I want to be clear upfront: I was not in the mob. I was not a made man. I was not connected. I was a 21-year-old kid from Long Island with a truck, a fishing route, and a deeply misplaced sense of invincibility.
But they were connected. And they were very unhappy with me.
Let me back up.
My uncle built the fishermen's cooperative in a small fishing town on the East End of Long Island. Bought the fish packing house with a group of fishermen friends. He was smart, he was respected, and he was stuck — because no matter what he did, the middle man won. The fishermen would go out all night, risk their lives, unload their catch, and then wait weeks — sometimes months — to get paid. My aunt would lie awake when the wind came up on the bay, wondering if they'd come back. And when they did, they didn't even get paid promptly.
I watched this as a teenager, sailing out there on the Judi Ann. It seemed broken to me. It seemed broken to my uncle.
I was going to do something about it.
My parents co-signed the truck. I left maritime college. Fresh East End Seafood was born. I was 21. I wanted to deliver fish twice a week and surf five days a week. I wanted to fix a problem. I had purpose.
And actually — it worked. I was gaining customers. I was gaining traction.
Then one day in August, my uncle called me down to the boat.
It's so vivid. I remember exactly where he was standing on the dock. I remember he was looking down, working on something, not making eye contact much. He said I'd gotten him in a jam.
The buyers in New York had called. Not Fulton Fish Market — Rudy Giuliani had moved the market to Hunts Point to break up the mob and put an FBI office above it to keep them under his thumb. But the same people were still there, just at a different address. And those same people were very unhappy with my uncle. And with me.
We were stealing their fish. We were taking their customers. We were breaking their thing.
The words that ended it were these:
"If you keep selling fish to that kid who is taking our customers, then never will a pound of fish be sold out of this town again."
My uncle wanted to keep going. He believed in what we were doing.
But who was I? I was a kid who wanted to surf and fix a broken system. Was that worth a knock on the door one day? Was that worth entangling myself in something that could turn very serious very fast?
I called my father. He'd worked in trade unions in New York City. He knew what the mob was. He knew how they operated.
His advice: "Stay clear. Move smart. They won't just come after someone."
That was enough for me. I was out.
I went home and closed the shades.
I got a job at a local surf shop. I was happy there. But something had shifted. I'd lost my passion. I'd lost my dream. I'd lost my independence and my identity.
It wasn't the first time. It wasn't the last.
Here's what I've learned about being told to back down:
Sometimes you should. Sometimes the math is simple — what you're building isn't worth what it might cost. Those fishermen needed the middle man out of the picture eventually, but it wasn't going to be me at 21 with one truck and no lawyer.
But the problem didn't go away. The broken system didn't fix itself. I just kept seeing it, in every industry I worked in, for the next twenty years. Fishermen getting paid late. Sustainable seafood going unsold because the supply chain was corrupt. Small operators getting squeezed by the people who controlled access to market.
That's why I ended up in Grenada fifteen years later, trying to build a cold chain for tuna and running directly into government corruption. Different dock. Different country. Same broken system.
Some problems follow you. Or maybe you follow them.
That company lasted a few summers. I was 23 by the time it ended. I'd left college, borrowed my parents' credit, built a route, and been warned off by people who could make life very difficult.
I should probably have been scared. Mostly I was just annoyed.
That's probably also something you should know about me by now.