Every once in a while in this life you meet a guy who you know, no matter what circumstances he found himself in, could get by.
Humphrey Bogart often played the character in the movies, whether as a down-and-out bum in "The Treasure of Sierra Madre," a dashing playboy in "Sabrina" or a hardboiled detective, newspaperman or wiseguy in any number of films.
Around here we've got Carl Pasquantino, who's currently up at the federal medical center in Rochester, Minn., serving a hopefully short stretch on a crazy wire-fraud charge. The details of his baffling case are available in the Reporter's online archives, and I won't rehash them here, but suffice it to say he's a good friend and a great guy and he didn't hurt anybody.
Carl has the ability to be at home with simple country folk inhabiting regions where hunting and fishing camps are located or in high society where $800 suits and $1,500 cashmere overcoats are de rigueur. He accomplishes this mainly through a wonderful sense of humor, which was on full display in a newsletter he sent to me, Staba and Bruce last week entitled "Inside Journal."
He says the food's not too bad and, although he hasn't had a cocktail in 100 days, he doesn't really miss it. Looking to drop a few pounds, he's walking, riding a stationary bike and has joined the bocce ball league, he said.
His bocce ball partner is former Youngstown, Ohio, sheriff and congressman James Traficant, who drew an eight-year stretch in 2002 for corruption. Although he was kicked off the Democratic line in the election following his imprisonment, he tried to run an independent campaign from his prison cell.
Traficant's popularity was such in Youngstown that his opponents finally disqualified him from the ballot because he no longer lived in the district. I remember him well from my newspapering days in Ohio, and if anyone has a sense of humor equal to Carl's, it's Jimmy Traficant.
But as much as wanting to improve his physique, Carl's looking to improve his mind. He's taking classes in cardiovascular health, money management, drug education and apparently -- from the looks of his three-page letter -- typing.
He says the drug-education class makes him glad he never got involved with them, and expressed puzzlement about the younger guys coming into the system on drug charges.
"I see kids coming in here with ten, fifteen year sentences and they think it is no big thing," he wrote. "Last week, a guy came in with 84 years in sentence. The young people walk around and brag about the years they got."
Surprisingly, though, much of the prison population is elderly and infirm, he wrote.
"There's a lot of sick people here, 135 died last year," he wrote. "About one-third are in wheelchairs and, just two days ago, a guy committed suicide."
One convict Carl says he has yet to meet is the Mailbox Bomber, but I'm not sure whether he meant Lucas Helder, who terrorized the Midwest for a week or so in 2002, or Robert Kubisch, who terrorized New Jersey for a five-year period ending in 2004.
They were both tagged with the "Mailbox Bomber" moniker by the press; I guess that's because nobody in the Midwest reads the East Coast newspapers and vice versa. Still, it's confusing.
Helder's insane mission was to drive around the countryside and plant pipe bombs in peoples' roadside mailboxes so that, once he was done, the pattern of the bombings could be traced into a huge "smiley face" on the map.
Kubisch's insane mission was to promote white racism by writing slogans like "Bring Back Hitler" at the scenes of his bombings.
I'm not really sure whether Carl would get along with mad bombers, though. They seem to be wound a little too tight, and Carl's as easygoing as they come.
As part of his Niagara Falls outreach program, he's taught various inmates and visitors the lyrics to "My Way," which I heard him sing last winter down at the Clarkson House in Lewiston. He had the crowd on its feet that night, and presumably does the same in the rec room, where they call him "Mr. Gambino."
"It is kinda funny in a way," he wrote. "Gambino started because I was from New York and they can't say Pasquantino."
Despite his good humor, Carl is facing some very real challenges. Although he's scheduled for release on Dec. 22, an overreaching federal prosecutor has filed an appeal designed to reinstate his original five-year sentence. He's 62 years old and has had this thing hanging over his head for years now.
It's affected his health, to say nothing of his bank account.
But Carl doesn't complain. Like I said, he's the kind of guy who could get by regardless of what they threw at him.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 3 2006 |