Send us feedback! A story can live in your head for decades, but once it hits the page, it starts demanding a bigger life. That’s where we are with The Make-Right Man: what started as a serialized podcast journey has now become a published novel, and we’re sharing the news directly with everyone who’s been listening and cheering it on. The Make-Right Man: A Chicago Reckoning is now available in print and Kindle on Amazon, and DrewGlass.net is the home base for updates, appearances, audiobook...

Send us feedback! A red Monte Carlo noses down Blue Island Avenue and Billy knows there’s no version of tomorrow where he walks away the same. Memory hits first—Sunday sauce, laughter stretched thin, a name that chills a kitchen—then the nightwork begins. Pilsen turns into a living map of alley mouths, bar shifts, and weak garage locks. Billy studies Kiko Delgado’s swagger, Mickey Torres’s noise, and the prideful way that car parks nose-out like it’s daring someone. Watching becomes deciding....

Send us feedback! The night smells like wood smoke and wet asphalt as Billy’s ledger finally speaks out loud. We open on the South Side—clean hits, quiet exits, and a cardiganed capo named Frank Calabrese who prefers indications over blessings. Billy’s gift isn’t muscle; it’s control. He moves cash and messages through Bridgeport with surgical precision, turning violence into administration and mercy into math. For a while, the neighborhood loves the results. So does he. Then Sunday dinner br...

Send us feedback! A quiet envelope lands on a dorm desk and sets off a chain reaction that stretches from Milwaukee hallways to South Side bars. With Ellen unraveling and Janey holding things together, Billy is forced to decide what kind of man he is once the numbers start to work in his favor. A simple “message job” at Connie’s pays a semester’s tuition and reveals a dangerous truth: when doing what you already believe starts paying real money, the line between right and wrong doesn’t snap —...

Send us feedback! A porch light flickers, a kiss lands, and a kid wired for payback has to choose which voice to follow—the one that wants the last hit, or the one that says drop the pipe. This episode tracks the night Billy finds Janey Dunne under a streetlamp, the alley where rage begs for one more swing, and the decision that starts to rewire his legend from pure survival into something closer to service. From Donovan Park’s glow to dorm stairs in Milwaukee, the story refuses to stay tidy....

Send us feedback! Some legends shout; this one learns to whisper. We walk Bridgeport with Billy, a kid handed a nickname meant to break him, and watch him turn it into cover, leverage, and eventually a code. What matters isn’t the punch—it’s the pause after: timing, restraint, and the price of making things right without making a scene. At home and in school, pressure teaches cadence as much as consequence, and a small, almost-forgotten library incident becomes the first entry in a ledger tha...

Send us feedback! Larry Karpinski, Karp, comes back to Bridgeport telling himself he’s just passing through, maybe closing a loop. That’s the lie guys use when they don’t want to admit they miss a place. But neighborhoods like that don’t do casual visits. The streets remember you whether you’re ready or not. And Billy’s still there — right where you’d expect — like time took a swing at him and missed. Seeing him again isn’t nostalgia. It’s a reminder that some people never put the old rules d...

Send us feedback! Some names you only say when the easy answers run out. The Make Right Man is a serialized story set in Chicago’s Bridgeport, where the streets remember, the bars keep score, and one nickname became the neighborhood’s quiet alarm bell. Larry “Karp” Karpinski comes home with his life thinning out at the edges, telling himself it’s temporary. Bridgeport doesn’t do temporary. He's wondering about an old friend, Billy Szczepanek—Billy Shitpants—and if he's still carrying the same...

Send us feedback! In thinking through which classic to watch this holiday season, I landed on the Mario Puzo - Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece, The Godfather. That got me wondering about Corleone, Sicily and who that city was actually named after. Professor Enzo Tontodonato of St. Bonaventure University took me down a very unexpected path, to the life and times of a 15th century "family" man, named 3 Ball Bartolomeo Colleoni. Interested in stories about loyalty, love, friendship, crime...

Send us feedback! I got to thinking about who was the first person to jump from a ledge or flying machine using a parachute. I mean, who invented the first parachute, when was that, what were the circumstances – was it a thing of necessity in some horrible moment – and why would anyone ever want to step out of a flying machine or off a cliff when it’s hundreds, if not thousands of feet in the air using an untested accessory? There are a lot of people who own a piece of designing the first par...