Title: The dead don't die. They look on.
Author: oldwickedsongs
Characters: Meyer Lansky, with mentions of AR, Charlie, Benny, Frank (Costello), Albert Anastasia, David Letterman and the twin towers.
Rating: PG, nothing graphic but drug use and bodily fluids are mentioned.
Word Count: 923
Summary: Meyer visits a city that was once his. (Or a city reclaims something that belongs to her.)
Warnings: Angst. I wanted to write something showcasing Meyer being the last one standing, and ended up with this parable of NYC.

( The dead don't die, they look on )

Title: will you burn the bridge behind you?
Author: oldwickedsongs
Characters: AR, mentions of Nucky Thompson, others indirectly
Rating: G
Word Count: 853
Summary: Reaction post for 2x01, since we were denied my boy.
Warnings: Nothing but minor spoilers and Lifehouse-inspired angst.


( step outside the shadows of your cage strangled truth stolen youth is written on every line of every page it's your story do you want it back you have to decide if it is worth it swim across the swamp to the other side run until you're out of breath and when you look back they'll be nothing left but a memory fading quickly it could have been easier than this if you threw it all away what would you miss it could have been too much of a chance to take the silence in your head would have to break your grip is slipping faster looks like you'll have to face yourself after all )

Title: it seems like you're a soulless friend
Author: oldwickedsongs
Characters: Arnold Rothstein, Manny Horvitz, mentions of Monk Eastman (some AR/Manny near the end)
Rating: R
Word Count: 607
Summary: In which a young Arnold Rothstein receives the warmth and instruction of a man in a bloody apron.
Warnings: Gore. Torture. Dark!fic

( Hey I said you're godless and it seems like you're a soulless friend as thoughtless as you were back then I swear that you are godless hey I guess you loved me when I gave or when you took something it's stranger than it's ever been I guess, it's what you wanted of late it seems lonely I will be I beg, I plead but this is all that I have gotten )

Title: Autumn leaves under frozen souls
Author: oldwickedsongs
Characters: Meyer Lansky POV, Arnold Rothstein, Carolyn Rothstein, mentions of Lucky
Rating: PG
Word Count: 921
Summary: Meyer watches AR and Carolyn fade away
Warnings: Angst

( Autumn leaves under frozen souls, Hungry hands turning soft and old, My hero cried as we stood out there in the cold, Like these autumn leaves I don't have nothing to hold. Handsome smile, wearing handsome shoes, Too young to say, though I swear he knew, And I hear him singing while he sits there in his chair, While these autumn leaves float around everywhere. And I look at you, and I see me, Making noise so restlessly, But now it's quiet and I can hear you sing, 'My little fish don't cry, my little fish don't cry.' )

Title: When the battle's lost and won
Author: oldwickedsongs
Characters: Jimmy Darmondy, Al Capone, Nucky Thompson, Jimmy Torrio, mentions of Meyer Lansky and many other gangsters of the day.
Rating: PG, I think Al cusses a few times.
Word Count: 1977
Summary: Set during the infamous Atlantic City conference in 1929, when organized crime sat down and divided up the East Coast. A character study of the young Turks and Mustaches Pete.
Warnings: Character death (again)

When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.


Atlantic City, May 1929


“I thought you were retired.”

Nucky’s voice cut through the dark like a knife, but it still had the undertone of a joke hiding just beyond the next sentence. That was Nucky’s skill, Torrio thought as he stepped off the train and extended his hand in friendship, the man had a charm that put people at ease within seconds- despite that being one of the worst places you could be when facing Enoch Thompson across the table. The politician was smiling, but it didn’t seem to quite reach his eyes. In its place was a sort of weariness Torrio did recognize all too easily from every look in a mirror. The job aged people, it took it’s payment out in years and warmth bit by bit- God did Torrio know it, and those it didn’t age, it simply killed.

No where had that been made clearer than six months ago.

( You gonna frisk me? )

Title: Bad Land for Gods
Author: oldwickedsongs
Characters: Meyer Lansky, Carolyn Rothstein, with mentions of AR and Lucky
Rating: PG
Word Count: 705
Summary: November, 1928. Meyer goes to AR's offices after he's been shot to clean up.
Warnings Character death, hints of drug use, and angst.

"You work for me now. You protect me. You transport me from place to place. You run errands. In an emergency, but only in an emergency, you hurt people who need to be hurt. In the unlikely event of my death, you will hold my vigil. And in return I shall make sure that your needs are adequately taken care of." -American Gods


( The last time he saw AR; Meyer knew he was dying. )

Title: Brave New World
Author: oldwickedsongs
Characters: Meyer Lansky, Arnold Rothstein, and a flag
Rating: G
Word Count: 661
Summary: Meyer and AR glimpse the future by accident and while one dismisses it, the other knows all too well what comes next. A brief snapshot of one age meeting another- and not quite understanding it.



It will be years later before Meyer realizes what really happened that night in 26’ and what he witnessed on that street corner. And when he does, despite having the clarity of hindsight he still won’t believe it. How could he? How could anyone have known then what would come. Even AR, with all his gifts of foresight, would have never seen this coming.

They’d been in the German neighborhood for some scheme, now long forgotten with Charlie somewhere out of town. Saratoga maybe. Or AC. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that it was the Jew boys on the street that night. It was AR and Meyer and in truth, he loved those moments. The Bankroll was a genius, despite everything else he was and when he spoke, Meyer just relished the chance to keep up. He liked watching his mind worked, like the angles no one else saw, and the percentages and it always struck him that AR seemed unaware of it.

( Oh brave new world, with such people in it. )

Word Count: 451, references A Return to Normalcy

"For West is where we all plan to go some day. It is where you go when the land gives out and the old-field pines encroach. It is where you go when you get the letter saying: Flee, all is discovered. It is where you go when you look down at the blade in your hand and the blood on it.” -Robert Penn Warren


There was a moment in the car ride home from the election party when Nucky almost believed things were going to be fine. Margaret and he had stared out across the ocean for almost an hour, unheeding of the well wishers and dying revelry behind them as they studied the waves come slowly in until both their eyes burned and the cab was hailed to take them home. She rested against him; from fatigue and not affection and in silence they rode.

He thought of Jimmy and Eli; and their absence in Babette’s. In the morning he’d call Angela to check on him just not too carefully because he knew the boy liked working girls. The irony of that never failed to amuse Nucky: for all the hatred he had for his father’s treatment of his mother- at least the Commodore had never paid her. He kept her yes, but with all the grace of a quadroon mistress which was a lot more then Jimmy ever gave his whores. As for Eli, a few days of quiet brooding, the nursing of the tantrum and things would return to normal once the money came in to remind him how well they had things.

It wasn’t perfect, Nucky knew that more than anyone else; but it made them all wealthy men and with this election in pocket; they had connections as far reaching as DC. With the baseball business finally killed too he even had Arnold Rothstein- King of the Gamblers- owing him a favor. This should have been a good night for him; the best night.

Instead he thought of Mabel, and the lesson she left him with one night with his shaving razor. There wasn’t going to be any joy he received that didn’t come with a greater price, no triumph without lost that would leave him reeling. There was a part of him that knew rationally, in the end she’d been so far removed from the world she couldn’t have known what she was doing. But part of him knew she knew, because it was the one she could make certain he would never forget; no matter how many people owed him favors or who they were, and no matter how full the coffers were.

It was her last words to him, and the last curse. Every victory he would receive would be tainted; doubled edged. Just as the night he was delivered Atlantic City on a silver platter found him returned home to a bloodied and cold wife so to, would the country nod deference to a Nucky Thompson who found neither brother nor ‘son’ there, and a woman at his side only there for comfort and not affection.

I've been throwing around this idea for an epic Boardwalk Empire rewrite from the New York City's crew POV for a while now.

It'll be along the lines of this amazing Harry Potter rewrite I read years ago of the events of the story from Slytherin House's POV but god, then I remember that would be twelve multi-chaptered stories.

Not to mention fleshing out characters...

And creating mini plots that fit into the overarching theme.

All this sounds very exciting and very daunting. What do you think world? Anyone?

A fairly quick fanmix thrown together after a marathon of researching the real life Arnold Rothstein and watching Boardwalk Empire . The more I read about “AR,” the more I find a study in contradictions. He could easily be argued to be the grandfather of organized crime, but was never considered a mobster. He was worth millions at the time of his death but was killed because he welched on a gambling debt. He liked to project the image of respectability (not unlike our dear Nucky or in real life, his father) but he was merely a cheat. He was a great pretender which is probably which makes him so compelling.

This mix is more centered towards the Rothstein of fact, but I hope I’ve done justice to Stuhlbarg’s AR as well since he is the one who made me take notice of the man in the first place.

A note serving nothing but my own vanity: the majority of these songs are pop/upbeat in an attempt to show what AR’s underlying strength was and what caused his eventual downfall: his arrogance.

( Rothstein had the most remarkable brain. He understood business instinctively and I’m sure that if he had been a legitimate financier he would have been just as rich as he became with his gambling and the other rackets he ran. )