Never before in the annals of crime in the City of Fall River has one incident so encapsulated the fear, the dread, the pain and utter hopelessness of a community caught in the cross-hairs of grinding despair than by what occurred on the night of June 18, 2009. On that unforgettable evening the most precious resource in the life of this community was snuffed out by a bomb planted in the basement of the Oriental Chow Mein Co., completely destroying the primary food staple of an entire region.
More than that, it was the end of a way of life for literally tens of dozens of people here in the heart of Spindle City, and more than 363 heartbroken devotees of the famous, dangerous and addictive “Chow Mein Sammich” (CMS). The war that broke out between controlling criminal interests in Fall River and their hated rivals for Chow Mein Noodle supremacy in New York City was driven by a combination of gluttonous greed, reckless ambition and a hunger for raw power not seen nationally since the waning days of the questionable administration of Fall River Mayor Robert "Bobby Fat Dragon" Correia.
THE BEGINNING
The Chow Mein Sammich (hereinafter to be referred by its initials, CMS) was created by returning Korean War veterans as a cheap replacement for the “Creamed Chipped Beef on Toast” staple diet they trained on during the early 1950’s. It was at the 1951 Fourth of July softball game in Seoul, South Korea when some GI’s returning from the front lines had a burnin’ yearnin’ for the tasty, creamy treat. But breakfast at the mess halls was long since over, and all that was left at the cookout were some dry, crispy Chinese noodles, hamburger buns and watered down pork roast gravy left over from the Officer’s lunch mess. Staff Sergeant Arthur Cabral from Dighton, MA, after having consumed 23 Budweiser’s, grabbed a hamburger bun, opened it, slammed a handful of crispy noodles on the bottom, poured a generous ladle full of the pork gravy over it and, with the hamburger bun top firmly in place as a cover, pushed the wet, dripping concoction deep into his mouth. A sandwich, and fiendish vice, had been born. “We found that the crispy noodles would sop up everything…gravy, spittle, beers, rubbing alcohol, even crankcase oil in a pinch…..allowing us to absorb more and more of whatever “good” stuff we wanted” Cabral would say years later. “And it sure beat the snot out of kimchee, that’s for sure!”
With the end of the Korean conflict returning GIs tried to adjust to life without their most vital food, creamed chipped beef on toast. As U.S. meal makers labored mightily, there was no resurrecting the combination of U.S. military indifferent food preparers, industrial sized portions, scared crap-less eaters being screamed at by over zealous Drill Instructors, and the growing number of hang-over ridden GIs returning to duty after nights off base to recreate the young warriors’ favorite food. But there were literally tons of chow mein noodles and hamburger buns. And just like their forefathers in the old west almost a century earlier they made their way to Chinatown, not for opium dens, but for the quick, cheap high offered by the new deadly desire in town, the CMS.
The CMS’s ingredients were mass produced, prepared by indifferent, oft times, illegal workers in dirty, dingy kitchens with supervisors that continuously yelled in Cantonese or Mandarin at the top of their lungs, and fed an ever increasing numbers to drunken clients at 2 and 3 AM after the clubs closed and sent their denizens to terrorize the streets of every urban area in the US, but, in particular, Fall River and New York City. Indeed, these were the perfect incubator of conditions to start both a literal feeding frenzy and a burgeoning, financially lucrative underground economy. This would draw the attention of organized crime lords in both communities. And a war was born.
THE APPLE
The Gambino crime family in NYC was first drawn into the chow mein noodle business by the huge profits the noodle trade would provide. “It was easy to produce, hard to trace, highly addictive to people of questionable intelligence and little taste , so naturally it was a ready made market for the people in the immediate 5 Borough area”, said Philly “The Steak” LaChesia, retired Gambino under-boss and anonymous food critic for Zagats. “We made millions….of sammachis, or sammies, as we call them in The City. We knew we made it when we started to carry the sammies at World Famous Nathan’s on Coney Island, instead of those tired, old tube steaks. WE were about to replace the dogs with sammies for the nationally televised Fourth of July eating contest until all this mess started with those yokels in Fall River and their, whatyoumacallhim, little Bobby Fatass the Gecko, or whatevah”.
But national expansion of business was not the only issue between the two rival cities. NYC used New York style chow mein, which claimed a white appearing “gravy”. Fall River, on the other hand, utilized a local variant of chow mein, unknown elsewhere in the continental United States, which was a brown based gravy. “I mean, you want a beeuuutiful white gravy, like a white clam sauce thing, not something that looks like diarrhea on a freakin’ bun....what kind of soul-less gavone’ would eat such a thing?!!” asked LaChesia, incredulous at the idea.. He continued “It wasn’t just a business thing, it was about pride!” Now it wasn’t just a war, it would be an organized crime jihad.
WE’LL TRY
Just north of NYC lay the CMS’s most loyal consumers, located a short ferry boat ride from NYC “back in the day” as the locals enjoy saying, even when out of context and inappropriate. But that was Fall River in a nutshell, just a short ride from anywhere, out of context and completely inappropriate. What else could you say about a corrupt old seafaring New England city that went by the motto “We’ll Try” It was an inside joke to those who lived within its borders. “It means, “Hey, we’ll try to live widouht youze people not from heah”, as stated many times by a local talk radio show host named Luke Urban, aka “The Hurricane”, a known enforcer for the local entry in the crime syndicate business, the Karam Boys.
The Karam Boys specialized in influence peddling and government contract rigging, and the property development needed to launder their ill gotten gains. To accomplish this they simply did something that was possible only in a city like Fall River - they bought the politicians, all of them.
This scheme worked like a charm. After a series of figurehead mayors at City Hall, the Karams decided to crown a loyal associate named Robert Correia as their next Mayor. After the perfunctory rigged election, Correia, nicknamed “Bobby Fat Dragon” (BFD) for his love of CMS’, which he ordered a whopping 6(six) at a time, took over day to day operations in Fall River. He also fed these sammachis to his pet Komodo dragon, which grew almost as portly as he from the tasteless, calorie laden, sloppy and crunchy food. But as in NYC, the illicit trade in chow mein noodles far outstripped the profits from all other criminal endeavors combined. So BFD decided to take steps to protect the cash cow. BFD set up front businesses to cover production (Oriental Chow Mein Co.) and distribution (Mee Sum restaurant) in Fall River.
The secret of the “brown” in the brown sauce used for Fall River’s signature chow mein sammachis was known only to the highest ranking members of the Karam syndicate, and carried with it a death penalty for anyone revealing it to a soul. “Hey, it didn’t surprise me when we found out. After all, we used the chow mein noodles to sop up chunks of dried lube oil off the motor pool’s garage cement floors. When we found out the color came from the rust, and who knows what else, in the decrepit water system and pipes in Fall River, caused primarily by storm water run-off, I was not surprised…only when they said the meat and onions in the sauce were from the sewers too!” stated a chuckling Arthur Cabral. “Glad as hell I never ate the stuff after Korea!” Cabral added. “But those poor dumb bastards in Fall River were just about the type to swallow anything that BFD and the Karams fed them. Not bad folk, just plain lazy and stupid, I ‘spose.”
“FRANKIE BAGS” TAKES FLIGHT
Under normal circumstances, crime syndicates across the nation try to peacefully work out differences between each other when an issue arises, especially where a common money interest is involved. In this case, things proceeded as usual.
The Gambinos let the Karams know that, because they were there first, with the most (money, power, soldiers), and had a superior product (they felt) a tribute would have to be received, each week, to keep the peace, and money, flowing for both parties. The cowering Karams agreed. A sum of $9,999.00 each week (in order to avoid IRS complications) had to be paid, in person, to the Gambinos in NYC. Miss one payment, the Karams were warned, and there would be hell to pay.
BFD picked a trusted City Hall staff lawyer, one Arthur Frank, aka Frankie Bags, to act as go between. He told Frankie Bags “Hey, I can’t do this myself, but I got guys like you who can”. This bagman line of work was one that Frank routinely performed for BFD, and, on certain occasions, for the Karams themselves. Frankie Bags was to take some muscle with him to NYC, so BFD made sure to send the loudmouthed and obnoxious “Hurricane” with him each trip. (BFD once said of The Hurricane “He don’t need a piece, he can run his gums and bore a person “ta det” “)
Upon arrival each Friday afternoon in NYC, Frankie Bags would meet with his contact among the Gambinos, and the Gambino soldiers would baby sit The Hurricane until sometime early in the evening, upon which a return trip to Fall River was taken. Because a drop off of cash takes only a few minutes, the Gambinos arranged “entertainment” for their cash carrying guest, introducing Frank to a just turned 18 year old Hispanic hooker named “Lola”. Frank, notoriously cheap, squeezed every second possible out of his time with Lola. Eventually, the lonely Franks developed feelings for the young trollop. And this would be his, BFD’s and the Karam’s eventual undoing.
On Friday afternoon, June 5, Frank unloaded his feelings to Lola. He wanted to run away with her. He had money, he said. They could make a run for it back to her country, and make a go of it. She replied “like, sure, ok, yeah, why not, I’m not doin’ nutthin’ ”. With that, a plan had been hatched, a decision had been made.
The next Friday, June 12, Frank and The Hurricane landed in NYC, with Frank telling Hurricane, for what seemed like the fiftieth time, to “shut the F up!” Once he dropped the Hurricane with his sitters, Frank excused himself to “run to the drug store to get his suppositories” and that he would be right back. Meeting Lola at a pre-arranged location Frank and the bag containing $9,999 left for a flight to Peru. Once there, they were met by members of Lola’s family. Lola went back to live with her mother. Frank was taken to the Andes Mountains and ransomed for one million dollars by the left wing insurgent group named “PENDEJOS - NO MAS”. He has never been heard from again.
The Hurricane drank his usual fill and angered his sitters with stories of his athletic exploits, especially his brief stint at a Boston area college. Upon hearing that Frank had taken off with the tribute and one of their big earning hookers, five Gambino soldiers dragged the plastered Hurricane down the street to O’Malley’s Irish Pub, and tossed him through its plate glass window. THEN, they hurt him. He was released from Bellevue Hospital, and has not been heard from since.
JIHAD
It took little time for the Gambino’s to take action against BFD. And once the Karams heard from BFD that the Hurricane was in Bellevue and Frank had taken off to Peru with the tribute, the entire Karam clan sold off their properties to Leo ”Pop Tarts” Pelletier and his partner Gary “The Pimp” Lund for five cents on the dollar. They fled, like chickens, for their lives and back to their native Lebanon.
Immediately a call went out to the Gambino’s Chinese associate, Bruce “Big” Wang. With heritage half Chinese and half Italian, Wang was a former Navy Seal gone very, very bad. Trained in demolition, all forms of martial arts, small and large arms, even helicopter flight and maintenance, he was a one man wrecking crew. His nickname was “Big” because he loved big explosions.
In order to escape detection, Wang flew his personal chopper from NYC to Nantucket. He then swam, at night, from the island to Little Compton, Rhode Island. After spending one night in the woods, Wang, with his backpack full of nasty surprises, hiked to Fall River. On the night of June 18, Wang gained entrance to the Oriental Chow Mein Co. building by using a paper clip to pick the lock on the front door. There was no alarm system. Because the City had just laid off police officers by the dozens, there were no police patrols to worry about. Using the 50 pounds of plastic explosives from his backpack of goodies, Wang set the timer made from a Mickey Mouse wristwatch taken from The Hurricane by his sister, a nurse at Bellevue. Wang sat and drank a cup of coffee at a nearby Dunkin Donuts when he heard his trademark “BIG” explosion rock the very foundation of life in Fall River. He laughed out loud. And with one explosion, the Jihad between Fall River and NYC was over.
As was its sorry modern history, Fall River would have to “Try” yet again.
EPILOGUE
BFD was found the next day half eaten, from the head down, by his pet Komodo Dragon, who also died, from overeating, a first in history for Komodo Dragons. ‘Big” Wang had made a house call. He had tied BFD up with cooking twine (apparently, hogtied) and covered him in New York style chow mein, but sprinkled generously with Fall River made Chinese noodles. BFD never had a chance. Some say the “feast” was filmed by Big Wang for the enjoyment of his employers. Others say he filmed it for his own viewing. In any event, it was a sendoff fit for the likes of the corpulent, ambitious and generally evil ex-Mayor of Fall River. No more fun and games for either fat dragon.
The makers of chow mein noodles must now rebuild. Fall River’s water pipes are slowly being replaced. Scores of CMS addicts must now turn their bloodshot eyes south and consider NY style “sammies” to feed their addiction. And the loud and obnoxious voice of The Hurricane has been silenced.
And as for the “We’ll Try” city motto? The new one just may be “At least we’re not New Bedford”. Fall River is, as always, just a short ride from anywhere, out of context and completely inappropriate.
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