Night Night, Cousin Joey by Nick Di Carlo

Lotsa guys tell stories about Cousin Joey. I’ve got one or two myself. But first you gotta know that Cousin Joey wasn’t really my cousin. Sure, he was Uncle Joe’s son, but Uncle Joe wasn’t my real uncle either. I’m from one of those families where distant relatives or close family friends, like your mother’s mother’s uncle made you call him uncle. And you had to call his daughter, Ida, Auntie Ida. Or some of the guys your old man or your real uncles hung around with became your uncle. Like when you were five years old and it was the third time your old man left you alone in a diner or a barber shop without telling you he was leaving to finish his numbers run and one of his friends picked you up, hugged you and drove you home—a friend like Uncle Joe. 

Now, I drove upstate to help Uncle Joe deal with some chooch who keeps screwing up his business. Joe’s a boss. He’s got capos and soldiers to do stuff, but sometimes you don’t want to depend on your own men to handle what Uncle Joe tells me is a “mother-fucking complicated thing.” 

“Hey, Slugger,” he says. The nickname is a carryover from when I played minor league ball. Played shortstop. Hit in the .350 range three straight seasons before I wrecked my knee sliding into second.

“Uncle Joe, che cosa c'è?”

“Ho spesso mal di testa.”

“Actually sick—or your crew giving you headaches.”

“I got one really bad apple. I’m afraid it’s gonna make the whole barrel rotten.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Not now. Come to the house, wash up. Have dinner with us. Your Aunt Carmela is cooking just for you.”

“Don’t go to any trouble.”

“No trouble. Vieni a mangiare con noi.”

“How’s Little Joey. He gonna be there?”

“Ah, your cousin. È un po' pazzo. He’s out. I’ll tell you where to find him later. Prima mangiamo.”

Aunt Carmela prepared a feast, starting with an antipasto appetizer, followed by my favorite, Rigatoni with meatballs and sausage. After that we had insalata, a mixed green salad with roasted vegetables. We eat our salad last. Uncle Joe says, “It settles everything after you stuff yourself.” For dessert, Aunt Carmela served homemade cannoli, espresso and anisette. After supper, Carmela chased us out of the dining room so she could clean up. Uncle Joe took me to his office and closed the door.

“We can talk here?”

“I have it swept every few days. I need somebody to fix my problem. Better to not use my crew. I got this one guy; he’s givin’ me fuckin’ fits.”

“You warned him, right.”

“Until I got blue in the face. Someday he’ll make the mistake that sends me to prison.”

“If he’s so bad, why not whack him? Wait…. You don’t want me to clip somebody. I’ll do almost anything, but….”

“Aspettare. I want you to study then talk to him. You understand come si dice? psychology. You get his head right. If you gotta, rough him up, scare shit outta him. Tell him—last warning. Stop fucking up or else….”

“Who’s this fuckup?”

“Joey.”

Uncle Joe’s business has many facets. He’s got bookmaking joints in five counties. He loans money to poor schleps at 250% a year. The vig doesn’t sound so bad when it’s ten or twenty bucks a week. It’s compound interest kills you. There’s salvage yards, construction companies. But I’m interested in Joey who’s handling the concessions—jukeboxes, pool tables, cigarette machines in bars and restaurants. Uncle Joe’s got some competition. Cousin Joey’s job is to collect from all those machines and to convince anyone who doesn’t deal with Uncle Joe to come over to his side. Joey’s good at collecting. Sometimes too good when he’s collecting from an unlucky gambler. But he’s a fucking maniac as a salesman. 

I’m having a beer at the bar in an almost upscale joint when Joey and another chooch come in. Joey goes to the jukebox, looks at the tunes and starts kicking the box. He grabs a chair, smashing it on the box’s glass top. “Where’d ya get this antique piece of shit?”

Bartender says, “Hey,”
Chooch Two says, “Shut the fuck up.”

At the cigarette machine, Joey puts something in the slot. No cigarettes come out. “This fucking thing stole my money.” He tips the machine onto its face. Then he struts to the bar, grabs the bartender by the shirt, tries to slap his face with his right hand.

Bartender sneaks in a good, quick left hook. 

Joey’s always been a sucker for a left hook. How he got the nickname, “Night-Night.”

Chooch Two thinks he’s gonna take the bartender, who now holds a police Billy club like he knows how to use it.

I raise my hand. “Let me. Got a back alley?”

Bartender nods.

I grab Chooch Two by the collar and drag him into the alley. I thrash him until he don’t know his own name.

“Hey, asshole! Look at me. If you ever go near my cousin or my uncle again, I’ll fuckin’ kill you. Won’t even blink doing it. Maybe I’ll do it now.”

The chooch makes it to his feet and stumbles out the alley, disappears in the dark.

Bartender threw Joey out the front door. I wish he hadn’t done that, but I liked the guy, so I let it go.

Outside, Joey’s getting his ass kicked by—somebody. Whoever it is, he’s doing a good job, saving me some trouble. I step in. “He’s had enough.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“You really don’t wanna fuckin’ know.”

Cops pull up. “What’s going on here?”

I step in, say, “Dunno, officer. I came out of the bar. This guy’s walking up the street. We stumble over this bum.”

Cops throw Joey in the car. 

The guy looks at the sidewalk. He walks away.

Poor Uncle Joe. I gotta send Joey "night night." For good.

​© 2026 Nick Di Carlo

About the author:
Nick Di Carlo, inveterate story writer, has knocked around a lot. He’s taught writing in universities and maximum-security correctional facilities. He once lived in Legs Diamond’s old neighborhood.
Of Di Carlo’s prison work, Lawrence R. Reis, author of Wolf Masks: Violence in Contemporary Poetry noted: “The men in Dr. Di Carlo’s classes recognized many similarities between their experiences and his. Those experiences, often dark and sometimes violent, inform and power Dr. Di Carlo’s own writing.”