in failure, not simply societal and institutional failure but the kind that reaches all the way back through the evolution of the species. After a long typed description of Lefty or Tommy Lee Raguza’s psychological and behavioral problems, all couched in Freudian terms, the psychiatrist made this handwritten addendum at the bottom:
Medical science does not provide an adequate vocabulary to describe a man like this. He is probably the cruelest human being I have ever had the misfortune to meet. There is no element in his background, environmental or genetic, that would explain the dispassionate level of iniquity in this man and the level of pleasure he takes in injuring both people and animals. Frankly, I think this man is evil and should be separated from human society for the rest of his life. Unfortunately that will probably not happen.
This was the man now living in Acadiana, where parishioners still make the sign of the cross when they pass a Catholic church and cannot believe that an American president would lie to them.
I went back to work on Bruxal and ran his name through Google. I found information there that told me far more about him and his present intentions than his criminal jacket did. His name had appeared in several articles published in the Lafayette Daily Advertiser, the Baton Rouge Advocate, and the Times-Picayune in New Orleans. Whitey Bruxal had become a major player in Louisiana’s blossoming casino industry.
Gambling, like prostitution and every other imaginable vice, has a long history in the state. In the nineteenth century the gambling halls along Canal were perhaps the most notorious in the country, not only for their lucrativeness but also for the number of knifings and shootings that took place inside them. The Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard, who fired the first shot on Fort Sumter, made a fortune after the war as the head of the state lottery. Governor Huey P. Long literally gave Louisiana to Frank Costello, who in turn empowered a crime family in New Orleans to set up and control all organized vice throughout the southern half of the state. The gambling machines were made by a Mob-owned company in Chicago, but the credit line that purchased them came from right here in New Iberia.
During the mid-1950s, the most despised man in the state was an attorney general who tried to shut down the brothels and deep-six the slots out in the Gulf. The gambling joints and cathouses in St. Landry Parish were run by the sheriff. Every pool hall and blue-collar bar from Lake Charles to the Mississippi line contained football cards, punchboards, and payoff pinball machines. Cops in uniform worked as card dealers and bartenders in nightclubs that deliberately served minors. I could go on, but what difference does it make? The illegal gambling industry of the past is nothing in comparison to its legalized descendant.
A few years back our governor, who supposedly was in debt millions of dollars to the Vegas syndicate, proved himself a great friend to casino gambling in Louisiana. Today, he and his son are serving time in a federal penitentiary, along with our last three state insurance commissioners. No matter. From Shreveport on the northwestern tip of the state to Lake Charles in the south, the casinos and racetracks soak up all the Texas trade they can get their hands on. New Orleans takes the trade from everywhere, including old people the casinos bus into town from retirement homes in Mississippi. The Indians on the rez are happier than pigs rolling in slop. In fact, everyone is delighted with the new era of gaming in Louisiana, except, of course, the uneducated and the compulsive who lose their life’s savings and the owners of bars and restaurants who have to shut down their businesses because they can’t compete with the giveaway prices at the casinos.
I went into Helen’s office and told her about my encounter with Whitey Bruxal and his friend Lefty Raguza at Victor’s
Medical science does not provide an adequate vocabulary to describe a man like this. He is probably the cruelest human being I have ever had the misfortune to meet. There is no element in his background, environmental or genetic, that would explain the dispassionate level of iniquity in this man and the level of pleasure he takes in injuring both people and animals. Frankly, I think this man is evil and should be separated from human society for the rest of his life. Unfortunately that will probably not happen.
This was the man now living in Acadiana, where parishioners still make the sign of the cross when they pass a Catholic church and cannot believe that an American president would lie to them.
I went back to work on Bruxal and ran his name through Google. I found information there that told me far more about him and his present intentions than his criminal jacket did. His name had appeared in several articles published in the Lafayette Daily Advertiser, the Baton Rouge Advocate, and the Times-Picayune in New Orleans. Whitey Bruxal had become a major player in Louisiana’s blossoming casino industry.
Gambling, like prostitution and every other imaginable vice, has a long history in the state. In the nineteenth century the gambling halls along Canal were perhaps the most notorious in the country, not only for their lucrativeness but also for the number of knifings and shootings that took place inside them. The Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard, who fired the first shot on Fort Sumter, made a fortune after the war as the head of the state lottery. Governor Huey P. Long literally gave Louisiana to Frank Costello, who in turn empowered a crime family in New Orleans to set up and control all organized vice throughout the southern half of the state. The gambling machines were made by a Mob-owned company in Chicago, but the credit line that purchased them came from right here in New Iberia.
During the mid-1950s, the most despised man in the state was an attorney general who tried to shut down the brothels and deep-six the slots out in the Gulf. The gambling joints and cathouses in St. Landry Parish were run by the sheriff. Every pool hall and blue-collar bar from Lake Charles to the Mississippi line contained football cards, punchboards, and payoff pinball machines. Cops in uniform worked as card dealers and bartenders in nightclubs that deliberately served minors. I could go on, but what difference does it make? The illegal gambling industry of the past is nothing in comparison to its legalized descendant.
A few years back our governor, who supposedly was in debt millions of dollars to the Vegas syndicate, proved himself a great friend to casino gambling in Louisiana. Today, he and his son are serving time in a federal penitentiary, along with our last three state insurance commissioners. No matter. From Shreveport on the northwestern tip of the state to Lake Charles in the south, the casinos and racetracks soak up all the Texas trade they can get their hands on. New Orleans takes the trade from everywhere, including old people the casinos bus into town from retirement homes in Mississippi. The Indians on the rez are happier than pigs rolling in slop. In fact, everyone is delighted with the new era of gaming in Louisiana, except, of course, the uneducated and the compulsive who lose their life’s savings and the owners of bars and restaurants who have to shut down their businesses because they can’t compete with the giveaway prices at the casinos.
I went into Helen’s office and told her about my encounter with Whitey Bruxal and his friend Lefty Raguza at Victor’s
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