How To Survive Working for the Mob According to Virginia Hill

Words by Candace Hartsuyker 

Art by Yaleeza Patchett

1. Start your life with the nickname Tab because you’re like a tabby cat, quiet and scared and big-eyed. Remember tabby cats aren’t just glossy fur and dainty paws. They’re claws and teeth. 

2. When you’re seven years old and your drunk father beats you because there’s too many children to feed and not enough money in the house, hit him over the head with a grease-filled skillet.

3. Remember your mama’s words about what it means to be a woman. This is our world: cooking and cleaning. When you’re born a woman, this is about all you can expect. Learn she is wrong. Learn there are ways to be a woman and have a career. 

4. Marry four times. Once for the experience, the second time for luck, the third for love, the fourth because you don’t want to be alone. Keep your life of crime a secret from all your husbands. 

5. Begin your life of crime by placing bets on racetracks. As you launder money and transport stolen goods across state lines, keep a secret diary for years, a record of all the illegal transactions you observe. Use it in case you’re ever blackmailed or boxed into a corner. 

6. Remember how before you had nothing. Now, you have everything: multiple pairs of shoes, mink stoles, men, and a Cadillac convertible that will take you wherever you want to go. 

7. Never fall in love with a man with blue eyes and a bad temper. Only fall in love if you can’t help it. 

8. When your lover hits you, bruise him back. Remember this is the way you show each other love. Admire the way both of you go out in public, pancake makeup covering your faces. 

9. At home, take turns reading a romance novel together. Relish the sound of your lover’s voice, his eloquent vowels. 

10. When your lover decides to build a hotel in the middle of nowhere, don’t tell him it’s a bad idea. Buy lime green drapes and cherry red leather sofas. Lounge nude on one of the sofas and invite him to join you. 

11. Don’t cry when your lover brings a flamingo for the hotel moat, and it dies because of the hot weather. Don’t laugh when the grand opening of the hotel is thwarted by a mama cat having kittens in the artificial waterfall. 

12. Once you find out your lover is going to be bumped off by the mob, tell him you’re going to Paris to buy wine. Don’t think about him as you board the plane. 

13. When you’re called in to testify against the mob, arrive in a limousine. Waltz in like a queen wearing a black coat, pearls and mink coat and silk gloves. When a photographer gets too close, swing your fist. 

14. Retire in Switzerland with your new husband and ski during the day. Flip through your secret diary at night and hope it’s enough. 

About the author

Candace Hartsuyker has an M.F.A in Creative Writing from McNeese State University. She has been published in Fiction Southeast, Cheap Pop, Miracle Monocle and elsewhere. 

About the artist

Yaleeza has been creating illustrations since the moment she was able to pick up a pencil. Through her artistic journey she became well versed in the mediums of graphite, ink and acrylic. Recently she has begun to further exercise her artistic skill in the realm of dark macabre, pagan, and blackwork illustrations. Through this she has found meaning and new love for her artwork. Yaleeza currently resides in the Southside of Indianapolis, Indiana with her husband Jon, her bloodhound Jojo, and her two cats, Boogers and Finn.