1963 Encounter with Lower‑Echelon Mafioso Over a Woman

was mildly disappointed, but what follows are half a dozen of my really dangerous dumb decisions that continue to make me humble. 1. Early one morning in 1963, at my tiny apartment on the Lower East Side of New York (now the East Village), | was in bed with a young woman | had met at a party, when the phone rang. It was her boyfriend, a lower-echelon Mafioso. He asked if | knew where she was. | told him no, even as she was cuddling next to me. He said he would check his source and call me right back. A few minutes later, he did. “You were seen with her last night. You spent the night with her. She didn't come home last night. You punk! He said that he was coming to my office a few blocks away—-which is where he thought he was calling me--to talk about it. | told her she'd better leave, and | rushed to the office, but he was already waiting outside the “Mad building” [where MAD magazine was published], peering through the locked outside door into the lobby, expecting the elevator door to open and me to step out and open the door for him. Instead he saw me on the sidewalk coming toward him. “What are you doing out here?” he said. “Well, | came out just a minute ago, but you weren't here.” “| was calling you up because you didn't come out.” HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015441