Rude Boy USA (12 page)

After that phone call, John got up and decided to venture out and pay Bunny a visit at her apartment. It was after one in the morning when he arrived. He buzzed her door, but she was not there. He went over to a pay phone to ring her apartment. No answer. Frustrated, he went to a bar that was still open. He had never been to this place before. He chatted with a leggy brunette who was smoking at the bar. John took her back to his place, and they had sex. He promised to call her back, but by the morning, he didn’t even remember her name.

Bernie lived in Greenwich Village on West Tenth Street. The block was full of townhouses whose construction dated back to the 1920s. The area was considered well-to-do, as celebrities and well-known socialites and politicians lived there. The Weathermen Underground Organization’s New York sector on West Eleventh Street was a block
away. Gina’s parents owned the building it occupied but rarely spent much time in it, as they also had property on the West Coast. While they were away, they left Gina in charge of watching the property. Her parents had no idea of the activities that were happening there.

Bernie had first met Gina when she’d passed him on the sidewalk. She was frantically moving along when he stopped her in her tracks. She was exquisite to him and young. Bernie was not into women his age. They reminded him of his pushy grandparents. He had a high-powered, active lifestyle, and he needed someone who was not interested in commitment, who was useful to him, and who could keep up. Gina fit the bill. Bernie was so smitten with her willingness to please him with her skill in fellatio that he nicknamed her Red, because of his view of the top of her head as well as her crotch area. He was also impressed with her connections and her political passions.

He visited her building often to keep up on the Underground’s latest plans, lend support, and give them information. He would tell them about the activities of the local police departments, who kept a watchful eye on the collective at the advice of the FBI. Bernie was careful not to be seen going in and out of the premises so that he would not be on anyone’s radar. He did not know whether anyone was watching who was entering and leaving the townhouse. Bernie made deals with the people who were posted there. If he needed firearms or bombs, they would make them for him in exchange for financial assistance. This kept the
Weathermen Underground going, and they became a weapons source for Bernie.

Bernie developed feelings for Gina because she was the one who became the most aware of his personal problems, such as his medical issues, which would occasionally show themselves while he was in her company and when they had sex. Bernie had trouble breathing and discomfort at times, which he dismissed because of his age, his present activities with Gina, and his duties at the company. He forgot these issues once he took an aspirin for the pain and it went away. He would often turn his attention to her instead, especially when things became tense in her involvement in the underground.

One evening while they were lying in his bed after sex, they were watching the news. A sound bite of Richard Nixon denouncing the riots and protests flashed across the television. Nixon called the rogue groups thugs and hoodlums. Bernie looked at Gina, who stared at the television with disgust. “What do you think of that?” he asked her.

“We are revolutionaries. We are ready to fight and overthrow anyone in government who continues to oppress those who are not white or male. Everyone built this country,” Gina said. “We are organizing white kids to fight with us, fight on the side of the oppressed, or they can continue to be the oppressors. We will go after them too. Revolution is imminent; world revolution is imminent. Fascism needs to end now. We have to accept that the status quo will not remain for much longer.”

“Aren’t you afraid of what may happen to you? Everyone is on your ass because of the rioting on campuses, and they will have no reservations about taking all of you out to make themselves look good. Did you see what Nixon just called you? They are calling you communists. He is riling the public,” Bernie responded.

“Fuck Nixon, fuck pigs and fuck those who are complacent. If you do nothing while all of this injustice is happening, then you are part of the problem. It’s a risk I am willing to take,” she said.

“I understand your fight, but I worry about you. My concern is you,” Bernie said.

“You shouldn’t. We’re soldiers. I’m a soldier just like you are. You were sent to an unjust war where many innocents lost their lives, just like our brothers are out there fighting an unjust war right now. Our black brothers and sisters are being beat down in streets as we speak. Brother Fred Hampton was gunned down in his bed in Chicago because he wanted equal rights for everyone and they shot him down like a dog. He was only twenty-one years old. That could be any one of us. That could be you just because they don’t like how you operate. They hate that we are aligned with the Black Panthers. They don’t want unity between races and nations. United States imperialism has to go,” she added.

“I support you; I am one of you. All I am saying is to be careful,” Bernie told her.

“Like I said, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m all right. You’re worried about me, and I am worried about you
and everyone else. You know what they do to us, people like you and me? They break into our apartments and ransack them. They attack us and attempt to choke us and stuff cloths in our mouths to shut us up. They record our phone calls and take photos of us for simply walking down the street. That is a police state, a state run by pigs. They do that to you; you already know what it is like,” Gina said to Bernie.

“If you go to jail, I promise I will bail you out,” Bernie responded. “You can jail a revolutionary, but you can’t jail a revolution.”

On the morning of March 6, it was crisp and cold outside. It began as a typical day in New York and at the Chimera offices. Chimera had a visitor come in. Fred Silver, a member of the Weather Underground, arrived to pick up a cash payment in exchange for some ammunition and the order of a bomb, which Bernie requested as a favor for his Atlantic City connection Luci Graziani. Graziani was having issues with some of the Philadelphia families because of his involvement with the Atlantic City casino developments. They felt that he was side negotiating with the unions. Word had got out that he was working with New York families, but they did not have all of the details as to whom exactly he was working with. This resulted in harassment of Graziani and some threats to his life. Graziani wanted to send a message back to them, and he asked Bernie to provide firepower to him. In exchange for the payment, Bernie arranged for the Underground to have their Philadelphia sector send an explosive message to the Donati Family. Bernie agreed to the
deal and had Gina make the arrangements. She would travel to Philadelphia. These monetary exchanges, as well as donations from secret outside sources, enabled the Underground to operate and cover expenses for materials and daily living.

As the deal was being completed in the Chimera offices, the other members of the Underground in the Greenwich building were preparing their packages. They were packing bombs with roofing nails and dynamite. This time they wanted to use explosives that were more powerful and sophisticated than previous ones they had assembled. These new explosives were for a larger bombing campaign on college campuses and government buildings. Before, other members and Gina had been known for their skill in Molotov cocktails, which they used to bomb government buildings and target officials.

Returning from his meeting with Bernie, Fred Silver made it to the front steps of the townhouse just before it suddenly exploded into a wall of fire. Gina and her bomb-making partner were still inside the basement. The four-story building collapsed, and the bricks and rubble crushed Fred Silver to death in an instant. The bodies of Gina and her partner were charred and shredded into hundreds of pieces. Neither Bernie nor anyone else knew that she was in the building until much later when he could not get in contact with her to follow up on the deal for Graziani. She was not supposed to be in town.

Chapter 6

B
ernie took some time off to process and mourn the sudden death of Gina as well as to get some needed rest. He became mentally and physically tired. Gina was positively identified weeks later by her fingerprints, which were the only verifiable part of her left at the gory scene. Bernie had witnessed a lot of death in his time, but nothing had ever jolted him like this. He had developed feelings for Gina, and the stress of it took a toll on his health. Time went by, and he began to have more pain and anxiety from the pressure of the situation. Despite the state of affairs, work and life could not stop. He knew he needed to make changes quickly. Her parents did not know of their relationship, but many of her friends knew. He attended her services to pay his respects to her. There was nothing but a very small urn with containing the ash of what was left
of her remains and a photo of her, surrounded by flowers. Her parents were devastated to find out the extent of her involvement in the terrorist organization, and they pleaded for the Underground to end their operation so that others would not get hurt.

Gina’s death meant that Bernie no longer had a direct connection to a weapons source, and the package for Graziani was never delivered. Bernie had to scramble to find a suitable alternative quickly. This kept the tensions between Graziani and the Philadelphia families from boiling over to his side. The pending projects and rulings on the development of Atlantic City casinos were causing families in both regions to compete fiercely for power over the unions. The conflicts were turning deadly in some cases. Bernie and Graziani had to establish new relationships quickly. It was only a matter of time before their partnership would be exposed. The Ambrosino family was also cutting deals to get in on the action, and suspicions about Bernie began to emerge from them.

In a matter of weeks after the explosion that killed Gina and her friends, President Nixon declared extended bombing from American and Vietnamese in Cambodia. This caused the nation to explode. The Weathermen and their branch groups led the way to nationwide campus strikes, in which students walked out in protest and rioted. Bernie sat and watched the developments and wondered if what they were going through was worth it. Was it worth Gina and others who were in the fight, their lives? Soon after,
the protests started again. During the riots at Kent State and Jackson State College, the police began to retaliate and kill students.

It was the sixth of April, Celia’s birthday. John, Celia, Ben, and Jerome were looking after the office. John decided a few days before to surprise her with a cake and a gift in the office as a sign of appreciation. He wanted her to feel good and to see him in a good light. It was a way to lift both of their spirits. He had never done anything like this before, not even for Edina. He went out and took the time to pick the right cake and design and the right gift for her, a special item that he thought she would enjoy and that she did not already own, something that would have her think of him every time she looked at it. He saw a mink fur jacket in a store window. He focused on it and thought that she would look beautiful wearing it out. He walked in and bought the jacket. He left the box with a big, red ribbon on her desk to surprise her. When Celia arrived at work and saw the box, she picked it up and shook it. She did not hear any unpleasant noises, and the box was not heavy, so she assumed it was safe. She opened it and gasped. It was beautiful. She took it out of the box and put it on. It fit perfectly. It was the most expensive item she’d ever held in her hands. There was a white card in the box, and she opened it and read it.