I’d known about the fire but was too young when it happened to remember it. I realized he was referring to the house fire that had prompted our family to move away from Miami in the early ’50s. “Like that little house in Miami,” he said. Unprompted, he said that if there ever came a time I couldn’t make the mortgage payment, I could “put it in the sky.” That night at Newport’s, he asked me about the house I’d recently bought in Oak Cliff. He said I could take from the box as needed, but he told me not to “hit it too hard.” He showed me roughly $30,000 in cash, the most money I’d ever seen in one place. It was exciting because there was a real danger, more than I realized for most of my life.Ī few weeks before we met at Newport’s, he’d taken me to a bank and had me open a safe deposit box we could share. He talked about Jack Ruby, how some said he was a Mafioso, too, how Ruby had “really wanted to be seen as a tough guy.”īeing around Doc felt like being in a closed space with a circus tiger. He described the Mafia narrative as an overblown fairy tale, something in his tone suggesting that he’d had experience with the real deal. I’d gone to high school with members of the family. From there, he got to talking about the Dallas Campisi family, Italian restaurateurs who had a reputation for being in the Mafia. That night, we discussed his most recent bust for a three-card monte scam he pulled in Memphis before twice jumping bail. I’d always known he was a misanthrope, someone who didn’t have much regard for the law, but now he was getting specific. He’d begun to open up a little about his own work, a process he’d begun with dozens of letters he’d written to me during his most recent time with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, first in USP Atlanta and then FCI El Reno, in Oklahoma. I was a struggling 33-year-old psychotherapist trying to get a break in my field. But long before I realized my father’s connection to the JFK assassination, I was just happy to have him back in my life. His life as a gangster, I’d learn later, brought him into the orbit of criminal organizations around the country, including Jack Ruby’s circle in Dallas. He’d been in and out of my life since I was a boy, but when I was in my early 30s, Doc and I reconnected. His name was James Dolan, same as mine, but everyone called him Doc. ![]() ![]() We raised our glasses to toast my father’s freedom. The air was perfumed with the scent of mesquite-grilled swordfish. It was a busy Friday night, and cheerful voices bounced off the brick walls of the restaurant. His sports coat hung loose on him, and his red-blond hair had thinned. A former light heavyweight boxer, my dad was still physically imposing, even at 70 years old, but he was slimmer after his most recent stint inside. We were at Newport’s, in the West End, drinking Anchor Steam beers, and the mood was one of celebration. It turned out to be the last time I ever saw him alive. My dad had gotten out of prison, and, for the first time in years, we were sitting down to dinner.
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