”A long time ago I stopped getting angry. I`d probably be dead if I was the Jerry Cosentino I was 15 years ago. I used to walk into my business and find everything going wrong, and I`d throw my briefcase across the room. But as you get older, you find out that the only person you hurt when you do things like that is yourself. I`m not angry at all.
”I don`t hold any grudges. I don`t have any room in my life to be angry. Sometimes when the firebell goes off, I wish I was in office. Other times-like now I got two grandkids and I enjoy havin` them-it`s a whole different life.
”I have the satisfaction of knowing that my friends know that I was no quick-buck guy ever. Hundreds of people a week come up to me-I don`t care where I go, Downstate, here-they all congratulate me, hope everything works out, `we know you did a good job.` Those are the things that make me feel good.
”No public people have come around. It`s tough to realize, but when you`re out, you`re out.
Again he reiterates that as head of the trucking company, he was ultimately responsible. ”What businessman doesn`t have regrets on a business decision that he had to make? And that`s what that was. It was a business decision that maybe if I was there at the company and paying more attention, I wouldn`t have made it.
”I never was high and mighty. If I had one good attribute, it is that I always felt I got very lucky for the amount of education that I had. I worked harder because of that. It was always on my mind. I came up with programs that were models for the rest of the country. I`ve sat down with Lee Iaccoca, Lech Walesa and held my own.
”I was the first Italian ever elected to state office in Illinois history. One of the things I feel bad about is that I spoke to Italian groups and I always said I`m making a pathway for their kids to become governor, president, whatever. And now with this mess, it hurts that. I feel bad about that.
”I`m in jail now. I`m as good as in jail. I can`t do nothing. I can`t go anywhere. I`m just going day to day. Trying to keep what health I still got. I take four medications for my heart. I`m in their hands now. . . .”
And with that he ends it. He leaves behind a copy of his full-color 1989 Illinois State Treasurer`s report in which his smiling, tanned photograph radiates from the inside cover. The report is full of projects and pictures and numbers. Jerry Cosentino loved being state treasurer.
He shakes hands all around. He thanks secretaries on his way out of the office. He is visibly tired, breathing in tiny gasps, a desperately sick man. As he walks down the hall, he reminds you of an old linebacker: the bull neck, the square shoulders and wide carriage. Like old linebackers, his battering-ram body is foundering now. He limps slightly, walking with one hand on a railing. He once worked rooms, shook every hand, walked start to finish in St. Patrick`s Day parades. Now he is just on his way home.
