Your life is every rank in the Italian Mafia. Level one, the kid from the neighborhood. You are nobody. Not in a harsh way, just factually. No rank, no connection, no sponsor. What you have is geography. You grew up in the right zip code, went to school with the right kids, played on the same block as guys who would one day run entire territories. You watch everything. You notice the difference between a guy who has money and a guy who has authority because those are not the same thing. The guy with money buys a nice car. The guy with authority makes a phone call and the car appears. Two completely different things and the neighborhood teaches you that distinction before any classroom ever could. You don't try to get in yet. You make yourself visible in the right ways and invisible in the wrong ones. You help when you can. You keep your mouth shut when you should. You are planting seeds in ground that won't produce anything for years and you have to be completely fine with that. Young Vito Corleone didn't go looking for power. Power found him because he