John Damien Vaccacio: Kind to Mice
and Men
For
a while, there was a little urban mouse in Damien
Vaccacio's life, and everyone knew it.
"I didn't see the mouse," said his mother, Anne
Marie, "but I heard enough about this mouse to feel that
this mouse was my grandson." Mr. Vaccacio, who was 30 and
a bond broker at Cantor Fitzgerald, discovered the mouse
one day in his apartment on the Upper East Side, but
couldn't bring himself to set a trap for it. So for a
year, they shared the apartment, until the mouse gave up
the ghost. Later, Mrs. Vaccacio and her husband came
across a stuffed toy rat that sang, "I'm a rat, I'm a
rat, I'm a really cool rat." They gave it to their son
for Christmas.
It wasn't the only time he displayed a compassionate
streak. There was the homeless man to whom he constantly
brought leftovers from business dinners. Once he gathered
up lobsters and steaks from his table at Sparks, Mrs.
Vaccacio said, and gave them to the man. The next
morning, her son inquired about how he had liked the
meal. The answer: "I've had better."
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