) with healthy skepticism. For example, while we know that DeRose stated that the initiation involved a banquet behind closed doors where the initiate was administered an oath, we can't simply take that at face value as evidence that this was
all that occurred during this function. This is just what DeRose was either aware of or willing to share with his handler. That DeRose even knew that much about it is, I think, remarkable enough, and I don't think it's incidental that people thought he was Italian.
(from a comment on Nick C's testimony thread:
viewtopic.php?p=218814#p218814)
B. wrote: ↑Mon Jan 31, 2022 4:56 pm
One thing that seems consistent between the 1956 and 1983 ceremonies is Chicago preferred having a captain serve as sponsor. A lot more of a member's identity revolved around his captain and the crew he was made into even though there were exceptions. In NYC you don't see as much of that, where captains can sponsor guys but it's not the norm and it's not uncommon at all for him to be moved around sometimes immediately. Chicago really wanted captains to take responsibility for the members under them.
B. wrote:
It's like the Spilotro murder was a sacred ritual unto itself that tells us more about the organization's psychology than an actual making ceremony.
This is something I've been mulling over in the context of Accardo and Giancana's relationship.
While not apparently his sponsor, it may very well have been the case that Giancana was a soldier direct with Accardo during the latter's tenure as rappresentante. As such, Accardo may have had a very personal sense of responsibility towards Mooney given their long personal association; the fact that they were both paesani with roots in Castelvetrano I would imagine also formed part of the context for their relationship (whether this mattered at all in organizational terms, no way these two weren't well-aware of it). All of this makes the possibility (and I do think it is fully possible) that Accardo was the one that actually shot Giancana all the more ominous. Although Chicago killed many, many people, and not infrequently in spectacular and gruesome fashion, I still find the Spilotro and Giancana murders among the most disturbing. As B. observed, with the Spilotros it took the form of a malevolent ritual, while with Giancana it wasn't some guy shot in the street or found in an alley as "trunk music". It may very well have been Mooney being killed by his old boss, friend, and paesan' in his own home, two old
cumpari with salsiccie and beans sizzling on a skillet in the background.