Amelio's Unveiling

"I'm sorry, what was your name?" I asked the man sitting across from me.

"I'm Alberto," he said in his heavy Italian accent. "You will call me Al."

"Amelio," I replied. "Call me Mel."

We were sitting in the back room of a dingy dive bar, sipping our beers and trying to behave like we weren't there on business.

Al was a small guy and had a little bit of a pot belly, but even still, he was intimidating and I wasn't sure why. Maybe it had something to do with him being an enforcer for the local Mafia, or maybe it was because of the way that he looked at me as if he wanted to rip my head off and display the gruesome aftermath. Maybe it was his horrible taste in clothes; a white dress shirt and khaki pants that were always stained with coffee or blood or both. Or maybe it's because he was just simply unpredictable.

Whatever the reason, he was making me nervous so I tried to get the conversation going again by asking him another question: "So you're looking for work?" I asked, taking another sip of beer to try and hide my shaking hands.

"Si," he said with a smile that would have given Freddy Krueger nightmares. He pulled out some folded up papers from his pocket and pushed them toward me before continuing, "Here is my resume." He took another sip from his glass and glared at me while waiting for my response.

I glanced down at the papers and saw that they looked pretty normal: A list of dates where he went to work and did stuff there, references that all listed him as an "excellent employee", things like that. There's not really much else you can say about somebody who works at a car wash, so if they were all decent enough employees then it made sense that they would write good references for each other. Still though, I had to ask myself; why would this guy want to work at a car wash?

Before I could ask him though, someone knocked on the door of the back room and walked into the room without waiting for permission first. The person at the door turned out to be another guy with an Italian last name; one Joe Carmello. Carmello was taller than Alberto but his face had more scars on it than mine did (which isn't saying much since most people don't even notice them) and seemed more tired-looking than either one of us should have been at 2AM on a Tuesday night. When Carmello saw Alberto sitting there drinking a beer with me he immediately became irate.

Carmello walked over to our table and slammed his hand down on top of Alberto's resume papers before saying, "What are you doing here? This is supposed to be Mel's interview." Then he turned toward me and continued in an accusatory tone: "Why are you talking to this scumbag?"

I didn't really know what to say so I just cleared my throat nervously before replying, "Well... You see..." Then I paused for another second trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to say next until Carmello cut me off by yelling:

"Just tell him!" And then Carmello started screaming insults at Alberto while swinging his fists around wildly in front of his face like some kind of lunatic. The argument escalated, drawing the attention of the entire bar before they were kicked out into the parking lot, where they continued yelling at each other until they both ran out of breath.

Finally, Carmello lowered his voice, and began speaking quietly yet firmly, "Look," he said, "Mel has potential... Not as much as me obviously because nobody has as much potential as me but still enough potential that you shouldn't waste your time chasing after him when you could be working with me instead. There's more money in potential than there is in experience." Then Carmello looked over toward me while continuing his speech:

"Don't listen to this idiot," he said while pointing at Alberto, "He doesn't know how hard it is out there in today's economy wondering where your next paycheck is going to come from before deciding whether or not you can afford rent this month or if you'll have enough money left over for groceries next week. Do you think that he understands anything about living day-to-day without ever knowing if tomorrow will be better than today? No! He hasn't lived like this long enough... So no matter how many resumes are floating around online listing him as an excellent employee, nobody will ever give somebody who doesn't understand finances a real chance!"

Then Carmello abruptly stopped talking and started walking away from us towards his car parked across from where we were standing. He stopped halfway across the parking lot, turned back towards us and said, "So unless you want your best shot at success then you'll go work for ME instead because believe me - what I do is better than what this guy does for sure..." With that