“See,” Alex
said with a thick New Jersey accent, “yer all part of my outfit, my organization, just like Nicky and Pauly,
here. He gestured to the two hulking men in black suits. Nicky gave a solemn
nod while Pauly smiled at the room.
“And since
we’re all in this together, we gots to work together. We’ve got rules. That’s
what makes for a happy family, after all. And family, family is important. And
when something happens to the family, well, it’s sad for all of us. Nicky,
Pauly.”
The two men
waded into the third row and grabbed the man who had been idly texting on his
phone. The two hauled him up despite his protests, taking and smashing his phone
onto the floor. Pauly, still smiling, slugged the man in the gut, cutting all
protests.
“It hurts
when someone breaks the rules” Alex continued. “they put themselves above the
family. It hurts me, personally, when someone doesn’t show me respect, and I
can’t have that.” Alex jerked his head to the side, signaling to Nicky and
Pauly.
The two men
hauled the young man out of the room and into the hallway.
“It’s best
for all to follow the rules, just so we can avoid unpleasantness.”
From outside there came yells of
pain.
“It’s not good for the family to be
hurt. So when I say there’s no texting in the classroom that means no texting.”
The door swung open again to admit
the young man, hunched over and with blood coming from his lip and a black eye
already forming.
“Now, let’s all avoid more
unpleasantness. Make sure you all read the syllabus or Nicky and Pauly will be
havin’ words wit you, too. Now get outta here.”
The class filed out, many of them
wide-eyed and scared. When they all had left, Nicky, Pauly, and the young man
they had dragged out grinned, as did Alex.
“I love getting people from the
theater department in on this. Give my thanks to Prof. Holland, guys.”
“Sure thing, Prof. Henderson,”
Pauly said. “Come on, boys, let’s go scare the hell out of some more freshmen.”