LOW PROFILE The Godfather of Greenville Avenue

JOE CAMPISI, HIS STYLED HAIR GRAY- black and slick like the limousine that had floated him under the Fairmont Hotel, was introduced as the “godfather of Greenville Avenue.” A Frank Sinatra sound-alike cooed and more than a thousand guests danced and ate. First, however, a huge slab of a man ambled purposefully across the room and clamped his ham of a hand on the burly Italian’s neck. Campisi looked up to see that the most feared prosecutor in Dallas County history, Henry Wade, had finally collared him.

The men hugged like two powerful old bears. While Wade wished Campisi a happy seventieth birthday, the two posed for the cameras, talking about old times. For Joe Campisi those old times started in a restaurant near Main and Central in 1938, after he landed one of this city’s first beer and wine licenses. Later, he opened a stand-up bar near Main and St. Paul. One day he killed a man. He does not like to talk about it.

“Don’t write about that,” Joe says of the shooting forty-five years ago. He would rather talk about his recent stint as a member of the grand jury and the handsome commendation given him by the city. After all the years of whispers about what Joe calls “Mafia this and Mafia that” and being blackballed by country clubs and questioned about Jack Ruby, finally those years have given way to respectability.

It’s about time. Though he has “never been arrested once in my seventy-one years,” never “consumed ten cases of beer in my whole life,” and ’’never come home drunk once to my wife,” Joe Campisi has lived most of his life with these whispers and these questions.

Now someone’s asking again. Campisi, looking strangely uncomfortable in his restaurant’s “club room,” says gently, “I will tell you that when he was drunk, [the dead man] was the meanest son of a bitch in Dallas.” And on that day, the drunk had ambled through the beer joints clumsily trying to pickpocket, beg, or strong-arm customers. By the time Campisi saw the knife and opened the gun drawer, the man was so close that Joe could barely straighten his arm to fire.

Campisi, wearing his ever-present suspenders, abruptly rises. He’s not mad over retelling the ancient story-just busy. “Let me go see if they got their drink order.”

If not for his food, his service, and a vowel at the end of his name, Joe Campisi would likely have remained unknown. Famous politicians and athletes would not send him autographed pictures for his walls. He would not have joined Bob Hope and Gerald Ford as the only other person issued a cart during the Byron Nelson Golf Classic at Las Colinas Sports Club, or been asked to play the owner of a pro football team in the movie Semi-Tough. He would not have been in New Orleans for the Michael Marcello (yes, that Marcello) wedding and there the next day for the 1989 Dallas Cowboys football opener-fully comped, of course. The food that father Carlo and Joe and brother Sam brought to Dallas brought the people. Joe Campisi kept them.

But if all the whispered rumors of underworld connections were gathered, they would likely fill every space in the 5610 E. Mockingbird Lane restaurant. “Sure, I hear all that crap,” Joe nods. “I walk by a table and, you know, they’re pointing to the picture on the wall [of Carlo Campisi] and they say ’that’s the godfather.’ I don’t care what they say, but it has hurt my family. Kids hear it in school; my sister even hears it at the doctor’s office. ’Mobster.’ ’Mafia.’ ’Kingpin.’ I’ll tell you the truth. Make me the head of organized crime here and I promise you one thing, there’d be no more goddamn drugs. Print that. No drugs, baby.”

Campisi heads to the black Mercury that’s been parked across the street to allow one more close space for customers. Because the Egyptian stays so crowded and because there are never enough parking spaces, Joe laughs at the sign that says that parking is only for customers of the Mockingbird Lane Florist. “You know they gotta ad in the Yellow Pages that says ’next to the Egyptian room.’ You think I oughta charge them for that?”

Campisi grossed more than $2 million last year. Not bad, considering that when the restaurant opened in February 1950, as the Egyptian Lounge, the family couldn’t afford to change the sign to Campisi’s. “Can you imagine?” Campisi says. “The first night the restaurant opened, we did $127. Two hundred was a big Saturday night. My father, Carlo, you know, ground more than 24,000 pounds of pork sausage by hand until he sprung for an electric grinder. That’s what we figure,” he laughs.

On the worn front walkway outside Campisi’s, Joe points to a spot shaped “like the boot of Sicily.” “Who do I call to keep it like that?” he laughs. “I need to keep it just like that.” Surely before the day is gone, Joe will have found someone with the knowledge and clout to preserve his concrete “boot.” His office stays as full as the restaurant, and often there are lines of people outside. Inside the sanctum, a Hispanic cook waits to see if Campisi will grant a personal audience for a girlfriend who has just filled out a job application. (He does.) The first phone caller asks for baseball tickets and gets them (“Big deal, Seattle,” Joe shrugs). Next a priest jots down a favor he wants from the pizza godfather, and a new face wants Joe to look at space in the Centrum. “I get propositions every day,” he says as they leave. “People come to me every day with this, that, and the other. I listen.”

Glasses are placed on the proud Italian nose so that Joe can look at his pegboard and see that the Million Dollar Saloon has picked up their thirty pizzas for the day. They pay the same price as any to-go customer, though Campisi knew Don Furrh (before he was mysteriously killed) and his wife, who now operates the two locations. Joe loves to socialize with people in the restaurant and club business. Before he made multimillions in Las Vegas, Benny Binion was a good friend. Now, James Bailey of The Point restaurants and Gene Street and Billy Bob Barnett come to pay their respects and enjoy the old man. And, yes, there was Jack Ruby too.

“Sure, I knew Jack. He came in here. Sure, right in this room. The police say that I was the first visitor he had |in jail]. You know why the guy did it?” Here Joe lowers his voice and leans across the table. It’s easy to imagine Ruby leaning the same way twenty years ago. “Because he was pissed off, that’s why. Funny thing is, I never knew him to carry a gun. Hell, he never gambled to speak of, just liked the girls some and the clubs.” Campisi was angered when kooks began to call and write about “the Mafia murder of President John F. Kennedy.” The books refer to the Egyptian Lounge as “a notorious mob hangout in Dallas,” a definition that brings chuckles to local law enforcement types who have seen Joe Campisi in bis plush, swiveling grand jury chair.

His visitor has seen Campisi’s prize twice before, but Joe goes once more to retrieve his commendation from the city, with its “special recognition” of the entire Campisi family. He walks past the aisle of the club room, past the Al Pad no photo with the inscription “from one Godfather to another.” Somehow, the framed letter from the city spells vindication for a man who actually is a godfather-to at least six (“that I can remember”) godchildren. However, he no longer goes to church. “Naw, I don’t go. This is my goddamned church right here,” Joe says, repuffing his suspenders and spreading both arms. “Now Marie [his wife of forty-one years] goes to Mass every morning. I guess she goes for both of us,”

Back in the shoe box of his office, Joe is amused when told that political consultant John Weekly rates his name identification higher than many politicians in Dallas. But like any old bear, he worries most about his reputation within the den. So when the phone rings again, Campisi tells the caller, “Well, you can call Centennial Liquor, you can call Glazer’s or American Produce … and here, let me tell you, if you can find one person who can tell you I’ve ever been late, I’ll buy you a new Cadillac.” Joe is still pleasant, but not happy when the receiver is cradled. ’’Broad calls me to check my reputation. Maybe I should be checking hers.” He winks.