The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
158
boff anything. Man, sometimes I still get nightmares when I remember those ugly broads 
you used to bang.” 
Nino waved his glass drunkenly and said very loud, “Yeah, they were ugly but they were 
women.” Deanna Dunn, in the corner, turned her head to look at them. Nino waved his 
glass at her in greeting. 
Johnny Fontane sighed. “OK, you’re just a guinea peasant.” 
“And I ain’t gonna change,” Nino said with his charmingly drunken smile. 
Johnny understood him perfectly. He knew Nino was not as drunk as he pretended. He 
knew that Nino was only pretending so that he could say things which he felt were too 
rude to say to his new Hollywood padrone when sober. He put his arm around Nino’s 
neck and said affectionately, “You wise guy bum, you know you got an ironclad contract 
for a year and you can say and do anything you want and I can’t fire you.” 
“You can’t fire me?” Nino said with drunken cunning. 
“No,” Johnny said. 
“Then fuck you,” Nino said. 
For a moment Johnny was surprised into anger. He saw the careless grin on Nino’s 
face. But in the past few years he must have gotten smarter, or his own descent from 
stardom had made him more sensitive. In that moment he understood Nino, why his 
boyhood singing partner had never become successful, why he was trying to destroy 
any chance of success now. That Nino was reacting away from all the prices of success, 
that in some way he felt insulted by everything that was being done for him. 
Johnny took Nino by the arm and led him out of the house. Nino could barely walk now. 
Johnny was talking to him soothingly. “OK, kid, you just sing for me, I wants make 
dough on you. I won’t try to run your life. You do whatever you wants do. OK, paisan? 
All you gotta do is sing for me and earn me money now that I can’t sing anymore. You 
got that, old buddy?” 
Nino straightened up. “I’ll sing for you, Johnny,” he said, his voice slurring so that he 
could barely be understood. “I’m a better singer than you now. I was always a better 
singer than you, you know that?” 
Johnny stood there thinking; so that was it. He knew that when his voice was healthy 
Nino simply wasn’t in the same league with him, never had been in those years they had 
sung together as kids. He saw Nino was waiting for an answer, weaving drunkenly in the 

---