We Like Our Bad Guys To Be Honest About It By Eric Dezenhall Sunday, March 10, 2002; Page B02
When I watched Enron's former chief executive, Jeffrey K. Skilling, testify recently before Congress, it sparked a decades-old memory of -- don't laugh -- the televised testimony of a very different kind of honcho, my hometown mob boss, Philadelphia's Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo.
As a kid, I used to see Nicky and his boys talking on the beach in Margate, N.J., and thought I was pretty cool when I got an acknowledgment, a "Yo, kid," from Nicky or one of his killers. Years later, in the mid-1980s, I was a former White House aide still gaga over the political process, and I couldn't wait to see how Nicky defended his corner in a congressional hearing about racketeering. The highlight of Nicky's testimony was when he was askedif he swore to tell the truth. Nicky -- visibly ticked, his South Philly pompadour bouncing -- glanced at his lawyer for a little help. The lawyer urgently nodded a yes. In Nicky's business, lying was currency, and he appeared, well, betrayed, by the very pretense that the proceedings would be on the level. In contrast, Enron's Skilling, when questioned, conveyed an earnest, helpful demeanor and stayed "on message" in the spirit of a true wise guy: Wasn't me.
Lots of people have said they don't believe Skilling, and one of my friends even huffed that the ex-CEO was "worse than a gangster." I don't agree; I have always been amazed by how our culture grades corruption on a curve of moral relativism. Most scandals are called "Watergates," military conflicts become "Vietnams" and human rights horrors "Holocausts" when they're not.
Nor do I believe, in any legal or moral sense, that an accused corporate huckster is comparable to a convicted psychopath like Nicky Scarfo. Nevertheless, the Scarfo and Skilling testimonies point to an interesting cultural distinction. Everybody I've talked to seems to want the Enron guys to do hard time. I can't remember the last time I heard the same dark wishes expressed about the Mafia.
On the contrary, American culture often romanticizes the wiseguys of organized crime. "The Sopranos" became a TV show beloved both by cable viewers and the Emmy judges. Mobsters preen in beer commercials, asking "How ya doin'?" Successful films such as "Analyze This" and "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" portray professional killers as comic, even heroic characters.
The simultaneous vilification of Enron and glorification of organized crime makes me wonder what kind of bad guys America wants? Answer: honest ones. A thief pointing a gun at your head makes no pretense about his intentions, but a thief armed with a laptop and a smile is out to fool you, and Americans absolutely hate to be fooled.
The real sin of the Enron executives is their hypocrisy. They portrayed themselves as model corporate citizens, society's pillars, deeply concerned about their community. Meanwhile, it has been alleged, they were helping themselves to millions of dollars at the expense of their employees and shareholders. Murderous Little Nicky and his Mafia cronies have never tried to pretend to be anything other than what they are: wiseguys.
I suspect there's another reason we go easy on street-corner buccaneers, one tied more deeply to the roots of American culture. We like the Mafia because it is cheating the system from the outside. It's no coincidence that Butch and Sundance are lionized just as Don Corleone's Godfather is -- though all are violent criminals.
Often the glorification is tinged with nostalgia. Last month, the front page of the New York Daily Newsrevealed that prosecutorssaymob boss Vincent "the Chin" Gigante -- who for years roamed Greenwich Village in his bathrobe, feigning insanity to dodge the clink -- is still running the Genovese Crime Family from prison. And when agingmobster Raymond"Long John" Martorano was mortally shot while driving on a busy street in Philadelphia, the newspaper articles reported the grisly details -- but also reminisced that he was one of the last of the old-timers, whose killers didn't appreciate the power he once held. Ah, the old days, when grown men dispatched one another more discreetly. In the past year, barely a week has gone by when the networks haven't reported a "death watch" at the bedside of cancer-stricken mob boss, John Gotti, as if we were all waiting for puffs of white smoke to waft from the Vatican.
Chronicling the toughs is less a cry for justice than a spectator sport. Friends who know I write about the mob, including a priest and several rabbis, no less, contact me from time to time, thirsty for old yarns and gossip about South Philly rogues such as "Al Pajamas" (in prison), "Chicken Man" (blown up on his front porch with a nail bomb), Harry "the Hunchback" (recently died in prison) and "Nicky Crow" (in the witness protection program).
Despite the steady cavalcade of Mafia coverage, there are no letters to the editor asking that prosecutors take action. No demands to "Lynch the Chin." There's no public outcry, because most readers would just as soon write to the producers of "General Hospital" to complain about loose morals. Sensational behavior is the whole point of the show. But where Enron is concerned, the outraged public, understandably, wants blood. As for mobsters, dare I suggest that many of us do want their crimes to pay?
Maybe that's because of some warped spinoff of the American Dream, the idea that one can accomplish anything on rogue instinct and back-alley cunning. After all, isn't that our perception of the Founding Fathers themselves: hell-raising outsiders who took what was theirs? We somehow see thieves who operate outside the system as being more, well, honest than thieves who operate from within. Many of us love the mob because it beats the system; We hate Enron because it bought the system.
Americans have a long track record of celebrating wily subversives. What was vaudeville, after all, but shtick after shtick of immigrants slamming bluebloods in the face with a pie? What of National Lampoon's "Animal House," where the piggish Deltas cheat the system by trawling through Faber College's trash for the exam answers (and flunk out anyway), while the priggish Omegas become "outstanding campus leaders" by doing Dean Wormer's dirty work? Is it lost on anyone that in the epilogue, the film's writers reward the Deltas' John Belushi, who resembles a Mafia thug, with a U.S. Senate seat, and punish the preppy Omega house honcho by revealing that he becomes a Nixon White House aide who is later "raped in prison"?
In the end, even if the Enron honchos are proven to have swindled anything resembling the mob's booty, there was something chillingly respectable about how they did it, which is the part, I think, that provokes our most furious wrath. I think I've got a good business sense, but like most investors I was reluctant to question the imperious, blue-chip facade of "limited partnerships" and "audited balance sheets." As a kid who grew up around green felt and velour beach wear, who was I to ask?
We'll see what happens to the Boys of Enron, who made fortunes, perhaps legally, without spilling a drop of blood. As for Little Nicky, he's doing life in Marion for directing a reign of terror that left dozens dead, including "Frankie Flowers," who was a friend of my family. Nicky swears he's innocent. His associates -- the guys I saw hugging him on the beach -- ratted him out and are living under assumed names, trying to blend into the yellow prairies and small towns of rural America. The lawyer who advised a reluctant Nicky to tell the truth at the congressional hearing did some time himself for racketeering. John Gotti, who was caught on tape, apoplectic, saying that the FBI was persecuting him, will soon be gone. On one hand, I'm thinking, good riddance. On the other, I am very much a part of the phenomenon that I'm judging, not because I admire the bad guys, but because I miss the days on the boardwalk when we all knew who the bad guys were.
You got a problem with that?
Eric Dezenhall is the author of "Money Wanders" (St. Martin's Press), a novel about spin control and organized crime.